District of Squamish is struggling to meet a 2021 deadline set by Transport Canada to upgrade local rail crossings for safety.
In November 2014, Transport Canada gave road authorities and local communities across the country seven years to comply with new grade crossing safety requirements.
Those requirements include enhanced sightlines, crossing warnings for public, road and railway signs and coordination of traffic signal timing at train intersections.
The deadline of November 2021 is now looming over local municipalities, but it won’t be possible to meet that deadline without federal funding, district says.
“Many municipalities are struggling to meet the 2021 deadline without funding help, and the district has been unsuccessful so far in obtaining grant funding,” said Christina Moore, the communications manager at the District of Squamish.
“As a small municipality with many rail crossings, we’re working closely with Transport Canada to ensure they are aware that we are not on track to complete the program by November 2021 without significant funding from the federal government,” she said.
District allocated $1 million in the budget this year to upgrade the crossings in Squamish.
While it has $200,000 for the work, the rest was “presumed” funding that would have come from the grants.
That presumed funding hasn’t materialized.
However, according to Moore, the district has a priority plan for the 21 crossings in Squamish and has been working on the upgrades.
In the past few years, the district has upgraded a number of crossings including Pemberton Avenue, Depot Road and Government Road in Brackendale.
Since the regulation came into effect, CN has also evaluated the Squamish crossings for compliance.
CN says it has identified certain items of potential concern and would soon be meeting with district officials to address those.
“We will plan a meeting with the community officials to discuss those issues,” said Alexandre Boulé, a media relations advisor with CN Rail.
Patricia Marini says
Why are we paying? CN owns the land !
Sylvia Shanoss says
Question
Does Squamish benifit from the CN going through there community?
Does CN pay to go through Squamish?
Cn needs to pay for rail upkeep.
Squamish NOT to pay for full upkeep.