TERRACE, B.C. – Terrace City Council has reluctantly approved a major payment of $182,000 to CN Rail for mandatory maintenance on the Kenney Street railway crossing, a charge that has prompted a strong commitment from Mayor Sean Bujtas to challenge the foundational agreement at the highest levels of government.
The payment is being mandated by a railway crossing agreement dated January 30, 1979, which obligates the City to cover the cost of maintenance on the crossing. The necessity for repair arose after CN discovered the rails were moving as vehicles crossed, and a subsequent investigation confirmed the infrastructure beneath the crossing was completely rotten.
Mayor Bujtas stated at the October 14 council meeting that the agreement’s long-term commitment is unreasonable, given that it was signed decades ago.
“This is an agreement that… was signed when I was three years old, and here we are stuck to this agreement,” Bujtas said. “I’m not happy with CN… $182,000 to CN is nothing. To this community, it’s a lot of money.”
Councillor Sarah Zimmerman echoed the sentiment, stating, “It’s absurd that we need to be held to account to something that was signed in 1979… It’s insane to think that we’re bound in perpetuity to something that was signed almost 50 years ago.”
The Push for Legislative Change
While the City reluctantly approved the payment to allow the essential safety work to proceed, Mayor Bujtas pledged to use the situation to demand changes to federal legislation governing railway crossings.
“My suggestion is we move forward with this recommendation… but then we take it to other levels,” he stated. “We take it to the Province, and we take it to the feds and say, ‘you guys need to get involved and change these agreements,’ because how can I be held accountable to something that was signed when I was a three year old? It’s not reasonable.”
According to a staff report, railway crossing agreements are not typically renegotiated unless one party proposes physical changes to the crossing itself, placing maintenance costs squarely on the City’s side based on the decades-old document. The situation faced by Terrace is not unique, as municipalities across Canada often grapple with cost-sharing mandates dictated by the seniority of the railway line or the road.
A timeline for the necessary infrastructure replacement at the Kenney Street crossing has not yet been established.
