For registration and further information, go to the conference website. The VIA Rail station is one kilometre away from the conference location, and the Greyhound bus stop is about 600 metres away. For those of you who may want to stay overnight in Kitchener, there is a special symposium rate available at Kitchener's Walper Hotel.
Paul Langan 519-654-0089
He should also be remembered for his efforts from 2001 to 2004 as VIA Rail Chair, and effectively its sole lobbyist, promoting the investment that became reality in 2000 as Renaissance 1 (including the P42 locomotives, stations and track upgrades, and the Renaissance cars themselves), and led to the announcement of Renaissance 2 in 2004, (later cancelled by Paul Martin, but reinstated by the Conservatives in 2007). On the Heritage front, it was his achievement that Quebec City was inscribed as a World Heritage Site, laying the way for the successful 400th anniversary celebration last year.
1. Romaine Hydroelectric Complex Project. Capital cost: $6.5 billion.
Havre-Saint-Pierre, Que.
4. Spadina Subway Extension. Capital cost: $2.63 billion. Toronto.
6. Canada Line. Capital cost: $2 billion. Vancouver.
7. Port Mann/Highway 1 Project. Capital cost: $1.6 billion. Vancouver.
9. Autoroute 30. Capital cost: $1.5 billion. Montreal.
10. Edmonton Ring Road, Anthony Henday Drive NW. Capital cost:
$1.42 billion. Edmonton.
13. Edmonton International Airport Expansion. Capital cost: $1.1 billion.
16. Golden Ears Bridge. Capital cost: $808 million. Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows,
Surrey and Langley, B.C.
20. West LRT Line. Capital cost: $700 million. Calgary.
26. Calgary Ring Road, Stoney Trail N.E. Capital Cost: $650 million.Calgary.
32. Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project. Capital cost: $600
million. Vancouver.
48. Union Station Signalling Contract. Capital Cost: $280 million.
Toronto, Ont.
51. South LRT Extensions. Capital cost: $228 million. Edmonton.
55. Autoroute 25 Expansion. Capital cost: $210 million. Montreal.
77. Kicking Horse Canyon Phase 3. Capital cost: $135 million. Golden, B.C.
81. Windsor Gateway Project. Capital cost: $128 million. Windsor, Ont.
84. Northwest LRT Extension. Capital cost: $120 million. Calgary.
97. Lakeshore West Rail Corridor Improvements. Capital cost: $88 million.
Mississauga, Ont.
http://www.leaderpost.com/news/todays-paper/Canada+biggest+infrastructure+projects/1170845/story.html
On Jan. 9 Fantino reported: "Highway deaths in 2008 on roads patrolled by the OPP were 320 compared to 451 deaths in 2007. That's a reduction of 29 percent or 131 lives saved."
"A drop in kilometres driven last year no doubt accounts for a significant reduction in the death toll but the results are nonetheless impressive. On the face it the OPP have met the ten-year target of Road Safety Vision 2010 plan in one year," says Harry Gow, chair of Transport 2000's Canadians for Responsible and Safe Highways. "Commissioner Fantino deserves credit for making traffic safety an OPP priority and for challenging all governments to take the 2,900 people killed on Canadian roads every year more seriously."
Social Cost of Motor Vehicle Collisions in Ontario: August 2007
http://www.tc.gc.ca/roadsafety/tp/tp14800/pdf/TP14800E.pdf
Estimates of the Full Cost of Transportation in Canada
http://www.tc.gc.ca/pol/en/aca/fci/FinalReport.htm
"The Island Corridor Foundation (ICF), the principal ... group pushing for improved rail services across the Island, inked a deal with carrier Southern Railway of Vancouver Island Limited. The deal will see Southern Rail continue existing operations for the next three years and keep 22 employees on the job at its Nanaimo terminal, says Ken Doiron, vice president of Southern Railway of Vancouver Island".
"While rail proponents applaud the three-year deal, it falls short of an eagerly anticipated long-term agreement - an indicator of Southern Rail's hesitation to commit to lengthy service on a 'railway that continues to deteriorate,' says Doiron. The three-year deal gives the provincial Government time to conduct a $500,000 study into the feasibility of pumping cash into upgrading the existing infrastructure," the Alberni Valley Times reported.
http://www.canada.com/albernivalleytimes/news/story.html?id=1f83b83d-997f-40 b9-a090-5d39b0eff4b0
AMT spokesperson Marie Gendron said "recurring problems with locomotive breakdowns and passenger cars with doors that can't be used will be solved by the purchase of new rolling stock by 2011 and an AMT maintenance centre that will allow the agency to repair its own equipment".
"Normand Parisien of Transport 2000 Quebec... said that ensuring reliability sometimes involves more than complaining to the transit authority. 'If you want improvements to the AMT, you've got to let your member of the National Assembly know about it ....You've got to make it political,'" the Gazette reported.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=1173578&sponsor=
"Jean Pelletier : Je veux vous parler de VIA Rail, parce que ma grande peine, c'est le train. Pas le TGV : le train rapide. Si j'étais arrivé à VIA Rail un an plus tôt, le projet aurait été en chantier. Quand j'ai été nommé à VIA Rail, à plein temps, c'était à cause de ça.
"Le CN a beau dire qu'il privilégie les trains de passagers, je regrette beaucoup, il passe les trains de marchandises avant. Alors, le train de passagers est toujours coincé dans ses horaires, et on ne peut pas ajouter de fréquences parce qu'il n'y a pas de place sur la voie, à cause des trains de marchandises qui vont moins vite".
"Alors, j'avais dit à Chrétien : «Entre un TGV, estimé à 12 milliards $ sans les frais de financement, et ce qu'on a, il doit y avoir un moyen terme qui ferait faire un bond important au service, en termes d'horaires, de ponctualité.»
"Notre plan avait reçu l'approbation écrite du CP et du CN et, dans le projet que j'ai remis au gouvernement, il y avait un document signé par Paul Tellier pour le CN et par Rob Ritchie du CP. Je suis venu à un cheveu de réussir. S'il avait été là plus longtemps, Chrétien aurait eu le temps de décider et de le mettre en route. Mais Martin, c'était un gars d'autobus," le Soleil a rapporté.
"But the federal government in the late 1960s said it was the government's policy to get out of passenger trains. Fares went up, trains were cut, so that by 1973, CN carried only 10.1 million passengers - about the same number as in 1936. In 1990, Brian Mulroney's government drove a spike through half of VIA's trains and ridership dropped to less than four million a year. At the time, it was reported that an annual train ridership of 50 million would result in 500,000 direct and indirect jobs," the Globe letter said.
"Some of the frustrated commuters who have found other ways to deal with the strike will never go back to transit. Psychologically, they will tune out OC Transpo as a way of getting around. For a city government that wants people to choose transit over their own vehicles, that would be very bad news. It could put at risk the city's $4.7-billion transit plan, an ambitious project to expand the Transitway and build a network of rail lines inside the Greenbelt over the next 30 years".
"Tim Lane, a longtime member of the pro-transit Transport 2000 ... Group and Friends of the O-Train, says he is so disgusted by the way the two sides have handled the strike he is planning to cut back on his transit use. He is particularly dismayed that at a meeting last week, city council wouldn't support declaring transit an essential service," the Citizen reported.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=1167246&sponsor=
The new minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal in Nova Scotia is a former trucker and snow plow driver, Brooke Taylor. The province signed a deal with Ottawa in November 2007 for $634 million in infrastructure funding over 7 years. With the background of the new minister, it seems unlikely that much of this money will be used for rail infrastructure, even on the Cape Breton and Central N.S. line whose right-of-way is in bad shape due to deferred maintenance.
Cumberland County (NS) Transportation Services Society has purchased a $90,000 mini-bus which will hold 14 passengers or 10 people plus 2 wheelchairs. Operation will start near the end of January, and run 2 days per week. The bus will serve the Advocate-Parrsboro area in western Cumberland Co. on Tuesday and the Pugwash area on the Northumberland Strait on Thursday and will take handicapped passengers to doctors and the hospital in Amherst at the N.B. border.
John Pearce.
"In September, the city and province announced a $327-million plan to connect downtown and the University of Manitoba with a 9.6-kilometre bus corridor. Work is supposed to begin this summer on the $138-million first phase of the project, a 3.6-kilometre link between Queen Elizabeth Way and Jubilee Avenue".
"In 2005, the Katz-commissioned rapid transit task force concluded it would cost Winnipeg up to eight times more money to build a light-rail track and purchase train cars as it would to build a bus corridor. ... the city is exploring the idea of using alternative technologies ... One of the technologies that has caught the city's eye is a form of ultra-lightweight aluminium tram that could run above street level," the Winnipeg Free Press reported.