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Mrgeosim said:
I don't think blazing ahead with a project is the right way to get transit built and especially when we are talking about what is likely to cost a hundred billion dollars.

I personally think this rail line is a colossal waste of public money at a time when we need to be hyper-strategic with how we deploy capital expenditures. We have a persistent productivity crisis where each unit of labour is producing roughly 60% of what our American counterparts produce, the country is struggling with unaffordability across food and housing, and most importantly we are bracing for trade disruptions we have never experienced in our lifetime as CUSMA is on the chopping block.

Like many people on this forum, I want to see ambitious transit built, but I don't see how this transit line is going to return on its investment. It will likely be subsidized throughout the entirety of its life. That is fine if there is a greater payoff like dramatic net gains in productivity, similar to what we see when subways are subsidized, but this won't move even 5% of what Toronto's subway moves.

I struggle to be excited about this project and I hope that the government realizes how much better $100B can be spent to actually improve our lives.

*waiting for all the slings and arrows that will come my way
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This type of thinking is common with the uneconomically illiterate, but financially literate self-employed / "I run my own small medium business" type. Ironically, the same demographic that would benefit most from HSR if they lived closer to a station.

And to everyone else, @picard102 , @facepalming_brooklynite : The real argument for Alto is not tree-hugging-burn-less jet fuel, or it will stimulate the economy during a downturn, or the Corridor is "most economically important corridor in the country".

The real argument is that Alto will bring about long-term economic returns for the whole country i.e. GDP will grow more with Alto, than if Alto were not built. That is something that everybody would be on board with. Not environmentalism, or debt-financed fiscal stimulus, or "we are more important".
 
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StreetcarRider said:
The latest criticism of Alto: its approach to moderating comments on the consultation map

"They shared their fears about high-speed rail. Then their comments disappeared"

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Mountain out of a mole hile:

The corporation received about 18,000 comments. Of those, 118 were removed, she added.
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Woodbridge_Heights said:
So much for the CBC being a puppet of the Liberal party of Canada.
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Indeed. This is some clickbait gotchya nonsense masquerading as journalism. You can go on there right now and there's comments critical to Alto.
 
urbanclient said:
The real argument is that Alto will bring about long-term economic returns for the whole country i.e. GDP will grow more with Alto, than if Alto were not built. That is something that everybody would be on board with. Not environmentalism, or debt-financed fiscal stimulus, or "we are more important".
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I have no problem with that. Surely we can accommodate multiple arguments in favour of HSR -- they are not mutually exclusive.
 
facepalming_brooklynite said:
I have no problem with that. Surely we can accommodate multiple arguments in favour of HSR -- they are not mutually exclusive.
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Yes, my point is those arguments are not universally appealing. And frankly if a project were expected to bring about negative economic returns, then it shouldn't be done. Positive economic returns are the overriding point.

That's not mutually exclusive with environmentalism or fiscal stimulus. Even environmental initiatives should be / are done with the goal of eventual positive returns.
 
Mrgeosim said:
Like many people on this forum, I want to see ambitious transit built, but I don't see how this transit line is going to return on its investment. It will likely be subsidized throughout the entirety of its life. That is fine if there is a greater payoff like dramatic net gains in productivity, similar to what we see when subways are subsidized, but this won't move even 5% of what Toronto's subway moves.
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It's projected to turn an operating profit. The infrastructure will take longer to pay back but that's normal for large infrastructure transportation projects. You wouldn't expect airlines to build their own airports, for example.
This is why passenger rail projects generally make sense when built and funded by the public (even if operated privately). They're long term investments that come with broader economic and societal benefits. The example of Brightline Florida is apt here: The service has a healthy revenue, but the capital for its infrastructure had so much debt that its now struggling with the interest payments.
 
Mrgeosim said:
Like many people on this forum, I want to see ambitious transit built, but I don't see how this transit line is going to return on its investment. It will likely be subsidized throughout the entirety of its life. That is fine if there is a greater payoff like dramatic net gains in productivity, similar to what we see when subways are subsidized, but this won't move even 5% of what Toronto's subway moves.
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You answered your own question. You first talked about financial return on investment, as HSR might be subsidized forever. But that's not the point. Transit, especially HSR doesn't need to be operationally profitable to generate positive economic returns.

Economic return on investment is what people look at when deciding on whether and where to build HSR.

The Chinese HSR network of 50+ lines is often described as "overbuilt" given that there are many hugely unprofitable lines going to remote, less developed areas in places like Inner Mongolia and Western China. If that network can achieve positive returns, then Alto, which is the size of 1, one Chinese HSR line along the busiest flight/road corridor in the country, would almost certainly achieve positive returns as well.

From a peer-reviewed paper from March 2026:
Debates continue over whether high-speed rail (HSR) generates new economic value or simply reallocates activity across space. This study evaluates the national economic impact of China’s HSR system through a Market Access (MA) framework grounded in quantitative spatial economics. We derive and empirically estimate a log–log elasticity between MA and GDP using county-level panel data from 2007 to 2020 and an instrumental-variable strategy based on least-cost spanning networks. Results show that a 10 % increase in MA leads to a 0.89 % increase in GDP. Counterfactual simulations indicate that without HSR, China’s 2020 GDP would have been 3.31 % lower (≈6.7 trillion RMB). Temporal counterfactuals further reveal a strong network formation effect: economic gains rise sharply once previously fragmented corridors became an integrated national network in 2017. An economic impact evaluation suggests that aggregate gains exceed construction and operating costs, indicating positive net national value. By integrating transport planning, spatial economics, and infrastructure policy, this study provides network-level evidence that HSR can generate positive-sum national growth rather than zero-sum redistribution.
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I have heard this before. We should not build HSR because ridership is 5% of a subway. That is not a fair comparison. We should compare person kms instead. While a subway trip may be 10 km, an HSR trip may be 500 km. So an HSR trip may 50 times a subway trip or it will take 50 subway riders to be equivalent to one HSR rider.

Also, when considering an HSR subsidy, what is the subsidy on driving the 401. If we don't build HSR, how much 401 expansion will we need to fund over the next 50 years?
 
Mrgeosim said:
I'm not a troll. I am pointing out that you are engaging in the very behaviour you accuse me of. You claim to be the reasonable person but everything you wrote is objectively fallacious. I put forward good-faith criticisms of a proposed project based on our current economic environment, ongoing trade negotiations, and the questionable business case of the project. Any reasonable person would read my comments as a reasonable contrarian position. You are not one of those people.
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There is nothing reasonable, factual or objective about your "good-faith criticisms". You claim to care about Canada's economic growth and labor productivity? Then maybe educate yourself on the impact of HSR on the very topics you are arguing about. Have a read here:


High-speed rail (HSR) generally improves labor productivity, particularly in major cities, by enhancing connectivity, expanding labor pools, and accelerating knowledge transfer. HSR reduces travel time, promoting agglomeration and specialization, which significantly boosts the total factor productivity (TFP) of firms.

HSR increases economic output and job creation .

HSR is beneficial for housing affordability (if done right).

HSR is f-ing amazing for tourism.

So spare us your "reasonable contrarian positions". There is nothing reasonable about them.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Again the problem with ALTO, (and most of the past HSR plans for the last few decades) is that the plan isn't ambitious enough, not that it's too ambitious.
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As it stands, Alto is already a near-twelve-digits project that will take 15+ years to complete. I'm worried the "not ambitious enough" project, as it stands, is already at risk if funding dries up or opposition becomes louder than expected.

Building Alto as proposed doesn't preclude more expansion in the future. Getting the whole system cancelled through excessive gold-plating will preclude any HSR at all.


Woodbridge_Heights said:
There should be multiple lines through the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, multiple stops in major cities (Toronto , Ottawa, Montreal) serving not just the downtown core but also other locations.
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A Laval stop is confirmed and the news reported on a GTA East stop, and the only purpose we have for multiple lines is to kill the project dead. We have neither the passenger demand nor the population size for it. Come back when we have trains every 3-4 minutes like the Tokaido Shinkansen.
 
urbanclient said:
The Chinese HSR network of 50+ lines is often described as "overbuilt" given that there are many hugely unprofitable lines going to remote, less developed areas in places like Inner Mongolia and Western China. If that network can achieve positive returns, then Alto, which is the size of 1, one Chinese HSR line along the busiest flight/road corridor in the country, would almost certainly achieve positive returns as well.

From a peer-reviewed paper from March 2026:

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More on economic returns from HSR.

Bloomberg citing World Bank analyzing the Chinese HSR network in 2015:

1778176836013.png




Looking at a 2023 map, I am fairly confident that most, if not all the lines circled are unable to cover operating costs and/or principal and interest. And yet the whole network still generates positive economic returns. To say nothing of the additional socio in socio-economic returns.
1778177135856.png


From France:

1778177402398.png
1778177370250.png

 
It's self-evident. A slow train competes with driving for price-sensitive customers. A fast train competes with airlines for time-sensitive customers who are willing to spend a lot more. Faster trains will always make enough to be operationally profitable as a minimum. But usually also pay off substantial parts of capital investment. At least rolling stock for example.
 
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