Battery-powered light rail train could be tested in Greater Victoria

Artistic rendering of a preliminary concept for Coventry Very Light Rail Transit/Ultra Light Rail Transit (ULRT). (Coventry City Council)

A private sector partnership in British Columbia and the United Kingdom are hoping to initiate a proof-of-concept test of a new type of rail public transit service in the Greater Victoria region.

Last month, the proponents received a highly preliminary blessing from two municipal governments to pursue the concept.

The respective City Councils of Colwood and View Royal — suburban cities that share a municipal border, located west of Victoria Inner Harbour — endorsed the proposal in principle, and directed City staff to work with their municipal counterparts in the region to identify a potential route.

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This project is aiming to test two industry-leading features.

First of all, according to the proponents, it would use a battery-powered train that can be charged in about 10 minutes. Conversely, most conventional light rail transit (LRT) systems that run at street level depend on overhead catenary wires for its electrical supply or they use diesel engines.

Secondly, this would be an ultra LRT — ultra light rail transit (ULRT). It is a “new breed” on the hierarchy of passenger rail systems.

In the hierarchy of rail public transit systems, heavy rail — such as the subways of New York City, Toronto, London, and Hong Kong — generally refers to a completely grade separated network from traffic that carries significant passenger capacity.

LRT generally uses shorter trains with comparatively lower capacity, with a right-of-way that does not have to be grade separated, such as running down the median of a street and crossing through road intersections.

Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain system is an intermediate mode — a middle solution between heavy rail and most types of LRT.

A comparison of the capable speed and capacity of SkyTrain, light rail transit, and streetcar. (City of Vancouver)

Conversely, ULRT has a lower capacity range than LRT, akin to a streetcar, carrying between 56 and 200 passengers.

According to the proponents, the battery-powered ULRT better meets the needs of smaller communities with lower ridership by greatly reducing the costs, with the significant costs reduced largely from the simpler track construction method and the lack of overhead catenary wires. Tracks are laid on patented prefabricated concrete slabs on existing roads or a shallow trench of 30 cm deep, which avoids the costly need to excavate and relocate underground utilities.

Such slabs and tracks could potentially be laid in a matter of weeks, and disassembled and relocated if needed.

The battery-powered ULRT trains are also said to be so quiet that they need an artificial sound generator to alert passing pedestrians and vehicles for safety reasons.

These train vehicles could potentially travel up to 90 km/hr, but such systems that are not fully grade separated and run through traffic points usually follow road speed limits, which was the case of TransLink’s cancelled Surrey-Newton LRT with its maximum opoerating speed of 50 km/hr.

coventry very light rail ultra light rail ULRT

Artistic rendering of a preliminary concept for Coventry Very Light Rail Transit/Ultra Light Rail Transit (ULRT). (Coventry City Council)

The concept is based on what is being developed by the municipal government of Coventry, a jurisdiction near Birmingham, which received £72 million (CA$123 million) from the regional government in early 2023 as the first instalment to further develop the technology and launch a pilot project.

“RapidBus enthusiasts are quick to sort of call this a gadget bond. But I would remind those folks that the SkyTrain in Vancouver was once referred to in the same sort of derogatory way, and yet now we see that as the primary people mover in that region,” said Colwood city councillor Ian Ward, referring to BC Transit’s current plan to expand RapidBus routes across Greater Victoria.

“I think there’s room in our region to innovate — the status quo has been this way too long, there’s paralysis along the Island Corridor. It’s really political and and always has been, and I think we have an opportunity to do something different here to stimulate the conversation.”

Vic Young with UK-based project management firm Penmark, which specializes in transportation infrastructure, suggests a short segment of the Gallooping Goose Trail in southern Vancouver Island could potentially be feasible as a test site, but the municipal governments will play a key role in determining the location.

It is noted that the Vancouver Island (E&N) corridor will not be considered. Earlier this year, the provincial government committed $18 million to study ways the corridor can be enhanced for transportation uses over the long term.

Lead proponent Stephen Kong of Vancouver-based ThinkEco Power Systems told Daily Hive Urbanized the Greater Victoria project is envisioned to be a four-stage project.

It would begin with a feasibility study with public consultation, followed by the creation of a two to three km long high-speed track to evaluate the robustness of the track and create a more accurate cost estimate. The track could then be extended to serve between Langford and towards downtown Victoria, before being used for fare-paying passengers.

Kong says the initial test track of up to three km will need to be segregated because of the high speeds involved, but overall it will not need to be grade separated as it can operate like a streetcar.

“There are a variety of ULRT manufacturers that we intend to work with, including the Coventry Very Light Rail Train, which is still at the prototyping stages. Other ULRT partners are already shovel ready and are operating at different parts of the world,” Kong told Daily Hive Urbanized.

Artistic rendering of a preliminary concept for Coventry Very Light Rail Transit/Ultra Light Rail Transit (ULRT). (Coventry City Council)

He adds that the pilot project is intended to carry zero costs for local governments involved. They are exploring the federal government’s Canada Infrastructure Bank as a possible funding source, given that this zero-emission rail project meets the investment criteria.

The feasibility stage and pilot project of up to three km is expected to take one year to complete.

If all goes as planned, the train could be running in certain sections as early as by late Fall 2024.

“There is an urgent need to reduce the number of cars on our roads. Vehicles are a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and loss of productivity in British Columbia. An affordable light rail system is the key to reducing these vehicles,” said Kong.

“The affordability issue is driving the population further and further out towards Abbotsford, Langley, Mission and even Chilliwack, with many individuals still needing to work in the downtown core area. An affordable ultra light rail train network might best be able to resolve some of these urban sprawl problems.”

More than a decade ago, BC Transit conceptualized a street-level light rail transit (LRT) system running on an east-west corridor between downtown Victoria and the West Shore. Using conventional LRT technology, the estimated cost was about $1 billion in 2011 dollars. Over time, the newly launched RapidBus service could help build up ridership to support more superior rapid transit.

In 2019, BC Ferries completed a feasibility study on the potential of operating an east-west, high-speed, passenger-only catamaran ferry service between Colwood and Ship Point (next to the Fairmont Empress Hotel) in Victoria Inner Harbour. It found that such a service could potentially see net revenues, with a ridership of about one million passengers annually — about one-sixth of TransLink’s SeaBus ridership — and the removal of about 1,000 vehicles from the road.

When asked whether such a system could be piloted in Vancouver by reactivating the Olympic Line streetcar route that operated during the 2010 Winter Games between SkyTrain Olympic Village Station and Granville Island, Kong says his group would certainly be willing to explore this opportunity.

On the other side of the country, a pilot project throughout this summer of using a hydrogen-powered passenger train in a regular service is supported by the Quebec provincial government.

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