Fear over traffic if rail stoppage hits B.C.'s West Coast Express
Service at CN and CPKC could stop at 12:01 a.m. ET Thursday if an agreement cannot be reached
UPDATE — Aug. 22, 2024: Thousands of B.C. commuters affected by rail stoppage.
A city councillor in Maple Ridge, B.C., worries about the potential shutdown of the Lower Mainland's major commuter train in the event of a national rail stoppage.
Coun. Ahmed Yousef says two-thirds of Maple Ridge's population has to leave the municipality every day to go to work elsewhere and many use the West Coast Express that would halt if a stoppage hits Canada's two biggest railways this week.
Metro Vancouver transport provider TransLink says the West Coast Express operates on rail owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd. (CPKC) and can't run without that company's dispatchers and rail workers.
Yousef said if the stoppage happens, thousands more vehicles would be forced onto the roads.
"You're going to be looking at congestion. You're going to be looking at a significantly increased carbon footprint. You're going to be looking at a significantly increased demand on fuels as well," he said.
Negotiations between CPKC, Canadian National Railway Co. and the Canada Teamsters Rail Conference have struggled, and unless last-ditch agreements are reached, service at both companies is slated to stop at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Thursday.
The West Coast Express operates weekdays between downtown Vancouver and Mission, making stops in communities including Pitt Meadows and Port Coquitlam.
Yousef said it's "exceptionally frustrating" for his community to potentially lose access to the commuter train.
"We've had the vision of reducing our carbon footprint, we've had the vision of reducing congestion. Our road network is not where it needs to be as of yet to be able to handle this volume of stress on it," he said.
"There's a reason why the province has been encouraging and incentivizing people to use transit ... this is exactly it. This is where it's going to come to a head, where we're going to see the possible worst-case scenario."
Mission's acting mayor Ken Herar said in a statement that the West Coast Express is an important transportation link for residents.
"It is relied on for many Mission residents to get to their daily places of work. Any shutdown of service will have enormous impacts on Mission commuters," Herar said.
A statement from TransLink says if the West Coast Express is unable to operate, more buses will be added to help move commuters.
Greater Vancouver Board of Trade CEO Bridgitte Anderson said in a statement that a work stoppage would be devastating for businesses across the province and shutting down the West Coast Express would significantly worsen congestion.
"The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade calls on the federal government to intervene and do everything within its power to avoid a strike, including the use of binding arbitration and any other method needed to get a sustainable and fair deal," she said.
Failure to strike a deal could mean the first-ever simultaneous work stoppage at the country's biggest rail companies, whose trains haul a combined $1 billion worth of goods per day.
Beyond the West Coast Express, most operations at the Port of Vancouver would also have to shut down if there is a rail stoppage, said Fraser Johnson, a supply chain management researcher at Western University's Ivey Business School.
He added that the trucking industry currently doesn't have the capacity to substitute for rail services.
"It's a tough balancing act," Johnson said in an interview with CBC's BC Today.
"The two railways, CN and CP, really do have a monopoly in terms of [their] market share in Canada, so how do you protect the rights of the workers in terms of allowing them to bargain freely for a contract versus managing what is essentially essential service for the Canadian public."
Yousef said both sides need to work together to come up with a solution.
"Let's make sure that this does not happen because it will have a very, very grave effect on the entire region and possibly on the entire province," he said.
With files from BC Today