Independent study of E&N needed

Re: “What should we do with the E&N Island rail corridor?,” comment, June 21.

I am troubled by Guy Dauncey’s misleading statement about the subsidy if a restored passenger rail service operates on the E&N.

He cherry-picks numbers in favour of his cause of turning the E&N into a trail.

In 2010, the Fraser Valley, the Rail for the Valley group, tired of the same sort of rhetoric and the abundance of anti-rail studies by government bureaucrats, engaged Leewood Projects (U.K.) for an independent review of restoring a modern interurban service from Vancouver to Chilliwack.

Not only did the review deem the service to be viable, the cost from Scott Road Station to Chilliwack, 98 kilometres, was put at $492 million to operate a maximum of three trains per hour per direction.

In 2020, the cost, adjusted for inflation, would be about $576 million for 98 km or $5.9 million/km. This distance is comparable to a Victoria-to-Nanaimo service.

As ridership numbers would be far above the meagre number of 613 a day quoted by Dauncey, the subsidy per person would dramatically decrease. If designed properly, by knowledgeable professionals, a restored E&N rail line, would cater to more than 5,000 customers a day offering a true alternative to the car.

What is needed is a fully independent (no government involvement) study as to the viability of restoring E&N and the costs to operate a modern passenger rail service. Only then will the true costs be known.

D.M. Johnston Rail for the Valley Delta