IMAGINE a commuter train from Windsor Junction gliding through Halifax’s south-end rail cut on its way to the downtown Via station.

Or a fast ferry from Bedford sliding into a new terminal next to the waterfront casino.

Or an express bus travelling a lane of its own.

How best to get to work: Commuters in all cities ask that question every day. It’s also being asked by municipal leaders trying to figure out how to spend federal infrastructure dollars on transit.

Vancouver plans to build new light rail lines and buy 1,500 buses by 2012, and Ottawa is considering citywide rail. Halifax once had dayliner trains running into town from Sydney and the Annapolis Valley. The city now is looking to more buses and fast ferries to ease congestion.

Halifax could use the help. Its heart is a busy peninsula that takes in traffic from two bridges and a few main arteries every morning and pumps it out again before sundown. Each day commuters take about 20,000 cars and other vehicles to jobs downtown, to universities, hospitals or DND. Getting them out of their cars and onto mass transit will be vital as employment downtown and elsewhere continues to grow.

At first glance, establishing a commuter rail service seems to be a long shot. Metro Transit’s website has a graph plunging convincingly down the page showing Halifax to be the 143rd largest city in North America. The smallest city to have commuter rail — Edmonton — is 80 spots above us on the graph.

A fast ferry to Halifax is an exciting idea — 15 minutes from Bedford to downtown across the world’s second-largest natural harbour. Mayor Peter Kelly, on board for a demonstration ride in 2005, had a less romantic view.

“Look out there,” he said. “We don’t have to pave it; we don’t have to salt it; we don’t have to plow it.”

Yet the fast-ferry proposal for Halifax has been shelved for another year. Why?

Is it price? First proposed at $30 million, it’s been trimmed to $20 million with smaller vessels.

Is it who will pay? Thirteen million dollars may come from Ottawa. Perhaps the newly elected, ostensibly greener provincial government may step up.

Is the project too Bedford-centric? In fact, city planners say high-speed ferry service could eventually be expanded to Purcells Cove, Eastern Passage, and Burnside.

BUSINESS SENSE

What about the business case?

Potential shipbuilding jobs are part of the answer, says Brian Taylor, HRM fast-ferry project co-ordinator. Expressions of interest have been solicited for the construction of two vessels that if built here could see offshore know-how partnered with local shipbuilding skills, giving local industry a market niche in fast-ferry technology.

Corporate Research Associates surveyed HRM commuters in 2009 about what public transit improvements they’d like to see. More than half wanted improved bus service, one in 10 wanted a fast ferry and two in 10 wanted to see a light rail service.

If projected ridership for the fast ferry can be achieved with the fares proposed (perhaps $4), operating expenses will be covered. Buses operate at a deficit.

What about the business case for rail?

In theory commuter rail would carry more people, covering a broader area with more pickup points. Instead of boarding at a single ferry terminal in Mill Cove, rail commuters could choose from as many as five stations — at Beaverbank Road, Cobequid Road, Bedford Industrial Park, Mill Cove and Rockingham. While the ferry serves two employment destinations — downtown and the south end of the Dockyard — the train could stop at Armdale/Mumford Road, serving the northwest peninsula shopping centres, Dalhousie/Saint Mary’s, serving peninsula-south universities, and the train station on Hollis Street, with a link to the downtown core via shuttle bus.

But getting people to ditch the car will take more than a sound business case. Any alternative will have to be convenient.

For rail passengers heading downtown, there would have to be a shuttle service, adding about 10 minutes to the commute. This is on top of the 26 minutes of travel time from Cobequid Road to the Hollis Street Via Rail station, including stops, according to a 1996 commuter rail feasibility study done for the Metropolitan Authority.

One problem: Neither ferry nor train would directly reach the other big employment destination on the peninsula — the hospitals. Would commuters coming into town be willing to transfer and jump on a shuttle bus? That would add more time to their commute, but how long do they sit in cars now at the five big chokepoints — Bedford Highway, Bayers Road, Armdale Rotary, and MacKay and Macdonald bridges?

Even if it takes longer, it may be worth passing over the driving to someone else. Getting to work by either mode — ferry or rail — could even save you money.

One study in 2006 looked at costs for two types of commuters — by car and fast ferry. Driving from Bedford’s Mill Cove to Purdy’s Wharf, including gas and parking, costs $226 per month. Taking the ferry with a $4 fare would cost about $160. With the same fare for the train, you’d save a few more dollars travelling from stations farther out like Cobequid Road, nearly twice the distance to downtown as from Mill Cove.

As other modes of transit expand, what’s in it for the economy?

One selling point is economic development, as stations are built for rail or terminals for bus or ferry. With stations springing up along the line, rail would attract private investment and the creation of commercial and retail space.

INFRASTRUCTURE IN PLACE

Commuter rail proponents have argued for years that it makes sense for Halifax because the infrastructure in an underused rail line is already in place.

Though down to one track along the south-end rail cut and beyond, there is both room and time to share this CN line with a commuter service. Unlike the waterway, to use it would not be free. It’s surprising a bottom-line company like CN, with the potential to make a dollar through track rental, has not thought of this before.

Well, it turns out they have.

The 1996 commuter rail study was commissioned by the Metropolitan Authority in response to a CN/Via proposal to the town and then-mayor Kelly of Bedford to establish a commuter rail service. One reason the proposal did not fly was the fee CN wanted to use their line and the amount Via Rail was charging to operate rail liners was considered too high.

But there’s another, more direct route to downtown Halifax. You’d have to replace a line that used to run along the harbour side of the peninsula.

Today the tracks stop at the CN intermodal yard under the MacKay bridge, but they used to run south along the waterfront below Barrington Street, past the shipyard to the south gate of the Dockyard. Getting off a train here, opposite the sewage treatment plant today, would make for a short walk to Purdy’s Wharf or Scotia Square. Mostly used now for parking, much of this right-of-way still exists, minus the rails.

TRAINS ARE AVAILABLE

What about equipment?

On a siding at Industrial Rail Services in Moncton sit 27 relics of the past: self-propelled Dayliners. IRS has a $1-million contract to refurbish rail cars for Via Rail and has plans to market these remanufactured rail liners to North American cities as light rail commuter vehicles.

They may not be the latest Bombardier design, but IRS vice-president Chris Evers points out that remanufacturing makes economic sense. It means gutting the stainless steel body and replacing the insides with a rebuilt truck, high-efficient diesel or hybrid engines, with new interiors and wheelchair access. This self-propelled train, unlike purely light-rail vehicles, is built to safety standards that allow it to mingle with freight traffic on main lines. Evers says the technology is available in our own region for a fraction of the cost of new equipment.

While two to three trains with three cars each might be needed to move the same number of commuters as two fast ferries, they would be less expensive to buy and run. Interest in using rail liners to haul commuters has come from cities in the U.S.

A long-proposed service from downtown Toronto to Pearson Airport calls for using recycled rail liners.

For a town like Halifax, imprisoned by geography and struggling to form a sustainable transportation strategy and get people out of their cars, these options complement each other. Will population growth be able to support them all?

If the city had an agency in charge of overall transportation strategy, it might go a long way toward solving our traffic headaches.

Don Mills of Corporate Research advocates something he calls an HRM Transportation Authority, which he thinks would prevent piecemeal thinking on the issue, but will only come about through public pressure.

Murray Metherall lives and teaches in HRM and is interested in sustainable transportation issues.