Because I haven't seen this posted here...
More trouble for the passenger train to Banff.
If it isn't the Government saying its too risky for an investment, then it's not looking at its environmental impact close enough.
Personally, I try to be sympathetic and understanding but I really worry about our ability to realize major projects like this because we have to satisfy everyone.
Business as usual has risks too.
Traffic volumes on Highway 1 east Kananaskis are up 25% the past 10 years. That's an extra few million car trips that have been added to the mountains as well as the increase in collisions, wildlife fatalities, congestion, carbon emission and highway expansions that come with them - all with little fanfare and zero environmental impact assessments.
Apart from local initiatives in Banff and the start of On-It Transit - which offers a few busses a day on a few weekends a summer - there's been zero attempt at stemming the flow of additional vehicles regionally or provincially into the mountain parks. Those On-It busses are also struck in traffic with everyone else - making them less competitive despite being a more environmentally friendly option for mountain access. More busses are incremental business as usual and won't change much in the big picture.
Meanwhile over the past decade the southwest / west ring road projects locks in another $2B+ of car infrastructure that not only has a giant environmental impact on it's own locally, but has the added impact of creating yet more vehicle capacity to access the mountains from a major city that keeps growing.
In the coming decades, additional improvements and highway expansions will start to be floated, supported and built all along Highway 1. Billions will be spent on highway improvements that directly and indirectly increase the traffic to the mountains - just as much or even more than any train will cost. Again, highway expansion is the most environmentally unsustainable and carbon-intensive way possible to add capacity and it will happen without a legitimate alternative transportation system.
Call me cynical, but I don't see our provincial government nor the highway construction lobby that runs our provincial transportation system finding as many issues as this train apparently has when these highway expansions start to trickle out from idea to plan to contract to build just as they always have done the past 75 years.
We need the train. It's the most environmentally responsible option for mountain access available by far. If they make the train good quality enough and competitive, all those highway expansion projects start not making any sense and you will prevent all the associated environmental impacts that would have come with them.
