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MIKE DEAL \/ FREE PRESS FILES<\/p>\n
Lloyd Axworthy was tapped to study railway relocation in 2024. He confirmed the premier will make an announcement Wednesday.<\/p>\n
MIKE DEAL \/ FREE PRESS Premier Wab Kinew announces that his government has selected selecting Lloyd Axworthy as study lead to determine the feasibility of relocating Winnipeg\u2019s rail lines, during a press conference at the edge of the Canadian Pacific Railway rail yards, Tuesday morning. Reporter: Chris Kitching 241015 – Tuesday, October 15, 2024.<\/p>\n
The longtime champion for Winnipeg rail relocation, who is vacationing at his cottage on Lake Winnipeg, deferred to the premier\u2019s office for information, but confirmed he will attend Wednesday\u2019s news conference.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Kinew would say only that there will be \u201cexciting news to share.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two-year review by Axworthy\u2019s team looked at rail systems in and around Winnipeg to identify lines or yards that could be moved out of the city or decommissioned incrementally, at what financial cost and level of complexity and what freed-up land could potentially be used for.<\/p>\n
An early proposal is a four-kilometre pedestrian and cyclist corridor that would replace a track that\u2019s no longer used between Brooklands and the Polo Park area. There has been talk of a possible commuter corridor between Winnipeg and Gimli.<\/p>\n
There have, for decades, been calls to relocate rail lines and yards to Winnipeg\u2019s outskirts that haven\u2019t gone anywhere because of the high cost involved and the political will needed to do so, Paul Thomas, University of Manitoba political studies professor emeritus, said Monday.<\/p>\n
Thomas pointed to a paper Axworthy presented on rail relocation in 1976 when he was the director of the Institute for Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
\u201cRail relocation would require buy-in \u2014 including significant capital expenditures \u2014 from a wide range of stakeholders: the three levels of government, the rail companies, Indigenous groups, community organizations in the city and others,\u201d Thomas explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is an old saying, \u2018When everyone gets into the act, often no action is the result.\u2019 Finding and maintaining a consensus on such a major project that involves multi-year planning and execution is inherently difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas said Kinew and Axworthy are bold thinkers with big ideas. The premier is \u201cconfident in his capacity to broker a deal among divergent interests and to build political support for action,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The public has been supportive but skeptical of rail relocation becoming a reality.<\/p>\n
A Probe Research survey in 2015 found that 59 per cent of respondents were in favour of moving rail lines and yards out of Winnipeg, and 54 per cent thought it was very or somewhat unlikely to happen.<\/p>\n
In 2016, the former NDP government hired former Quebec premier Jean Charest to lead a relocation task force that was scrapped after the Progressive Conservatives won that year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
After Kinew\u2019s NDP formed government, it revived the relocation task force in 2024 with Axworthy at the helm.<\/p>\n
In November 2024, a Probe Research poll found that 63 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat supported rail relocation, 27 per cent were opposed and 11 per cent were unsure.<\/p>\n
The majority of respondents in 2024 \u2014 73 per cent \u2014 said relocation is very or somewhat unlikely to happen.<\/p>\n
University of Manitoba supply chain management professor Barry Prentice, who is part of the rail study group, said Monday that he couldn\u2019t comment. When asked if Wednesday\u2019s announcement will be the release of another government-commissioned report that goes nowhere, the U of M Transport Institute director would say only that it will be news worth covering.<\/p>\n
The rail study\u2019s key objectives included improving safety around existing rail lines and yards, and enhancing emergency preparedness. Freight trains with hazardous goods and passenger trains regularly travel through the city.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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Axworthy\u2019s team has reviewed rail disasters, including the runaway train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-M\u00e9gantic, Que., in 2013.<\/p>\n
Axworthy has met with officials from CN Rail and other railways, and said earlier that officials have paid a lot of attention to safety during discussions.<\/p>\n
In December, a train derailment involving tank cars near homes and businesses provided a clear example of why a review of Winnipeg\u2019s urban rail system is needed, Axworthy told the Free Press at the time.<\/p>\n
The derailment happened on a CN Rail main line section that is sandwiched between newer condos and the Jubilee rapid transit station to the east, and businesses near Pembina Highway and Taylor Avenue to the west. Ten rail cars derailed \u2014 eight on their side, two upright \u2014 with no dangerous goods involved. Nothing leaked, no one was injured and there was no threat to public safety, CN Rail reported.<\/p>\n
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca<\/p>\n
Notes on urban planning and railroads by Lloyd Axworthy<\/a><\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Carol Sanders Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2014 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Legislature reporter
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