Buses better than trains
Your paper has long supported the return of rail on the island. Biased people who are being paid good money to push this idea onto us are doing their job well. But looking at this idea realistically, it is folly to continue down this track.
In spite of the utopian notion of having SkyTrain like frequency with ten minute waits, no plan for any resumption of rail travel has ever even hinted at more than two trains a day each way. Oddly, your recent article’s photo showed two tracks side by side. If that was taken on Vancouver Island, it is an anomaly. We have one track. With that one track, and freight trains to contend with, maybe two trains a day is all they can ever manage. No one is going to give up their cars for that. And imagine the additional cost of doubling the track!
Instead of using the minimum $431 million (or is it $1 billion?) to bring back the train, designate that money towards buying a fleet of luxury buses, and running them on a regular (say every half hour) schedule. There would be no cost for infrastructure; the road already exists.
Also with this money, subsidize these busses so that fares would be minimal, say five to ten dollars. Only a combination of low cost and dependable frequent trips will get people out of their cars.
Lastly, please let’s abandon the far-fetched fantasy that we need the train for when there is a closure on the Malahat. It is bizarre to think that when this happens one will be able to abandon their car, along with thousands of others, to get on one of the two-car trains which coincidentally is leaving just when you need it. The train is going to help virtually no one out of this situation and beyond this once a year predicament they will run, as they have in the past, nearly empty and bleed money for the rest of the year.
Bonus: the track can be converted into a biking/hiking trail. What a tourist attraction that would be (and great for Langford commuters)!
Warren Chapman
Duncan