Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[Allandale25]

Building a new rail corridor 'along' the 401 would require expropriation as well. No? I guess as long as it's not 'their' land that's being expropriated it's 'ok'.

Edit to add. It can be argued that the environmental impact and property acquisition would be more disruptive on a 401 routing vs the Northern routes. The farmlands along the shore of Lake ONT are FAR more productive than those even 40 km to the North (meaning if the goal is to minimize taking prime agricultural land, the southern option is the worse option), the natural environment is no less sensitive than lands to the North possibly more as there's likely a wider variety of species to the south. The 401/Kingston corridor pass right through the centre of many cities along the lake meaning even greater expropriation costs.

In the end the real answer is that we need both a Northern Line and a Southern Line.

If the northern alignment is built, what's the purpose of doing the southern alignment? I'm just curious if you could expand on your thinking for this idea.

 

[Ward8]

Yes the case for ALTO being able to take business travelers from air has to do a lot of math, and adding on this and that, to make sense.
I'm not sure who this mythical train traveler is who lives next to the station, will arrive seconds before the train leaves, and has their meetings at the station on the other end.

The only relevant math is door to door travel time. An hour and fifteen minute flight is a useless metric when you're supposed to show up ninety minutes early. It takes four and a half hours to fly to my brother's in Montreal. Alto can easily beat that. It's much more lopsided for business travellers going CBD to CBD.

Flying. Pearson is obviously easier and faster to get to from North York, most of the day.

Even if I had to go to Billy Bishop, flying would still be the most time efficient method.

This is not obvious at all. Transit time to union vs Pearson is approximately a 15-20 minute difference. You'd wait much less at Union and be somewhere between Peterborough and Ottawa by the time you're boarded your flight.

It's normal and common for hsr to dramatically reduce flights between city pairs. I don't know why we would be an exception to this.

Couple this with the other advantages or rail, like increased comfort, no security, no fuss with baggage, better food, easier time traveling with kids. It'll probably replace 70% of flights between Toronto and Montreal.

 

[kEiThZ]

Building a new rail corridor 'along' the 401 would require expropriation as well. No? I guess as long as it's not 'their' land that's being expropriated it's 'ok'.

They are pretending there is little to no expropriation. Let's be honest. Their goal isn't to present a real alternative. It's to stall Alto till they get a government willing to cancel it.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

If the northern alignment is built, what's the purpose of doing the southern alignment? I'm just curious if you could expand on your thinking for this idea.

Though my main preference has always been for a southern alignment first. Peterborough is still a valuable destination that, in any other jurisdiction would justify it's own line as well.

 

[lenaitch]

Though my main preference has always been for a southern alignment first. Peterborough is still a valuable destination that, in any other jurisdiction would justify it's own line as well.

Are you saying you prefer a lakeshore alignment or the ALTO southern study corridor? Both ALTO study corridors go through Peterborough.

 

[CapitalSeven]

If we had a more sensible culture around both land and transportation in this country, it would be possible to knit together a 200/225/250 kph corridor using bits of the 401 and railway ROWs, with some expansion but really not too much cost in expropriation or severing roads. In particular, the section of the two railways from Belleville to past Port Hope could be rationalized and used much more productively.

But we don't have that culture, and people make impossible what investment in infrastructure might allow. I think that's why VIA gave up on the Lakeshore corridor 10 years ago and came up with HFR. But since that morphed into HSR (which I think is preferable to the scheme I posited above) it's much more risk of being killed off.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Are you saying you prefer a lakeshore alignment or the ALTO southern study corridor? Both ALTO study corridors go through Peterborough.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. My preference has always been for a lakeshore alignment, but I see enough value in Peterborough as a destination to justify a second line there.

So to better answer the question. Regardless of route chosen for ALTO there is still much value in the lakeshore/401 corridor. Perhaps it wouldn't be full 300 Km/hr speeds due to track geometry, and perhaps it has more stops (there are many more cities along the Lakeshore route) but there is enough there to justify it as well.

 

[micheal_can]

If we draw 4 lines, the 2 alignments planned by Alto, the one along the 401, and the one along CN's Kingston Sub, If we ignore the railway's rights, the Kingston Sub would be the best alignment. The second best alignment would be the 401. The other 2 are because the car is king and we do not want to piss off CN. We are making due with what we can. It is the Canadian way.

 

[picard102]

The only relevant math is door to door travel time. An hour and fifteen minute flight is a useless metric when you're supposed to show up ninety minutes early. It takes four and a half hours to fly to my brother's in Montreal. Alto can easily beat that. It's much more lopsided for business travellers going CBD to CBD.

Again, this assumes you're just showing up to Alto a second before the door closes. I can show up at the airport an hour early for my flight, just as much as I can show up an hour early for my train.

This is not obvious at all. Transit time to union vs Pearson is approximately a 15-20 minute difference.

I can get to Pearson by car in 15-20 mins. It takes 40 mins to get to Union by Transit, even worse by car.

 

[Ward8]

Again, this assumes you're just showing up to Alto a second before the door closes. I can show up at the airport an hour early for my flight, just as much as I can show up an hour early for my train.

I assumed a 15 minute wait at Union. This seemed reasonable given the presumed 30 minute frequency. Many HSR systems operate more like a metro, without reserved seating and the frequencies can be at a level where you automatically show up a couple of minutes before your train.

I can get to Pearson by car in 15-20 mins. It takes 40 mins to get to Union by Transit, even worse by car.

I think that tracks with what I wrote no? I said it was an extra 15-20 to get to union in this scenario.

The bottom line is that it takes roughly 4.5 hours by plane. If the train ride is 3 hours, you have a generous 60-90 minutes to beat the door to door time.

 

[urbanclient]

Again, this assumes you're just showing up to Alto a second before the door closes. I can show up at the airport an hour early for my flight, just as much as I can show up an hour early for my train.


I can get to Pearson by car in 15-20 mins. It takes 40 mins to get to Union by Transit, even worse by car.

Far someone espousing leftist values, why are you oddly so negative on high speed rail?

Last year I left home for my 8:35 flight from Pearson to Ottawa at ~7:50, arriving at security at 8:10 where the line was growing, got out of security closer to 8:20, but Air Canada boarding was slow as usual. Got to Ottawa downtown near Parliament Hill around 10:50 using the O-Train Line 4, the Ottawa Transitway (BRT), and O-Train Line 1. No luggage, no carry-on. One of the first dozen to get off the plane, caught Line 4 within 30 seconds of it leaving the Airport station.

I fail to see how Alto could be significantly slower than almost the best case (and highly stressful) door-to-door time for flying.

I've said in the past that Montreal is a bit faster for flying, but again that assumes you live relatively close to the airport and are willing to park at and/or Uber to and from the airport.

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

 

[picard102]

The bottom line is that it takes roughly 4.5 hours by plane. If the train ride is 3 hours, you have a generous 60-90 minutes to beat the door to door time.

It's an hour and change to fly, the time you choose to spend at the terminals on either mode is highly variable. I've arrived an hour early for VIA, and half an hour early at the Island.

 

[Ward8]

It's an hour and change to fly, the time you choose to spend at the terminals on either mode is highly variable. I've arrived an hour early for VIA, and half an hour early at the Island.

Madrid - Barcelona went from 60 flights per day to 19. And the train went from 13% mode share to 80%. The jump was from 13% to close to 50% in the first year or two. These numbers are more or less the same with many cities.

HSR city pairs under 600km in distance tend to hold an 80% train mode share or higher.

There is no reason we would be an exception. The door to door time isn't that variable when calculated as an average.

 

[micheal_can]

Again, this assumes you're just showing up to Alto a second before the door closes. I can show up at the airport an hour early for my flight, just as much as I can show up an hour early for my train.


I can get to Pearson by car in 15-20 mins. It takes 40 mins to get to Union by Transit, even worse by car.

What is the shortest time that you can arrive at YYZ and still be able to make your flight? Now add that to your drive.
What is the shortest you can arrive at Union and still make the train? Now add that to your train.

 

[picard102]

What is the shortest time that you can arrive at YYZ and still be able to make your flight? Now add that to your drive.

30min + 15min = 45min

What is the shortest you can arrive at Union and still make the train? Now add that to your train.

30min + 40min = 50min