Fraser water highway a worry
I have expressed my doubts about the Port of Vancouver’s idea to use the river to ship containers up to Hope and then transfer them to trains. My concerns were mainly to do with the economic feasibilyt of the idea - after all I cut my teeth on this kind of project back in Britain in the 1970s.
It tuns out that this may not be the great environmental boon that the Port thinks it is either. Yes, water transport burns less diesel per tonne kilometre, but that is not the whole picture by any means.
The Outdoor Research Council of B.C. (ORCBC) has rated the Fraser the number two endangered river in B.C., saying it faces new threats from port expansion plans in addition to a variety of other pressures.
And actually if you read the list, short sea shipping is not the first or biggest issue either. It is just another nail in the coffin of the world’s greatest salmon river.
How the myth of food miles hurts the planet
Ethical shopping just got more complicated. The idea that only local produce is good is under attack. There is growing evidence to suggest that some air-freighted food is greener than food produced in the UK. Robin McKie and Caroline Davies report on how the concept of food miles became oversimplified - and is damaging the planet in the process
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But a warning that beans have been air-freighted does not mean we should automatically switch to British varieties if we want to help the climate. Beans in Kenya are produced in a highly environmentally-friendly manner. ‘Beans there are grown using manual labour - nothing is mechanised,’ says Professor Gareth Edwards-Jones of Bangor University, an expert on African agriculture. ‘They don’t use tractors, they use cow muck as fertiliser; and they have low-tech irrigation systems in Kenya. They also provide employment to many people in the developing world. So you have to weigh that against the air miles used to get them to the supermarket.’
I am being a bit contrarian on this one, I will admit. The idea of reducing our ecological footprint seems to me to be a lot more pressing than just the carbon dioxide. But as we have seen with “renewable fuels” sometimes the reality is not the same as the apparent advantage. And Kenyans are desparately poor and really need a bigger market for their produce.
Do the ten mile diet people completely give up on tea and coffee? Oranges? Bananas? I watched from the sidelines as the demands from the Germans for an end to “commonwealth preference” sideswiped the economy of the Windward Islands. The EU ended the ability of the small scale Caribbean farmers to compete with the big US companies who run large plantations in Central America. Free Trade has some harsh lessons - and the German “need” for cheaper, bigger bananas seemed to me less important than the ability of people on small islands to function in relative economic security. In an odd footnote, the mega-producers started to look very vulnerable soon after as their use of a single variety exposed them to a fungus that did not effect the smaller, sweeter varieties that it turned out could be sold at higher prices to more discriminating consumers. And, as it happens, growing a few banana plants in small clearings in established jungle is a lot more environmentally friendly and labour intensive than huge, mechanised, single crop plantations.
I willingly pay more for fair trade coffee - and keep up the pressure by asking for it in places that don’t have it. I used to hear “there’s no demand” but that seems to be changing now. Coffee beans, by the way, are not airfreighted.
Driving 6.5 miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK.’
Bradley revives proposal to make speed limiters mandatory for trucks
Apparently this will only apply in Ontario. Pity. We need these here too.
And while we are about it, why not fit tachographs too - they are compulsory in Europe and have saved lives and made collision investigations a lot more worthwhile.
CN Rail to spend $450M in Western Canada
Although I saw this first in the Sun it is pretty much a rework of one of three similar announcements yesterday by CN - the others being aimed at Eastern Canada and the US.
So it is probably wrong to read too much into this development. But there is no mention of Vancouver - just Prince Rupert and its new container terminal a day’s sailing closer to China than us. Now that could just be that spending here is being kept quiet until the BC Rail case is finally disposed of, one way or another, since that was all about the Deltaport spur which is still in provincial hands. But I have also heard suggestions that CN intermodal trucks containers to its Thornton yard, and of course the port has been suggesting barging containers up the Fraser to new rail linked terminals which might allow CN and CP to sell off some very attractive waterfront real estate. This is all pure speculation on my part of course.
And an excuse to use another of my train pictures. This line to the Fraser Wharves terminal is slated for removal, as CN is going to build a shorter, no road crossings, bit of track along the south arm. There being no customers left along Vulcan Way and Shell Road.
New EPA rules target diesel train and ship emissions
LA is seen by some here as a competitor west coast gateway. It seems to me that many people there would be quite pleased if we took some more the polltuing ships and trains away from their area. They like polluted air about as much as we do.
I though when I saw the headline that this was a major change but no
Because the new rules will take decades to implement, and do not target large marine vessels, the AQMD will not be able to reach a 2015 federal deadline to bring deadly fine particulate exposure down to legal amounts, Wallerstein said. [That's Barry Wallerstein, executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District]
Large, ocean-going vessels are linked to about 800 premature deaths in the region each year. More than 40% of all retail goods shipped to the U.S. come through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The hope for us is that we will follow suit to ensure that the we get the benefit from the new technologies that will now get built into locomotives and tugs. Otherwise what will happen is that our operators will just shift the old equipment up here. Railway locomotives in particular have very long lives and many in daily service here have been around in one shape or form since the 1950s. Of course, they have been rebuilt and refurbished in the meantime. Even the cleanest Green Goats are not entirely new.
This loco was first built in 1959 and is still in operation
Water ‘highway’ could take trucks off Metro’s roads
I did not go to the Metro Vancouver sustainable growth and the economy public dialogue yesterday. The panel was different to the one I did go to at West Vancouver. But what really surprises me is that Randy Shore did go to Surrey. The press has not been at many of these meetings in that past, so far as I am aware. And so was Brian Lewis of the Province who has this wonderful quote from Gordon Price
“Can someone give me an example where this kind of road has worked elsewhere?” he said.
“We’re spending a billion dollars on a road without any working examples of success [elsewhere], yet when we’ve made commitments to build rail systems we have seen the benefits.”
He quipped: “It’s curious that when we know it doesn’t work, we do it, but when we know it does work, then we don’t do it.”
Darn, wish I’d said that.
The road he was referring to is the South Fraser Perimeter Road, and the idea is that if the containers were moved by barge instead of truck, then we would not need this road.
The plan to load containers on to barges is not of course new and has been discussed here before - though the mention of Hope is new. Up until now I had expected that the ecological significance of the gravel reach would have been a block to navigation by large barges this far upstream.
“Most of what we need to make this happen is there already,” Badger told The Sun. The highway — in this case the Fraser River — and the railroad tracks run side by side all the way to Hope.
What isn’t there of course are the terminal facilities. And proposals by the port to buy up land along the river front for terminals are already a cause for concern among the local communities.
The cost of transferring containers more than once — from deep-sea vessels to short-haul vessels and then to trucks or rail — in their trip from port to market has been prohibitive until now.
As the cost of transport goes up “it makes this kind of operation much more viable,” Badger said.
But it still does not make any sense at all. The container terminals all have rail access. And the plan for the expansion of Deltaport is to add even more rail. So for long distance shipments across North America, most of the containers taken off ships go onto trains at the marine terminal. This can also happen at Surrey Fraser Docks where the container cranes have now been standing idle for some time. In fact at Deltaport I have never seen all the cranes in use at once. This is not, of course, a scientific study but casual observation suggests that at the moment there is a lot of spare capacity. The Burrard inlet terminals are all rail connected too, of course - though a sneaky suspicion lurks in my mind that they could be very desirable redevelopment sites.
Now I have heard it said that CN Intermodal does operate trucks between Deltaport, Vanterm and its Thornton yard. Quite why that would be cheaper than running trains I have no idea. Perhaps it is something to do with the CN/CP agreements on track use.
The big deal that generates truck movement is the volume of traffic that gets resorted here. Imported containers are stripped of their contents, and the goods reloaded onto other containers or trailers for onward transmission by companies like Hudson’s Bay and Canadian Tire. Very few stores need an entire container full of rubber duckies, so the trailers carry a variety of goods from various sources. It is this activity that generates so many truck movements as it is very poorly co-ordinated, with a lot of movement of empty equipment. If that could be combined at one site with packing containers for export there is a real potential for savings. But double handling full containers, to load them onto trains up the valley just adds cost and delay to what can be done now - putting them on to trains at the port.
Many of the approximately 50 attendees were exasperated by the expansion of the car and truck based road system when the region is trying to encourage denser residential growth and promote transit.
More highway capacity without tolls will encourage more sprawl, more driving and more pollution, speakers complained.
Well at least he did report it, even if it was buried at the bottom of the article.
David Fields on the Livable Region blog has these observations
Environment Canada has requested that an alternative scenario on the same scale as the current Gateway scheme be developed that would meet the same goals of moving people and goods but could possibly have a lesser impact on our environment. We here at the LRC have been clamouring for the same. The Minister of Highways has so far refused to do so, claiming that his Gateway is the only option that will work. It is interesting that highway schemes everywhere else have failed. Even after these few years when we have seen the public switch on climate change and the Premier’s response with the Carbon Tax and promised future action, the details of Gateway have not changed in kind. Well, not entirely true- the price has gone up.
A re-think of Gateway is long overdue. There is an incredible amount of expertise and determination in this region that would enable us to realize a vision of moving people and goods while lessening our impact on the natural environment and enhancing our communities. A process of developing a full scale Greenway to replace Gateway could be undertaken swiftly and would be cost effective. The obstacle, of course, is the extreme arrogance of this current government.
Local consultations
Two stories in the Richmond News today show how much attention is paid to community input in Richmond.
On the north side of Lulu Island the stretch of land north of the railway and east of No 6 Road is pretty grim. Most of it is still zoned agricultural but there is a lot of other activity of other kins. And on the 16000 block of River Road most of it is illegal. Mainly vehicle and other commercial storage.
At an open house in October, the majority of respondents filling out feedback forms opposed the rezonings. Traffic safety issues resulting from increased truck traffic topped their list of concerns.
“Many respondents also questioned the performance record of property owners in the 16,000 block of River Road, which were undertaking activities in non-compliance with zoning regulations,” a staff report says.
The city wants to legitimize the businesses, but as a condition of rezoning, it wants some concessions, like road dedication for a future industrial road access.
Now the actual decision would have been made last night after the paper went to bed. But the principles here are worth thinking about. Zoning is supposed to achieve something that the market would not produce left to itself. The zoning of this land maybe should have been changed, but wasn’t. And now the city seems to be on the point of allowing a change in land use which will certainly increase the value of the land for the current owners. But may make the current nuisances that the neighbours complain of worse. And the owners do not appear to be doing much to meet the city’s perfectly reasonable requests to try and reduce traffic impacts of truck movements now and in the future. But staff are recommending that they be given approval anyway.
Why?
Meanwhile over at YVR - another one of those unaccountable, “professional” organizations, are trying to enlarge their fuel storage and have more of it shipped by barge. Which may or may not be a good idea: barges are certainly better in terms of diesel exhaust and ghg emissions than trucks. But then there is the risk of spills. So it is always going to be controversial. So YVR comes up with a way to deflect it. Would you like the tanks green or white?
The expansion was the subject of two open houses Jan. 31 and Feb. 2.
The Fraser River Coalition says the open houses were not well advertised and did not provide a forum for dialogue.
“This whole public input process is flawed,” coalition member Judy Williams told the media. “Why did they limit public input to two three-hour open houses without the benefit of a panel or an open mike so people could listen to other people’s concerns?”
[Member of the Richmond Advisory Committee on the Environment Gordon] Kibble said he was not even aware of the proposal and open houses. Neither were Councillors Harold Steves and Bill McNulty.
McNulty called the open houses “typical YVR consultation method.”
The deadline for public comment is February 15
Fans of the H2G2 will find a ring of familiarity about this.
COPE talks about Transit, Bikes and UPass
COPE Talking on Transportation meeting at Our Town Cafe 12 February 2008
Last night I went to a COPE meeting in Vancouver that was to dicuss transportation. The meeting was held in the Our Town cafe which makes good cappuccino, and has a nice atmosphere but was not ideal for this kind of format. There were three presenters on the panel, and a short Q&A session. There was no amplification, and the cafe remained open. So conversations, milk frothing, and guitar tuning all continued throughout, making hearing what was being said a challenge. The meeting was also recorded on video, and I will be inserting links to that when it becomes available.
Councillor David Cadman
This region has a history of accommodating cars. We could have had light rail because we have plenty of existing track to use. Basically all we needed to do was buy rolling stock and put in some double track here and there. Bill VanderZlam wanted an unmanned system, mainly because of his fight with the transit operators union. Then Glen Clark overrode the professional recommendation for light rail on Broadway and went for SkyTrain for the Millennium Line. It was much less than was needed and therefore underperforms. Essentially bus riders subsidized the rapid transit system, although after 22 years the Expo Line is probably breaking even on operating costs. We are 800 buses behind where we need to be and that is without UPass for all students.
There are only three ways Translink can raise money: property tax, gas tax and fares. Gas tax increases underperform because people can find ways to reduce their gas consumption and also buy gas outside the region. Increasing fares does not pay because it drives down ridership.
In terms of goods movement we have been told to expect a four fold increase in the number of containers in the next five years, by which time emissions from ships will surpass that of cars. The great push from the port for more road space is simply because they work in the daytime only. We could have a very good system if trucks only moved at night.
He also referred to the recent scandal of the new Translink board pay scales.
The regional strategy says that we should plan for more walking, cycling and transit use in that order, cars coming a distant fourth but we don’t have the capital for these three modes. The expansion of the the airport is a massive investment in infrastructure that we had not anticipated.
We need a long term plan for transit and also distance based car insurance. It will be a hard process to get there – and we need the share of the gas tax that currently goes to Ottawa and Victoria. We need to do what Zurich has done. However the new Translink board is not pedestrian or bike oriented. We also need to be aware that to achieve the financial result required for the p3 contract, we will need 100,000 passengers to pay for the Canada Line. Diversion from existing bus services will only produce 43,000 – and no-one knows where the rest will come from.
Dr Fred Bass
“I was removed from the TransLink Board because I would not support the RAV line. I want to talk about cycling.” He then conducted an impromptu survey of the meeting’s bike use which showed that COPE is much more bike intensive than the rest of the region. “I sold my car in 2003and that has saved money, I use my wife’s car and a car co-op, bus and taxi. I have gained hard cash - $3,000 to $4,000 a year and I lost 15lbs – cycling is good exercise.”
While the priorities of the regions transportation plan are pedestrians, bikes, transit and cars in that order, the expense tell a different story. Transit riders pay over 50% of cost of their ride. There are 1.2m cars in the region but they do not pay their share of their costs. In 1996 the GVRD estimated that each car was subsidized by $2,800 a year (Todd Littman estimates it at $3,700 now.)
Bikes bring the community together, there is less air pollution, but the risk of injury is ten times that of a car driver, based on UK statistics. There should be compensation for using a bike. One city in the US uses a lottery to reward someone who has recycled properly. This idea could also apply to cyclists. He the went through a long list of cities that have higher rates for cycling than we do and concluded that we are not world class. “We need more bike routes and to get to a critical mass. I want to see the Burrard Bridge full of bikes.”
Tiffany Kalanj: Student Union of Vancouver Community College
Tiffany is a full time staff member of the Union and is determined to get UPass for VCC. The cost of transit at VCC is significant and there are students there, she said, who have to choose food or fares.
In 1990 the students started negotiations for UPass and in 1994 got FastTrax as the second prize. The decal gets a student a 3 zone ride for a 1 zone fare, but gives no discount to those who only ride within one zone. There is a large discrepancy compared with what UBC students now pay for their pass. In 2002 after UPass was successful in Ontario, Victoria and the University of Washington in Seattle, Translink returned to the negotiating table. Only SFU and UBC were accepted a part of the pilot program. In its first year UPass saw a 39% increase in transit ridership at SFU and 53% at UBC. A Translink report in 2005/6 proposed to expand UPass to nine community colleges but all nine had to agree. At the 2005 municipal election Sam Sullivan said, “I will make sure you get UPass even if Translink does not want to give it you.” Since then he does not return phone calls. The revenue neutral policy has not worked.
Buses are really overloaded. Under the proposed “all or nothing” deal the cost could have been $34 per month, but if it was VCC only it would be double UBC price. (Note that UBC does make a contribution towards the cost reflecting its savings on parking provison.) Some colleges are not interested, which makes the deal hard to complete.
VCC has 11,000 students and a high percentage are single parents. 33% are also working full time. There are a lot of low to moderate income single moms upgrading their qualifications in the hope of better employment.
The basic issue for the students is access to education. The ghg figures produced by the province and Translink don’t add up. A policy change is needed. It should no longer be revenue neutral and we need to get all colleges in the region on board.
Questions
Andrew Eisenberg said he liked the ideas he had heard but asked “how will you fund it?”
Fred Bass said that there are 1.2m cars in the region. They cost their owners $9,000 a year. That works out to around $11bn a year out of drivers pockets plus $5bn in subsidies. If you could redirect 10% of that to transit we could have a good system. He also pointed out that money spent on cars goes out of this region.
Tiffany Kalanj said that there is currently a $300m surplus at Translink, but they raise the fares and they increase their own pay. What about the poor? It is not that difficult: it is just a political decision.
Dale Laird noted that at present CN intermodal ships containers from the port to their Thornton rail yard by truck. He also noted that the only way that the Canada Line has stayed within its budget is by a reduced scope. Two train sets have been cancelled and the provision of storage for spare or damaged trains at the ends of the tracks have been eliminated. Lavalin has therefore also required the removal of its performance guarantee, as these measures make it impossible for them to meet their targets.
David Cadman concluded that transit should be a wedge issue in next election. We need to get the ped/bike/transit coalition as organised as the truckers. Cope is opposed to Gateway. He also noted that Sam Sullivan had promised to roll back the previous fare increase. While on the Translink Board he did nothing to bring this about
We must stop expansion of roads to absorb traffic from the freeway expansion but Bill 43 means TransLink can overide city council and insist on local road widenings to distribute increased traffic from the widened freeway.
Fred Bass said simply “We have been screwed on transportation. It has been a robbery of our democratic rights.”
Waterways for freight
This opinion piece from the BBC takes me back.
In 1970 I started work - and my first employer was the British Waterways Board. The only thing that has changed in the message is that back then we had not heard of greenhouse has emissions or carbon footprints. The idea of transferring freight to water was very popular - with motorists. They all, without exception, hated lorries - especially the new big 32 tonne monsters (actually quite small by modern North American standards) - partly because of their size was intimidating but mostly because they were slow and on many of Britain’s narrow, windy roads, hard to overtake.
The major issue though was that Britain’s canals were, on the whole, also narrow and windy. Developed in the 18th century, and not much upgraded after the opening of the railways, they tended to follow the contour lines and locks were usually only 7 feet wide. They were also very attractive scenically and increasingly popular for recreation. So any proposal to upgrade a canal to a size that would allow economic freight movement always fell foul of the waterway users. And the environmentalists. Because, of course, a new depot would generate lots of lorry movements.
There were two traffics that were won to water - domestic refuse, because it was used to landfill the Thames marshes, and sea dredged aggregates (sand and gravel) because land won sources were mostly exhausted within range of development. In both cases I suspect that current environmental standards would find both practices unacceptable. I do know that on the Fraser, one gravel pit next to the river is not allowed to use barges to move its output due to the objections of its neighbours who live in desirable waterside residences - so the gravel goes by road.
The current press here is for what is being termed “short sea shipping” - basically moving stuff inland from the port by barge, rather than the current practice of having four round trips by truck for every container. The only uncertainty I can see over that is where the containers will be moved to. The former Fraser Port lost something like 75% of its container traffic so there is no lack of capacity at Surrey Fraser Docks - which are at least rail connected. There are peole who think freight can go further up river, and while they may be right I cannot see the “gravel reach” being dredged any time - since that is fish habitat, and that is going to be seen as a priority.
CN Rail faces 5 charges over 2005 spill in B.C. river
This event made me so angry I have a difficult time writing coherently about it. Naturally the official enquiry looked at what happened on the day of the incident - and immediately preceding it. But there is an awful sense that this incident - or something very like it was entirely predictable. While CN, quite properly, will carry the can, the real perpetrator in my mind is Gordon Campbell. He bears the ultimate responsibility. For it was he who said unequivocally, prior to his election, that he would not privatize BC Rail, and then did exactly that.
BC Rail’s operational route from North Vancouver to Lillooet has always been very difficult. It was hard to build and worse to operate. BC Rail had built up a wealth of experience about running trains on a steep and winding track. That experience was lost when CN took over, as they bought out the contracts of staff who understood why it was important that things be done the way they were. CN brought in its own people and started to “rationalise” the locomotive fleet. The operation of the southern end of the line is actually not critical to CN as they have their own route to the north from Vancouver, which is easier and cheaper to run. They were obliged to keep it going for the first five years of the lease but will obviously abandon the route as soon as they can.
So the take over was about cutting costs. Fewer, longer trains. But without the local knowledge that would have told them that this was a risky undertaking and without the specific knowledge about how to keep the distributed power all pulling in the same direction. Yes, CN must bear responsibility for their cavalier attitudes. But so must the BC Government for abandoning its commitments. It is also important to note that when it was sold off it was actually doing quite well. Many of the problems had been understood and rectified. The similarities with British rail are interesting. Arguably, BR just before it was broken up was doing better than it ever had- and that is in commercial accounting terms, not just social cost benefit.
But social CBA is why governments have to be in the railway business. Trying to make railways commercially viable in all their aspects is just a sop to the road lobby - who by no means pay for the full social costs of their infrastructure and get much more subsidy now than the railways did on the heyday. If for no other reason than the fact that a steel wheel on a steel rail is still the most efficient way to transfer energy from its source to motive power, governments must support railways in a world that has already run out of cheap energy.
The privatization of British Railways lead to a series a rail disasters - unprecedented in the system’s history - mainly due to the separation of responsibilities between track and train operations. The privatization of BC Rail was done differently but had a hideously similar result - though the human death toll has been much lower. Both are the results of dogmatic insistence that private businesses are better than public ones. This is not only wrong, it is willfully ignorant. Businesses were taken into public ownership - especially railways - because the private sector failed to meet legitimate public needs. There are values that are not always captured well by the market - if at all. And if we are to achieve important societal objectives - like having safe trains - then some measure of public control and cost support is inevitable. Just staring at the bottom line all the time means you miss out things which are important. Like ecosystems.
And no sooner did I finish this piece, and look at my RSS feeds than I turn up this headline
CN train aflame near Prince George
