Island to benefit from mainland public transit

Once again the idea of commuter rail service along the old E&N rail corridor surfaces and once again the costs of upgrading the rail is huge.

Maybe the persons interested in promoting this service have not given a lot of thought on how to park four or five trains in downtown Victoria during the day and where to park them at the end of the day. The rail service would require at least four trains of at least three to four cars each to service commuters with varying start and stop times at work in the down town core.

A better idea is to build commuter service from the western communities to downtown Victoria using the same technology as the Sky Train and RAV lines in Greater Vancouver.

The routes could be down the center of the Island Highway from Goldstream Park area and Colwood strip from at least Happy Valley Road and join into the highway track. The service could then go down the center of Douglas Street to at least the parliament building area or even to Mile Zero.

Small commuter buses could feed the rail line thus reducing the need for municipalities to build park-and-ride areas as some already exist and could be used.

Eventually this service could be expanded to include Sidney, the airport and ferry terminal. This would be a better option than a bus lane to now where down the center of Douglas to Town & Country and a rail corridor with no place to park trains.

It is time for the federal and provincial governments to step up and fund a service like SkyTrain for Greater Victoria.

Gordon Greenhow

Colwood

Give me busways over commuter railways

Regarding recent letters on rail versus buses (L. Guibault Nov. 14, P. Vallee Nov. 19) I agree with Mr. Vallee that we have yet to see a fair accounting of the costs of rail.

Rail systems have huge capital costs, and the operational costs of a rail car are about five times that of a bus.

You need a lot of passengers to cover those rail costs. I don’t yet see the population density to create those passengers, and surely taxpayers shouldn’t be stumping up big bucks for rail service for the benefit of private high-density developers who come along later.

Ottawa has one of the highest transit market penetrations anywhere: 14-15 per cent versus Calgary 10-11 per cent, versus Victoria seven per cent.

At peak times, Ottawa’s busways out-carry SkyTrain. It has a downtown and spread-out suburbs like Victoria. In Ottawa no transfers are required because buses pick up passengers locally and then head onto a busway.

This is important because people don’t like to transfer at the best of times, never mind in the rain. As a daily bus commuter from the West Shore, the fastest way to get me back into a car would be to force me to transfer off my local bus onto rail, and then in Victoria to make me transfer back onto a bus to get me all the way downtown. And vice versa for the return trip.

Just build me some decent queue jump lanes to get past the lineups at the highway signals and I’ll continue to enjoy my direct ride into work and back, smiling at all the car drivers I pass.

Jon Conquist

Colwood