Mayors ponder use of commuter rail during interchange build

Rail service could return to the capital region by the end of this year, depending on results of a fact-finding mission launched by a group of local mayors.

Barb Desjardins, Capital Regional District chair and mayor of Esquimalt, said municipal officials and other stakeholders are exploring the feasibility of commuter rail service during construction of the McKenzie interchange.

She said the idea that commuter rail service could alleviate traffic issues was raised during an offhand conversation with other mayors at a meeting.

“It could be possible to do something as a pilot-project [for potential future commuter rail services],” said Desjardins, who later met with Graham Bruce, CEO of the Island Corridor Foundation, View Royal Mayor David Screech and Southern Railway of B.C. president Frank Butzelaar to discuss the issue.

The Island Corridor Foundation, which owns the Island rail line, hopes to restore passenger service on Vancouver Island. Service was suspended five years ago because of concerns about track safety.

The mayors and their counterparts on either end of E&N Rail Trail’s local corridor — Victoria’s Lisa Helps and Langford’s Stew Young — then wrote an official letter to ICF a month ago seeking more information.

“We were asking them for their best guess on what it would cost in capital and operating terms to have some sort of [commuter] rail service,” said Helps.

She said she raised the issue again informally after bumping into Bruce at B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone’s July 20 announcement that $1 million of a total of $2.7 million in Bike B.C. grants would complete a one-kilometre section of the E&N Rail Trail between Hallowell and Maplebank roads.

“Graham said they’d have some information to us soon. It’s a work-in-progress,” said Helps.

Desjardins said since construction on the interchange was scheduled to start in September, it’s a time-sensitive issue, one that requires community input from more than just the mayors on the corridor.

“Once we get that information we want to be able to have a full discussion with the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations [whose land is in the rail corridor],” she said.

“There will have to be many dialogues.”

If the two-year project is feasible and funding is required to first improve the tracks between Langford and Victoria, she said it would be a compelling argument to have the federal government release funding.

The Roundhouse development in Vic West and Westhills in Langford have been touted as potential terminuses for a commuter rail experiment.

Officials from the Island Corridor Foundation were not available for comment.

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