By: Jon Ferry
The Province
November 17, 2008
Link to column
Now that the business boom is over and B.C. is in a bit of an economic tailspin, we need all the jobs we can get.
One way to hang on to them is to encourage more U.S. tourists to visit - which shouldn't be too hard if we don't put up roadblocks in their way.
But that's exactly what Ottawa seems to have been doing. For months, it has been holding up plans for an improved Vancouver-Seattle rail service that would bring millions of dollars to our region.
Now, one of the great things about visiting cities in Europe, as I have just done, is the way you can avoid the stress of flying by taking high-speed electric trains.
For example, you can travel the 345 kilometres from downtown London to downtown Paris in as little as two hours and 15 minutes, zipping along at speeds of up to 300 km/h - while cutting back on carbon emissions along the way.
This has not gone unnoticed in greenest California, where voters this month approved nearly $10 billion in bond money to start building a modern "bullet-train" service linking the state's major cities at speeds of up to 350 km/h.
Imagine how good it would be if we had similar high-speed trains here. But the sad fact is it still takes four hours to travel the 250 kilometres of track to Seattle, with much of that time spent in B.C.
You can't even go from Vancouver to Seattle by train and back on the same day.
All that was supposed to change, according to an announcement in March 2007 by B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon about agreed track improvements for a second Amtrak train.
What has happened since then?
Well, according to Falcon, the work on a passing track in Delta was completed well over six months ago. But the new and improved Vancouver-Seattle service hit an impasse in the form of the Canada Border Services Agency.
The CBSA wants to impose "significant costs" for doing routine custom checks on the second train. "They're treating it not as increased service, but as a whole new service, which we would argue doesn't make any sense," the minister told me.
Falcon added: "I can't lie to you, it's been a real frustration."
Well, if he's frustrated, imagine the frustration of the travelling public. As Tourism Vancouver's Walt Judas said diplomatically: "It should have happened by now."
Asked what he plans to do about it, Falcon said he now intends to lobby the new federal minister in charge of the CBSA (Peter Van Loan) to get the issue resolved.
CBSA spokeswoman Faith St. John confirmed her agency has been in discussions with Amtrak about providing services for a second train. But she says it would be "inappropriate" for her to comment further.
Sorting out this issue, though, isn't rocket science. It should have been done months, if not years, ago.
So let's hope someone lights a fire under the border bureaucracy - and well before the 2010 Olympics.
Then, maybe we can think about having a real high-speed rail service up and down the west coast.
How about Vancouver to Seattle in one hour and 20 minutes? One can only dream.
