[Thaboss]

Is there any reason not to build HSR there?

Besides lack of political will, probably not. I suspect AB will make an announcement about HSR in the summer/fall

Well, the CPC costed platform has been released - and not one mention of HSR, Alto, passenger rail, transit, or VIA Rail Canada. Their commentary about critical infrastructure does not refer to railways.

Not their dog, not their race.

- Paul

To no one's suprise. This platform is very confusing but i wont get into it here. Let's just say that his ambitions for a better canada starts and ends with deficit funded tax cuts and oil induced dutch disease. I strongly suspect for a cons govt to ever touch these planned savings HSR would be tossed straight to the gates of hell as many here already suspected.


HSR probably viability hinges on libs remaining in power for at least the next 8 years. Who wants to take bets on that happening?

 

[nfitz]

Well, the CPC costed platform has been released - and not one mention of HSR, Alto, passenger rail, transit, or VIA Rail Canada. Their commentary about critical infrastructure does not refer to railways.

No mention of transit projects either, other than defunding the Quebec City LRT. Mentions of at least 3 highway bridges though, and about a thousand kilometres of greenfield highways in remote areas On one hand, you'd think that stuff like this is very granular - on the other hand, they name dropped 5 different road projects, and defunding a transit project.

I wonder which Crown Corporations they will defund other than the CBC - they are pretty vague about that.

 

[Allandale25]

Well, the CPC costed platform has been released - and not one mention of HSR, Alto, passenger rail, transit, or VIA Rail Canada. Their commentary about critical infrastructure does not refer to railways.

Not their dog, not their race.

- Paul

There's one mention to "railways" here on page 6. I agree that it doesn't mention the rest and the vague reference to "railways" leaves a lot to be desired.

Page 7 references the Port of Churchill where I guess if the shipping season was extended there could be more freight rail.

 

[SFO-YYZ]

I know people have a tendency to get pessimistic, but let’s also be realistic:

- although a liberal win/majority is still up in the air, a conservative majority/minority government is also highly unlikely in this election.

- Hence I wouldn’t dwell too much on their “costed” platform as even the conservative leadership probably knows by now that the chance of them forming government and implementing all of their policies is questionable at best.

- Although not mentioned in their costed platform, the Conservatives did mention in their policy platform to support HSR projects (they didn’t call out Alto but there was clear mention of high speed rail and transit). This costed platform is very much an exercise of “penny pinching” for the conservatives, because the must be seen - under election optics - to be doing more to reduce deficits than the liberals. Honestly wouldn’t read too much into their costed plan.

 

[nfitz]

Although not mentioned in their costed platform, the Conservatives did mention in their policy platform to support HSR projects (they didn’t call out Alto but there was clear mention of high speed rail and transit).

Looking at their most recent (2023? Is there a newer one?) policy declaration, they do mention high speed rail.

But I can't find any mention of local transit. Or much mention of municipalities at all, other than contaminated sites, drinking water, housing/homelessness, and organized crime.

I'd assume the intention is to end large-scale support of municipal infrastructure. What's discussed seems to be more national infrastructure ... national highway system, rail-based transportation infrastructure across Canada, northern access, etc.

Which makes sense. With their desire to significantly reduce government spending, eliminating funding of areas that are 100% provincial responsibilities is relatively painless. Though it's probably too late to back out of most of the existing projects - other than Quebec City.

Though does an old policy declaration have much meaning? There are several things here that are at odds with what they've been saying (or perhaps not saying) during the election. The policy document discusses ending MAID and euthanasia on multiple occasions - which I haven't heard discussed. It also stresses the importance of both the French, and English CBC, including that it must reflect regional and demographic diversity, while only saying that it should reduce "its reliance upon government funding and subsidy". There's no discussion of the defund the English CBC while keeping the French CBC. The declaration also clearly states that Conservative MPs will be free to vote for banning abortion and ending gay marriage - which appears in contrast to what we've been sold recently.

Perhaps there's a more recent version?

 

[starlinnitschke8]

1) I don’t know how it can break even if it’s a substantial investment to make and then people want ticket prices not to increase at all. I personally don’t find that realistic.

2. On time is the priority to me and I’m assuming this line not competing with freight would be relatively easy to manage.

3. Via runs pretty frequently and I’d assume this would be the same.

4 I personally consider a via train not held up by a freight train to be as fast as me driving. I also think the fact that union is easier to access and the train terminal in Ottawa easier to access than the airport. Plus I can show up minutes before a train departs. The plane is for sure faster. But you add in the security, the locations of the airports and the fact you have to be there early it’s not that much faster. That’s my personal opinion. As a result I don’t have much issue with the current line other than having to wait for freight trains.

I hope this line gets built. But I wouldn’t bet any real money on it. I’m super skeptical. Unless you’re talking about 25 years from now. That’s a whole different story. I also doubt that this project will be implemented in the near future. The issue of financing and payback is really important, especially with such high construction costs. Expected results, such as flight frequency and competitiveness with aviation, are important, but will depend on the actual implementation and demand for the service. I would not put money on it either. I would rather buy a new game for myself, although I recently read here about a cool free game. Such a project requires huge investments and time, as well as solving many infrastructural and political issues. Therefore, if it does appear, it will most likely not be earlier than in a few years.

Only in Japan can they build so quickly!

 

[ssiguy2]

One station does not a ridership make, plus your numbers are wrong.

Ridership east of Montreal is higher than west of Toronto.

London is a very busy station, but Kingston is #4 in boardings on the system. London used to be #7 or 8, and I have no reason to think that has changed.

Dan

Go to VIA's site under stations and land and you will find that London is the 4th busiest station followed by Kingston and the Quebec and Windsor at #7.

My point about Carney was that he specifically said HSR would go from Quebec to Windsor which the ALTO proposal doesn't. It does not need to be built all at once and the priority should be first connecting Tor/Ott/Mon but after that Phase 2 should be BOTH eastward to Quebec and westward to London/Windsor although I could see a scenario where the London portion opens first before getting all the way to Windsor.

 

[Urban Sky]

Go to VIA's site under stations and land and you will find that London is the 4th busiest station followed by Kingston and the Quebec and Windsor at #7.

Jesus, how difficult is it to spend the five extra seconds to specify that you are not referring to VIA‘s website, but to a post here on the „VIA Rail“ thread?

According to VIA's Total passengers at stations (boarding and deboarding) in 2018, Ottawa ranked a close third behind Montreal, though Montreal serves more destinations (in addition to Ottawa and Montreal, it has Quebec City, Northern Quebec and the Ocean). Interestingly Fallowfield beats out both Oshawa and Dorval.

Top 10 sorted by Total Passengers:

Rank	Station	Total passengers
1	TORONTO	2,839,320
2	MONTREAL	1,538,556
3	OTTAWA	1,195,495
4	LONDON	508,955
5	KINGSTON	456,586
6	QUEBEC	324,037
7	WINDSOR	268,543
8	FALLOWFIELD	233,893
9	OSHAWA	207,037
10	DORVAL	200,158

 

[Urban Sky]

The Taiwanese system was built in one go and is some 350km in length, which is on the same general level as, for example, Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal.

A legacy rail system with an incompatible (cape) gauge, a heavily centralized government, a high national population density (rank #17 amongst this planet's countries and dependencies, with only Bangladesh having a larger population or land area) and a relatively short corridor (350 km is the same length as Toronto-Windsor and less than Toronto-Ottawa) which virtually covers all major cities (see map with population density below) all worked in favor of building a comparatively long corridor as one single project. Unfortunately, none of these factors applies to Canada...

Spoiler

What is put on the slides is generally questionable enough that I just treat it as given that Phase 3 will be punted indefinitely.

[...]

As for estimates and cost control, you should probably not make much out of the rough order of magnitude estimate, which can be approximated by anyone with a vague idea of how much high-speed railways cost per kilometre in rich countries. What will make and break things are the numbers that will be produced as a result of the development period, when the scope has been clarified and cost estimates based on what is actually supposed to be built produced.

As long as QBEC-MTRL is still part of the official scope and the official schedule shows construction to take place along the entire route simultaneously, we all know that the planning for this project (including all the figures they've published) is too immature to be taken serious...

The German way of a zillion upgrades and smaller new line bypasses are not at all the common way things are done around the world, and, directly relevant considering who is involved in the Canadian scheme, French and Spanish lines of very considerable length have been pursued in one go. It is a mistake to assume that Germany is inherently the "normal" way of doing things.

Agreed, the German way is very different from that of countries like France and Spain, but what countries' experiences are most applicable to Canada’s situation? Let's just go through the UIC Atlas of HSR and see what countries have built (and started operating) HSR networks of their own so far:

Continent	Countries
	Austria Switzerland Belgium Netherlands Denmark Finland Sweden France Germany Serbia Italy Poland Portugal Spain United Kingdom
Asia-Pacific	China Indonesia Japan South Korea
Africa	Egypt Morocco
North America	United States

I will now propose a few criteria to identify which of the above countries are most applicable to Canada:

Criteria	Relevance	Canadian Situation today
GDP per capita	Rich countries are more likely to afford HSR, but are also more likely to have strong environmental protections and civic/property rights, which make HSR construction more time-consuming and difficult to pull of than in poorer countries.	GDP per capita of $53,431 USD in 2023.
Centralization of government	Centralized governments are more likely to push decisions through which allocate massive public investments on a subset of its cities and regions, while leaving others out.	Canada is one of the most politically decentralized countries in the world, with only comparatively few responsibilities held by the central government. Transportation is no exception.
Centralization of country	Political, economic and cultural power centralized in a single city or region favors a HSR network which focuses on connecting that dominating node with all other main nodes.	Canada is an extremely dispersed country. Its economic center is in Toronto, some 400 km away from its capital, whereas its busiest ports are 4000 km away.
Distribution of population	Having all major population centers within a distance where HSR can maintain travel times allowing to easily make the journey within a day helps to foster a sense that the entire country will eventually benefit from the network, even if important regions are not part of the initial scope.	More than a third of Canada's population (38.6% in 2021) live outside of Quebec and Ontario and are thus unlikely to ever benefit from the HSR network built there. Also, of the 6 metropolitan areas with more than 1 million people, only 3 are located within these two provinces.
Gauge of legacy rail network	A legacy network in standard gauge (the gauge chosen for every single HSR network to date) allows HSR trains to leverage the existing network and thus facilitates a more gradual expansion of the HSR network building segment-by-segment, whereas a non-standard gauge legacy network favors building it route-by-route.	Canada's continental legacy network is exclusively using standard gauge.
Presence of semi-fast and semi-frequent intercity rail network	The prevalence of semi-fast (e.g., Vmax of 160 km/h and average speed of 100-120 km/h) and semi-frequent (e.g., hourly service or at least 12 departures per day and direction) helps to make intercity rail a relevant mode for intercity travel and to demonstrate the need to invest in faster rail links.	VIA Rail offers connections within the planned T-O-M-Q corridor which are slightly slower (with an average scheduled travel speed ranging between 81 km/h for QBEC-MTRL and 102 km/h for MTRL-TRTO) and less frequent (5 departures per day and direction on all main routes, except for the 7-10 departures on OTTW-TRTO).
Presence of a significant ridership base for the existing intercity rail services	A significant pre-existing ridership serves as a strong constituency when it comes to justifying the need for HSR investments.	VIA Rail's corridor ridership was 4.8 million in 2019, translating to 0.2 trips per QC/ON resident per year (or one trip every 4.7 years)
Presence of busy freight rail traffic	Dense freight rail traffic complicates corridor (and especially: track) sharing between passenger and HSR services.	Canada's modal share for freight rail is among the highest for rich countries.

If you now screen the list of HSR nations I've provided further above and strip the countries which only have upgraded existing lines (such as Serbia) or are only part of a larger network (such as Belgium and Netherlands, which can be seen as extensions of the French network), you can start assessing them in the light of the characteristics I've just outlined. So if you think that Taiwan is the most applicable to our situation, then I guess that's the country we should try to emulate. Same for Spain and France (the countries we in fact asked to build ALTO). However, call me skeptical that these really are the most relevant countries for us to learn from...

 

[Adjei]

So what’s the faith of this project with the minority government ? May gain some momentum if Liberals can get the support of the BQ.

 

[micheal_can]

So what’s the faith of this project with the minority government ? May gain some momentum if Liberals can get the support of the BQ.

The BQ would want this.The math tells me it is enough to keep it going.
My second thought is whether they see the Calgary -Edmonton HSR as a way of getting votes in the next election, whenever it will be.

 

[nfitz]

So what’s the faith of this project with the minority government ? May gain some momentum if Liberals can get the support of the BQ.

I don't see that should change much. It's been a Liberal minority government for 3 elections in a row now - again with enough NDP seats to get them to 172 (right now at least).

 

[Thaboss]

So what’s the faith of this project with the minority government ? May gain some momentum if Liberals can get the support of the BQ.

Bq, NDP, ans greens would support alto in principle for sure.

IF NDP + lib = Majority and given that ndp is broke as hell with no leader this govt will actually be rather stable .... BUT IMO alto needs at least two consecutive full term govt that are in support of ALTO. Today's results make predicting even a single full term govt undeniably a tenuous proposition.

The issues Carney must solve will take much time, will canada give it to him ?

 

[crs1026]

The Alto co-development phase is pretty low profile and will likely just plod along for the time being. No need to shake the political tree on that one for the next year or more.

What will be more interesting is whether the Alberta equivalent will be floated. Not a bad olive branch to hold out right now, Ottawa is likely to be looking for quid pro quo's to offer Alberta as the US issues progress.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

Bq, NDP, ans greens would support alto in principle for sure.

IF NDP + lib = Majority and given that ndp is broke as hell with no leader this govt will actually be rather stable .... BUT IMO alto needs at least two consecutive full term govt that are in support of ALTO. Today's results make predicting even a single full term govt undeniably a tenuous proposition.

The issues Carney must solve will take much time, will canada give it to him ?

If we can have a ~4 year minority government, we get through the mess for either a uniter on the right,or Carney showing he has the stuff to be for all of Canada. That could help move this along. A C-E HSR announcement would also help keep this along.