The City of New Westminster is considering how to overcome a hurdle that could delay train whistle cessation at the Spruce Street crossing in Sapperton.
City staff recently updated council about the status of train whistle cessation at crossings in New West.
“In 2024, staff resources will be focused on advancing rail crossing improvements on the mainland of New Westminster, including the Sapperton and West End areas,” said a staff report. “Advancing safety upgrades and whistle cessation initiatives on the crossings in Queensborough will require the procurement of a consultant to manage this work.”
According to the report, the City of New Westminster recently retained a solicitor with the necessary experience to advance contracts and legal agreements with the railways.
In a Jan. 8 report to council, staff provided updates about the short-, mid- and long-term whistle cessation projects planned in New Westminster.
In terms of short- and mid-term opportunities for whistle cessation, the Furness Street (at Duncan Street) crossing in Queensborough is estimated to be complete in the first quarter of 2024. In the West End, the 20th Street crossing date is yet to be determined (the city will get a legal opinion to help with this crossing) and the Fourth Avenue crossing is projected to be completed in late 2024.
In Sapperton, the Cumberland Street crossing is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2024. The city has finalized conceptual drawings for this crossing and submitted them to the associated rail companies.
Last June’s quarterly update to council on whistle cessation reported that conceptual drawings for the Spruce Street crossing were being finalized.
“Upon approval of conceptual design, we will start the detailed design phase,” said the June 2023 report. “Subject to approval of detailed design by TransLink and rail companies, and procurement of equipment and construction contractor, it may be possible for construction to occur in 2024 and whistle cessation administrative requirements completed in 2025.”
While that report had listed their third-quarter of 2025 as a date when whistle cessation could potentially be completed at the Spruce Street crossing, the latest update has revised its timeline. It’s now listed as: to be determined.
“We’ve been making good progress on a lot of the whistle cessation around the city. But this Spruce crossing is a little bit complicated,” Kwaku Agyare-Manu, senior manager of engineering services, told council Monday night. “So the city and CN, at this time, are at a little bit of a technical impasse.”
According to Agyare-Manu, CN Rail would like the BNSF Railway Company’s spur to be included in the complete design for this Spruce crossing. (A spur is a secondary track.)
“They want to include this in order to mitigate what they say is a risk of a train colliding with the back of a truck and trailer, a potential truck and trailer that could be sitting in between the tracks if there was a train event on the spur line,” he said. “The city's proposed design that we've been working on, excludes the spur from the complete design.”
That’s because a Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) order from the 1980s requires all trains that are travelling on the spur to do “a stop and proceed,” Agyare-Manu explained.
“So, to us, if a truck was to come to that crossing, hopefully the train would do the stop and proceed, allowing the truck to get over the line,” he said. “So, to the city, that is a risk that is mitigated, but CN still sees that as a risk.”
As a result of its concerns about risk at that crossing, CN wants the city to add the BNSF spur to the complete design, which is different from the design the city had proposed.
According to Agyare-Manu, including the spur as part of the design “adds a little bit of complication” because it’s owned by BNSF. He said BNSF would require the City of New Westminster to put together a package, with the process to include an internal diagnostic review.
“They have advised us that this review could take about 12 months. And then once that review is completed, and depending on the results, we will then have to go back and restart the conceptual design process again, which can take about six to 12 months. And then after that, we'll have to sit and work through cost agreements and then we can make it to the point where we can start the detailed design,” he said. “So quite a bit of complication with that.”
According to the January 2024 report to council, the request to change the design at this crossing could “potentially add significant time (up to two years) and costs to the upgrades” at Spruce Street.
“A little bit of a surprise”
Coun. Tasha Henderson expressed disappointment with the potential delay of whistle cessation at the Spruce Street crossing.
“I'd be lying to say that I wasn't disappointed to see this, and I know that you are all as well. I know that all of you would wave a wand and make whistle cessation happen tomorrow, if for nothing else that to stop hearing questions from us about it,” she told staff. “So I guess: keep us in the loop.”
Noting the previous estimated timeline for completing work at that crossing, Henderson questioned if CN’s request to include the BNSF spur came as a surprise to the city.
“Yeah, I'd characterize it as a little bit of a surprise,” Agyare-Manu replied. “We were having a good conversations, obviously, within our railway technical meetings. And also have done few site visits with the rail operators. And yeah, as we were going through and discussing the designs, this kind of came up as a risk they'd identified, and they took it forward and basically confirmed to us that this was the process that they want to follow, including that spur line.”
The Jan. 8 report stated staff are considering an application to the Canadian Transportation Agency to decide if the city’s proposed design is acceptable. It noted that the CTA process can take between three and six months.
“Going to the CTA, the first thing that's required in order to put the package together is obviously the experienced help of legal counsel. We need a lawyer’s help to put this package together. We want to get the legal opinion in order to go down this route,” Agyare-Manu said. “Doing all of this will probably take an order of about two months; putting those documents together. And after that, we've been told that the CTA process, and them coming to a final decision, takes about three to six months.”
Agyare-Manu said a good thing about the CTA process, if the city goes that route, is that the CTA’s decision is final.
“The parties would basically have to abide by this,” he said. “At this time, it's difficult to know the chances of success. We'd have to basically go in and do a little bit more research on some of the cases that have been brought to the CTA of this matter in order to get a better handle on how successful we could be.”
While embarking on a process of going to CTA, Coun. Daniel Fontaine said he’d also like the city to explore if it’s able to appeal the decision the federal minister, should New Westminster lose the CTA decision.
“We are at this moment in time, we are going to get our legal counsel involved so that we can get opinion to confirm to us that going down this route is the way we'd like to go forward with this process,” Agyare-Manu told council Monday.
More railway news
- In addition to work on short- and mid-term whistle cessation projects, the staff report noted the city has plans for a number of long-term projects that are expected to require comprehensive structural modifications or road/rail re-alignments – and significant capital investments. These projects are at in Sapperton (Braid Street at Brunette Avenue; and Braid Street at Vulcan Street) and in Queensborough (Furness Street at Ewen Avenue; Mercer Street at Ewen Avenue; Ewen Avenue at Stanley Street; Ewen Avenue mulita-use path at Stanley Street; and Salter Street at Derwent Way).
- The City of New Westminster received 40 rail-related communications from residents in 2023. These came via emails, phone calls, visits to the engineering counter at city hall, delegations to council and comments on Be Heard and SeeClicKFix. All totalled, 35 were related to train whistles, four were operational concerns and one was related to train exhaust.
