Transport 2000 Canada Hot Line

27 November 2009

This is the Transport 2000 Canada Hotline, issue number 1048, for 27 November 2009.

In this issue...

0 - NEWS FLASH: Canadian National engineers on strike

Canadian National locomotive engineers under the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference are on strike as of midnight Friday. The move could affect freight service, depending on how many management personnel are certified to operate the engines. VIA Rail and the Toronto-area GO Transit are not directly affected by the walkout and disruptions were not expected to their passenger rail services. However, it was unclear whether the strike would affect the Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Deux Montagnes commuter lines in the Montreal region.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/11/28/cn-rail-strike.html

1 - Calendar

2 - 20% Copenhague: Transport 2000 Québec a tenu à féliciter le Premier ministre du Québec

le 26 novembre - L'association Transport 2000 Québec a tenu à féliciter le Premier ministre du Québec qui souhaite - à l'approche de la Conférence internationale de Copenhague - relever le défi sinon exercer un leadership très clair dans la lutte au réchauffement planétaire et aux changements climatiques. Après avoir assisté à l'allocution du chef du gouvernement québécois en début de semaine devant les membres du Conseil des relations internationales de Montréal (CORIM), la majorité des administrateurs de Transport 2000 présents à l'événement et son comité exécutif ont salué cette nouvelle politique. Même si l'objectif fixé de 20 % ne va pas aussi loin que les attentes de l'organisme exprimées depuis 15 ans, il s'en approche certainement.

3 - Bus service cuts: Hold hearings in affected communities, Transport 2000 says

"The Energy and Utilities Board says New Brunswickers will get a chance to be heard in this province when it considers Acadian Coach Lines's proposal to cut some bus routes." the Fredericton Daily Gleaner reported on Nov. 21.

"John Pearce, past president of Transport 2000, said the boards should consider taking hearings to the people affected, such as those living between Fredericton and Miramichi. 'There should be local hearings,' he said Friday. 'In Nova Scotia, the regulator has been really good in the past about going to smaller villages to hold hearings'," the Daily Gleaner's Shawn reported. A date for the hearings hasn't been set.

http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/front/article/864765

4 - Cost effective rail transit expansion in the Vancouver Region

"Transport 2000 BC strongly supports a multi-modal transportation system with the most suitable technologies used for each corridor, and strong consideration given to minimizing the number of transfers for maximum ridership and passenger and environmental benefits. To this end, we believe that the Evergreen Line must operate as an extension of the Millennium Line, with direct service from Coquitlam to VCC-Clark, to maximize the benefit of a direct line," Transport 2000's John Bakker wrote to Hon. Shirley Bond, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure on Nov. 23.

"However we have a concern about the technology which forces all future construction to be grade separated either on structure or in tunnel, if the line is extended west to UBC. Using the present SkyTrain technology would make this a very expensive extension.... We are already seeing a substantial cost escalation on the Evergreen line as it went from Light Rail to SkyTrain technology.

"If all the transit money for Metro Vancouver is spent on this one project, then there will be no money left for others projects such as much needed rail services south of the Fraser River. ... In order to reduce emissions more electric rail lines will be needed in the Vancouver region. If we can use lower cost alignments, we should be able to construct more kilometres and serve more taxpayers with the limited funds available," wrote John J. Bakker, Acting Vice-President Transport 2000 B.C.

5 - Une baisse graduelle des tarifs: Transport 2000

« La Société de transport de Montréal (STM) envisage une hausse d'environ 2 % des tarifs en 2010. Le comité des finances de la STM proposera cette hausse au nouveau conseil d'administration, qui sera appelé à se prononcer lors de son assemblée publique, le 8 décembre » Radio Canada Montréal a rapporté le 26 novembre.

« Le vice-président de la STM, Marvin Rotrand, estime que les usagers doivent faire leur part, comme le gouvernement, pour financer les hausses de services de la société. Une position que ne partage pas le groupe de défense des usagers Transport 2000, qui réclame au contraire une baisse graduelle des tarifs pour encourager l'usage des transports collectifs » RC a rapporté.

6 - Ottawa in the year 2050: A city of villages

"Transportation experts say in the future, land use will no longer dictate how we live and travel. In the next 40 years, technology, energy and transportation will determine where we build our homes and how we travel. David Jeanes, president of Transport 2000, a public transportation advocacy group, says the cost of oil will be so prohibitive, cities simply will not be able to afford to build more new roads to service sprawl, even if they want to," the Ottawa Citizen reported on Nov. 23.

"At $6 billion, the government of Ontario is already protesting that the city's transit plan to 2031 is too expensive. Imagine what it could be in 2050. 'This business of having people living outside the Greenbelt and commuting to downtown is not sustainable,' Jeanes says. 'We may have to become fragmented. We may have to go back to a city of villages'" the Citizen's Mohammad Adam reported.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Ottawa+year+2050/2254234/story.html

7 - Canadian Association of Geographers: National high-speed rail

Dr. Barry Wellar, Program Director for Geography Awareness Week, Canadian Association of Geographers, selected "national high-speed rail system" as one of the 28 decision points to feature in his 2009 Geographic Information Systems Day presentation, "GIS and GeoSkills: New Ways to Achieve New Evidence for Better Decisions".

According to Dr. Wellar, "Decisions involving a national high-speed rail system affect every person in this country one way or another, they affect businesses from the U.S. border to every coast, and they affect urban and regional development, energy supplies, industrial activities, climate change, and so on. This is clearly a topic of vital national interest that requires informed decisions. And timely action." The presentation is at:

http://www.cag-acg.ca/files/pdf/GAW/Wellar_GIS_DAY_2009_keynote_FINAL.pdf

8 - VIA Rail Christmas present for Ocean passengers

This winter, due to modifications and major maintenance to the Renaissance fleet, one of three trainsets will consist of stainless steel HEP I equipment until late February or March. Consists will include a much appreciated Skyline dome car and 8 single bedrooms (roomettes) in each sleeping car. The stainless steel ex-CP equipment will leave Montreal Sunday and Thursday and Halifax on Wednesday and Saturday," John Pearce wrote on Nov. 24.

"In addition, the luxury Easterly class service with Park observation dome will operate on all trains from Dec.19 to January 3. This service has normally only been available in the summer tourist season. Regular economy sleeper space will also be available during this period. The Ocean will operate on a modified schedule from December 16, 2009 to January 4, 2010," Transport 2000's John Pearce wrote.

9 - Don't ground passenger rights

"It looks as if Canadian air passengers will be denied basic rights guaranteed in other jurisdictions. No doubt under pressure from Montreal-based Air Canada and Air Transat, the Bloc Quebecois caucus, which had previously supported proposed legislation enshrining passenger rights, turned tail Monday," the Edmonton Journal editorialized on Nov. 25.

"The facts are that Bill C-310 is a perfectly reasonable piece of legislation patterned after the European Union's passenger bill of rights, which has been in force for five years without a hitch. Indeed, Air Canada for one has been flying quite successfully with those laws for years given its European operations. As we understand it, the carrier would like to stress its international service even more," the Edmonton Journal editorial said.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/ground+passenger+rights/2263101/story.html

10 - Steve Munro: Designing Transit Cities

"Catching up with the world also means that social and political arrangements, the balance of power between motorists and transit, the culture that truly puts transit first, must evolve in Toronto at a rate unlike that seen elsewhere. Despite recent funding announcements, we are still in a project-based model, not a transit model where money flows to an overall transit plan automatically, and each project does not have to justify itself as a political entity. Transit has been underfunded for so long, the jump to a proper level means a big shift in government priorities or the imposition of new fees, tolls, taxes, levies, whatever name you wish to use. We can't have a bigger transit system without paying for it," Steve Munro wrote on on Nov. 22.

http://stevemunro.ca/?cat=14

11 - Aviation Safety News: Sikorsky 10 minutes ...

Aviation Safety News was published on Nov. 24. The project of Transport 2000 Canada and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre includes a readers' group of top aviation safety authorities, industry and civil service professionals. The group has reviewed material about the Wells Inquiry, the Transportation Safety Board report on Tim Horton's co-founder Ron Joyce's crash and pilots denouncing Transport Canada fatigue regulations. Aviation Safety News is posted at:

http://aviation.web.net

12 - How 16 ships create as much sulphur pollution as all the cars in the world

"(T)he International Maritime Organisation (is) the UN body that polices the world's shipping. For decades, the IMO has rebuffed calls to clean up ship pollution. For 31 years, the IMO has operated a policy agreed by the 169 governments that make up the organisation which allows most ships to burn bunker fuel," the Daily Mail reported on Nov. 21.

"Christian Eyde Moller, boss of the DK shipping company in Rotterdam, recently described this as 'just waste oil, basically what is left over after all the cleaner fuels have been extracted from crude oil. It's tar, the same as asphalt. It's the cheapest and dirtiest fuel in the world'," Fred Pearce wrote in the Daily Mail.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-create-pollution-cars-world.html

13 - Boston-Montreal-High Noon For High Speed Rail Series

High Speed Rail Canada released the first in a series of articles on Canada-USA cross border high speed rail links on Nov. 25. The Montreal-Boston high speed corridor had been identified in 2003 by the Federal Railroad Administration. The article updates the latest information on this line.

Paul Langan, founder of High Speed Rail Canada said:"These cross border passenger rail options should not be overlooked. There are substantial environmental and economic benefits to having modern passenger rail connections between Canada and the USA." To read the article go to the High Speed Rail Canada blog at PART 1 -BOSTON-MONTREAL High Speed Rail.

http://highspeedrail.ca

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www.transport2000.ca.