Mayors in the region and others are musing about a temporary rail service that could alleviate traffic woes during construction of the McKenzie interchange, while at the same time serving as a pilot project to guide future rail-transit development.
Maybe we should take a look, but not a long one. The E&N railway is like that old VCR sitting on a shelf in the garage. It鈥檚 older technology, but we just can鈥檛 convince ourselves to throw it away. We need to find out if it still has any use left in it.
But let鈥檚 not be delusional about the 鈥渞eturn鈥� of commuter rail service to the capital region. The E&N that ceased operation more than five years ago was not a commuter service, but mainly a tourist-attracting novelty that left Victoria in the morning and returned from up-Island in the late afternoon. It had little, if any, effect on highway traffic volumes.
It has been proposed that the timing be reversed if the service is restored. That would be better, but only marginally. It would still not be a practical solution to traffic congestion without massive upgrades to the service.
Esquimalt Mayor Barb Desjardins says a commuter rail service connecting the West Shore to Vic West was raised during an informal conversation with other mayors.
鈥淚t could be possible to do something as a pilot project,鈥� she said. Desjardins has raised the idea with Graham Bruce, CEO of the Island Corridor Foundation, View Royal Mayor David Screech and Southern Railway of sa国际传媒 president Frank Butzelaar.
The mayors wrote the ICF last month asking for an update on the foundation鈥檚 plan for rail service.
鈥淲e were asking them for their best guess on what it would cost in capital and operating terms to have some sort of [commuter] rail service,鈥� said Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps. She said Bruce has promised to provide information soon.
That information, when it comes, will be welcome. Will rail service resume on the E&N track? What will it look like? Whom will it serve? A lot of people would like answers to those and other questions.
But it would be a mistake to look to the E&N as a solution to the Colwood Crawl. A commuter rail service would require two tracks (the E&N is a single line), with cars going both ways at the same time.
It needs to have convenient connections. With the replacement of the Johnson Street bridge, the track now stops in Vic West, which would necessitate a long walk or bus connections to downtown Victoria. The speed required would be a problem, given that the track passes through built-up areas. The route though First Nations land presents political problems.
The ICF has undoubtedly considered all these factors, so it will be interesting to see how they are dealt with.
Light-rail transit is a beautiful dream, and perhaps some day it will come true for the capital region. It would have east-west and north-south routes; it would be convenient, fast and affordable. But it would mean massive capital costs that the current population can鈥檛 afford, and such a system can鈥檛 run on the current E&N tracks.
But maybe there are better ideas. Maybe there are innovative solutions that have yet to come to light. It鈥檚 hard to see, though, how restoring and using a few kilometres of track during the construction of the McKenzie interchange will provide answers and insights.
