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This 8mm film footage shows Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt & Nanaimo railroad in the 1950s, shortly after the introduction of diesel. As we consider the future of rail on the island in the 21st century, I urge my fellow Victoria City Councillors to exercise foresight and plan for the future — by ensuring that the new Johnson Street Bridge is strong enough to accommodate rail.
Ben suggested the city show foresight and build a "bridge for the future" -- capable of future adaptation for commuter rail, as Toronto did with its Bloor Viaduct. Fellow councillors Lisa Helps and Shellie Gudgeon joined Ben in voting for a more functional design.
While this would entail a modest increase in design and material costs today, it would remove the need to build a second bridge (for $35-million) to accommodate rail at some point in the future. Moreover, building a rail-capable bridge today will maintain continuity of this vital, historic link on Vancouver Island.
Guided by the hopeful principle, “If we build it, they will come,” Victoria can join with the Island Corridor Foundation and citizens and public-office holders from across the Capital Region and communities up-island to build a strong, sustainable alternative for inter-city and commuter transport.
Here, you can listen to my interview on CBC Radio’s On the Island with Gregor Craigie, where I discuss the benefits of a rail-capable Johnson Street Bridge as well as potential cost savings from a simpler, more functional design:
Link to CBC Radio interview, February 9, 2012
Download CBC radio Podcast
Freight Train – Joan Baez
Download Joan Baez’s “Freight Train” Podcast
This is terrific Ben. Great historical footage. I support building the bridge now to have rail capacity for the future.
I fully support your stance on accomodating rail on the new road bridge. This makes so much sense and should be quite feasible with minor engineering changes, appropriate routing, and proper traffic control. Modern LRT rail cars weigh about 40 tons, which, even with passengers is not much more that a large, loaded semi-trailer truck. Even a 2 or 3 car train would be little heavier than a couple of trucks, a bus and several cars traversing the bridge. Some design changes would be necessary, but this is the only chance we will have to put a rail crossing over the harbour.
A crossing would allow for a rail loop that would include the Douglas corridor, pick up a growing population in Vic West, service the dockyard where there will be a lot of activity over the next couple of decades, and connect to Langford through View Royal. Not accomodating rail will be a huge opportunity lost!
Kudos to you for your forward looking stance on this. I encourage you to keep up the good fight in the hopes that you will encourage others to pull their heads out of the sand!