Transforming the 289 km E&N Railway Corridor into a clean energy pathway — connecting communities, restoring Indigenous land ownership, and building Canada's electric future.
Under BC Motor Vehicle Act Regulations Section 24.06, Neighbourhood Zero Emission Vehicles (NZEVs) are four-wheeled electric vehicles capable of speeds up to 40 km/hr. They can operate on any road with a speed limit of 40 km/hr or less.
These are not golf carts — they are purpose-built electric neighbourhood vehicles, low-cost, low-speed, and built for the electric future Canada is already moving toward.
This EV classification has been legal in BC for decades. My 2001 Kelowna-built NZEV (#110) was 20 years ahead of its time.
NZEVs cost a fraction of a full size vehicle to buy and run, making clean transportation affordable and accessible to way more drivers.
A two-way NZEV pathway can be built on gravel, concrete, asphalt, or wood — dramatically reducing infrastructure costs.
This proposal unlocks billions of dollars in adjacent land for much-needed housing and commercial development — land long held back by noisy, polluting train service.
The defunct E&N railway runs from Victoria to Courtenay passing within 80% of Vancouver Island's immediate population. Reinstating rail service would be prohibitively expensive, highly polluting, at odds with Canada's clean energy goals, and recent studies confirm ridership would be far too low to justify it.
The corridor intersects 14 First Nation territories. Returning their land would accelerate reconciliation, let each Nation run the program on their own terms, and end the lawsuits — which would offset the program's costs considerably.
This BC project is ready for federal funding. With ICF support, one section of the corridor could be turned into a shovel-ready NZEV Pilot in short order.
An NZEV corridor would unlock billions in economic development and create thousands of jobs for generations to come.
Chief James Thomas of the Halalt First Nation and EV Island are exploring plans to develop an NZEV pilot project on a portion of the corridor that intersects their traditional territory, with the goal of creating a template for other corridor First Nations and municipalities to follow.
The pilot addresses real challenges first: the raised rail embankment currently acts as a dyke, trapping Chemainus River floodwater on the northern portion of the reserve. Remediation — including embankment breach and culvert installation — is integrated into the conversion plan, not treated as a separate problem.
In 2023, the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation won a BC Court of Appeal case returning their portion of the corridor, establishing a landmark precedent. Their model offers a tested path for other Nations to follow.