Moving People

Passenger Rail in Canada carries more than 70 million commuter and inter-city passengers annually and helps eliminate traffic that would otherwise be added to congested roads. As the price of fuel continues to rise, passenger Rail in Canada carries even more riders who are taking advantage of the economic benefits Rail offers while lessening their environmental footprint.

Commuter rail already carries about 66 million passengers annually in Canada and those numbers have continued to rise. Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver have all seen ridership increases on their commuter rail networks and expansion projects are ongoing in order to meet future demand.

The number of rail trips by commuters in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec was more than 65 million in 2009, an increase of 43per cent since 1999. The use of commuter rail is a major factor in reducing highway congestion, delays, accidents and pollution, and in preserving valuable land in urban areas. According to a March 2006 study on congestion 90per cent of congestion costs are associated with time lost for drivers and passengers due to traffic-confirming the benefit of public transit.

GO Transit, the largest commuter rail system in Canada, runs185 train trips and carries about 180,000 riders per day on seven lines   covering a 10,000-square-kilometre area (approximately 4,000 square miles) extending from downtown Toronto to the surrounding Regions of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham, the neighbouring City of Hamilton, and into Simcoe, Dufferin, and Wellington Counties. GO is planning several expansion projects, including electrification of its Georgetown and Lakeshore lines, along with new service to Bolton, Seaton and Locust Hill.

The Agence Métropolitaine de Transport (AMT) conveys about 62,000 daily riders on five lines that converge in Montreal. The AMT operates both electrified and diesel-electric trains. Planned AMT expansions include new lines to eastern Montreal and the North Eastern suburbs. AMT is also studying the restoration of light rail.

The West Coast Express carries about 10,500 daily riders on a single 69-kilometer line that reaches eastward from downtown Vancouver Mission, B.C. And the O-Train is a light rail transit service that carries about 13,600 daily riders over a single eight-kilometer line running south from downtown Ottawa.

Intercity rail also provides a significant and viable alternative to other modes of travel and tourist rail consistently appeals to both domestic and international vacationers. Canadian passenger rail has taken clear steps to increase ridership and service levels in order to play an important role in the future transportation of people in this country.

VIA Rail Canada, a Crown Corporation established in 1978, is the national passenger rail company and provides intercity passenger rail services across Canada. VIA operates more than 500 trains weekly, and serves over 450 communities across 12,500 kilometres of rail network. In 2009, all intercity passenger service providers carried 4.5 million passengers, and passenger-km totalled about 1.4 billion. There were 15per cent more intercity rail passengers in 2009 compared to 1999.

The federal government has begun to address the need for increased investment in public transit. The 2006 Federal Budget allocated $1.3 billion in support of public transit capital investments, including making $400 million available to provinces and territories and a further $900 million, over three years, into the Public Transit Capital Trust. Federal Budget 2008 set aside up to $500 million in 2007-08 (of which $300 was committed in the 2006 Federal Budget through the Public Transit Capital Trust) for public transit infrastructure. Further, in the 2008 Budget, the government announced that the Gas Tax Fund, which provides municipalities with funding for priories such as public transit, will become a permanent measure. The annual federal gas tax allocation to the Gas Tax Fund will rise to $2 billion annually by 2009-10 from the current level of $1 billion in 2008-2009.

In October 2007, the federal government announced a new five year $691.9 million funding package for VIA Rail. Of the total funding package, $516 millions will be allocated for infrastructure improvements and equipment refurbishments and $175.9 will be directed to VIA's operating cost. This much needed investment is welcomed; however, government support accorded to intercity passenger rail in other G-8 countries dwarfs what is currently spent on the operating and capital budgets of VIA Rail.  Further, as announced in the 2009 Federal Budget Plan, the federal government increased funding to VIA Rail Canada by $407 million to support improvements to passenger rail services, including higher train frequencies and enhanced on-time performance and speed, particularly in the Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor.

Canada offers tourists a variety of interesting sights and experiences, including a significant number of rail tourism products throughout the country.

Tourists spent $11.5 billion overall during their stay in Canada in 2009-spending, on average, $738 per trip. Tourism Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $29 billion in 2009, representing 2.0 per cent of Canada's GDP-with transportation accounting for close to one quarter (22 per cent) of tourism GDP. International visitor's made15.6 million trips to Canada in 2009, a decrease of 22 per cent compared with Canada's peak in international arrivals in 2002. Canada's largest inbound market is from US leisure travel, accounting for 64 per cent of all overnight visitors or 9.9 million visitors in 2009 (a 6.1 per cent decline from 2008).

Tourism expenditures on transportation totalled $24 billion in 2009, 85 per cent of this was domestic demand while the remained was foreign demand. Expenditures on passenger rail transportation were close to $250 million, and increase of 9 per cent or $21 million compared to 1998. In 2009, close to two-thirds (62 per cent) of tourism expenditures on passenger rail were domestic ($155 million) representing an increase of 36 per cent since 1998 yet, foreign demand for rail tourism decreased 18 percent since 1998.

Rail is a safe and efficient mode of transportation for tourists in Canada. In 2009, more than 123,000 U.S. residents choose to travel to Canada by train, an 18 per cent increase compared to 1998-three-quarters of visitors were travelling to Canada for a stay of one or more nights.

In 2009, employment in Canada's tourism sector reached 649,900 jobs, a decrease of   2 per cent compared to the previous year. Within the tourism sector transportation industries employed 84,475 people with rail accounting for 3 per cent of these jobs in 2009.