It's full steam ahead for passenger rail travel in Canada.

With ridership up and millions of dollars in new infrastructure funding fast-tracked, commuters are being welcomed aboard to a new era in train travel.

"I think we're looking at a bit of a renaissance in passenger rail," says transportation expert Peter Wallis, president and CEO of the Van Horne Institute at the University of Calgary.

"What's happened is that people realized mass transit is the solution to our extremely serious congestion issues."

Rob MacIsaac

In the nation's largest cities, and even some smaller ones, rail is increasingly becoming the new rapid-transit darling. From Vancouver to Quebec City, more trains, new lines and innovative partnerships are now on track for completion.

"Some of these initiatives, like the lines to airports and the plans that Via has, are important steps," says Wallis. "We're also seeing wide-ranging studies looking at high-speed rail between Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton and on the eastern corridor between Quebec, Montreal and Toronto.

"These are forward-looking initiatives of the trends that we're seeing developed into actual operations."

On a recent visit to Vancouver, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced an additional $350 million in funding for an 11-km rapid transit line that will run from Burnaby to Coquitlam, via Port Moody.

Construction on the Evergreen Line project is expected to start in 2010 and be completed in 2014.

Another project - chugging along on budget and now ahead of schedule - is the Canada Line in Vancouver. The ambitious project, which will link the downtown core to Vancouver International Airport and Richmond by rail, is set to board its first passengers this November - just in time for an influx of athletes, officials and visitors descending on Vancouver for the 2010 Olympics.

"One of the things you need to do to make sure a region is healthy is to make sure people can get around that region - to keep the blood flowing through the veins," says Alan Dever, vice-president of government and community relations for the Canada Line project.

"As long as people need to commute, you need to provide them with a quick and reliable way to move around. This is much more reliable than the highway system, which is getting bogged down with freight traffic and all the cars that are being added to the system."

The almost 19-km Canada Line will add the equivalent of 10 road lanes on a route that about half a million people travel along daily between downtown Vancouver, central Richmond and the airport.

With Vancouver's downtown peninsula and central Richmond anticipating population increases of 50 and 75 percent, respectively, in just over a decade (by 2021), experts say the new $2-billion dollar rail link along this busy corridor - home to one-third of the region's jobs and 20 per cent of its population - was long overdue.

File photo by Dave Olecko, Business Edge
Van Horne Institute president and CEO Peter Wallis says people realize mass transit is the solution to ‘our extremely serious congestion issues.’

"There's a lot of traffic here and we're seeing lots of congestion and the only way to get around that is with a rapid-transit system," says Dever. "With an area like the Lower Mainland that's defined geographically, there's only so far we can go and there just isn't room for a lot more bridges or roads.

"Having the link to the airport will also make Vancouver the first Canadian airport to have a mass-transit link, which is a really important competitive advantage."

A similar connection for Canada's biggest airport is also back on track, after word from the Ontario government that construction on the rail link between Union Station and Pearson International Airport in Toronto could finally begin later this year.

The long-delayed project, which will also include expanded GO Train service to Georgetown, Etobicoke, Bramalea and Brampton, will require 28 km of new track.

Public consultations are now underway and if everything goes well, construction will start in the fall with a projected completion date in 2013.

"It really hits two major issues because there's huge demand for expanded GO service and trains are at capacity (along this corridor) and we really need to add trains. It will also give us the airport link, which is so important," says Colleen Bell, general manager of community relations for Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of the project.

"Toronto's a major international city and we need to have that option. If you travel to other major cities in the world, they have that rail link to the airport. This will fill that gap and help stimulate business activity and tourism."

The infrastructure investment will also be a boost to the Ontario economy. Metrolinx says the construction phase alone will create 10,000 new jobs.

Once in operation, the $875-million link - which will whisk passengers to Pearson in about 25 minutes - is expected to eliminate more than 1.5 million car trips in its first year of operation.

For the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), which pegs the current cost of congestion in the region at $6 billion a year, the long-term savings are immeasurable.

"The population right now is over six million and the average time spent commuting is 82 minutes," says Bell. "Think about all the time you could be spending with your family and friends in those 82 minutes - that's a lot of time out of your day.

"One of the reasons we're promoting rapid transit is because, in 25 years' time, we can really reduce the amount of time spent commuting and that's an important goal."

Without intervention, the average commute time in the GTHA is projected to spiral to 109 minutes when the population hits 8.6 million in just over two decades. That's why the Pearson link is one of the first steps in the region's "Big Move" - a plan that could well be the most ambitious long-term transportation initiative on the books in North America.

The forward-thinking $50-billion plan would see more than 1,200 km of rapid transit built - more than triple what exists now - so that more than 80 percent of the region's residents live within two km of a transit link, compared to 42 per cent now.

"When implemented, the Big Move will be transformational in terms of how people get around our region and having a long-range transportation plan on a regional scale like this is something that just makes good sense," says Metrolinx chairman Rob MacIsaac.

"It will not only help create thousands of new 'green' and well-paid jobs, but it will also save billions of dollars in time, energy and other efficiencies."

In Canada's busiest commuter rail corridor, meanwhile, the push is already on to get more commuters to take the train. Via Rail's ridership numbers are up and they're expected to increase as higher fuel prices, environmental concerns and chronic road congestion continue to rise.

"All of our lines did very well in 2008 - it was a good year - and more people were taking the train, especially for inter-city travel in the Quebec City to Windsor corridor," says Via Rail Canada corporate communications adviser Nadia Seraiocco.

"The popularity is certainly increasing and lots of people are not (just) travelling for tourism purposes. On the early trains, you'll see lots of people going into the city for work and then coming back at the end of the day and we're seeing that more and more."

While Via's final numbers for last year won't be out until April, ridership for the first six months of 2008 was up more than 10 percent in the crucial Quebec City-Windsor Corridor, which accounts for 80 percent of Via's revenue and ridership.

With onboard Wi-Fi and business lounges at most major stations, Via's campaign touting a more "human" way to travel is getting more people out of their cars and onto trains. On some of the shorter routes, it may even be convincing business travellers to forgo planes.

"Most people travelling for business purposes will notice that they're not losing any time - especially between Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City," Seraiocco says. "The train arrives right downtown where all the services are and they can work on the train and be on their phone or their computer and they don't have to get out of the centre of town to get out to the airport and then get back."

Via is hoping to get even more people riding the rails, thanks to $407 million in new federal funding announced in the 2009 stimulus budget. That's in addition to $692 million - the largest capital investment in Via's history - pledged in 2007 to help strengthen and improve passenger rail in Canada.

"This will help us rebuild locomotives and make improvements to rail cars and stations and modernize our technology to make sure service to customers is improved every year."

With more federal infrastructure funding up for grabs in the stimulus budget, experts are hoping that some provincial and regional rail projects will also get the green light.

"There will be some projects that will be candidates for this money that may not be right at the shovel-ready stage," says the Van Horne Institute's Wallis. "And although (the budget) referred to shovel-ready, I think there's got to be a feeling that some of these projects need a lot of planning and that there will be some money for them.

"Necessity is a great teacher and a great facilitator and the time has come in Canada to recognize that we have to move beyond the road and move to a better vision for the future."

If more trains in Central Canada, expansion of the light-rail transit systems in Calgary and Edmonton, and even talk of a train link to Victoria's western communities are any indication, the future is certainly rail- friendly.

"It can't be business as usual when it comes to transportation and commuter rail is something that jurisdictions around the world have been doing long before we did," MacIsaac points out. "The best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago but the second-best time is today."

(Tess van Straaten can be reached at tess@businessedge.ca)