Our Main Transportation Systems Science & Tech 11

By the end of this lesson you should be able to: define what makes up a transportation system identify the components of a given transportation system make a list of the pros and cons of a given transportation system Vocabulary Port of Prince Rupert Pacific Gateway

Our Main Transportation Systems Canada is one of the largest countries in the world, with some of the most rugged terrain. These factors have made it very challenging to build and operate effective transportation systems. Nonetheless, Canada has some of the most advanced transportation systems in the world. In this lesson you will learn more about Canada's main transportation systems: Water, Rail, and Road.

Water Transportation System Canada is bordered by three oceans and crisscrossed by countless rivers and inland waterways. There are more than 300 commercial ports and harbours that provide facilities for the shipment of goods into and out of the country.

Water Transportation The water transportation system is very important to our national economy. In Canada, more goods are shipped by water than by any other transportation system (443 million tonnes in 2003). This includes products like coal, steel, lumber, and other heavy bulk goods. The three most important ports are Halifax, Vancouver, and Montreal. Vancouver alone handles almost fifty percent of all the container traffic delivered by boats. The movement of goods to and from Canada on ships from all over the world makes the water transportation system a very important part of our economy.

Water Transportation In the past twenty years, Canada's trade with Asia has increased dramatically. From 1990 to 2005, for example, Canada's exports to China increased by over 300 percent and imports from China increased over 2000 percent. The vast majority of this freight is transported by ship from Canada's west coast, primarily Vancouver and Delta. But the Lower Mainland cannot keep up - as big as its terminals are, they still aren't big enough and fast enough to handle the demand. In response, the federal and provincial governments have invested vast sums of money to upgrade shipping terminals to handle greater capacity. They have also upgraded the land connections to help ease congestion once the goods have been off-loaded. For example, they have built overpasses to separate rail traffic (trains carrying goods to and from the waterfront terminals) from road traffic. This will hopefully speed up delivery time.

Water Transportation In addition, the federal and provincial governments, plus private transportation companies, have invested hundreds of millions in a new west coast shipping terminal in Prince Rupert, BC. This ultramodern port, situated along BC's central west coast, is ideally positioned to handle massive volumes of marine freight traffic from Asia and other Pacific ports of call. All going well, Prince Rupert will the port of choice for many Asian shippers due to its numerous advantages.

Why Prince Rupert? In recent years the economies of many Asian countries, such as China, India, and Japan, have been booming. To attract trade with these countries, Canada has spent huge amounts of money to improve its transportation infrastructure, such as its ports and harbours. Upgrades to existing facilities will help, but other ports are needed to meet the tremendous demand.

Why Prince Rupert? Enter the Port of Prince Rupert. Located along the central BC coast, it's poised to become a destination of choice for companies shipping goods overseas to North America. The Port of Prince Rupert actually consists of four separate terminals: one for grain, one for coal, one for containers, and one for cruise ships. Millions of dollars have been invested in upgrading the terminals and providing the necessary infrastructure to attract overseas freight and passenger traffic.

Prince Rupert

Strategic Advantages Closest North American Port to Asia You might not realize it, but Prince Rupert is actually much closer to Asia than is any other major North American port. The distance from Shanghai, China to Prince Rupert, for example, is almost 500 nautical miles less than it is from Shanghai to Vancouver. This means that goods shipped from Asia by water can get to Prince Rupert faster than they can to any other North American port. Overall, Prince Rupert is: 1.5 - 2 days closer than Vancouver/Seattle 2 days closer than Seattle/Tacoma 3 days closer than LA/Long Beach The Prince Rupert Fairview terminal is the first new gateway for Asia-North America trade in the last 100 years. Its three biggest advantages? Location. Location. Location.

Closest North American Port to Asia

Strategic Advantages Deepest Natural Harbour in North America Another strategic advantage for Prince Rupert is its harbour. The Port of Prince Rupert is the deepest ice-free natural harbour in North America. It can accommodate vessels that are too deep for most other ports. Prince Rupert's harbour also provides safe, sheltered, and efficient access from international shipping lanes.

Strategic Advantages Excellent Rail Connections Goods arriving in Prince Rupert have farther to travel to get to their final markets than do goods from more southerly ports like Vancouver and Seattle. However, they usually get there quicker. The reason? Prince Rupert's transportation system - the railway - is excellent. Cargo off-loaded at the Prince Rupert container terminal is put aboard waiting trains less than 200 feet away and is usually shipped within 24 hours. And because the container terminal is located away from the city, the trains don't have to worry about traffic getting in the way. This saves time and potential conflicts with the public.

Strategic Advantages The rail line from Prince Rupert also runs along valley bottoms through much of British Columbia. By avoiding mountainsides and long tunnels, trains up to 3600 metres long can speed unimpeded at 100 kilometres an hour across most of Western Canada. By contrast, freight trains from Vancouver have to cross through much more rugged and mountainous terrain to get to points east. This takes more time, and the trains are more susceptible to delays such as mudslides or avalanches. Tunnels also cause problems. If a train out of Vancouver approaches one of the longer tunnels, for instance, it may have to wait for up to four hours to go through if another train had gone through ahead of it. This is to allow the buildup of carbon monoxide from the previous train to dissipate. So, despite its greater distance, goods shipped by rail from Prince Rupert can get to market faster than they can through Vancouver and other more southerly ports. Combined with a faster sailing time from Asia to Prince Rupert, and the total time saved from initial departure to final delivery it is quite significant.

Impact on the Community Prior to the construction of the Fairview Container Terminal, the Prince Rupert Port Authority established a 24-hour hotline for residents to communicate their concerns about the project. Not a single call was received in 18 months; clearly the city was behind the project. During the grand opening, attended by over 50% of the population, the crowd chanted for Phase II of the project to begin immediately! It's easy to understand why the community was so excited. The development of the Port of Prince Rupert had a substantial economic impact on the area. Slightly more than 50% of all construction workers on site were local, and half of those workers were qualified First Nations. In addition, an estimated 25% of the $110 million of the project budget was spent locally on services, subcontracts, and supplies. The container business has also created an estimated 350 direct and another 350 indirect jobs with combined annual salaries and wages in excess of $40 million.

Rail Transportation System Canada's railway system is as old as our country. In fact, the first railroad, the Canadian Pacific Railway, was built to connect one end of our great land with the other and unite us as one nation. British Columbia only agreed to join Canada after the government promised to build the CPR through to the west coast.

Rail Transportation System A lot has changed in the past 130 years but the railway is still an extremely important transportation system. There are over 72,000 kilometres of operating tracks in Canada. And in 2006, over 360 million tonnes of freight was shipped by trains - only the water transportation system saw higher volume. Shipping goods long distances by train continues to be one of the cheapest, fastest, and most efficient methods available.

Road Transportation System As you learned previously, our modern world is very reliant on the automobile. In Canada, for example, there is one automobile for approximately every 2 people, which is up from one for every five people two generations ago. In other words, there are more cars on our roads than ever before and fewer people in each of them. We also spend more time in our automobiles than ever before, thanks to things like the birth of the suburbs

Road Transportation System But the private automobile is only one part of the road transportation system. This system also includes important infrastructure, the most obvious example being the roads. Canada has one of the largest road networks in the world. Canada has over 1.4 million kilometres of public roads. That's enough to circle the Earth 35 times!

Road Transportation System Roads allow people and goods to travel efficiently and quickly from one place to another. Unfortunately road building also comes with costs. For example, road building has often occurred on land that was previously used for other things like agriculture. According to Statistics Canada, nearly 12,000 square kilometres of Canada's farmland was lost to transportation uses in 2001, primarily road building. The more roads we build, the less land there is for other uses such as growing food. Road building can also disrupt wildlife by encroaching on natural habitats. One way governments try to minimize this impact is by building fenced wildlife corridors that allow animals to travel safely across or around roadways.

Road Transportation System The federal and provincial governments spend millions of dollars every year building new roads and upgrading existing ones. Yet as our population increases, the strains on road infrastructure intensify. More people mean more cars, which mean more congestion. More congestion means even more roads, bridges, tunnels, and overpasses are needed. Our reliance on the automobile puts tremendous strain on the road transportation system.