Transport committee  I know there's some skepticism about the numbers. I made it clear that they're cited from the Washington State Department of Transport on the Lower Mainland's benefits from this service. I'm happy to try to identify the specific study and go back and look at it. I don't think any

Transport committee  The whole opportunity really only became a live one when Barack Obama put forward his stimulus package. We were suddenly contacted by the American side at the municipal and state levels. We do want to go forward and have that discussion on our side. I think our obligation at th

Transport committee  Mr. Dhaliwal, the provincial government has put some money in—I think that was reported earlier—toward sidings and some improvements, but there isn't a plan that I've been able to identify for a real upgrade. The main problem we face is that century-old railway bridge, which is a

Transport committee  The Washington State officials who looked at possibilities would like to end up close to rapid transit. The southernmost point of rapid transit is the extension of the SkyTrain lane out to Surrey. Some of those stations cross old railway alignments and rights of way. In a very pr

Transport committee  I'll be very brief. It was very striking in Washington State to see that both in the United States and in Canada we really have had a 40-year gap in commitment to passenger rail, so the idea that we would now leap over all those stages and go straight to high-speed rail has str

Transport committee  Maybe Mr. Gilbert knows better, but I was told the answer was yes.

Transport committee  No, that's the estimated size of Washington State's application to its own federal government under the Barack Obama stimulus plan. They are making their submission in the United States, but they would like to forecast the extension of the service to Canada.

Transport committee  No. Today, as I indicated to your colleague, our request is that they revisit the business opportunity for a second train set from Seattle to Vancouver each day, because by doing that we would show our commitment to the development of this corridor down the road. Our request is

Transport committee  That's correct.

Transport committee  No, I'm referring to testimony that I think you received earlier from Burlington Northern Santa Fe. At least, that's what was in a paper that, I believe, I received from your committee. It indicates that, over those speeds, it's impossible to mingle freight and passenger traffic

Transport committee  No, we are focusing mostly on our urban requirements, because we're part of a regional transportation body that is doing some of the analysis you would like to see. Our assumption has been that the trains will continue to come right downtown to False Creek and Science World, but

Transport committee  We do want to pull together a group of stakeholders here to seek that work and make sure it's done. We just came through a provincial election, and we don't really know right now who our transportation minister is in B.C. The Province of B.C. did make some investments along this

Transport committee  No, I think that in the 1990s, when it was an extremely preliminary and high-level concept, they decided that there would need to be a new corridor identified, perhaps on the trip somewhere saying that maybe we actually would use the alignment already created for the highway that

Transport committee  It's been a while since I looked at the numbers, but it's hundreds of millions of dollars, in the order of $300 million, I think.

Transport committee  Well, as a city, we've certainly had titanic struggles with CPR to retain the right to keep former interurban tracks available for transportation corridors. That battle was very expensive and, I believe, was fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Under provincial law