Those who campaign for reviving the B.C. Electric Interurban tram rail line in the Fraser Valley are in need of a reality check.

The route that was built almost a century ago between New Westminster and Chilliwack made sense at the time, as it wound its way through the highland areas such as Aldergrove, wherever possible. In the Sumas Prairie area, which was a large swamp until settlers built dykes and drainage systems, the tracks were on raised berms along the U.S. border east to Vedder Mountain, where the tracks followed the base of the mountain from Yarrow out to Chilliwack.

It was a three-hour ride from Chilliwack to Vancouver on the Interurban but that was a good deal faster than the alternatives of the day.

Today, more than 50 years after the Interurban was shut down, pretty well all of the track still exists, but it winds its way through the agricultural land reserve. Thus, most of the Interurban route between Langley and Chilliwack is almost as sparsely populated as it was a century ago.

I'd like to see the Interurban service revived as I live only a block away from the tracks and the former "Jackman" station, about 1.5 kms north of Hwy. 1 on 264 Street. However, I'd be hard-pressed to make a solid business case for it, as there are only about a dozen families who reside within walking distance of the station. It's the same situation all the way out to Chilliwack, as urban growth has not settled alongside the rail line.

Southern Railway purchased the section of B.C. Electric rail line between Langley and Huntingdon from the province about 20 years ago, and uses it for shuttling one or two trains a day, so there would be no technical problem in accommodating revival of a transit service. The problem lies in the fact that there is no population density to justify it, nor are there any available non-ALR properties for park and rides, let alone connecting buses to travel to the urban areas from the old Interurban stations.

For that matter, this section of the Interurban is so far out in the "boonies" that none of the level crossings are controlled with lights or gates — some don't even have a street light for illumination.

There is a much better business case for running a tram along the BCR line from the Surrey SkyTrain station out to Langley City. The section of the BCR line along Glover Road was sold to the CPR many years ago and is heavily used for coal trains, but Langley Township councillor Jordan Bateman has led a worthy campaign to build a connecting tram line from Langley City along 200 Street to Hwy. 1. Willowbrook-Willoughby-Walnut Grove is a major urban corridor that would support such a transit system.

When the government finally gets around to building commuter rail into the Fraser Valley as far as Chilliwack it would make more sense to build it in the centre median of Hwy. 1. This way it would not need to be grade-separated to prevent collisions, and there could be park and rides and connecting transit services to the urban areas offered at the stops.

And frankly, instead of spending millions on an east-west rural BCR transit line which the public would rarely use, it would make more sense to spend a few thousand bucks spent on a bus service along 264 Street between Hwy. 1 — the home of Gloucester Industrial Estates and several thousand jobs — and Aldergrove proper, some 6.5 kms south of Hwy. 1.