Transport 2000 Canada Hot Line

12 September 2008

This is the Transport 2000 Canada Hotline, issue number 985, recorded on 12 September 2008.

In this issue...

1 - Federal tax cut for diesel, aviation fuel

"Truckers and transport executives are embracing the short-term relief from fuel prices offered by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but others dismissed it Tuesday as a vote-grab strategy that will do little to help consumers or the environment. ... Harper pledged to slash the federal tax on diesel and aviation fuel to two cents a litre from four cents over the next four years," Canadian Press reported.

"David Jeanes, president of (Transport 2000 Canada), said the tax cut could help public transportation initiatives as well as the foundering airline industry. 'Even things like the failure of Zoom Airlines was largely due to the cost of fuel,' said Jeanes of Transport 2000 Canada, ... But the reductions in tax won't be as much as the increases in price have been." Jeanes added the plan could push up greenhouse gas production "... when most people are looking to curb it," CP reported on Sept. 9

2 - Quatre scénarios à l'étude pour le train léger à Ottawa

"En favorisant le scénario qui inclut un train léger dans le corridor nord-sud, le maire d'Ottawa estime que la Ville accroît ses chances de sesortir du pétrin juridique," Le Droit a rapporté.

"Selon le président de Transport 2000, David Jeanes, le nombre d'usagers du transport en commun au sud ne justifie pas, même d'ici 20 ans, la construction d'une voie ferrée," Le Droit a rapporté le 12 septembre

3 - Government cancels toll road study

"The federal transportation minister has cancelled a study on the role road tolls might play in reducing urban pollution and congestion, as well as raising funds for public transportation. The Transport Canada study would have examined 'How pricing can be used as a tool to induce greater efficiency and sustainability in urban transport,' according to a funding request document".

"Six Canadian cities were to be included in the study: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. London, Singapore, Milan and Stockholm, have effectively used the charges to raise funds for public transportation initiatives and reduce congestion. In London, a City toll of about $15 has led to a 30 per cent drop in traffic.

"Cannon may have scrapped it in fear of alienating suburban voters," CTV News reported on Sept. 6

4 - Transport 2000 Forum: Prairie Rail and Healthy Communities: Sept. 13

Transport 2000 Prairie invites you to our Community Forum on the topic of Prairie Rail and Healthy Communities, Sept. 13, 2:30 p.m. at the Knox-Metropolitan Church, 2340 Victoria Avenue in Regina. First speaker will be Rod Haugerud, mayor of Craik and vice-president of the company working to buy the rail line between Davidson and Regina, a necessary step to using the line for freight and passengers, all the way to Saskatoon. Dan Beveridge, retired U. of Regina professor, will lead a workshop on Climate Change and Sustainable Transportation: Problems and Possibilities.

5 - Winnipeg busway to nowhere

On Sept. 8 Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz and Manitoba Premier Gary Doer announced a plan for $327-million bus corridor. Transport 2000'S Peter Lacey reports:

"My first impressions, subject to more detailed study of the announcement, are the busway runs from nowhere to nowhere (Queen Elizabeth Way is another name for the new Main St. bridge; Jubilee Ave. is a good place to end but no station is mentioned); through zero-population areas ... to very little purpose (a 3.6 kilometre line situated as this one is will get very little use - transfers at both ends of the line will be necessary and there will be no point in travelling just along the line).

"In short, while they have to start somewhere, and while the proposed line does take into account three important crossings which will have to be accomplished in any event, it appears the city is desperate to seem to be doing SOMETHING while federal and provincial money is available, using land that they have rather than going into vast expropriations; no matter that the scheme seems empty," Lacey reports.

Transport 2000 Canada's President David Jeanes adds that the scheme is a carbon copy of the Ottawa Transitway and that light rail - especially diesel LRT - is given an unjustifiably negative review.

6 - Flyers' bill of rights toothless

"Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon announced on (Sept. 5) a new airline passenger bill of rights, but said legislation or regulations aren't necessary to ensure it's enforced, because Canadian airlines are on board with the plan. If passengers are already on an aircraft when a delay longer than 90 minutes occurs, airlines have to let them disembark, according to the new Flight Rights Canada unveiled at the Ottawa airport. And if a flight is delayed more than four hours, airlines will have to give passengers a voucher for a free meal. Airlines also will be required to put customers up in hotels if a flight is postponed more than eight hours, and the delay is not weather-related," Canwest News Service reported.

The bill of rights is silent on the question of airfare advertising, and does not include any minimum penalties if airlines don't abide by the terms.

Michael Janigan, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, says this latest initiative is full of holes. In addition to doing nothing to prevent misleading advertising, he said the passenger bill of rights doesn't establish compensatory relief for being bumped because a flight is overbooked or cancelled, or for having to deal with lost baggage, as is the case in the U.S," Canwest reported on Sept. 6.

7 - Atlantic Gateway: Melford International Terminal

Transport 2000's John Pearce reports: "Environmental assessment may result in a late-2008 approval of the Strait of Canso "Melford International Terminal" container port. Land has been expropriated and assembled a few km south of the one-time CNR Mulgrave mainland ferry terminal on the Strait of Canso. A rail spur on the roadbed of the abandoned CNR right-of-way, branching off the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia (Rail America), will extend a few km southeast beyond Mulgrave to the Melford site.

"The water is over 50 feet deep there, more than foreseen container ships will need. At least one container train is expected each way daily, going to the CN main line at Truro, feeding speculation that CN may want to buy back the line it sold in 1993. There is already significant paper and offshore liquid gas traffic on the line," Pearce reports.

8 - Asia-Pacific Gateway: Shortsea shipping

Transport 2000's Gerry Einarsson reports: Intermodal-marine traffic is growing at the other end of Canada already. To meet the demand, the federal government will invest a total of up to $20.9 million in five short sea shipping projects, two road projects and a rail spur in the B.C. Lower Mainland, for a 3.5 million dollar total joint investment with the private sector and municipalities. Southern Railway of B.C. will get $4.3 million toward a $10 million project for a rail barge ramp for railcars and trucks on Annicis Island in Delta.

The idea behind the multimodal project is to substitute short-haul barge traffic on the coast, inlets and Fraser estuary for current truck traffic clogging highways between river teminals and deep-sea terminals. Minister of Transport Lawrence Cannon said: ".. for the first time, the federal government is demonstrating its support of shortsea shipping ... (to) help alleviate congestion, facilitate trade, reduce greenhouse gases and increase ... efficiency". (St. Lawrence shipping interests have long called for such investment in the east but so far the main action has been in the movement of forest products, with little federal intervention)," Einarsson reports.

9 - SRY rail barge ramp on Annacis

Transport 2000's Jon Calon reports: "Currently, the freight traffic on and off Vancouver Island's SVI railway is handled on BNSF trackage in Delta. So whatever aspirations SRY and SVI want to work together to provide an ore seamless extension of the SRY onto SVI trackage, they're pretty much shot down by having to use a third party railway to load that traffic onto Seaspan barges and ships.

"Jack Peake (co-chair of the Island Corridor Foundation) told a group of people a couple years ago in Victoria that the biggest challenge for getting better freight service on the island was the Tibury dock and it's railway connection. Now that SRY and SVI can have integrated service, we may see better connections for rail onto Vancouver Island and potentially more shippers out there," Calon reports.

10 - Tom Kent: Bulk up on rail infrastructure

Tom Kent, former principal assistant to Prime Minister Pearson, wrote in the Globe and Mail: " ... Federal politicians long ago saw the building of the railway as building the nation. Perversely, public funding has since provided highways for long-distance trucking, ... We'll probably follow Europe and East Asia in having electrified lines for high-speed trains in our more congested areas. Meantime, much can be done to shift freight traffic and, incidentally, improve passenger service. There are many sections of line across Canada where an additional track could be laid on the existing right of way. More traffic could be moved faster to and from ports and between major centres. Better handling facilities could then make quick transfers of loads for short-distance truck haulage," Kent wrote in the Globe on Sept. 8

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