A plan to run a second train between Seattle and Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games is back on track.
Talks to extend Amtrak's Cascades service into British Columbia had been stalled for over a year because Canada Border Services Agency wanted to charge the company $1,500 a day to cover the costs of processing additional passengers.
But yesterday, the government announced it would waive the fee from August until the end of March, 2010, as a pilot program.
"This will allow an assessment of traffic well outside the actual Olympic Games themselves," Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said.
The fee was being levied as part of a policy that requires users to pay for a new service they've requested while it's being studied, Mr. Van Loan said.
"Because of the circumstances with the Games coming and willingness to create this potential new traffic, we thought it made sense to encourage it a little bit so that's what we're doing," Mr. Van Loan said.
While the federal government had already agreed to waive the fee immediately before, during and after the Games, governments in B.C. and Washington state said the fee needed to be cancelled altogether.
Neither the Washington state department of transportation nor Amtrak was willing to pay the estimated $500,000 a year to cover the cost of providing extra Canadian customs staff to process passengers in the evenings, when the train would cross the border.
An extended waiver is the next best thing for now, said state officials.
"People from both sides of the border have wanted this train for a long time," said Vickie Sheehan, a spokesperson for the department of transportation.
There's currently one train a day between Seattle and Vancouver, capable of carrying 220 people per trip.
A second train will have the same capacity but leave Seattle later in the day and bring passengers back to Vancouver in the morning.
It's estimated the second train could add as much as $14-million a year to B.C.'s economy.
The Canadian Press