How close are we to having a light rail line through the Okanagan Valley?

Is it a train? Is it a tram? Well, actually, it’s kind of both.

UBC Okanagan professor Gord Lovegrove was back in the KelownaNow office this week to discuss the latest on the future of light rail in the Okanagan Valley.

Lovegrove has been pushing for a hydrogen-powered light rail system between Osoyoos and Kamloops for several years, and the movement continues to pick up steam.

And you can call it a tram-train, as it would run slower through cities like a tram in a downtown hub, but accelerate to highway speeds in between municipalities where it would run on a separate track.

For this latest conversation on the tram-train, Lovegrove brought along Dr. Holger Busche, former energy and transport policy advisor to Germany’s Green Party, via video link.

“You desperately need a solution for the traffic in that area, especially for those people who are not able to drive a car,” Busche said about the need for light rail in the Okanagan.

He has plenty of knowledge on the matter, having watched this type of light rail be utilized in Germany over more than four decades, with hydrogen being added to the mix more recently

Busche calls it “proven technology,” and says it doesn’t exist in Canada yet because of hiccups around regulations, not technical concerns.

But realistically, how long would the Okanagan Valley have to wait before this idea becomes a reality in the region.

Lovegrove estimates a 10-year timeline from the start of planning and he hopes that clock can start in less than a year.

“We know we need a planning study for this valley,” he explained, noting that the cost of that would be around $3 million. “We’re looking and we think we’ve found potential partners to get the funding to start the formal planning.”

The ensuing cost of actually building a light rail network between Osoyoos and Kamloops would be exponentially more, but Lovegrove claims it’s still about half the cost of widening Hwy 97.

He says it would cost around $5 million per kilometre, depending on terrain and whether it’s within cities or in rural areas, along with station costs and operations costs.

According to Lovegrove, this system could be built and operated for 30 years at the same cost it would take to add a second crossing over Okanagan Lake.

While the idea is still in its infancy, securing the funding for a planning study would be a massive step toward making it a reality.

Click here to watch the full interview with Lovegrove and Busche and check out the links below for past stories KelownaNow has tackled on the subject.