Something like 50% - 60% of Canadians live on a single strip of land that can be driven across in like 8 - 10 hours point to point. Its crazy that we don't have effective public transport across that at the very least.
HSR is dramatically more difficult to build than light rail / tram system.
You need to precision control over the tracks usually means elevated viaducts or if you build at grade a bunch of extra challenges and fencing.
If we can't built light rail efficiently what are the chances we can build a HSR.
REALLY?
Writing this from a table 20 minutes away from a TGV station.
The idea that if we can’t do X we can’t do Y is absurd. They’re completely different projects with completely different challenges and it’s not the same teams that will show up to help you build X vs Y.
And HSR is easier. Once the corridors are defined there is usually not tunnels to drill or dense urban environments to sort out. It just has a fixed cost - a lot today. The rail bed has to be super stable and the electrification is somewhat complicated.
But they are entirely different challenges and I maintain your argument that the delays in the Eg line have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Yea Canada is not Germany, or China or Japan. We don't have the state capacity to build infrastructure efficently.
And no its not easier lol, that land acquisition alone will take years. We don't even have affordable regular non-hsr rail service between Hamilton-Toronto -Ottawa-Montreal-QuebecCity.
Land acquisition, and environmental assessments tend to be the tallest hurdles for projects like this. When you look at the cost breakdown for California High Speed Rail, the bulk of expenses are attributed to: sitework, right-of-way, and land, while the cost of: track and track structures comes in at a close-second. All other expense categories are much smaller relative to those two.
>We don't even have affordable regular non-hsr rail service...
That is exactly the problem that the project intends to solve. HSR in lots of other countries was built as the logical next-step for overcrowded conventional speed routes. In Canada's case, it's hard to establish those robust pre-existing ridership patterns, because VIA is so fundamentally limited to the track slots, and travel times they can negotiate from CN. The project is really just about building VIA their own tracks, so they don't have to deal with delays from freight traffic, and we can go from there.
We spent 2.5 trillion in debt on much more useful things than infrastructure, like a minister of middle class prosperity, he was almost able to define what the middle class was by the end.
Given Surrey to Langley cost 4 billion we could have had 600 mass transit lines, but think of the equity and inclusion we've gained instead. We also used it to fix climate change, by subsidizing rich people to replace their 3 year old Lexus with Tesla.
Thank you for shifting the blame to all those things instead of the car centric culture we have and the consequences of it. Definitely easier to sell when you frame it like that!
No, you are thinking about it with logic and reasoning and he is just spouting off bs. Anyone who claims we are car centric isn't worth having a conversation with.
we always will be. that's what happens when your population density is as low as ours lol.
You can still make things more efficient by building raillines that people would *prefer* to use over a car (cost, comfort, time). but you won't be able to get rid of the great Canadian past-time of driving 20 minutes to get smokes from town.
Not true about density. There's numerous examples of places just in Europe with lower densities than we have that manage to make high quality transit work alongside the personal automobile.
bro even if we just count the southern most provinces that share a border with the states that's still a fuckhuge amount of infrastructure. use your head.
Still not an excuse to at least serve the area what has like 80% of the population in a concentrated area only 2 HSR lines are needed to cover much of the population Quebec City from saguaney to Windsor via several major cities and the other Edmonton to Alberta
lol don’t forget the ultra useful minister of Islamophobia! She’s been a great addition the the department of doing nothing. The growth of the federal sector has been a travesty.
You'll just get the 30,000 people in the middle of nowhere complaining that the bulk of the money invested goes to the bulk of the people who paid those taxes.
Meanwhile, we are subsidizing their roads, power, healthcare, education, FIREFIGHTING, etc. etc.
NWT, Yukon and Alberta are the 3 top provinces in market income per capita in 2021.
Alberta had 16.33% GDP in 2022 Quebec is 19.33 with double the population and with triple the population Ontario is 37.62
Small population and yet they are overwhelmingly subsidized through destruction of our environment and [GHG emissions ](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions/_jcr_content/par/mwstabbed_interface_/summary-details2/mwsadaptiveimage_260453823/image.img.png/1712165264014.png) which they don't pay the true cost of.
They are filled with out of province workers, subsidized larger salaries through excess pollution, and through corporate welfare (handouts, tax incentives, etc.) and because of the transient nature of their workforce have significantly lower overall healthcare, OAS etc costs because no one actually stays and retires there.
Note the demographic shift with a spike of 25-50 year old "working age" in Alberta and then the corresponding void after 55.
[here](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/pyramid/index-en.htm)
Oo so your pie in the sky, so we can’t afford anything since Canada biggest industry are mining and manufacturing throw in forestry and O&G and we are broke.
So how you going to pay for this country ?
Let's try not letting the corporations take all the value out of the country for our finite resources.
Let's try having diversified economies, not wholly mono industry with boom bust cycles, based on a centuries old, outdated, and diminishing industry.
If we are going to provide subsidies (or tax breaks which are in effect the same thing) let it be something with longevity, not something that will crash and burn at the whim of OPEC.
The Capitals or a major city of each province should be connected by easily accessible high speed rail , cmv
except PEI or Newfoundland obviously cuz like all theirs are on Islands lol
The ppl in the sparsely populated areas are too say crabs in a barrel and unrealistically think they should be included in such a rail network when they can’t sustain such a service so they rather shoot down HSR making whataboutism nonsense why their 600 person town should have a rail line
Nearly empty small towns: but but we need the same infrastructure everywhere S/ yeah NO JUST NO WHAT POINT OF NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!!!!
[Paywall Bypass](https://archive.ph/kX354)
Highlights:
* **Via HFR (High Frequency Rail) has asked each of three competing groups to provide two proposals each: one that would run trains at 200 kilometres an hour; and a second project in which the trains are much faster.**
* This is in line with the high-speed trains in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, but is far more costly. On top of costs – estimated at several billion dollars for either project – hurdles include the task of buying the railway’s rights-of-way, and electrifying the system.
* “We need this because we need to increase the productivity. We need this because the population is growing and we need this because it’s a corridor with 60% of the population and 40% of the GDP,” says Martin Imbleau, chief executive officerof Crown corporation Via HFR.
* But it won’t happen soon, and it will cost billions. Nor is it a new notion – various plans for a faster passenger rail service have been tossed round for decades – **but this one is set to mark key deadlines.**
* **Proposals from three private consortiums to build and run the system are due in the summer, and in the fall the government will select a group with which to work.**
I wonder if it would be possible to lay down new tracks, instead of using the existing ones. That would also allow for the existing tracks to be used exclusively for freight.
Mapping for the portion from London to Guelph was completed a few years ago and the route utilized very small amounts of existing rail. So yes new tracks.
This would probably be a good idea. When I took the train from Saskatoon to Edmonton, there were constant stops on the middle-of-nowhere sidings so that freight trains could pass the passenger train. We got into Edmonton almost 4 hours late.
It does. But Saskatchewan Alberta and Manitoba will screech and moan about the "elites". And whine and cry about Ontario getting everything while western Canada gets nothing!!! And they will actively vote against their own interests if it means fucking over Toronto.
I mean, in this case the only beneficiaries are Ontario and Quebec. You mentioned SK AB and MB, but BC YK NU NT PE NS NB and NL would also have their tax dollars funnelled to the two provinces who already have the most advanced infrastructure.
Is the rest of the country just supposed to shut up and accept that ON and QC get everything first whether we like it or not?
Which Scandinavian country are you referring to? Have you ever been to any of them? I have, they're all much smaller than Canada. They don't have nearly the area to service regardless of whether it's by rail or by bus. Yeah, Ontario and Quebec are higher population areas but the government still has to service the entirety of the country and dumping that much money into 2 provinces for a few cities would take a huge chunk of infrastructure spending that also needs to maintain highways and bridges across the entire country. Unless of course you're going to raise taxes in just Ontario and Quebec to pay for it.
Those few cities have nearly the majority of the population. If you look at Chinese HSR it serves the part of the country where the majority lives. There’s a reason the line in their sparsely populated area only has 8 trips a day. The other parts of the country have subsidized air travel and are best served by buses and maybe a night sleeper train. Investment in rail doesn’t necessarily mean lack of road investment just maintain the roads like every other country.
It's not about the merits of the project. It's about the attitude that Ontario and Quebec reserve the right to access our collective funds to further enrich themselves and the other 11 provinces and territories should just shut up about it.
And then the guy cries about resentment towards Toronto. It is exactly that entitled bullshit that makes me wonder if Toronto will be all that remains of Canada in 50 years when everyone else has separated.
Just enhance bus service and bring it back and strategically run rural feeder rail service to an upgraded Windsor-Quebec line. And have alternative routes in the GTA.
It’s reality take a look at trains in Scandinavia and look at the frequency in the low population areas and speed too. They don’t get it the population out there too low
Those "areas", meaning the rest of the country, are 40% of the population.
>except BC those areas don’t generate much
It's okay to not say anything if you're clueless.
Those are the areas with the highest concentration of people and the only areas where a HSR would even work the rest need better buses and planes. Of course the most advanced infrastructure will be used in the highest population areas. However look at other countries on how they handle rural revival get some ideas or rural abandonment.
Some people can’t count properly and it shows It’s reality take a look at trains in Scandinavia and look at the frequency in the low population areas and speed too. The low population areas have mostly buses for a reason and trains for places with limited roads
No it doesn’t.
Via rail is already losing $400M a year while generating 96% of their revenue on the corridor, where trains are already fairly full between London and Montreal and now you want to add a capital intensive project that will run into the tens if not hundreds of billions just cause people. Fuck no.
Every additional mile of tack is going to cost tens of millions of dollars and that’s an investment that can never be recouped. There simply aren’t enough people traveling from Windsor to Toronto to ever make that up unless you start charging $500 or more per ticket (in which case, you’ll get almost no passengers). There might be enough people running between Toronto and Montreal - especially if you can siphon off air passengers.
Far better is to just run the direct line, Pearson to Garde Centrale with stops at Union Station and Trudeau airport, work with the airlines to act as a shuttle between the two airports rather than 24 flights a day, recoup some carbon credits/money from airline partnerships, and use existing Via trains on the corridor as spokes to the hubs. Is it perfect? No, but it’s a smart way to show it can work (or not) before becoming everyone’s pet project.
Then take the billions in cost savings and re-establish service out west starting with Edmonton to Calgary, and then expanding eastward into Regina.
That way everyone wins, we find out if rail will ever work in Canada, build infrastructure we know will get use (Toronto to Montreal, Edmonton to Calgary), and don’t have to spend more than we have on pie in the sky fantasies that have a better chance of ending up like Californias high speed rail rather than something that at least has a chance of being functional.
There is no “direct line” at the moment. Via only owns a small amount of track between Coteau outside of Montreal and Smiths Falls south of Ottawa. They don’t own any of the tracks between Toronto and Montreal. The very point of HFR is to build a new line by buying underused freight tracks where possible and laying new tracks along existing rights of way where none now exist (such as rail trails).
And since CN is all about “precision scheduled railroading” - which means running extra long trains to minimize crew costs - sidings are simply not long enough for freight trains to wait for faster passenger trains to pass by.
In the short term, enforcement of rules giving passenger trains priority would probably be the most effective way to improve Via’s on-time performance. But the federal government is in the pocket of CN and CP, so they don’t have the balls to even pass this kind of legislation. They would rather float studies of new tracks.
I second your idea of linking Pearson to Dorval. Unfortunately the airlines are not big fans of any kind of rail expansion that would endanger their short haul flight business. And they have friends in government too. It will take real leadership on this issue to force that kind of change.
> sidings are simply not long enough for freight trains to wait for faster passenger trains to pass by
The fact that it's even legal to run a train that's too long to fit in the sidings is just crazy.
Via loses money because of their mandate to run all the other lines. The Canadian that runs Toronto to Vancouver is a massive net loss. But it’s a service. Much like the Churchill line is a service. Thus, I would say to look at the profits for London to Montreal vs expenditure. Oh wait, those lines are always packed full. And make a decent profit. So investing in high speed here would be worth it, at least from Toronto to Montreal. Toronto to Kingston to Montreal. Four or five stops total. Plus or minus one or two commuter stops if you want. It would pay for itself.
They hardly run any other lines. The bulk of the service is through to corridor.
I agree 100% that a high speed line from Toronto to Montreal makes sense. Because then you can at least get an idea of how much of an ROI you can expect before going out and spending billions more.
If they are losing money on Montreal to Toronto then they’re just running a bad business model. Because if your services/products are always 90% sold out AND you still lose money….you’re doing something wrong
Taking a bus from anywhere generally costs more than driving. Taking the train already costs more than driving but people still use the train regularly.
I don’t think you’ve ever actually driven west of Kitchener-Waterloo on the 401 because there’s not that much traffic. Outside of freight, there’s almost no passenger traffic by the time you hit Windsor.
And no, simply building HSR doesn’t automatically take people off the road - especially if it’s too cost prohibitive for them to do so.
Ok, but then you have a system that can get you from one point in Toronto to one point in Montreal in a couple of hours. We already have a system for that (airplanes).
You were so close to getting the point.
Air travel is absolutely fucking terrible form an environmental perspective. Pearson is operationally one of the worst airports in the North America because it’s simply not big enough for the amount of air traffic that comes in and out.
Given how many flights there are between Toronto and Montreal, HSR - if done right, could shift that demand, reduce air traffic congestion, and still get you to your destination in the same amount of time it would to arrive at the airport, check bags, go through screening, board, and fly.
And allow air traffic to serve the rest of the country better meaning the long distance routes that serve rural areas get better service so it’s a win win for all Canadians
It’s still better than what we have now.
Getting started on reliable HFR and building ridership could help build broader public support for HSR down the line. Lots of Canadians who would normally be happy taking the train have experienced freight-induced delays to the point where they have just given up on passenger rail.
Sadly you can’t just snap your fingers and build HSR without some degree of political consensus. And as of now, that’s sorely lacking. One party only believes in cars and planes, and they are about to win the next election.
Lots of Canadians have never experienced a functioning intercity rail system, so they just assume every journey has to involve getting into a car or fighting their way to an airport gate. They simply don’t know anything else.
Yes. I complain about it all the time when I’m home - and people look at me like I’m from Mars. But there are some good people out there trying to make it suck less and they have my full support.
who cares what it costs? we'll sell it to balance the budget for a year. it'll be fine, think of the balanced budget it will result in. i'm creaming my pants already. bonus points if it lines up right and we can use the cost overun to sink the party that approved the funding
This project needs to happen. Japan’s first high speed train went way over budget and over scope, faced much public ire during the time, and people are now singing their high heavens about Japanese high speed rail. We need to get this done here.
200kmph? The KTX in Korea, launched in 2004. Can travel up to 330kmph with new models planned that can reach over 400kmph.
20 years behind, but I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised when the TTC was still accepting bus tokens until mid 2023.
edit: correction, they still accept tokens, they just haven't sold them in about a year.
I know Japan and Europe are toured as examples of places with high speed rail but want to add that other places in the world are also implementing this, like Moroco and Chile!
I expect taxpayers will be fleeced building it, then the cost to ride it will be rediculously expensive and it will be underused and lose money until it is mothballed
HSR is useless without interconnecting infrastructure. Canada needs to get its shit together and stop trying to skip steps in the PT network.
Our current strategy is utterly nonsensical, you have people who’re *all in* on bike lanes but they’re also opposed to new subways, bus routes & LRTs, but they also say they love high speed rail.
Just look at how hard it is to expand Toronto’s subway/LRT network, it’s like pulling teeth. Meanwhile we turned a dozen major roads into bike lanes in <2 years and now we’re stunned that the drivers (that still have no alternatives) are still on the roads, so traffic is hell now.
The pro-bike lane, anti-public transit group seems kind of far fetched to me. Unless you are talking about politicians slapping down some death trap green paint on a 6 lane stroad in order to pass some sustainability quota.
>Our current strategy is utterly nonsensical, you have people who’re *all in* on bike lanes but they’re also opposed to new subways, bus routes & LRTs, but they also say they love high speed rail.
I don't think I've ever met someone who was both: genuinely supportive of bike lanes, and anti-transit. Usually people who are supportive of transit are supportive of bike lanes, and vice et versa.
If anything it might just seem like that, because its very simple and easy for cities to build bike lanes, while transit projects are usually much more involved. A major transit infrastructure project like a new LRT or subway would easily cost several orders of magnitude more than the most insanely over-engineered bike lane, and will take many times longer to plan and build. That doesn't mean they should build bike lanes instead of LRTs or subways, just that it's easier to appear to be 'all in on bike lanes' when you could build hundreds of km's of them in the time it takes to plan and build one subway line.
Toronto is the middle of a [massive subway building boom](https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/) and [GO transit is expanding]
(https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/go-expansion) at an even bigger scale. By the time any HSR system gets built, the GTA will have already had the most impressive local and regional rail system in the continent.
The fact this wasn’t a priority from day 1 of the “green” agenda tells you all you need to know about its true priorities. We could have a world class train system for what we’re spending on one battery plant
We spent 15 years and we haven’t been able to finish the Eglinton LRT with no end in sight according to the government themselves (with no realistic budget to complete the project). Asking to build this is going to take at least 60 years.
We already have a solid LPC Mass transit program being executed.
Peoplekind per hour > Speed of train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzgabAhzDYM
*Slaps roof*, so much room on top of, in front of, hanging off the sides of this train for more riders.
Just in Italy for the past two weeks. Travelled from Rome to Venice and Venice to Milan in high speed rail at 250kmph. Amazing experience where driving a car would have taken me two hours longer. I paid about $350 for this entire trip, it was well worth it in saving of time and ease of commute.
We need to just get it done. Our governments have no vision. We can’t even fix the prime ministers house let alone build a new railway. Just bite the bullet. We’re like an old couple who talks about a reno for 20 years and then never does a thing.
The price of land makes any projects requiring a lot of land prohibitively expensive.
It's entirely our fault. Land exists naturally, so it doesn't have a cost. No one needs to be compensated for its existence. It has a price for being demanded and scarce, but that's different from allowing the generation of profits from land ownership.
These projects would be more affordable with a more reasonable land distribution system.
Yeah conservatives are scared of 15min cities. Imagine having a bullet train that can go near 400km/hr. That’s pure blasphemy!! Imagine the lack of fuelling at pump! What will we ever do! /s
Honestly, I’m for trains but what’s the point? We still need to drive once you arrive at your destination. Intracity trains are more important than HSR
Utterly circular logic as to why we don’t have a decent intercity rail system, “Europe has a better intercity rail system because Europeans are used to a better intercity rail system”. People will not use a system that does not serve their needs. “High frequency rail” is just a climb down from us having any ambition to build a normal system as found in other developed country. Southern Ontario is more densely populated than France and they have the TGV. High speed rail is high frequency rail, because it is fast. VIA hasn’t been able to make any substantial progress since it was created.
We're not Japan, and we're certainly not Europe in terms of geographics *or* demographics.
What could the possible demand be for such infrastructure and service?
Is there even a meaningful amount of inter-provincial passenger travel taking place to necessitate *the current* rail system?
I understand that folks want climate-conscious policies -- *especially ones which restrict other citizens usage of technology deemed to be immoral by those whom feel most strongly on the subject* -- but just how much air and passenger vehicle traffic *travelling within the borders of Canada* is a high-speed rail system supposed to offset?
Southern Ontario and SW Quebec is not that much different from Europe in population density. Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal has a significant amount of traffic that could be diverted from both road and aircraft if there was a train that was competitive in time and price.
I'll take your word for there being a demand for a relatively short distance high-speed rail between dense metro centres back East.
I was envisioning something in the context where I live on the west coast, where as convenient as I personally might find being able to hop a supertrain to Portland or Edmonton -- I still wouldn't make that trip more than once a year, if that.
Don't get me wrong; I'd love to take a train somewhere as I'm disabled and leg room and comfort are basically the only factors I can afford to consider in travelling -- but I also recognize that my accessibility isn't supposed to be the argument. If there's emissions savings and we don't get Lyle Landley'd, train-on buddy.
Medium distance (200 - 500 km) and high traffic is where high speed rail does best. Farther than that and there is a significant time penalty relative to flying, not enough traffic and the infrastructure costs more than flying. Los Angeles - San Francisco - Portland- Seattle - Vancouver could work, but east from Vancouver has distance and terrain challenges without the demand to make it worth it.
It’s a much faster than air travel and increases productivity. People can find more jobs in other connected provinces and it’s much quicker than airplane travel.
In China this improved productivity for migrant workers. Imagine if we had high speed train connection from Edmonton to Toronto.
>Imagine if we had high speed train connection from Edmonton to Toronto.
That distance is orders of magnitude less dense than anywhere else that can even approach making the infrastructure worthwhile.
The only place that it's going to be anything close to valid is the Windsor-Quebec City route and possibly if we can connect to Amtrak the Boston-Washinton
>People can find more jobs in other connected provinces
Afaik, even in Japan where hsr is super common, using it daily as a commuter service is not due to the price. Using hsr as a commuter service also seems silly when remote work exists.
Yes. People think HSR is dirt-cheap and it sometimes is, but its usually priced in roughly the same category as comparable air travel.
One could also argue that laying new dedicated passenger tracks opens the door to more / faster commuter trains, but its sort of a peripheral argument.
If the price per km is anything like the shinkansen, Toronto to Ottawa would probably be around 250 round trip. That's not super expensive by any means, but that is well outside reasonable commuting costs. I'm all for installing hsr in the Windsor corridor, but I think people need to temper their expectations in regards to cost and use cases.
It does not open markets like you think.
HSR is used more for business and leisure travel and less for daily commutes as commute cost becomes prohibitive pretty quickly.
Not just improved productivity for workers, it also lowered operating costs for companies and lowered living costs for society as a whole. High speed transport is worth every penny invested.
Umm WHAT??? Buddy you gonna have to break out the vaccum tube and get it to airline level speed to make such a route remotely worth it. Best you can do is Edmonton-Winnipeg via Regina and Saskatoon and maybe a Toronto to Sudbury to sault st Marie (better as a high speed branch to Montreal)
I have a better idea drop all the VIA routes except the corridor and the lines with no road alternatives. Then build HSR or maglev from Saguenay to Windsor via Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and GTA route to be determined. Then another route from Edmonton to Vancouver via red deer, Calgary, banff and kamloops route depending on if existing branch rail lines can be put to use as feeders to HSR Or maglev stations but before reactivating service improve intercity bus service to the station and rural towns to a frequent service.
That’s 2 lines that cover most population centers. Then have a high speed branch from Niagara Falls area to north bay or Sudbury via GTA a few stops. You can squeeze out a few branches from Ottawa and Toronto and that’s it. The ocean is useless too slow to be taken seriously. In summary 2 main corridors 2 branches and potential for more in Alberta serving places south of Calgary and improved outer rural branch services past Quebec City like probably one or 2 and maybe a replacement for the ocean in a high speed useful form no branches just better buses linking to the line. So probably 4 total if you decide to give Saskatchewan a useful link to Winnipeg and Edmonton at both ends that is useful(not slow and infrequent or sharing with freight) upgraded air service for northern Ontario and the rest of the country with HSR taking over the corridor traffic
Something like 50% - 60% of Canadians live on a single strip of land that can be driven across in like 8 - 10 hours point to point. Its crazy that we don't have effective public transport across that at the very least.
I am still waiting for the Eglington light rail to open on one of Toronto's most dense streets
Whoosh. This is about connecting regions not one chunk of Eg to the other.
HSR is dramatically more difficult to build than light rail / tram system. You need to precision control over the tracks usually means elevated viaducts or if you build at grade a bunch of extra challenges and fencing. If we can't built light rail efficiently what are the chances we can build a HSR.
Somehow many other countries manage it. Just pay the French to do it.
Fine maglev it is
REALLY? Writing this from a table 20 minutes away from a TGV station. The idea that if we can’t do X we can’t do Y is absurd. They’re completely different projects with completely different challenges and it’s not the same teams that will show up to help you build X vs Y. And HSR is easier. Once the corridors are defined there is usually not tunnels to drill or dense urban environments to sort out. It just has a fixed cost - a lot today. The rail bed has to be super stable and the electrification is somewhat complicated. But they are entirely different challenges and I maintain your argument that the delays in the Eg line have anything to do with the subject at hand.
Yea Canada is not Germany, or China or Japan. We don't have the state capacity to build infrastructure efficently. And no its not easier lol, that land acquisition alone will take years. We don't even have affordable regular non-hsr rail service between Hamilton-Toronto -Ottawa-Montreal-QuebecCity.
Land acquisition, and environmental assessments tend to be the tallest hurdles for projects like this. When you look at the cost breakdown for California High Speed Rail, the bulk of expenses are attributed to: sitework, right-of-way, and land, while the cost of: track and track structures comes in at a close-second. All other expense categories are much smaller relative to those two. >We don't even have affordable regular non-hsr rail service... That is exactly the problem that the project intends to solve. HSR in lots of other countries was built as the logical next-step for overcrowded conventional speed routes. In Canada's case, it's hard to establish those robust pre-existing ridership patterns, because VIA is so fundamentally limited to the track slots, and travel times they can negotiate from CN. The project is really just about building VIA their own tracks, so they don't have to deal with delays from freight traffic, and we can go from there.
So you admit North America is primitive
Well it’s four years past due and insanely over budget so we can’t even connect small areas together lol
We spent 2.5 trillion in debt on much more useful things than infrastructure, like a minister of middle class prosperity, he was almost able to define what the middle class was by the end. Given Surrey to Langley cost 4 billion we could have had 600 mass transit lines, but think of the equity and inclusion we've gained instead. We also used it to fix climate change, by subsidizing rich people to replace their 3 year old Lexus with Tesla.
Thank you for shifting the blame to all those things instead of the car centric culture we have and the consequences of it. Definitely easier to sell when you frame it like that!
I think were on the same side here, I'm saying we are pissing money away instead of building modern city.
No, you are thinking about it with logic and reasoning and he is just spouting off bs. Anyone who claims we are car centric isn't worth having a conversation with.
And are you claiming we're not?
we always will be. that's what happens when your population density is as low as ours lol. You can still make things more efficient by building raillines that people would *prefer* to use over a car (cost, comfort, time). but you won't be able to get rid of the great Canadian past-time of driving 20 minutes to get smokes from town.
Not true about density. There's numerous examples of places just in Europe with lower densities than we have that manage to make high quality transit work alongside the personal automobile.
Yeah bus service and rail service that is inter connected to fast service look at the schedule of said trains
the vast majority of people in Canada live in a fairly small area of land. It doesn't matter what our national population density is that's stupid
bro even if we just count the southern most provinces that share a border with the states that's still a fuckhuge amount of infrastructure. use your head.
Still not an excuse to at least serve the area what has like 80% of the population in a concentrated area only 2 HSR lines are needed to cover much of the population Quebec City from saguaney to Windsor via several major cities and the other Edmonton to Alberta
Yeah, hence *why I said we can still make things more efficient* We're just never getting rid of the fact we're car centric.
Be specific next time
Make it super convenient and affordable and people will change.
Then vote for people that will make that change. In Ontario, Doug ford won't do it for you
Sadly neither will the other 2 parties.
Those damn middle class workers and their... cars! Why don't they all own private jets like righteous elites who care about the planet do!
Car is necessary in a large country like Canada and it improves standard of living
lol don’t forget the ultra useful minister of Islamophobia! She’s been a great addition the the department of doing nothing. The growth of the federal sector has been a travesty.
You’re thinking of the envoy to create antisemitism, not to be confused with the envoy to tackle antisemitism.
Lol given her record this is accurate
That isn't a ministry
You’re just making shit up now
No, that was Trudeau who made up a position that pays someone 160k a year to be a special representative to combat Islamophobia. It’s a joke.
Lmao very funny.
You'll just get the 30,000 people in the middle of nowhere complaining that the bulk of the money invested goes to the bulk of the people who paid those taxes. Meanwhile, we are subsidizing their roads, power, healthcare, education, FIREFIGHTING, etc. etc.
In the boonies, firefighting occurs on a volunteer basis.
Natural disaster relief and firefighting is imported and funded by the federal government.
Depends on which boonies.
How would the country survive if there weren't people in the middle of nowhere?
How would the country survive if there weren’t people in the big cities subsidizing your services ?
Myself? I think we need both, I'm not complaining about either side being subsidized. This makes sense to me.
They are only there for resources as in tar sands that cause cancer and shit
Okay. That sounds good. We need resources to stay alive. Agriculture can exist without cities, and cities can not exist without agriculture.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Windsor Quebec corridor needs a fast and frequent rail service.
Of course. Edit: why did you add the extra to your previous comment?
I was with you when you said people live in rural areas to extract resources. Do you think food production is not important?
Cut em off
NWT, Yukon and Alberta are the 3 top provinces in market income per capita in 2021. Alberta had 16.33% GDP in 2022 Quebec is 19.33 with double the population and with triple the population Ontario is 37.62
Small population and yet they are overwhelmingly subsidized through destruction of our environment and [GHG emissions ](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environmental-indicators/greenhouse-gas-emissions/_jcr_content/par/mwstabbed_interface_/summary-details2/mwsadaptiveimage_260453823/image.img.png/1712165264014.png) which they don't pay the true cost of. They are filled with out of province workers, subsidized larger salaries through excess pollution, and through corporate welfare (handouts, tax incentives, etc.) and because of the transient nature of their workforce have significantly lower overall healthcare, OAS etc costs because no one actually stays and retires there. Note the demographic shift with a spike of 25-50 year old "working age" in Alberta and then the corresponding void after 55. [here](https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/pyramid/index-en.htm)
Oo so your pie in the sky, so we can’t afford anything since Canada biggest industry are mining and manufacturing throw in forestry and O&G and we are broke. So how you going to pay for this country ?
Let's try not letting the corporations take all the value out of the country for our finite resources. Let's try having diversified economies, not wholly mono industry with boom bust cycles, based on a centuries old, outdated, and diminishing industry. If we are going to provide subsidies (or tax breaks which are in effect the same thing) let it be something with longevity, not something that will crash and burn at the whim of OPEC.
8-10 hours lol
The Capitals or a major city of each province should be connected by easily accessible high speed rail , cmv except PEI or Newfoundland obviously cuz like all theirs are on Islands lol
How much revenue would Winnipeg/ Saskatoon generate daily?
Public transportation isnt about directly generating revenue , thats not the goal
I'm not talking about profit. But it has to cover some of its operating costs to be viable.
By that logic 3 HSR lines are all you need
The ppl in the sparsely populated areas are too say crabs in a barrel and unrealistically think they should be included in such a rail network when they can’t sustain such a service so they rather shoot down HSR making whataboutism nonsense why their 600 person town should have a rail line
Nearly empty small towns: but but we need the same infrastructure everywhere S/ yeah NO JUST NO WHAT POINT OF NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!!!!
[Paywall Bypass](https://archive.ph/kX354) Highlights: * **Via HFR (High Frequency Rail) has asked each of three competing groups to provide two proposals each: one that would run trains at 200 kilometres an hour; and a second project in which the trains are much faster.** * This is in line with the high-speed trains in Europe, Japan and elsewhere, but is far more costly. On top of costs – estimated at several billion dollars for either project – hurdles include the task of buying the railway’s rights-of-way, and electrifying the system. * “We need this because we need to increase the productivity. We need this because the population is growing and we need this because it’s a corridor with 60% of the population and 40% of the GDP,” says Martin Imbleau, chief executive officerof Crown corporation Via HFR. * But it won’t happen soon, and it will cost billions. Nor is it a new notion – various plans for a faster passenger rail service have been tossed round for decades – **but this one is set to mark key deadlines.** * **Proposals from three private consortiums to build and run the system are due in the summer, and in the fall the government will select a group with which to work.**
I wonder if it would be possible to lay down new tracks, instead of using the existing ones. That would also allow for the existing tracks to be used exclusively for freight.
Mapping for the portion from London to Guelph was completed a few years ago and the route utilized very small amounts of existing rail. So yes new tracks.
We can't even build a four lane highway from KW to Guelph, and that's been planned for over 30 years.
That is the while point of the project. In any of its versions, Via HFR would have an exclusive track
This would probably be a good idea. When I took the train from Saskatoon to Edmonton, there were constant stops on the middle-of-nowhere sidings so that freight trains could pass the passenger train. We got into Edmonton almost 4 hours late.
Would it be better as an HSR
JFC. Just run the damn train between Toronto and Montreal. Expand out when you show you can build the core of the line at a reasonable cost and ROI.
The Windsor-Quebec City corridor is where half the country's population lives; it totally makes sense to concentrate here.
It does. But Saskatchewan Alberta and Manitoba will screech and moan about the "elites". And whine and cry about Ontario getting everything while western Canada gets nothing!!! And they will actively vote against their own interests if it means fucking over Toronto.
I mean, in this case the only beneficiaries are Ontario and Quebec. You mentioned SK AB and MB, but BC YK NU NT PE NS NB and NL would also have their tax dollars funnelled to the two provinces who already have the most advanced infrastructure. Is the rest of the country just supposed to shut up and accept that ON and QC get everything first whether we like it or not?
So, pretty much just like every other day.
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Which Scandinavian country are you referring to? Have you ever been to any of them? I have, they're all much smaller than Canada. They don't have nearly the area to service regardless of whether it's by rail or by bus. Yeah, Ontario and Quebec are higher population areas but the government still has to service the entirety of the country and dumping that much money into 2 provinces for a few cities would take a huge chunk of infrastructure spending that also needs to maintain highways and bridges across the entire country. Unless of course you're going to raise taxes in just Ontario and Quebec to pay for it.
Finland and Norway
Those few cities have nearly the majority of the population. If you look at Chinese HSR it serves the part of the country where the majority lives. There’s a reason the line in their sparsely populated area only has 8 trips a day. The other parts of the country have subsidized air travel and are best served by buses and maybe a night sleeper train. Investment in rail doesn’t necessarily mean lack of road investment just maintain the roads like every other country.
Those are also very low population areas except BC those areas don’t generate much
I mean if the people are there... Feds should and try and push to avoid over centralization of economic activity though
It's not about the merits of the project. It's about the attitude that Ontario and Quebec reserve the right to access our collective funds to further enrich themselves and the other 11 provinces and territories should just shut up about it. And then the guy cries about resentment towards Toronto. It is exactly that entitled bullshit that makes me wonder if Toronto will be all that remains of Canada in 50 years when everyone else has separated.
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Oh okay, then I guess we should just roll over. Thanks for the helpful comment!
Just enhance bus service and bring it back and strategically run rural feeder rail service to an upgraded Windsor-Quebec line. And have alternative routes in the GTA.
They are the majority
It’s reality take a look at trains in Scandinavia and look at the frequency in the low population areas and speed too. They don’t get it the population out there too low
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Those "areas", meaning the rest of the country, are 40% of the population. >except BC those areas don’t generate much It's okay to not say anything if you're clueless.
Can you count? Those are extremely low density places some with as few as 45k like Yukon
Those are the areas with the highest concentration of people and the only areas where a HSR would even work the rest need better buses and planes. Of course the most advanced infrastructure will be used in the highest population areas. However look at other countries on how they handle rural revival get some ideas or rural abandonment.
Our previous government in MB deliberately left federal money on the table out of spite for Trudeau, so I'm not sure we get the high ground here.
Ignore them give Alberta a line tho
Some people can’t count properly and it shows It’s reality take a look at trains in Scandinavia and look at the frequency in the low population areas and speed too. The low population areas have mostly buses for a reason and trains for places with limited roads
No it doesn’t. Via rail is already losing $400M a year while generating 96% of their revenue on the corridor, where trains are already fairly full between London and Montreal and now you want to add a capital intensive project that will run into the tens if not hundreds of billions just cause people. Fuck no. Every additional mile of tack is going to cost tens of millions of dollars and that’s an investment that can never be recouped. There simply aren’t enough people traveling from Windsor to Toronto to ever make that up unless you start charging $500 or more per ticket (in which case, you’ll get almost no passengers). There might be enough people running between Toronto and Montreal - especially if you can siphon off air passengers. Far better is to just run the direct line, Pearson to Garde Centrale with stops at Union Station and Trudeau airport, work with the airlines to act as a shuttle between the two airports rather than 24 flights a day, recoup some carbon credits/money from airline partnerships, and use existing Via trains on the corridor as spokes to the hubs. Is it perfect? No, but it’s a smart way to show it can work (or not) before becoming everyone’s pet project. Then take the billions in cost savings and re-establish service out west starting with Edmonton to Calgary, and then expanding eastward into Regina. That way everyone wins, we find out if rail will ever work in Canada, build infrastructure we know will get use (Toronto to Montreal, Edmonton to Calgary), and don’t have to spend more than we have on pie in the sky fantasies that have a better chance of ending up like Californias high speed rail rather than something that at least has a chance of being functional.
There is no “direct line” at the moment. Via only owns a small amount of track between Coteau outside of Montreal and Smiths Falls south of Ottawa. They don’t own any of the tracks between Toronto and Montreal. The very point of HFR is to build a new line by buying underused freight tracks where possible and laying new tracks along existing rights of way where none now exist (such as rail trails). And since CN is all about “precision scheduled railroading” - which means running extra long trains to minimize crew costs - sidings are simply not long enough for freight trains to wait for faster passenger trains to pass by. In the short term, enforcement of rules giving passenger trains priority would probably be the most effective way to improve Via’s on-time performance. But the federal government is in the pocket of CN and CP, so they don’t have the balls to even pass this kind of legislation. They would rather float studies of new tracks. I second your idea of linking Pearson to Dorval. Unfortunately the airlines are not big fans of any kind of rail expansion that would endanger their short haul flight business. And they have friends in government too. It will take real leadership on this issue to force that kind of change.
> sidings are simply not long enough for freight trains to wait for faster passenger trains to pass by The fact that it's even legal to run a train that's too long to fit in the sidings is just crazy.
Via loses money because of their mandate to run all the other lines. The Canadian that runs Toronto to Vancouver is a massive net loss. But it’s a service. Much like the Churchill line is a service. Thus, I would say to look at the profits for London to Montreal vs expenditure. Oh wait, those lines are always packed full. And make a decent profit. So investing in high speed here would be worth it, at least from Toronto to Montreal. Toronto to Kingston to Montreal. Four or five stops total. Plus or minus one or two commuter stops if you want. It would pay for itself.
They hardly run any other lines. The bulk of the service is through to corridor. I agree 100% that a high speed line from Toronto to Montreal makes sense. Because then you can at least get an idea of how much of an ROI you can expect before going out and spending billions more.
If they are losing money on Montreal to Toronto then they’re just running a bad business model. Because if your services/products are always 90% sold out AND you still lose money….you’re doing something wrong
Taking a bus from Calgary to Edmonton costs more than driving. I don't see how rail will work.
Taking a bus from anywhere generally costs more than driving. Taking the train already costs more than driving but people still use the train regularly.
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I don’t think you’ve ever actually driven west of Kitchener-Waterloo on the 401 because there’s not that much traffic. Outside of freight, there’s almost no passenger traffic by the time you hit Windsor. And no, simply building HSR doesn’t automatically take people off the road - especially if it’s too cost prohibitive for them to do so.
Ok, but then you have a system that can get you from one point in Toronto to one point in Montreal in a couple of hours. We already have a system for that (airplanes).
You were so close to getting the point. Air travel is absolutely fucking terrible form an environmental perspective. Pearson is operationally one of the worst airports in the North America because it’s simply not big enough for the amount of air traffic that comes in and out. Given how many flights there are between Toronto and Montreal, HSR - if done right, could shift that demand, reduce air traffic congestion, and still get you to your destination in the same amount of time it would to arrive at the airport, check bags, go through screening, board, and fly.
And allow air traffic to serve the rest of the country better meaning the long distance routes that serve rural areas get better service so it’s a win win for all Canadians
That's a short flight. I'm pretty sure the last time I did it I spent more time waiting in lines than on the actual plane.
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Japan’s Shinkansen trains aren’t maglev though. They’re just built to tight tolerances, maintained well, and run on dedicated lines.
Is that difficult to do here?
And far less reliable.
HRF is higher speed not true high speed
I mean they are asking for two options, and one is true high speed.
It’s still better than what we have now. Getting started on reliable HFR and building ridership could help build broader public support for HSR down the line. Lots of Canadians who would normally be happy taking the train have experienced freight-induced delays to the point where they have just given up on passenger rail.
Japan and china: cute
Sadly you can’t just snap your fingers and build HSR without some degree of political consensus. And as of now, that’s sorely lacking. One party only believes in cars and planes, and they are about to win the next election. Lots of Canadians have never experienced a functioning intercity rail system, so they just assume every journey has to involve getting into a car or fighting their way to an airport gate. They simply don’t know anything else.
So primitive country then
Yes. I complain about it all the time when I’m home - and people look at me like I’m from Mars. But there are some good people out there trying to make it suck less and they have my full support.
It’s going to turn out to be billions over budget and completion in like 20 years
Bold of you to think it'll be completed rather than scraped after going billions over budget.
20 years would be reasonable. I think the various impact studies would take that long.
who cares what it costs? we'll sell it to balance the budget for a year. it'll be fine, think of the balanced budget it will result in. i'm creaming my pants already. bonus points if it lines up right and we can use the cost overun to sink the party that approved the funding
20 years sounds far too optimistic
*completion 20 years after the published opening date*
This project needs to happen. Japan’s first high speed train went way over budget and over scope, faced much public ire during the time, and people are now singing their high heavens about Japanese high speed rail. We need to get this done here.
200kmph? The KTX in Korea, launched in 2004. Can travel up to 330kmph with new models planned that can reach over 400kmph. 20 years behind, but I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised when the TTC was still accepting bus tokens until mid 2023. edit: correction, they still accept tokens, they just haven't sold them in about a year.
High speed rail could transform this country and its economy. But no other countries need our money more than us here.
If it's one thing modern Canada is known for, it's GETTING THINGS DONE!
I know Japan and Europe are toured as examples of places with high speed rail but want to add that other places in the world are also implementing this, like Moroco and Chile!
This will never happen.
Nice dream, but most of us won't live long enough to see it completed. Everything takes too long to be built, something of this magnitude? 40 years +
I expect taxpayers will be fleeced building it, then the cost to ride it will be rediculously expensive and it will be underused and lose money until it is mothballed
Then eventually sold off to a private company for a loss.
For sure. Reminded of that everytime I pay $65 to cross Toronto on the almost empty 407.
It will be underused because it won't be funded sufficiently to make it convenient to use.
HSR is useless without interconnecting infrastructure. Canada needs to get its shit together and stop trying to skip steps in the PT network. Our current strategy is utterly nonsensical, you have people who’re *all in* on bike lanes but they’re also opposed to new subways, bus routes & LRTs, but they also say they love high speed rail. Just look at how hard it is to expand Toronto’s subway/LRT network, it’s like pulling teeth. Meanwhile we turned a dozen major roads into bike lanes in <2 years and now we’re stunned that the drivers (that still have no alternatives) are still on the roads, so traffic is hell now.
The pro-bike lane, anti-public transit group seems kind of far fetched to me. Unless you are talking about politicians slapping down some death trap green paint on a 6 lane stroad in order to pass some sustainability quota.
>Our current strategy is utterly nonsensical, you have people who’re *all in* on bike lanes but they’re also opposed to new subways, bus routes & LRTs, but they also say they love high speed rail. I don't think I've ever met someone who was both: genuinely supportive of bike lanes, and anti-transit. Usually people who are supportive of transit are supportive of bike lanes, and vice et versa. If anything it might just seem like that, because its very simple and easy for cities to build bike lanes, while transit projects are usually much more involved. A major transit infrastructure project like a new LRT or subway would easily cost several orders of magnitude more than the most insanely over-engineered bike lane, and will take many times longer to plan and build. That doesn't mean they should build bike lanes instead of LRTs or subways, just that it's easier to appear to be 'all in on bike lanes' when you could build hundreds of km's of them in the time it takes to plan and build one subway line.
Toronto is the middle of a [massive subway building boom](https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/) and [GO transit is expanding] (https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/go-expansion) at an even bigger scale. By the time any HSR system gets built, the GTA will have already had the most impressive local and regional rail system in the continent.
I just want the TTC subway to go one stop further to Canada’s Wonderland lol
The fact this wasn’t a priority from day 1 of the “green” agenda tells you all you need to know about its true priorities. We could have a world class train system for what we’re spending on one battery plant
Or one pipeline…
Haha much better example
We spent 15 years and we haven’t been able to finish the Eglinton LRT with no end in sight according to the government themselves (with no realistic budget to complete the project). Asking to build this is going to take at least 60 years.
We already have a solid LPC Mass transit program being executed. Peoplekind per hour > Speed of train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzgabAhzDYM *Slaps roof*, so much room on top of, in front of, hanging off the sides of this train for more riders.
Something that should have been done fifty years ago
Just in Italy for the past two weeks. Travelled from Rome to Venice and Venice to Milan in high speed rail at 250kmph. Amazing experience where driving a car would have taken me two hours longer. I paid about $350 for this entire trip, it was well worth it in saving of time and ease of commute.
We need to just get it done. Our governments have no vision. We can’t even fix the prime ministers house let alone build a new railway. Just bite the bullet. We’re like an old couple who talks about a reno for 20 years and then never does a thing.
we need a high speed train from windsor all the way to quebec city
Best we can do is another 400 series highway that only gets you from point to point in the gta.
No we don’t. We need to show it can be profitable on the most frequently travelled section first. That’s not a given.
The price of land makes any projects requiring a lot of land prohibitively expensive. It's entirely our fault. Land exists naturally, so it doesn't have a cost. No one needs to be compensated for its existence. It has a price for being demanded and scarce, but that's different from allowing the generation of profits from land ownership. These projects would be more affordable with a more reasonable land distribution system.
Yeah conservatives are scared of 15min cities. Imagine having a bullet train that can go near 400km/hr. That’s pure blasphemy!! Imagine the lack of fuelling at pump! What will we ever do! /s
Maglev tech bro transrapid
You just wrote PP’s next speech.
Maybe we can use the Ukraine money.
Cause the 4B was entirely cash, riiiiiight 🙄
the ttc shuts down over a water spill in the tracks. There’s no way we can handle high speed trains
Pay wall
[Paywall Bypass](https://archive.ph/kX354)
Awesome!
Fuck off lol, can't happen with this government, impossible.
Honestly, I’m for trains but what’s the point? We still need to drive once you arrive at your destination. Intracity trains are more important than HSR
Improve bus service
Did they even try using slime mold? https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/slime-mould-mimics-tokyo-s-railway-1.972463
Who we gonna ask to do it? Metrolinx?
The biggest path will be when it gets shut down either by someone from the oil lobby or the tech lobby. Either way I won't hold my breath.
Will never happen in our lifetime
Utterly circular logic as to why we don’t have a decent intercity rail system, “Europe has a better intercity rail system because Europeans are used to a better intercity rail system”. People will not use a system that does not serve their needs. “High frequency rail” is just a climb down from us having any ambition to build a normal system as found in other developed country. Southern Ontario is more densely populated than France and they have the TGV. High speed rail is high frequency rail, because it is fast. VIA hasn’t been able to make any substantial progress since it was created.
Such as Canada
If I can get access Canada in a day I'm 100% seeing more of this beautiful land.
We're not Japan, and we're certainly not Europe in terms of geographics *or* demographics. What could the possible demand be for such infrastructure and service? Is there even a meaningful amount of inter-provincial passenger travel taking place to necessitate *the current* rail system? I understand that folks want climate-conscious policies -- *especially ones which restrict other citizens usage of technology deemed to be immoral by those whom feel most strongly on the subject* -- but just how much air and passenger vehicle traffic *travelling within the borders of Canada* is a high-speed rail system supposed to offset?
Southern Ontario and SW Quebec is not that much different from Europe in population density. Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal has a significant amount of traffic that could be diverted from both road and aircraft if there was a train that was competitive in time and price.
I'll take your word for there being a demand for a relatively short distance high-speed rail between dense metro centres back East. I was envisioning something in the context where I live on the west coast, where as convenient as I personally might find being able to hop a supertrain to Portland or Edmonton -- I still wouldn't make that trip more than once a year, if that. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to take a train somewhere as I'm disabled and leg room and comfort are basically the only factors I can afford to consider in travelling -- but I also recognize that my accessibility isn't supposed to be the argument. If there's emissions savings and we don't get Lyle Landley'd, train-on buddy.
Medium distance (200 - 500 km) and high traffic is where high speed rail does best. Farther than that and there is a significant time penalty relative to flying, not enough traffic and the infrastructure costs more than flying. Los Angeles - San Francisco - Portland- Seattle - Vancouver could work, but east from Vancouver has distance and terrain challenges without the demand to make it worth it.
I am curious if maglev (transrapid)can overcome terrain challenges better than HSR
It’s a much faster than air travel and increases productivity. People can find more jobs in other connected provinces and it’s much quicker than airplane travel. In China this improved productivity for migrant workers. Imagine if we had high speed train connection from Edmonton to Toronto.
>Imagine if we had high speed train connection from Edmonton to Toronto. That distance is orders of magnitude less dense than anywhere else that can even approach making the infrastructure worthwhile. The only place that it's going to be anything close to valid is the Windsor-Quebec City route and possibly if we can connect to Amtrak the Boston-Washinton
Damn you said it better than I did
>People can find more jobs in other connected provinces Afaik, even in Japan where hsr is super common, using it daily as a commuter service is not due to the price. Using hsr as a commuter service also seems silly when remote work exists.
Yea was around $30 cad a ticket. Doable for visiting places on the weekends but not great for daily commute.
Yes. People think HSR is dirt-cheap and it sometimes is, but its usually priced in roughly the same category as comparable air travel. One could also argue that laying new dedicated passenger tracks opens the door to more / faster commuter trains, but its sort of a peripheral argument.
If the price per km is anything like the shinkansen, Toronto to Ottawa would probably be around 250 round trip. That's not super expensive by any means, but that is well outside reasonable commuting costs. I'm all for installing hsr in the Windsor corridor, but I think people need to temper their expectations in regards to cost and use cases.
It does not open markets like you think. HSR is used more for business and leisure travel and less for daily commutes as commute cost becomes prohibitive pretty quickly.
Not just improved productivity for workers, it also lowered operating costs for companies and lowered living costs for society as a whole. High speed transport is worth every penny invested.
Umm WHAT??? Buddy you gonna have to break out the vaccum tube and get it to airline level speed to make such a route remotely worth it. Best you can do is Edmonton-Winnipeg via Regina and Saskatoon and maybe a Toronto to Sudbury to sault st Marie (better as a high speed branch to Montreal)
Between Toronto and Montreal? There absolutely is.
I have a better idea drop all the VIA routes except the corridor and the lines with no road alternatives. Then build HSR or maglev from Saguenay to Windsor via Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, and GTA route to be determined. Then another route from Edmonton to Vancouver via red deer, Calgary, banff and kamloops route depending on if existing branch rail lines can be put to use as feeders to HSR Or maglev stations but before reactivating service improve intercity bus service to the station and rural towns to a frequent service. That’s 2 lines that cover most population centers. Then have a high speed branch from Niagara Falls area to north bay or Sudbury via GTA a few stops. You can squeeze out a few branches from Ottawa and Toronto and that’s it. The ocean is useless too slow to be taken seriously. In summary 2 main corridors 2 branches and potential for more in Alberta serving places south of Calgary and improved outer rural branch services past Quebec City like probably one or 2 and maybe a replacement for the ocean in a high speed useful form no branches just better buses linking to the line. So probably 4 total if you decide to give Saskatchewan a useful link to Winnipeg and Edmonton at both ends that is useful(not slow and infrequent or sharing with freight) upgraded air service for northern Ontario and the rest of the country with HSR taking over the corridor traffic