TransportAction is published bi-monthly by Transport 2000 Canada, a national federation of consumers devoted to the public interest in transportation.
Publié à tous les deux mois par Transport 2000 Canada, une fédération nationale d’usagers dont le but est de voir à l’avancement de l’intérêt public en matière de transport.
Bureau National Office
Suite 100, 117 Sparks St.
Ottawa, ON
P.O. Box 858, Stn. B
Ottawa, ON. K1P 5P9
President: Harry Gow
Office Mgr.: Bert Titcomb
Membership: Martin Collicott
Editor: Bert Titcomb
Tel. (613) 594-3290
Fax. (613) 594-3271
Hotline 1-800-771-5035
EMail: t2000@transport2000.ca
Web: www.transport2000.ca
In This Issue ....
“We have redesigned the flight schedules of the two carriers to put the right aircraft on the right routes at the right times, offering tremendous new services to our customers,” said Robert Milton, President and CEO of Air Canada. “This first step in combining the forces of Air Canada and Canadian Airlines shows the potential of the overall benefits that lie ahead.”
In order to realize quickly the synergies available to both carriers, schedules are being streamlined to ensure better and expanded service for customers, improve profitability and position the carriers for longer-term growth opportunities.
Before returning to Ottawa, I made a quick trip on the Esquimault and Nanaimo Railway, a lifelong ambition that had always eluded me on previous sojourns to Vancouver Island. The single RDC was two-thirds full leaving Victoria. I was told the second RDC had been returned to the mainland for heavy repairs following a recent accident. The freight operator, Rail America, was obviously working hard to increase freight traffic and do some essential maintenance.
Still, the operation exuded minimalism; light jointed rail, unpainted bridges, few active sidings south of Nanaimo, all revealed the small amount of investment that the E&N had received in the last decades of the former (CPR) management. It seemed hard to blame CP as the Province of British Columbia is sinking a billion dollars into the parallel Island Highway, and not a cent into the railway. At least BC does not allow taxes on railway property. Still, the federal government has not yet done anything to make it easy for CP, Rail America, or anyone else to invest in railways. The Railway Association of Canada, Transport 2000 Canada and others have been urging the feds to take action and the recent federal budget might have been the occasion for major changes.
The recent federal budget has come and gone. It has left a lot of unfinished business behind; the extra $30 million dollars a year to upgrade VIA Rail’s operating budget, capital funding to renew infrastructure and rolling stock. The question of investment rules was left untouched; new trucks can be written off in no time, however railcars, locomotives and infrastructure are on the taxman’s books for nearly two decades!
In the same vein, The T2000 - Victoria Transport Policy Institute proposal to allow employers to provide income-tax exempt transit passes did not get past the leaden hands in Finance this budget despite the hopes of CUTU, ATU and environmental groups (Pollution Probe and others) that their advocacy work would be rewarded.
Harry Gow, President
Notice of AGM
Location: Toronto
Ontario Inst. for Studies in Education
252 Bloor Street W
Date: Saturday, 29 April 2000
Time: 9:30 a.m.
Guest Speaker: TBC
Agenda
1. Approval of Agenda
2. Approval of the Minutes of the 99 Board Mtg.
3. Guest Speaker
3. Report from the Chair
4. Other Reports
5. New Business
Express services revenue nearly doubled in 1999 to $17.2 million as compared to $8.9 million in 1998, as a result of the growth in the carload express business, supported by increased capacity created by the receipt of new and modified express equipment.
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Does anyone still remember when mail in Canada was sent by rail?
In France, there are two TGV trains that only carry mail!
In response to the general hue and cry over gasoline price increases, I offer consumers some advice. Use less gas, regardless of its price, and you’ll keep money in your pockets that would have gone to the oil companies. That’s “free money, ” in the words of Amory Lovins, one of the world’s foremost energy efficiency experts.
And while you save, you’ll do your share to reduce the threats of air pollution and global warming. Here are some tips on how you can do it:
Today’s rising gas prices can help us to become more efficient, as they have in the past. This means more money in your pocket, cleaner air, better public health, and a small part on protection from global warming.
Gerry Scott
Director, climate change campaign,
David Suzuki Foundation
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Driving at high speed also consumes more fuel and produces more air pollution. According to a graph in Canadian Solutions - Practical and Affordable Steps to Fight Climate Change:
A car at a speed of 100 km/h will consume about 20% more fuel than a a car driven at 90 km/h. At a speed of 120 km/h, it will consume 75% more fuel than a vehicle at 90 km/h.
Mr. Prud’homme said the highway change would also make residential roads safer: drivers would slow down on those roads when they realized police were enforcing the limit on all traffic signs.
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Increased speed limits will achieve several things:
Transport 2000 Canada recommends that photo radar be
utilized to enforce the current speed limits.
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“This is a national problem,” David Bradley, chief executive of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, said re-cently. “Some independent truckers are talking about staging work stoppages unless (shippers) play ball and fairly compensate carriers for their costs.”
Amtrak and the Canadian-French consortium building the new trains were to meet in early February to see whether testing certification could be speeded up. Officials of Amtrak and the consortium acknowledged that the Amtrak board was recently informed that under current testing schedules, the first of the 20 train sets wouldn’t be available for passenger service until mid-July, almost a year after the ambitious initial timetable and later than Amtrak’s unofficial “late spring” goal.
Amtrak has been counting on an estimated $180 million a year in extra revenue from the trains, which were to take over all premium service between Washington, New York and Boston by the end of this fiscal year. The Acela trains first were hampered by a series of developmental problems, some of them now apparently solved, including excessive wheel wear. Now some of the delay appears to be in a slow-moving testing process.
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The $1.25 billion plan to upgrade and modernize Montreal’s Dorval and Mirabel Airports over the next 20 years will be financed by tripling the $10 airport departure tax to $30 unless the federal government agrees to renegotiate the lease on Dorval Airport.
Under the existing lease, as profits increase the airport rent goes up, Nycol Pageau-Goyette, chairperson and CEO of Aéroports de Montréal, told reporters without revealing the exact lease figures. She will ask Ottawa to allow the authority to keep its profits to finance the $1.25 billion program.
At present, the $10 tax, known as the airport-improve-ment fee, in addition to operating profits on airport facilities leased to airlines, other concessions and airport parking, generate about $50 million a year for capital expenditures and development efforts. “This amount, however, is insufficient to meet the needs of our 20-year program,” Pageau-Goyette said. “We must therefore increase our revenues.”
A fire prompted the evacuation of Dorval Airport for five hours yesterday, causing headaches for commuters and chaos on surrounding city streets. No injuries were reported as a result of the blaze, which began in a second floor office at the city’s main airport. Although the fire was extinguished by 1:30 p.m., about an hour after it was was reported, the airport remained closed throughout the afternoon while officials dealt with damage from the fire and its aftermath.
About 1000 commuters were affected as many departures and arrivals were rerouted to Mirabel Airport, 57 kilometres north of Montreal. Passengers were taken to Mirabel by bus. There were sprawling, four-hour traffic jams on the roads and highway exits around Dorval, as access was restricted by scores of police checkpoints.
Airport commuters who evacuated the main terminal, were shuffled from one building to the next, and were eventually ushered to a nearby Transport Canada building, where they remained until past 5 p.m. Several passengers said they were most frustrated by the lack of information they were given.
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In Canada, we have yet to build an airport with a convenient rail connection. Our airport authorities have the nerve to call our large airports “worldclass”. If this is an example of worldclass, then clearly many airport officials need to learn the basics of transportation.
Rolling friction of a steel wheel on a steel rail is con-siderably less than that of rubber tires on concrete and consequently requires less energy to move goods or people. Less energy means less fuel consumption which in turn means less air pollution.
The Hon. David Collenette, P.C., M.P.
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON. K!A 0H6
Marine Atlantic’s final traffic tally for 1999 eclipsed the previous year’s all-time high by a wide margin. A total of 477,761 people rode their ferries last year, representing a 7.4% increased over 1998. With a final boost from heavy Christmas holiday traffic, ridership for the Port aux Basques route reached 431,846, and increase of 7.1%. The seasonal Argentia service carried 45,915 people, 11.3% higher than the previous year.
Passenger vehicle traffic on both routes was up by similar percentages. Commercial traffic on the North Sydney - Port aux Basques route also reached record-breaking levels at 76,452 units, an increase of 7.7%. This year is expected to be another record breaker. An increase in passenger traffic of five percent will put the total over the half-million mark.
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1980 1990 % increase
US.A. 580 640 10.3
Italy 300 520 73.3
Canada 420 495 17.8
Germany 380 490 28.9
France 360 400 38.9
Great Britain 280 370 32.1
Japan 200 340 70
Denmark 280 300 7.1
Greece 90 200 122
Despite a modest increase of 17.8%, Canada ranks third behind the U.S.A. and Italy in number of vehicles per 1000 inhabitants. With the exception of Denmark, car ownership in the European countries listed above has increased significantly, despite much higher fuel prices than in Canada.
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Will car ownership in Canada increase or
decrease with higher fuel costs?
The automotive industry will continue
to build gas guzzlers until the public
demands more fuel efficient vehicles.
According to the report titled Aggressive Driving: Are You At Risk?, Riverside-San Bernardino, CA, had the highest aggressive driving-related death rate in 1996 with 13.4 deaths per 100,000 residents. It was followed by Tampa, Phoenix, Orlando, and Miami; Boston was at the bottom of the metro ranking with two deaths per 100,000 people.
A statistically significant correlation determined places with the fewest aggressive driving deaths are those with more transportation choices. In metro areas, these places have more neighbourhoods with grid street patterns, sidewalks and good transit systems so residents can get to work or run errands by walking, biking or taking the train or bus.
The study shows that giving commuters more roads will not solve the problem. Cities with more miles of highway per person have significantly higher aggressive driving death rates. States with the most aggressive driving deaths have more than twice as many lane miles per person as those with the fewest fatal crashes. The most deaths occur in South Carolina, followed by Wyoming, Alabama, Kansas and Oklahoma. Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York have the fewest fatalities.
Instead of asking drivers to calm down and be polite, the study suggests that communities can combat aggressive driving by expanding transit service and building neighbourhoods that are more conducive to non-auto travel.
Employers can also help by offering incentives to employees who bike
or walk to work, or use transit or carpools.
Communication