Save the train to Seattle
By HARVEY ENCHIN 30 SEP 2010 COMMENTS(0) EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS
Filed under: global warming, United States, British Columbia, Metro Vancouver, rules of the road, transit
Let's see if we've got this right. Amtrak has been running a second daily train linking Vancouver with Seattle and Portland since August 2009, to complement its Cascades service that has served the transportation corridor for nearly two decades. It has been an unqualified success, carrying more than 245,000 passengers, of whom 26,837 crossed the U.S./Canada border into Vancouver.
The economic benefit to British Columbia in its first year of operation is estimated at $11.8 million, a higher value per visitor than the first train because the schedule of the second encourages an overnight stay, along with more dining and shopping. Amtrak wants to keep the extra train running, deepening the rail links of the Pacific Northwest to develop a more integrated region of Cascadia -- a step toward the realization of a long-standing dream on both sides of the border.
Now the federal government wants to bill the Washington State Department of Transport $1,500 a day to cover the cost of staffing the Canada Border Services Agency for the 10:50 p.m. arrival of the second train, a fee it had waived when the service was first introduced. That works out to more than $20 a passenger, which neither Amtrak nor Washington State believe they should have to pay. After all, U.S. authorities do not charge the return trip for border inspections and no such levy was charged when the first train began rolling into Vancouver in the 1990s. Unless the dispute is resolved, the second train will leave the station for the last time on Oct. 31.
If our reading of the situation is correct, it is ludicrous. Is Ottawa so short-sighted that it cannot see the idiocy of putting this service in jeopardy in order to collect $550,000 a year? A recent study by the Border Policy Research Institute of Western Washington University in Bellingham determined that Canada's federal, provincial and municipal governments collect an extra $1.9 million in sales taxes and hotel room taxes from the additional tourists the second train delivers.
So waiving the fee would bring in more than three times that amount in revenue while stimulating the aforementioned economic spinoff benefits.
At a time when governments are trying to coax people out of their cars and on to mass transit, it makes no sense to eliminate one of the more ecofriendly means of travel. A passenger travelling by train emits a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions of a single car driver.
What's more, the fare from Vancouver to Seattle is equally consumer-friendly. A family of four -- two adults and two children between the ages of 2 and 15 -- can do a round trip in coach class for a total of $210 US.
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http://communities.canada.com/VANCOU...o-seattle.aspx