[JJTheJetPln]

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.

So, when will it be the right way? There have been many projects sidelined until years or decades later where project costs have ballooned due to inflation. People will complain about the costs no matter how high they become because inflation hasn't ever gone down. The cost of goods and services to design, build, operate and maintain the line are always going to exist, just as the costs to DBFOM a highway or a local road will always exist to maintain.

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.

If we're always hyper-strategic, we become reactive and not proactive. When the need becomes more prevalent and it'll take much more in terms of time and cost to build out a line, it will still be a colossal waste of public money no matter which way you look at it if you're concerned about spending. You either spend "more" now, or you spend significantly more 10 years down the road when inflation has affected DBFOM.

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.

That's all fine to mention, however, you seem to allude to the cost of ALTO somehow being able to save CUSMA, or the funds being needed to brace for trade disruptions without expanding on your conjecture.

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.

The return on investment is not in the line itself, but in the productivity of people. VIA rail has never achieved self sufficiency and still requires federal government subsidies to operate. It's been like this since they opened in 1977. You know what they did accomplish though? They've connected communities that would otherwise have been cut off from higher order transit. If we look at the line, they've moved 4.1 million people across Canada in 2023 despite that.

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.

The corridor ALTO is being built on is one of if not the largest economic corridor(s) in Canada. You're using conjecture to compare ridership data on TTC to a line that hasn't even had a shovel hit the ground yet. VIA moves a significant amount of people through the corridor. With ALTO, you'd be cutting the amount of time in at least half if not more, with the potential for multiple trips as opposed to one to two trips with VIA rail due to line sharing agreements with CN or CPKC.

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.

The $100B might not even make it to you in a meaningful way. It would be paid towards goods and services that operate on corridors that are limited by the freight and vehicles being moved on them.

 

[crs1026]

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.

I am a fan of careful, objective, empirical analyses.... but I'm skeptical of statistics especially on very broad macro matters. The last couple pages of discussion where we start linking Alto to GDP or comparing countries strikes me as good exchange of expressions of faith, but none of the contributors can say their point is proven hands down. The numbers don't matter that much as they will be wrong anyways. Broken clocks etc.

On a purely intuitive level, I can believe that a very attractive mobility solution that enables connection between Ontario and Quebec's very large urban areas has to be good for stimulating productivity generally, and there are spinoff benefits in lifestyle and standard of living - it ties a huge slice of our population together and enables mobility throughout this end of the country. It will be an opportunity that many find a way to leverage. So the detailed analyses don't need to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt to make the point.

On a qualitative level...
- A slow train, as you indicate, will attract people out of their cars. We have a problem with road congestion today, but Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec trips are not its most significant contributor. Regional trips add far more cars to our most congested roads. That's where the investment is needed soonest and most. As it happens, better regional rail can be achieved faster and for far less than the price of Alto. Alto may take cars off the roads, and that's a bonus, but the need for regional rail stands on its own and demands the greatest urgency.
- A faster train, as you suggest, will attract people away from air travel. We may not have a problem with airport congestion today, but it's coming soon, and building airports to address it will equal or exceed the cost of Alto while retaining all of the negatives of the air mode. Alto strikes me as a complete no-brainer to solve this problem. We don't need to digress into green or carbon or GDP analyses, although these arguments will help even if they are not the most compelling primary reason for getting Alto going. We can't live with the status quo of relying on air travel, even if air travel is always with us as one available mode.

The argument about Alto causing harm to farmers or land owners, well.... I wonder if they have studied what it took to build the St Lawrence Seaway. Alto is a mere nudge compared to that degree of pain....I'm not sure that Alto's numbers, while large, are any less affordable than the Seaway. And I'm not sure that the Seaway, or other rail projects such as the Toronto bypass of the 1950's, had any more exactitude. Moral outrage over cost overruns is very much a more recent phenomenon. Sticker shock is a valid fear, but we need to accept some level of risk here.

So I'm very much with the "let's suck it up and build the thing" point of view, allowing for careful and sensitive design to mitigate impacts, and assuming proper project accountability and cost control. And as to fast trains or slow trains, we need both.

- Paul

 

[urbanclient]

I am a fan of careful, objective, empirical analyses.... but I'm skeptical of statistics especially on very broad macro matters. The last couple pages of discussion where we start linking Alto to GDP or comparing countries strikes me as good exchange of expressions of faith, but none of the contributors can say their point is proven hands down. The numbers don't matter that much as they will be wrong anyways. Broken clocks etc.

I'm having a hard time understanding you here. You are a fan of empirical analyses. I linked a very recent peer-reviewed paper from China published in a decent journal. How can the numbers not matter then? The numbers are the only thing that determine whether or not the project should proceed or not. I'd be the first person to rail against Alto if the numbers showed it was going to hurt the economy or bankrupt the government in the long-run.

Linking Alto to GDP is the very thing Alto themselves have already done. Just because no science, no conclusion is infallible does not mean the evidence is evenly balanced between the pro-Alto and anti-Alto positions. X, Y, Z paper might be wrong about HSR's positive returns, therefore HSR is bad for the economy / HSR should not be built?

Skeptics may argue that those papers are flawed, but unless they provide empirical analyses or serious research of their own, their position does not carry the same weight.

"By significantly reducing the distance between communities and business hubs, a High-Speed Rail Network will improve Canada’s lagging productivity levels, increase labour supply, and generate a lasting and meaningful annual uplift to Canada’s GDP of 1.1%."

https://www.altotrain.ca/sites/default/files/2025-05/alto-explanatory-document.pdf

Anyone can be skeptical or disagree with the conclusions of Alto, and those that studied HSR in other countries, but there has to be a coherent counter argument besides "nu uh, I feel like it'll have a negative ROI / it won't be worth it" like some of the skeptics and trolls keep repeating.

Explain why you think annual uplift won't be +1.1%, but instead, negative X%. Explain why Alto won't generate wealth, but instead destroy it.

The starting point to make an anti-Alto argument is found in the very sources I link in my posts that show positive returns for HSR.

Wholly unsubstantiated claims presented as fact are bad faith. Especially misinformation like this that poisons the discourse:

Nation building projects need to be about wealth creation, not wealth destruction. [Oil and gas creates wealth, HSR destroys it.]

@crs1026 How else are we supposed to argue against the skeptics that "did their own research" while disregarding the actual research done by academics? Even I can make a stronger case against Alto than the trolls. At the very least they need to explain, with numbers, how the costs would exceed the benefits:

Screenshots from: https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oe...high-speed-rail_g1g49b12/9789282107751-en.pdf

Only after that can we have a discussion on equal terms about what the ROI or rate of return is, contingent on what one considers to be the benefits attributable to high speed rail etc... There is always room for debate, but there needs to be a basic framework that we all agree on. (AFAIK this sort of discussion has never happened on this thread)

Not some BS from a rock mechanics PhD speaking outside their area of expertise about how the primary or resource sector (two different things) contribute to most of Canada's GDP (growth?) or most of exports--->Canada only has RBC in the top 100 of companies by market cap--->Therefore, Alto is garbage.

And by the way, both of the primary/resource sector claims are false.

 

[crs1026]

I'm having a hard time understanding you here. You are a fan of empirical analyses. I linked a very recent peer-reviewed paper from China published in a decent journal. How can the numbers not matter then? The numbers are the only thing that determine whether or not the project should proceed or not. I'd be the first person to rail against Alto if the numbers showed it was going to hurt the economy or bankrupt the government in the long-run.

Linking Alto to GDP is the very thing Alto themselves have already done. Just because no science, no conclusion is infallible does not mean the evidence is evenly balanced between the pro-Alto and anti-Alto positions. X, Y, Z paper might be wrong about HSR's positive returns, therefore HSR is bad for the economy / HSR should not be built?

Skeptics may argue that those papers are flawed, but unless they provide empirical analyses or serious research of their own, their position does not carry the same weight.

Studies are great - when they converge and when the same variables are used consistently so the results or divergences can be understood,

I'm leery of trading studies where there may be little convergence in methods or measures.

I'm also leery of comparing countries that are so different economically and geographically such that the variables can never be reconciled.

Only after that can we have a discussion on equal terms about what the ROI or rate of return is, contingent on what one considers to be the benefits attributable to high speed rail etc... There is always room for debate, but there needs to be a basic framework that we all agree on. (AFAIK this sort of discussion has never happened on this thread)

Not some BS from a rock mechanics PhD speaking outside their area of expertise about how the primary or resource sector (two different things) contribute to most of Canada's GDP (growth?) or most of exports--->Canada only has RBC in the top 100 of companies by market cap--->Therefore, Alto is garbage.

And by the way, both of the primary/resource sector claims are false.

Totally agree. I would be a lot more comfortable applying external and empirical expertise once Alto actually gave us some numbers and explained their derivation. The debate is a little too loose when we don't have that starting point. If we had their perspective, we could have a much more meaningful debate about whether they did their numbers in a way that makes sense. In that discussion, the numbers might have more meaning and the comparisons to other countries' experience and to other published studies would be relevant.

I would add, however, that the debate needs to have both the empirical value and the internal consistency and logic which goes beyond a very academic viewpoint. We are all rock scientists after all, and the court of public opinion matters. That's why I come back to, build the business case around factors that directly relate to mobility, and can be directly relevant to the court of public opinion......and spend less time on intangible or highly generalised benefits (carbon, energy consumption).

- Paul

 

[Thaboss]

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 hear a version of this argument from experts, pundits, and critics all of the time. That right now is not the right time because we have x,y,z to contend with.

I wholeheartedly agree.

20 years ago was the time. Now it's a virtual necessity. Cusma neg., trump, and food affordability, housing have near zero bearings on the planning of this line.

Would you like to know why ?


Trump will likely be dead by the time this line is built.

CUSMA will be renewed is some form or another irrespective of this transit line.

You cant spend or save your way into affordable food.

The the govt is already spending 10 billion dollars ANNUALLY on various meassures to improve housing affordability already. However, i would argue that Alto and projects like it. are long term solutions to the housing problem. Frankly, if I was the govt, I would play up this fact to death, but I digress.

your reference to GDP per capita (productivity) is a very common and reasonable concern that ignores several facts. Specifically that AI development and ungodly amounts of debt is masking what is a US economy that is in decline, where 80 percent of production is attributable to the top 10 percent of income earners. The remaining 90% of the population is functionally stagnant or in a recession (You can look up the exact numbers for yourself). Its why, despite having lower gdp per capita, the quality of life in most western, and slowly but surely, eastern EU countries is considered higher than their american counterpart.

Really when ppl talk about GDP boosting govt projects, the number one option that comes to most ppls minds, is some form of O&G. I agree such a project would certainly be a gdp impacting projects. However, nothing about Alto should fundamentally reduce the govt ability to build or support the construction of multiple large scale projects.

I think ppl at times forget that canada is legitimately one of the richest countries on earth. In plain terms that means we can do alot at the same time if the political will exists, with very limited consiquence. Despite what the media would have you think...

I've done the math before somwhere in this thread but aprox. Alto will cost the govt of canada on average 6 - 8 billion per year starting in 3-4 years.



With a 2026 federal budget of 500 billion it would represent about 1.2 - 1.5 percent of annual budget. Course by 2028 that budget will grow.

To give you some persepctive


By 28/29, the Govt expect to save 13 billion on a go forward basis, based on cuts to the public service.

2.4 billion is what the govt spent cutting 10 cents from gas for 6 months.

Ontario alone spends 5.8 to 7.8 billion annually on electrical subsidies alone.

Ontario lost 1.1 billion in revanue by cutting the license renewal fees.

Canadas tax cut from 15 - 14 percent is costing the govt 3 billion on a go forward basis


I could keep going if you'd like..

ultimatly the question for me isnt one of affordability. Canada can afford to build it and many things at the same time
The question should be how efficiently and effectively can it be done. Even most farmers get this part right.

 

[urbanclient]

spend less time on intangible or highly generalised benefits (carbon, energy consumption).

Agreed.

 

[guavadelic]

It's strange how the "this will require a subsidy, which makes it a terrible idea" argument never comes up about highways.

That's because in North America folks generally see highways as a necessary public good (like water pipes or electricity grids) while public transit investment is framed as an "optional" expenditure that primarily serves urban elites.
That's why there is always a hyper focus on transit building costs, while highway construction costs are often ignored/disregarded.

 

[Thaboss]

That's because in North America folks generally see highways as a necessary public good (like water pipes or electricity grids) while public transit investment is framed as an "optional" expenditure that primarily serves urban elites.
That's why there is always a hyper focus on transit building costs, while highway construction costs are often ignored/disregarded.

More or less this. The status quo is presumed to be correct. Progress demonized. For example, some "expert" on the cbc critiqued the ev rebates saying that any product thats needs to be subsidized by the govt must not be worth buying and one it cannot afford...Meanwhile he supports a person who's advocating for a complete cancelation of any gas tax for a year .

We live in a short sighted society where longterm planning is defined purely by dollars and cents and if ROI cannot be defined purely so it cannot be valuable.

 

[urbanclient]

It doesn't look like this was ever posted on UT from searching "cdhowe.org". This is probably the most recent, most relevant think tank study for the Corridor:

All Aboard: The Benefits of Faster, More Frequent Passenger Trains between Ontario and Québec and The Costs of Delay

Study in Brief This study estimates the economic benefits of a new, dedicated passenger rail link in the Toronto-Québec City corridor, either with or without high-speed capabilities. Cumulatively, in present value terms over 60 years, economic benefits are estimated to be $11-$17 billion under...

cdhowe.org

https://cdhowe.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Commentary_676-English-new.pdf

In that discussion, the numbers might have more meaning and the comparisons to other countries' experience and to other published studies would be relevant.

It doesn't support Alto's numbers or reveal their methodology... but it's worth a read. In particular "agglomeration" effects are a common theme in papers on HSR in China and Europe.

 

[StreetcarRider]

One of the federal MPs who has been active in opposing Alto is Scott Reid: https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/scott-reid(1827)

Among other initiatives, this MP has launched four separate - but apparently identical - petitions in the House of Commons about Alto. Not sure what effect this kind of petition is meant to have. Among other things, it asks for the Alto project to be cancelled entirely, and repeats familiar talking points. You can read one of the petitions and get links to the others here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=451-00662

Anyway, in the past couple of days, this MP has started raising the spectre of VIA disappearing: "Eastern Ontario communities could lose rail access under Alto plan, Reid says"

Eastern Ontario communities could lose rail access under Alto plan, Reid says

(Kingston, Ontario) Prior to a high-speed rail town hall on Wednesday, May 6, in Casselman, Lanark-Frontenac Member of Parliament (MP) Scott Reid spoke in a one-on-one interview about what he described as major concerns surrounding the Alto high-speed rail project.

www.kingstonist.com

Obviously it's a divide and conquer strategy, creating classes of perceived winners and losers in the province on passenger rail services.

But in other respects, this new narrative is a little puzzling. If any party was going to say "we've built Alto, now let's stop funding VIA" wouldn't it be this MP's party? As the local representative to Parliament, isn't it this MP's job to ensure that VIA service isn't gutted in the area, if it's popular with constituents? And if the constituents value their VIA service, what is this MP's plan (not dream-time, but actual plan) to improve speed, frequency and reliability whether Alto is built or not?

Perhaps this new talking point signals that the other points weren't generating enough support, as evidenced by <700 signatures in aggregate across the four petitions.

 

[McGillicuddy]

The purpose of a parliamentary petition is not to change public policy: it is to harvest the names and contact information of supporters, to the benefit of the party leading the petition drive. Once you sign the "kill the job-killing tax on everything" petition (or the "tell the big grocers to stop gouging Canadian families" petition, or whatever), you better believe your phone will start ringing.

Presenting it in parliament is a mere formality, and an occasion to do a cute little speech for social media. Nobody involved in organizing these efforts actually expects it to achieve anything else.

 

[crs1026]

Anyway, in the past couple of days, this MP has started raising the spectre of VIA disappearing: "Eastern Ontario communities could lose rail access under Alto plan, Reid says"

Eastern Ontario communities could lose rail access under Alto plan, Reid says

(Kingston, Ontario) Prior to a high-speed rail town hall on Wednesday, May 6, in Casselman, Lanark-Frontenac Member of Parliament (MP) Scott Reid spoke in a one-on-one interview about what he described as major concerns surrounding the Alto high-speed rail project.

www.kingstonist.com

Obviously it's a divide and conquer strategy, creating classes of perceived winners and losers in the province on passenger rail services.

But in other respects, this new narrative is a little puzzling. If any party was going to say "we've built Alto, now let's stop funding VIA" wouldn't it be this MP's party? As the local representative to Parliament, isn't it this MP's job to ensure that VIA service isn't gutted in the area, if it's popular with constituents? And if the constituents value their VIA service, what is this MP's plan (not dream-time, but actual plan) to improve speed, frequency and reliability whether Alto is built or not?

Perhaps this new talking point signals that the other points weren't generating enough support, as evidenced by <700 signatures in aggregate across the four petitions.

I'm not supportive of this MP's general thrust, or buying all their other claims.....but in this instance their point is quite valid.

Erosion of the legacy VIA routes - a death by a thousand paper cuts - is very much where Ottawa is headed.

That's not a good reason to kill Alto, but it's an aspect of the project where the affected communities are well advised to raise a vigourous opposition.

- Paul