Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the committee members for the invitation to make a presentation on high-speed rail inside the Cascadia corridor.
I am chairman of the Cascadia Institute, which is a not-for-profit policy think tank—and “do tank”. We've been engaged in passenger rail issues in the northwestern United States and in British Columbia since about 1992. We were working closely with federal and state officials to bring the first passenger train into Vancouver in 1994. We've been around these issues for a long time.
We have about ten minutes, and I really have three objectives. First, I'm going to ask you to consider, as a committee and as parliamentarians in the public debate on high-speed rail, including in the paradigm the notion of high-speed rail inside the Cascadia corridor.
Unfortunately, the national debate and discussion about high-speed rail has been mesmerized by the Windsor-Quebec City corridor for almost 40 years. The recent entrant has been the Calgary-Edmonton corridor. Our corridor is a high-speed rail corridor, and it is designated in the President Obama vision as one of the 11 priority corridors for federal stimulus funding and for the broader North American vision of high-speed rail.
From the point of view of connectedness and what it means for Canada and means from the standpoint of a North American vision, and of how we link both the high-speed rail initiatives in eastern Canada and the nodes inside the United States, whether New York, Detroit, or Chicago, we are in fact the other major node that connects with the United States and the United States interest. I think it's terribly important in the context of the driving vision of North America that you in your public discourse put on your agenda the high-speed rail corridor in the Cascadia corridor.
Second, I'd like to give you a bit of a snapshot of what inner city high-speed passenger rail is to date inside the Cascadia corridor.
Third, I'd like to lead with a working agenda of the key initiatives that matter to bring on high-speed rail and to deal with the incremental investments necessary to improve rail service inside the west coast.
In a nutshell, Canada—British Columbia, and particularly Vancouver—has had passenger rail delivered to it as a gift of the taxpayers of Washington State. Washington State, after putting the initial train on in 1994, and through that period to 1999, made the decision to go to Talgo trains and re-brand the train service as the Amtrak Cascades.
In that period of time, the State of Washington invested about $1 billion in buying the trains, upgrading track, subsidizing the operating, and doing the marketing for the train. We as Canadians and as British Columbians have been the net beneficiary of this generosity, this gift of passenger rail essentially paid for by the taxpayers of Washington State.
Why did they do this? There's been a very strong consensus that has gone through three governors since that time: Governors Booth, Locke, and now Gregoire. This major consensus, a bipartisan consensus, in Washington State is that the essential and necessary role of passenger rail is along the I-5 corridor and along the Burlington Northern line. In Washington State, 90% of the population live within 15 miles of the I-5 corridor. That's 3.8 million people who live along that corridor. There is no luxury of getting 12 lanes, as with the 401; they're stuck in that corridor as it drives through the centre of those cities along the coast.
The congestion in Washington State is truly awesome. The estimated congestion times or costs are about 300,000 hours a day, which runs into the many billions and billions of dollars of cost.
They continued with this investment and fortunately Washington State has made a decision to put a second train into Vancouver, which gives us now four departures, which means you now have same-day service to go to Seattle and return out of the Vancouver station, and they have also made a decision to move from two to four trains into Portland.
What's significant is that they were one of a handful of states that were ready when the stimulus package came along to be able to apply because they had just completed their mid-term study of an $800 million of additional investment in higher-speed passenger rail, inter-city rail along the corridor. So they had the experience of managing $1 billion worth of projects and now were ready with another $800 million. So they were ready for the stimulus package when it came along.
They met all the criteria of eligibility and they put in a request for $1.3 billion. And I would say there's an enormously high probability that in track one of those investments, the $435 million, they have a very high likelihood of success, not only because they have done their homework and they're ready, but there's the political reality. And as politicians, I'd ask you to consider the political reality in North American politics that is the enormous, important role of Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the energy and transportation subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. She is the fifth-ranked Democrat in the appropriations committee, so she carries a lot of weight. I think when it gets to the point of view of deciding, whatever the recommendations from the Federal Railroad Administration, the appropriations committee is really where the money gets decided on their recommendations. So I think she's going to be playing a very powerful role.
Inside of the track two application.... Let me just stand back to one other piece. When they moved to the Talgo train it was because to be eligible they had to meet the U.S. high-speed criteria, which is 110 miles per hour. That's why they chose the Talgo train, because they have that ability to reach 110 miles per hour. What's also clear--and what Washington State has been working on--is the need for a high-speed rail corridor. And similar to the situation in California, it's not possible to put in high-speed rail along the existing Burlington Northern line, as it winds its way along the coast of Washington State, but there is an opportunity to look at developing a corridor about 60 miles east of the I-5 corridor along the Cascade Mountains. Their intention is to initiate this planning process. Inside of their application in track two, they put $10 million into that planning process.
This is a very important step, because it changes the opportunity for thinking through high-speed rail into Canada, because you would be then crossing the Canada-U.S. border in Sumas and you could then connect up to Abbotsford and then go from Abbotsford along the CP lines into the centre of Vancouver. That would be the chosen route. We haven't really done much in the way of studies on this kind of an approach. I think it's critical that Canada and British Columbia together, and other interested parties, join that table and jointly plan this high-speed rail corridor, which means we're going to have to put some resources into a binational environment to be able to do that.
So I'd ask you to consider that. When you see my presentation--it will be translated and circulated--you will see a slide that is the request for the $10 million. We need to match this approach--not $10 million, as our portion of it would probably be $1 million or $2 million, which would get us to the table to figure out the work we have to do. But I think it's critical from a Canadian interest inside of the North American side of things to move on this and to be a part of this from the very beginning. Our American friends need us at the table with respect to demonstrating that this corridor connects into Vancouver, because they're not going to get a high-speed rail in the United States unless Canada is truly a partner to the interests of Washington State and into Oregon to make this corridor work. So I'd ask you to consider that.
As a part of this gift process, which is really what this has been, it is time now for Canada to step up and deal with the issues associated with speeding up the trains within Canada. For an example, the $1.3 billion makes a difference of 10 minutes, mostly getting into Seattle and Portland. The train that goes from Seattle to Vancouver, which has pre-clearance problems at the border that take a lot of uncertain time off its schedule, will need many track improvements for higher-speed rail, and both regulatory and track investments are necessary to speed up the existing train service. In addition to that, Canada owns the New Westminster swing bridge, which is 102 years old and is going to have to be replaced. That is going to be a question of significant debate and an important and necessary investment, at least over the next 10 to 15 years, to speed up the trains.
A train moves through large parts of Vancouver at about 17 miles an hour. We need to get that train going through Vancouver at a minimum of 40 miles an hour to start making a difference on the service side of things.
What is different about this particular environment of the Cascades is the investment ratio. They have spent a billion dollars and they're going to spend another billion dollars. Up to now we've spent about $3 million. That's what the Province of British Columbia spent on a rail siding at Colebrook.
The value proposition is that we will have to pay less than 10% of the cost for this high-speed rail corridor. A better north-south rail connector is in our economic interest, both for freight and passenger traffic; our costs are going to be less than 10%, and 90% of those costs are going to be borne by the United States.
This is a unique opportunity for Canada, and particularly for British Columbia. We have a $10 billion trade with the State of Washington, and it is the second-largest trading partner for British Columbia anywhere. This has a strong and important regional interest, and high-speed rail gives us multipliers into the vibrant business economiues of Seattle and Portland. There are very many benefits.
Let me quickly go to the agenda, because I know we are running out of time.
One of the most important pieces in the agenda right now is the marketing of the second train. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, with the Government of Canada there was a problem of wanting to put a user-pay policy on customs and immigration services, which really delayed this train for a year.
The solution is that they are going to do a pilot test or a demonstration and gather data on whether it is justified for the Government of Canada to cover the cost of customs and immigration.
The difficulty is that this decision isn't expected to come until some time either just before or just after the Olympics. I would ask members to communicate to the government and among yourselves that the problem with this is that it is stopping large companies from making marketing investments into promoting passengers there, because most corporations' marketing decisions are made in November and December for the next year. The corporations aren't prepared to make the marketing investment because there isn't certainty that there is going to be a second train.
I think we all know that there's a bit of fiction here. After the State of Washington has bought the train and we've got a train service to the Olympics, there is no way the Government of Canada can step in and somehow start putting a customs and immigration tariff on the trains. There would be hell to pay for it. It is almost a political impossibility.
Somewhere we need to have some rational discussion about the political realities and the economic realities of our region. We need to push ahead and provide confidence to the private sector to make the investments now, so that we can get the economic benefits in tourism and jobs in Canada that'll be necessary this summer. I would ask you to consider that.
One of the important and interesting things is that the governor and the premier have established a memorandum of action that includes high-speed rail.
What we need to do is have Canada at this table with respect to planning the incremental investments and to deal with the bridge and other issues associated with encouraging high-speed rail and higher-speed rail and the investments necessary, from Canada and from British Columbia, to make this a reality.
You'll see when you get the report. I won't go through the to-do list, but there are a lot of to-dos. There's an enormous amount of support among British Columbians. The mayors and the various parties have been working together. This is not a partisan issue in any way, shape, or form. It has to do with building a better relationship in North America. In reality, I think we can do some things to help the central Canadian corridor, because we've been so effective in innovating demonstrations to deal with these pre-clearance issues at the border.
We brought the CANPASS in before NEXUS. The pre-clearance experiences at the Vancouver International Airport brought in pre-clearance and helped to bring this together. We need to do the same thing in rail.
I think the advantage here, and why we can do this effectively, is that the scale is better dealing with Seattle as opposed to New York or Chicago. The other side of it is that this is something the Americans want. The Americans want to have the pre-clearance, and the Americans want to make a success of passenger rail. That gives us an opportunity. This is not so much softening the border as it is coming up with innovative solutions--for sealing trains, for pre-clearance--to make this work so that the train goes across that border as seamlessly as possible, recognizing, at the same time, legitimate security concerns.
I'll leave it at that. I probably went over my ten minutes. I'll leave that as kind of the framework.
I'd like to conclude with how important it is, I think, that this debate is broadened from central Canada and Alberta to include British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Because there's a lot going on, and I think it helps your case. We can't talk about billions of dollars going into Eastern Canada without having some reference point that has some reality back on the other side of the mountains.
Thank you very much.