Does Island Corridor Foundation
Really Have A Plan?
I'm just going from memory but when the ICF first decided to relieve the national train company of their responsibility to maintain the rail line on Vancouver Island they were saying an upgrade would be in the order of over $100 million.
Over the years they have floated different figures to fund needed upgrades to keep the rail line running. These statments have never proven to be accurate, so that is when you need to question the competence of the group overseeing this whole project.
Plan Rejected In 2010
In July of 2010, then Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Shirley Bond released the findings of a study of the E& N railway which in part stated:
"The study evaluated the cost to improve major sections of the line to support specific markets, as well as considering a full-corridor upgrade. It concluded current volumes of freight and passengers do not support significant infrastructure investment at this time."
From then until the following year when Premier Clark came into town offering $7.5 million towards the cause (subject to the Feds matching the Province), what changed? Then a year or so later the Feds ponied up another $7.5 million with the clear message the federal purse was now closed. Each time the ICF makes it sounds as if the rail road is back on track and all systems are 'GO'.
Until, they come once again, hat in hand now looking for more money from the public. Question? If the Island Regional Districts fork over another $3 or $4 million, what assurance does the public have that Mr. Bruce and company won't come a knocking in another month or two with yet another request?
Enough is Enough - Let's see a solid plan of how this rail line will actually be able to operate given the current levels of funding. Or was such a plan already presented and rejected by the province in 2010 and the ICF is just hoping if they can nickel and dime the taxpayer, sooner or later there will be enough put into the project we will have to just keep coughing up.
If you have followed this saga from the beginning you would be forgiven for wondering if the ICF really has any idea how to run a railway?
Never Ending Cost To Taxpayers As Line Proves Unprofitable ?
Since the ICF clearly don't have a plan to upgrade this line, and keep coming hat in hand, once finally complete, what will the cost to the taxpayer be to keep the line running? Does Mr. Bruce or anyone know? Has anyone seen a believable plan to take this line forward? Based on past performance the answer would have to be 'no'.
To read the 75 page 'Evaluation of the E & N Railway Corridor Foundation Report, click on the following graphic.
First let me mention an error at the start of your piece: the ICF took over from Rail America, the short-line operator that helped run the line into the ground (as short-line operators tend to do) and left the Island when the Port Alberni pulp mill abandoned rail service. The national operator, the CPR, was long out of the picture by that time.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it's unfair to say there has been no plan. Of course there has been a plan, but for tactical reasons the ICF decided to go for small incremental improvements rather than the larger plan. One might quarrel with this judgement but it did secure $15 millions when the larger plan might have produced zilch.
At the present time the incremental plan bears rethinking, since bridge repairs are needed and add to the cost.
What the western communities near Victoria want is commuter service for their burgeoning populations. The E & N provides a good answer because it snakes through the heart of these communities.
The City of Victoria, meanwhile, is living in fantasy land and dreams of a billion dollar commuter rail line (LRT) up the middle of the TCH to Langford, not nearly as friendly or as convenient to the commuting public. The commutershed for Victoria already extends far beyond the projeted route for the LRT, so the E&N is the more practical option for yet another reason.
What the ICF could do is cut its incremental plan in two and work on railway improvements through to Nanaimo or perhaps Parksville-Qualicum, and leave the rest for another day. Since Nanaimo is about half way to Courtney on the E&N, it's likely that the tie-replacement plan will cost half of the amount budgeted for by the $15 million total federal-provincial grant. That would leave about $7.5 million to cover bridge repairs and perhaps the extension of service to P-Q (which would be highly desirable).
In that way the western communities could get on with commuter service as the ICF has planned for and the ridiculous LRT plan (on which $8 millions has already been spent) could be put on the back burner for another generation.
It's been pointed out that there's no city of Victoria's size with an LRT: the population threshold for a viable system is around 500 thousand.
The E&N is ready made for the next, logical step in commuter travel. With Victoria's commutershed growing rapidly from the Cowichan Valley through to the Ladysmith-Nanaimo areas, rail service holds out the promise of dealing with it efficiently in the near term. The alernative is either more expensive (read: multi-million dollar) improvements to the TCH through the Malahat Mountain section and/or the billion-dollar LRT.
Since standing-still in the face of continued population growth is not an option, these alternatives to the E & N's revitalization are the only longer-term choices and these options must be compared to the cost of improving the E & N.
Governments are gradually coming to appreciate that it is this mix of alternatives that must be considered: Deny the E & N and face the music with other, far more expensive projects.
In that context, fixing the E & N is the sensible way forward -- and it's a comparative bargain.
But ratepayers should not be asked to finance E & N improvements: apart from the long-discarded poll tax, the property tax is the most regressive form of taxation there is. Its use has already been expanded far beyond what it was ever intended to cover.
Rail improvements are for the general good and out of general taxation money should be found for the commuter rail service that will be desperately needed in the coming years if we are to avoid those colossally expensive alternatives.
All this said, and I've not even mentioned the substantial "green" benefits inherent in rail transportation! These too will loom larger in coming years and should be factored into any cost-benefit analysis of transportation decision-making.
God, please send us some leaders with functioning brains. Why do we always end up with the morons? Such a beautiful place 'managed' by such stupid and corrupt people....
ReplyDeleteAnonymous (#1) thanks for the clarification on who left the taxpayers holding the bag with a rail line, which was run into the ground. Too bad, there was no political backbone to hold CPR accountable.
ReplyDeleteYour explanation sounds plausible, but I have to wonder why in 2010 after extensive study this was not considered a viable option?
As for having a plan. It seems as if the plan is being tailored to the funding that can be squeezed from various levels of government which seems to be more politically based than on sound business decisions.
This is a great post on the situation, but I have to disagree that the EN is not worth the investment, or even that if the full 100 million was invested by the province that it would not pay off. If you look at the Freight Analysis of the 2010 study rather than just the overall conclusion or press release from gov, you might come away with a different impression as I have.
ReplyDeleteI sent this letter to the AVtimes a few months ago on the issue. Turns out, if the BC gov applied the same kind of criteria on the railway as they do for other big ticket investments, the benefits would likely justify the costs:
Dear Editor,
Thanks to Mr. Smith for highlighting the excellent 2010 E&N Freight Analysis.
The report describes a plan where the Province invests the whole sum needed to restore freight on the entire island for $94 million. This requires an impossible 40,000 carloads a year to pay it back within 12 years. (Do highways require that kind of payback?)
However, Exhibit 9.6 of the report shows the railway actually becomes profitable at only 9000 carloads a year. Raven Coal alone would provide that and the profits would flow directly back to communities through the ICF. Would coal trucks on the Horne Lake Connector or Industrial Road do that?
Furthermore, with a standard 25 year payback rather than 12 year, only 16,000 carloads a year would be needed to achieve break even on that $94 Million investment. In effect, the report shows the province could, by requiring one user to use it, pay to rebuild the entire railway on Vancouver Island. Let that sink in....
But consider the most likely scenario, where Southern Rail, Compliance, and multiple levels of government contribute just enough ($30 Million) to reactivate the Alberni line and get the coal mine on the rails. The province would likely pay half at most and would easily break even within its 12 year deadline.
This positive, cooperative outcome will only happen if local leaders choose to have the vision, and tenacity, to make it happen. I hope they do.
Chris Alemany
The railroad has never really been profitable and its one chance was the Raven Development and the ICF missed the boat on that by niggardly pursuing the VIA tax grab. The thought of a money losing commuter service should have been back burnered in favour of a properly thought out coal freight proposal and using the already garnered money to achieve that end. As it is we now have the ICF going hat in hand to get even more tax money to fix the bridges, a cost line that should have been in the original request to the feds and the province.
ReplyDeleteIf the ICF was a private company they would have gone bankrupt years ago because they do not know what they are doing.
The Island Corridor Foundation spent a grand total of 20 grand on track maintenance last yeat (2012).
ReplyDeleteThey brought in 750 grand but after graham bruce helping himself to $151,000.00 the secretary getting $87,000.00, someone getting a $25,000.00 honorarium, graham spending 15 grand on travel and 20 grand on communications, 50 grand on lawyers, 7500 on office supplies not much was left.
Graham bruce is actually a consultant and I don't think it's legal for a consultant to be the company president too.
ALSO a consultant is supposed to be an expert in the field they are "consulting" in.
I don't remember graham having ANY railroad experience.