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Comment: Rail transport vital to Island’s development

I couldn’t agree more with the Times Colonist editorial (“Stop investing in ghost trains,” Jan. 24). We urgently need to implement a real Island railway as the central strategy of regional development. Here are some reasons.
Dormant E&N rail line in Langford. Photo
Dormant E&N rail line in Langford.

I couldn’t agree more with the Times Colonist editorial (“Stop investing in ghost trains,” Jan. 24). We urgently need to implement a real Island railway as the central strategy of regional development. Here are some reasons.

Greater Victoria’s roads are full, hardly tolerable and cannot be expanded to give efficient access to the land needed for healthy growth.

Our geography and history have confined the Island’s growth to a relatively narrow corridor along east Vancouver Island, creating a linear settlement pattern expensive to service with cars, but great for rail.

De-carbonization is a “think globally, act locally” problem.

Our personal health depends on global, local and regional action to curtail carbon pollution, that is, on citizens and politicians realizing the impact of burning carbon on a healthy human ecology and taking steps to protect that ecology. Electrified transportation is crucial to dealing with climate change.

De-carbonization is more than an “environmentalist’s” problem. Studies and common sense indicate that the economic cost of inaction will far exceed the costs of action. Indeed, inaction or foot-dragging might lead to the breakdown of our economy due to ecological disruptions. Any jobs that might be lost by action now are dwarfed by comparison to the future jobs at risk due to carbon pollution’s damage to our natural capital. Moreover, many think that implementing renewable energy production now generates more jobs than similar investment in fossil energy.

While we go about business-as-usual, the free economic services rendered by nature are being disrupted by carbon pollution at an alarming rate. These “free” services are estimated to be in the tens of trillions of dollars worldwide. Locally, we have already seen the sad impact of ocean acidification on our oyster industry.

So the time has come for strong and urgent action to move to renewable energy sources, locally, nationally, and internationally. Our settlement structure is a key tool for this action and for acquiring the urbanized land needed for growth.

What are the implications for our region? One is that our settlement structure needs to be further adapted so getting around by foot and bicycle is actually attractive.

Another is that public transit and electric cars will become the major form of transportation in our cities and towns. A third is that an Island railway is an essential and strategic tool for a truly successful settlement pattern.

Barring some major innovations, affordable electric cars will continue to have a limited range, and the prospect for fuel cell refilling stations is problematic. For regional and inter-regional trips, clean and comfortable electric trains, high speed for greater distances, are needed. For this, the Island railway is critical infrastructure.

For all its wonderful capabilities, the private sector does not have the capability to effect the necessary regional transformation. The private sector cannot build in advance of demand — it would go broke — but can only respond to existing market demand. But to achieve the changes needed, infrastructure must be planned and built to lead demand, not follow it.

Occasionally, politicians have realized this and acted, with dramatic results. Former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate system, started in the 1950s, is a major example. Closer to home, Social Credit premier W.A.C. Bennett’s co-ordinated actions in building the Massey Tunnel and creating the B.C. ferry system ushered in a powerful period of economic growth for Vancouver Island.

This is another time for such decisive action. The province should accept its primary responsibility for inter-regional infrastructure. Given the crisis we face, major infrastructure investments should strongly favour electrical over carbon-based transportation. It seems a no-brainer that an Island railway is an essential backbone of such development.

The tools are at hand. Here are some of them.

• Mixed density (including single-family) urban development that facilitates a walking/biking lifestyle.

• Electricity-based urban transit, by car, bus, tram and/or light rail.

• A regional development pattern featuring settlement nodes served by an electrified Island rail system.

With decisive leadership that minimizes the use of carbon-based energy, the charms of our region can be preserved and our quality of life enhanced by people-centred development. If we get on it quickly, the necessary adaptation is doable, and the result is likely to be much more economically sound, and happier, than the mix of choke points, California sprawl and Vancouver-like highrises that our Island faces.

 

Gerald Walter, formerly professor of economics specializing in urban, ecological and natural-resource economics, retired from the University of Victoria in 2003.