I have one final comment for Ms. Borges in particular. The other hat I wear is as critic for the gateway, and part of the Pacific gateway initiative involves, hopefully, increasing the volume through our ports on the west coast, and that implicitly means increasing both truck and rail traffic.
Currently, we expect to see perhaps a 50% increase in container traffic. We're looking at going from 9% to 14% or 17% of west coast trade, so we can see maybe a 50% increase in our container traffic. Containers move on both trains and trucks.
Part of the gateway initiative that we had started as a Liberal government, and which is being carried on to some degree through the Conservative government's gateway corridor initiative, was to have rail grade separations, particularly in the Fraser Valley. Certainly there should be money available in that program. You mentioned they're expensive. There is a benefit not only of reduced noise but increased safety, and also a reduced number of conflicts.
We saw, for example, during the bus strike in the greater Vancouver area a year or two ago the impact of the congestion on the road on the movement of goods and services. Everybody was taking their car to work, and vehicular trucks that could make maybe five deliveries in a day--40-foot semis going to grocery stores and things like that--were limited to one or two deliveries a day. So there was a cost, an impact on the economy. It had an impact on the movement of goods and services.
I recently reviewed the gateway file again and am on top of it, and it's important to know that there is money in that program. It was targeted, and we should make sure it's being accessed. There could be a benefit with regard to noise and inconvenience as well.