Street railways work in other cities

Re: “Economics show E&N rail line is a lost cause,” comment, Dec. 2. James Crowley’s column on the economics of the E&N railway implies that its experience provides useful guidance in solving today’s rapid-transit issues in the lower part of Vancouver Island. Even a cursory examination proves that its practice of sending inefficient equipment in the wrong direction at questionable times did not prevent 40,000 passengers a year from trying their luck.

Crowley, despite his claimed expertise, manages to avoid quoting examples set by cities such as Portland, Oregon, and San Diego, California, where grade-level street railway systems operate effectively, and have done so since their populations were the size of the present-day Victoria. They have, for over a century, permitted intelligent urban planning that, in turn, has allowed these cities to respond to demographic shifts while other locations, such as Victoria and Vancouver, revel in continued gridlock.

Our solution of building ever-wider highways with interchanges that successfully move the problem a few kilometres farther down the road where, inevitably, it becomes worse, simply entrenches the problem.

I suppose we should all be grateful that another study has been commissioned into this question, although I suspect that the lucky consultants chosen to complete it have access to the easiest few thousand dollars they ever took in. All they have to do is quote from the previous collection of reports on the same subject.

John Appleby Duncan