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Railway Association of Canada's (RAC) top official believes intermodal is key to creating a sustainable Canadian transportation system by 2020.
Addressing the Toronto Railway Club March 25, RAC President and Chief Executive Officer Bill Rowat said Canada needs to create a policy environment that would enable Canadian firms to better move people and
goods over the long term, according to a prepared statement.
"It's time for governments to consider rail and intermodal systems as integral to the transportation systems of the future," he said, adding that the United States already took such an approach with Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, and that Europeans include rail as part of public infrastructure investments.
RAC recently provided Transport Canada recommendations describing how Canada could create similar investment opportunities.
"The bottom line is for policy-makers to stop thinking narrowly in terms
of only roads and highways, and to think in terms of what is possible," said
Rowat, adding that Canada faces major international-trade benefits, global-warming and terrorism-threat challenges.
He believes Canada's future depends on quick, fundamental transportation-system decisions.
"We [can] have gridlock and smog, accidents and road rage — or a system where the quality of transportation is recognized as part of our quality of life as Canadians," said Rowat.
RAC has 55 members, many of which are Canadian freight and passenger railroads.