A major developer in Vic West is driving talks to get daily passenger rail service up and running between Langford and Vic West.
Ken Mariash is the owner of Focus Equities and the developer of Bayview Place. He says the Island Corridor Foundation has agreed to give them operating rights for the E&N Rail Corridor, and now he's in talks with local municipalities and the provincial and federal governments on funding.
Mariash says his service would handle up to two-thousand round trips daily, and it would cost between two and four dollars for a one-way ride.
"The demand is only going to be for two-thousand trips a day, but, when you think about it, the Colwood Crawl is delivering at peak times around four to six-thousand trips going and six-thousand coming back. So if you pull a third of that off that traffic should start moving."
Mariash says the cost of repairing the tracks to allow for his service would be roughly $6-million dollars, which he describes as modest. He says, if he can secure funding, he hopes to have the tracks operational sometime next year.