Moving Mountains: The Challenge of Building Regional Rail in Metro Vancouver

In our last post, we discussed why Metro Vancouver needs regional rail to meet its transportation goals. However, as you will soon find out, building such a network will not be easy.

Great for Postcards, Not for Trains

Let’s take a look at Vancouver’s geography.

You will notice that Metro Vancouver’s geography is spectacular. Mountains, inlets and rivers are great for postcards and make the region a global attraction but they make building a passenger rail network incredibly difficult.?

For a rail network to travel from the Fraser Valley up to Whistler, it will need to traverse at least two major bodies of water and then meander its way up Howe Sound and the Cheakamus Canyon to Whistler.

Couldn’t we use existing bridges and rail lines? Well, about that…

Lack of Suitable Existing Infrastructure

If we look at a map, we can see there aren’t many rail corridors to work with on the Burrard Peninsula. Going east to west, we have the CPKC corridor (that the West Coast Express currently uses) and the CN/BNSF corridor that VIA and Amtrak trains use. North-south corridors are virtually non-existent.

If we want fast and frequent regional rail service, the CPKC corridor is a non-starter. First, around 50 freight trains use it daily, meaning there is little room for anything more than commuter service. Second, there is no room to build additional tracks west of Port Moody. Lastly, the corridor is windy and would limit the top speed to far below 160 kph.

The CN/BNSF corridor to the south, by contrast, is much straighter with much more room for additional tracks. However, the challenge with this corridor lies at its ends. The Westminster Bridge that crosses the Fraser River is old and congested, being used by over 30 trains per day and being interrupted by crossing ships. Though there is an existing rail connection to Waterfront Station along this corridor, it is constricted and runs into congestion issues as it joins the CPKC corridor.

If the rail corridors aren’t suitable, why don’t we use Highway 1? Though this corridor would avoid some jurisdictional challenges, it would also be more expensive as grade separations would be required at every roadway it crosses. It also follows mostly the same path as the CN/BNSF corridor while being further from major transit nodes.

It’s also worth remembering that the goal of building a transit network is not just to build where it is cheap; it is to provide useful trips. That means connecting major regional centres and maximizing connectivity with the existing transit network. In the case of Metro Vancouver, that means tunnelling to make sure important transit hubs such as Waterfront, Surrey Central and Lougheed are properly served.

The reality is building a suitable regional rail network is going to require a lot of new infrastructure, much of it tunnels.? Bottom line: it’s going to be expensive.

Making it Work

Given that costly investments will be required to make regional rail work, what can we do to make it feasible?

First, we need to broadly keep costs down. Similarly complex transit projects are being built in developed countries in Europe such as Italy, Spain and France for a fraction of the cost they are built in North America. The main reason for this discrepancy comes down to planning and management practices, not labour or material costs. If we implement similar practices here, we should realize similar cost savings.

Second, we can share the cost. If we’re going to build an expensive tunnel for regional rail, let’s try and use it for rapid transit services as well. For example, it is envisioned that our tunnel across the First Narrows that would be used for trains going to Whistler would also be used for rapid transit service to West Vancouver. This can be done by making tunnels wide enough to accommodate express tracks at certain sections. Though this will mean sub-optimal rapid transit operation, sub-optimal rapid transit is better than no rapid transit. We estimate sharing infrastructure with rapid transit will reduce the total project cost by almost $2 Billion.

Lastly, we can save money through smart design practices. Often, the biggest cost of building rail underground is that of building the stations. We can reduce the amount of excavation required by implementing lessons from Barcelona’s Line 9 where the tunnel is wide enough to incorporate the station’s platforms. This means only an access well needs to be built to access the platforms, reducing the footprint needed for excavation, something that can be difficult to find in dense urban areas.

Do all of these practices make regional rail in Metro Vancouver feasible though? We estimate that with 130,000 daily trips, the cost per passenger-km will be between $0.12-$0.15. This means the breakeven cost for a ride between Downtown Vancouver and Whistler will be $15-$18. (For reference a bus trip currently costs $35). Not only is regional rail viable; it is investment-worthy.

The Bottom Line?

Metro Vancouver’s spectacular geography is both a blessing and a curse. Building regional rail here will be expensive and require costly investments in new infrastructure.?

However, by adopting the best project management practices and implementing clever designs, we can make regional rail viable. If we’re able to use development around stations to help fund it, regional rail becomes something even more compelling.

A no-brainer.