From the Montreal Gazette
Put high-speed train on the rails
Justin Bur, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, January 12
The premiers of Ontario and Quebec have announced a feasibility study for high-speed rail in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, including the key Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto triangle. It is good news indeed that better
intercity transportation is back on the political agenda. But it is hardly a new idea. At least seven studies have been conducted on the subject in the past quarter century, each one shelved for two main reasons: the high cost of the project, and doubts that the corridor has the population to justify such a service. Are these really valid objections?
Over the period that high-speed rail has been rejected as "too expensive", many billions of dollars of public and private money have been lavished on airport expansion and highway development. The
Toronto Pearson airport expansion alone would cover the costs of a high-speed line between Toronto and Montreal. What do we have to show for this investment? A passenger transport system entirely based on
petroleum consumption, with little hope of using alternative energies in the medium term. The highest possible emissions of smog and greenhouse gases. Frequent congestion in airports and on highways. High vulnerability to adverse weather conditions. No other country in the industrialized world does quite so badly, except perhaps the United States. The question is not whether high-speed rail is too expensive, but rather how we can afford to delay it any longer.
Doubts about the population of the Quebec-Windsor corridor are equally misplaced. The fact that we have large planes flying half-hourly each way between Toronto and Montreal, in addition to VIA Rail's most heavily travelled routes and the busiest highways in Canada, demonstrates the demand for travel in this part of Canada. By international standards, the population numbers and distances between the cities are well suited for successful fast trains. What the population is not sufficient for, however, is building high-speed rail while also retaining all the air traffic. Airlines and politicians are legitimately worried about the risk of destabilizing the fragile Canadian air transport system. The way out of this problem is not for lobbyists to block high-speed rail, but rather for airlines to negotiate favorable terms for using high-speed trains to transport passengers bearing airline tickets. This is common practice in Western Europe and of benefit to traveller and airline alike.
Let us rejoice that fast trains are once more on the agenda. This time, the project must go forth: our future mobility is at stake. Justin Bur is vice-president east of Transport 2000 Canada.
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I found the bolded part interesting. How much is the new Pickering airport and related infrastructure supposed to cost?
