Transport committee  In a nutshell, I don't believe you need to go further, for two or three reasons. The first is that we've already developed some experience on how to make this work, and it's starting to work well. The bill already enjoins the CTA to put together its procedures to start at the local level and work up, and there's already some good practice out there that will help.

Transport committee  I think if you give the guidance to the agency that the test is “reasonableness”, that test will translate itself into technical numbers over time. I'm not at liberty today, unfortunately, because the technical guidelines haven't been approved yet by the committee under the MOU, but when we get a chance to circulate it you will find that as a matter of pragmatism many of these things have been converted into measurable technical standards; for example, set-back distances in various kinds of operational environments, time and decibel numbers in terms of the density of population where things are being operated, and those sorts of things.

Transport committee  Yes, they are, but if you look at North America, it's very rare that you find those sorts of systems. Even in Europe, while they're looking at those sorts of standards, they are still very much recognizing the need to be flexible, depending on what part of Europe you're talking about and the nature of the rail operation and the nature of the urban interface they're dealing with.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. On behalf of the Railway Association of Canada, let me first say thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Our association represents about 60 railways across the country, which is essentially the whole scope of railways in Canada: the class ones, the short lines, the regionals, the inter-city, VIA, the commuters--some of whom I think you saw earlier this week--and some tourism railways.