For more than 150 years rail has defined the Canadian — and Albertan landscape.Now the UCP government is looking to the next century to advance plans for a massive scale up of commuter rail.At a media event at — appropriately at the Heritage Park train roundhouse — Premier Danielle Smith announced a master rail plan that will look forward decades and identify concrete actions that can be taken now as well, as in the future, to assess the feasibility of passenger rail in the province, including regional (inter-city), commuter and high-speed services..The obvious priorities are linking the airports in each major city, the cities themselves, as well as the mountain parks. Further links to each of Grande Prairies and Fort McMurray are also on the books.A consultant’s report, including a cost benefit analysis, is expected to be completed within a year.It’s no secret Smith is a fan of trains and rail in general. She and her husband owned the rail dining car restaurant in High River for several years. Last week she took a ride on a CPR steam train that’s headed to Mexico City to mark the $40 billion merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern to create a fully integrated North American rail network.“A large and efficient passenger rail network stretching across the province has incredible potential. It represents a forward-looking vision and is a mobility solution for our rapidly growing province and I’m excited to watch this plan take shape and bring us into the future,” she said.Although the idea has been bandied about for decades, Smith said population growth is suggesting the right time to explore the idea is now. .In addition, several private proposals for a rail link to Banff and a ‘hyperloop’ between Edmonton and Calgary suggest that it’s appropriate to come up with a longer term plan.Although the consultant’s report will explore the idea of private and public partnerships, Smith said her inclination is a government Crown corporation like what they presently have in Ontario.“They established that I think it was 1968 when the Toronto area was 1.6 million people. So we're kind of in that zone in both the Edmonton area in the Calgary area, which is why we want to look at the pieces that make the most sense right off the hop,” she said. .“I think there's an expectation for tourists that when they arrive at the airport they should be able to efficiently get downtown with rail. I suspect that the commuter rail is the one that is more feasible immediately followed by or in addition to the airport lines, and then we'll have to get some advice on when it's feasible to build it out between Calgary and Edmonton.”.Successive studies going back decades have suggested there isn’t a market for a high speed rail line between Edmonton and Calgary. But Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshan said people were saying similar things about ring roads around Edmonton and Calgary starting in the 1950sSmith said a high speed link, with a stop in Red Deer — Alberta’s next million-plus city — would have secondary benefits like easing the housing crisis in Calgary, or easing traffic congestion to suburbs like Airdrie.Given the difficulties and cost cities like Calgary have had expanding their own LRT systems, Smith said it makes more sense for the Alberta government to coordinate efforts.And she also sees an opportunity to develop hydrogen powered locomotives, given her government’s efforts at expanding local infrastructure..“It’s something that only we can do because there's just so many different players that have to be involved,” she said.”This is part of the reason why we're doing a feasibility plan. We know that some infrastructure is very expensive. Just look at (Calgary’s) Green Line. Which is I think, has gone to $10 billion, and it's only half of how it was sold. So we understand that that these kinds of projects are very capital intensive and that it requires coordination. But the other side of it is how many billions of dollars would we spend if we had to create six and eight and 10 lane highways along these routes that we're proposing.”
