Plan for electric passenger train from Osoyoos to Kamloops still alive
The dream of a Thompson-Okanagan passenger train is still alive for a UBC Okanagan professor.
A $3 million planning study is the next step for engineering professor Gordon Lovegrove and a university research team.
The initiative just got a letter of support from Kamloops city council as the team looks to set out just how a tram-train from Osoyoos to Kamloops would be implemented.
Lovegrove, who is also now a Kelowna city councillor, has proposed the idea in the past, already spurring discussions with city officials in the Okanagan at least six years ago. The concept would allow commuters and tourists to travel anywhere through the Okanagan and through to Kamloops by train, but it's evolved over time.
In 2018, it was estimated to cost $1.5 billion and would have seen rail line built parallel from highways. The current concept would still but rail lines in medians or beside highways but set into shared lanes within cities.
It's now estimated to cost $2.9 billion, according to a report to Kamloops city council.
The 342 kilometre route starts travelling from Osoyoos to Penticton, then crossing the Bennett Bridge and on to Vernon, Salmon Arm and ending in Kamloops. From Salmon Arm to Kamloops it would travel along the Trans-Canada Highway.
The new price tag is half the cost of widening Highway 97, a route that's grown congested over the years, according to the report.
The induced demand from tourism is proposed to help make up for much of the cost, while it would also reduce congestion and emissions in the Okanagan, the report said.
Whether the idea has interest across the region so far isn't clear, but Lovegrove's report suggests similar ideas have already shown success elsewhere.
"Economic, social and ecological benefits for tourists and residents have already been proven in Europe since the 1980s," the report read. "For example, at least 30% reductions in congestion and crashes on highways like Highway 97, where our growing Okanagan communities and tourism double car traffic each summer."
The study proposed would be an Indigenous-led project, according to the report, but it's not clear where the funding is being sourced.
Lovegrove was not immediately available for comment when iNFOnews.ca reached out.
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