CALGARY — The Canadian Press reports that Canada can lower its greenhouse gas emissions to help meet Kyoto accord targets by expanding the role of freight and passenger rail networks, the head of the country’s second-biggest railroad said Tuesday.
“Given the opportunity, rail can do more to make our air cleaner, relieve traffic congestion in our cities, make trucking more efficient by transporting truck trailers between terminals in major hubs and preserve land that otherwise would be lost to highway expansion,” said Rob Ritchie, president of Canadian Pacific Railway.
“The environmental benefits of rail are too significant to ignore.”
In a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Ritchie said governments must work with the rail industry in public-private partnerships to invest in infrastructure projects – such as terminals, commuter and inter-city networks – that will help expand the industry’s capacity.
“I believe also that we are approaching crises in certain pinch-points of our national transportation system, particularly around cities, so it’s coming out in the form of commuter train requirements, inner-city passenger train requirements,” Ritchie said after his speech.
CP Rail has proposed a $600-million Detroit River Tunnel Project that would build a new rail tunnel under the Detroit River and convert the railway’s existing tunnel into a two-way roadway for international truck traffic.
The plan involves getting $300 million in federal and Ontario government funds – money that has been committed to help mitigate congestion problems at Canada’s busiest border crossing.
Ritchie also said his railroad has offered to lessen traffic between Montreal and Toronto, where three million trucks travel per year on the highway.
“We could expand the railway to handle one million trucks, and do it within five years.”
Ritchie said the plan has been well received in Quebec City, but the Ontario government is “not interested at all.”
Ritchie said the transportation sector is the single largest contributor to Canadian greenhouse gas production, accounting for 27 per cent of total emissions. Cars and trucks account for 70 per cent of that total.
Under the Kyoto accord, Canada must lower its greenhouse gas emissions over the next several years.
“We would be able to decongest the major arteries of truck traffic by building more inter-modal terminals and moving more freight to rail,” he said. “We would be able to help governments reach their greenhouse gas emission targets. We would be able to reduce congestion at border crossings and increase the speed of trade flows.
“Improving rail services in Canada should be a national priority.”
CP Rail’s is Canada’s second biggest railway after Canadian National and operates a 22,400-kilometre network across Canada and into the U.S. northeast and midwest states.