Northwest Transportation issues on City Council's agenda

They touched on the changing dynamic to transportation in the Northwest at their last Council Meeting and Tuesday night it seems that rail, road and ferry issues may come up on for discussion once again.

The City Council agenda for Tuesday night features an Information Package from October 24th, which outlines a request for support to urge VIA Rail not to eliminate some of its routes across the nation.

We first looked at the VIA Rail concerns back in January when the topic of potential rural cutbacks was first reported.

The prospect of VIA cutbacks is just one indication of a growing concern over transportation, with Greyhound Bus Lines looking to reduce its service across the Northwest and BC Ferries about to launch a extensive review and consultation process on what routes it may wish to reduce or eliminate.

City Councillors can learn more about the  Greyhound bid from their October 24th Information package, while the October 31st Information package  features background on the BC Ferries issue.

The Greyhound decision appears to be a few months off, Opinion 250 a Prince George news portal outlines that the earliest date for a decision on the Highway 16 route request will be December 10th, though that decision process may carry over until January.

Regardless of the timeline for any of the flash points on transportation, it seems that with all of these concerns on the table, getting here from anywhere may become a lot harder in 2013.

You can review all of our items about transportation issues from across the Northwest from our Transportation Archive

A shot across the tracks for VIA's Skeena?

While VIA Rail has plans to improve service on its Windsor to Quebec City corridor, those service improvements may mean that the rest of the country sees service reductions or even out right elimination of VIA Rail runs.

That according to a Bloomberg report posted to their website yesterday.

The report suggests that part of VIA Rail may be sold off as the government looks to cut down the cost of running the money losing passenger rail company. Among the considerations for future service is a significant reduction in service and/or the privatization of the network.

Among some of the items from the briefing note that Bloomberg accessed, one particular discussion point will be of interest to those that have travelled on the Skeena run between Jasper and Prince Rupert.

“Potential service level reductions could include: reduced frequencies on the western and eastern transcontinental service; reduced frequencies to certain remote areas; and, removing regional services in rural areas that are well served by other public modes and highways,” staff say in the note.

VIA has not expanded much on the plan as reported by Bloomberg, but one doesn't have to grab a map of Canada to figure out that the Skeena Run could be one of the lines to suffer some kind of cutback, service reduction or out right elimination.

Vancouver Sun-- Feds mull VIA sell off
CBC-- VIA Rail said to be partially up for sale
Maclean's-- Ottawa may privatize part of VIA Rail
CTV-- Officials suggest slashing VIA Rail service, partial sale