Huffing and puffing about E&N corridor
There has been a lot of chatter lately about the need to preserve the E&N corridor and also about the need for active transportation opportunities. This includes two editorials in the Citizen over the past three weeks touting the need for action on both fronts.
Thirty coastal communities could be connected in short order by tearing up the tracks and allowing the tens of thousands of potential users a year the chance to safely bike or walk between Shawnigan Lake, Cobble Hill, Cowichan Station and Duncan and so on from Langford to Courtenay.
So here is the question in relation to the E&N rail bed that has lain derelict for 10 years now: why don’t we do what is possible now (tear up the tracks and build the Salish Coast Connector Trail) while we hold space for what might be possible one day (the return of meaningful passenger rail service at the estimated cost of $431 million). The answer seems simple. Clear the tracks now and get active transportation happening on the entire corridor, or wait another 10 years hoping for the second coming of trains, which may or may not ever arrive.
David Slade
Cobble Hill