MP/MLA being addressed

SUBJECT:  Restore Vancouver Island Rail

Your attention and support are requested for the petition (https://chng.it/HTPJ25CqPr) looking to bring a modern passenger rail and freight system to Vancouver Island using the pre-existing E&N railway that only ceased services in 2011 due to track conditions. 

As mentioned by the Federal Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, the Federal Government intends to redirect money previously spent on asphalt and concrete highways towards transit and active transportation. The Vancouver Island Rail corridor represents both as there are already over 100km of trails beside the railway.  In addition, it moves freight as seen in Nanaimo moving propane still today. As trains can carry bikes in bulk, they enable greater use of active transportation.

Vancouver Island’s population will exceed 1 million by 2030, only 6 years from now.  Since 80% of Vancouver Islanders live on the east coast of the island within 5km of the railway, the catchment size for rail is over 720,000 people. In addition, the Alberni subdivision connects our Western most port to the East coast port in Nanaimo for freight operations. The Island gets over 5 million overnight visitors, further exacerbating congestion on our single set of highways prone to closures due to collisions, fires, flooding, washouts, and any number of other upsets.

In response to Port Alberni’s request for a secondary route for Highway 4 that is fraught with closures such as the Cameron Bluffs fires and aftermath, MOTI identified the cost as too much for the benefit.  Meanwhile, the unused railway provides a secondary path to this single way in and out of the region. This holds true for the Malahat as well, the single highway between Victoria and Duncan and the North Island that would be prohibitively expensive to widen or create a second highway, something the Federal government has made clear it has no intention of contributing funds for anyway.

Within the Georgia Strait, freighters are now being restricted to 2 weeks wait or they will have to be redirected elsewhere due to environmental issues within this sensitive ecological area.  It makes a lot of sense to redirect those freighters to Port Alberni to offload and leverage the railway to move freight throughout the island and utilize the Seaspan Rail Ferry barge at Wellcox yard in Nanaimo to move it across the Strait to Vancouver.  The Freight analysis conducted by the BC government recommended an extension to Duke Point’s automated short-sea shipping operation as well.  Freighters waiting increases shipping costs, and with moves now to charge a transit fee through the Juan de Fuca Strait, the environment is shifting making the case for rail on the island even stronger.

I ask that you support the modernization of passenger and freight rail on Vancouver Island to support our people, our rapidly growing $37 billion economy, and do our part to reduce emissions and pollution as part of Climate Action.

Signed

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