High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto

[narduch]

What about HSR between Toronto and Ottawa?

• It would go from the Province's capitol to the country's capitol
• Entirely within Ontario (no cross-province coordination to worry about).
• Gets you 2/3rds of the way from Toronto to Montreal much faster while the federal/quebec government worries about improving the remaining leg.

From what I've read HSR does best when it serves cities of populations of 3 million +. So Toronto to Montreal would be our best bet.

I do see the draw of Ottawa though. All the traffic caused by it being the nations capital. But does it warrant HSR?

 

[narduch]

You're getting warmer as you go.....

- Paul

Oh man, I'm cynical enough as it is...

 

[aquateam]

From what I've read HSR does best when it serves cities of populations of 3 million +. So Toronto to Montreal would be our best bet.

I do see the draw of Ottawa though. All the traffic caused by it being the nations capital. But does it warrant HSR?

I agree that Toronto to Montreal would be the best bet, but if we are doing it between two cities in Ontario then Toronto-Ottawa would make more sense than Toronto-Windsor. Ottawa and Toronto are the two largest CMAs in Ontario, and Ottawa is on the way to Montreal so this could be a component of Toronto-Montreal HSR.

Toronto to Ottawa probably doesn't have enough traffic for there to be a business case for HSR, but it's a comparison between a poor business case and a very bad business case.

 

[Urban Sky]

Was comparing the benefits of a tunnel to widening the freeway expansion, since the majority of traffic between Detroit and London is freight, and a tunnel could allow for HSR to enter the US. Of course it would be extremely low on rail priorities, but compared to freeway expansion?

2 freight trains per hour, 2 HSR trains per hour, 2 commuter trains per hour - even at this high-traffic scenario, you could pass through the tunnel at headways of 10 minutes, so what's the case for building a third tunnel? As for the 401, a third lane (per direction) for a Highway linking two Metropolitan areas with populations in excess of 4 and 6 million, respectively, and 360 km apart doesn't sound excessive to me, as much as I normally oppose Highway extensions...

 

[steveintoronto]

From Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie's website: (Purely to garner insight as to how the 519 region views this. Guthrie is a fiscal conservative, but an avid convert to transit in his last two years of being mayor)(pics deleted to reduce character count)

New post on Mayor Cam Guthrie

Premier, Special Advisor to High Speed Rail & Metrolinx Gather to Announce Next Steps! #Guelph
by Cam Guthrie

Today I joined other Mayors and residents of Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph in Kitchener to welcome further announcements on High Speed Rail and All Day Two Way Go Trains!


News Release

Two-Way, All-Day GO for Waterloo Region Takes Next Steps Forward

April 6, 2018


Ontario Commits More Than $11 Billion for High Speed Rail and Takes Next Steps to Deliver Two-Way, All-Day GO Regional Express Rail Service to Kitchener

Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Vidyard in Kitchener today to announce a series of actions Ontario is taking to dramatically expand regional transit for people in Waterloo Region.

As announced in the 2018 Budget, the government will make an initial investment of more than $11 billion to support construction of Phase One of Canada's first high speed rail line. This will create a fast route between Toronto's Union Station, Pearson International Airport, Guelph, Kitchener and London as early as 2025. Electric-powered trains moving at up to 250 kilometres per hour will slash travel times to an estimated 48 minutes between Kitchener and Toronto Union Station.

The Premier also announced key advances in bringing two-way, all-day GO train service to Kitchener by 2024, as part of the GO Regional Express Rail project (GO RER). Ontario is moving ahead with two environmental assessments (EAs), which are required to provide faster, electrified, two-way, all-day train service on the Kitchener line. One EA is to provide electrified service between Georgetown and Kitchener, and the other EA is the next step for the freight bypass to provide unrestricted rail access for passenger trains between Toronto and Kitchener. To help guide this work and deliver a near-term increase in service and faster travel times for customers, the province is hiring a technical advisor.

As part of this EA phase, Ontario is now working with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) to explore options to connect two-way, all-day service on the Kitchener GO line to the proposed multimodal transit hub at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The major transit hub the GTAA is proposing to build at Pearson will offer seamless connections between trains, buses, airplanes, light rail vehicles and high speed rail along the Toronto-Windsor corridor.

High speed rail and two-way, all-day GO RER will strengthen transit connections across Central and Southwestern Ontario and help create jobs and economic growth. The new and expanded services will give people a faster and greener way to get to a good job, and will help businesses attract talented workers from across a wider area.

Expanding transit options in Waterloo Region and across Southwestern Ontario is part of the government's plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, and 65 or over, through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, and easier access to affordable child care.

QUICK FACTS

• In March, Ontario announced a major step forward in bringing two-way, all-day GO train service, launching the process to design and build six new GO stations and six new City of Toronto SmartTrack stations, and moving ahead with the procurement of new maintenance facilities, trains and tracks.

• Construction on the Highway 401 Rail Tunnel Project required to increase service on the Kitchener line begins in spring 2018, and plans to build a fourth track to deliver two-way, all-day electrified service from Union Station to Bramalea are already in progress.

• Track improvements to support two-way, all-day between Georgetown and Kitchener will begin as early as next year.

• The technical advisor on GO’s Kitchener line will work on improving the speed and frequency of service in the near term, starting the environmental assessments required for electrification of the line, and studying options to connect GO service to the proposed Pearson multimodal transit hub.

• Working with the GTAA to connect the Kitchener line to the proposed Pearson hub would create a solely passenger service corridor allowing for two-way, all-day electrified service from Union Station for both GO RER and high speed rail.

• GO RER is the largest rail project in Canada. It will quadruple the number of weekly trips across the GO rail network, from about 1,500 to nearly 6,000 by 2024.

• Since 2013, GO train service to Kitchener has doubled, and in 2014 the province purchased 52 kilometres of track between Georgetown and Kitchener for $76 million, clearing a major hurdle towards delivering two-way, all-day service.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• What high speed rail means to you and your community

• How GO’s expansion will make rail service faster and more frequent

• Interactive map of Ontario’s infrastructure investments in transit, hospitals, schools, roads and bridges

• Budget 2018: A Plan for Care and Opportunity

QUOTES

"Waterloo Region’s booming economy has created a lot of good jobs — but it has also increased traffic and made getting around the region harder. We are building Canada’s first high speed rail line and bringing two-way, all-day GO service to Kitchener so you can get to work more easily and home to your family sooner. The people of Ontario are poised to do great things, but government needs to invest in that potential. That is what we are doing."

— Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario

"We are connecting communities and creating more transportation choices for people across Southwestern Ontario. This is a significant milestone in our commitment to deliver two-way, all-day GO train service to Kitchener by 2024, and to bring even more opportunity to the Innovation Supercorridor with high speed rail between Toronto and Windsor."

— Kathryn McGarry, Minister of Transportation

"We are committed to providing two-way, all-day GO Train service to Kitchener-Waterloo and are moving ahead with the necessary environmental approvals, working with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority and exploring all available options that will allow us to deliver faster, more frequent service for our customers."

— Phil Verster, President & CEO of Metrolinx


Cam Guthrie | April 6, 2018 at 6:56 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/p5zU3U-Nw


Comment See all comments

http://mayorguthrie.com/2018/04/06/...trolinx-gather-to-announce-next-steps-guelph/

 

[muller877]

https://www.realagriculture.com/201...plit-farms-in-half-isolate-rural-communities/

A well written article with some concerns. Will the province ever consult with rural communities?

 

[BurlOak]

https://www.realagriculture.com/201...plit-farms-in-half-isolate-rural-communities/

A well written article with some concerns. Will the province ever consult with rural communities?

From the article

Currently, the environmental assessment process asks the wrong question, explains Kelly Elliott, councillor for Thames Centre. “What many people don’t understand is that the EA won’t give us a comparison of all our rail options, it will only tell us how to build high speed rail through the hydro corridor.”

Elliott says that the alternative high performance rail — which would double tracks on existing infrastructure — would have a dedicated passenger line and travel up to 176 km/h, allowing for level crossings. It would also preserve existing VIA Rail service, something she says will be lost under the HSR proposal. Farms and communities would remain intact.

Elliott and those who support high performance rail say that the entire line from Toronto to Windsor could be completed for just $5 billion [compared to over $20B for HSR] and years sooner.

 

[hw621]

We should have an HSR. 11B sounds a lot of money, but if we don't build something with it politicians will blow it somewhere else for no benefits.

 

[jaybe]

From the article

There's some solid analysis of HSR vs high performance rail earlier in this thread. There is not a huge time savings between kw and Pearson or London and Pearson with HSR.

 

[muller877]

We should have an HSR. 11B sounds a lot of money, but if we don't build something with it politicians will blow it somewhere else for no benefits.

But there will be no study to determine which is the better investments. If the $11b investment vs the $5b lower speed benefit (by about 5-10 minutes) gives us 50%+ added value.

At least there should be a study.

And the $11b excludes a bunch of stuff per the article (only major roads cross it). The province is sticking the lower tiered municipalities where there is no benefit these additional costs. And then trains, ongoing subsidies, etc

There is also no wildlife crossings contemplated. Clearly the gov't doesn't understand that SW Ontario is not just one big suburb of Toronto.

 

[rbt]

But there will be no study to determine which is the better investments. If the $11b investment vs the $5b lower speed benefit (by about 5-10 minutes) gives us 50%+ added value.

Straight scenario B in the special advisors final report was $7.5B. Straight scenario A was $19B. What's proposed is a combination of the 2.

While you're right that a $5B option was not looked at (publicly at least), the $7.5B option isn't radically different from the result you might get with $5B.

As best as I can tell from the limited information in that report, a cheaper Scenario B would share more track with RER and as a result either impact RER service (lower frequencies) or be required to follow those trains at around 70km/h average.

Hopping around hourly trains isn't terribly hard. Hopping around 15 minute frequencies while travelling at triple the speed is much trickier.

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

Straight scenario B in the special advisors final report was $7.5B. Straight scenario A was $19B. What's proposed is a combination of the 2.

While you're right that a $5B option was not looked at (publicly at least), the $7.5B option isn't radically different from the result you might get with $5B.

As best as I can tell from the limited information in that report, a cheaper Scenario B would share more track with RER and as a result either impact RER service (lower frequencies) or be required to follow those trains at around 70km/h average.

Hopping around hourly trains isn't terribly hard. Hopping around 15 minute frequencies while travelling at triple the speed is much trickier.

You only need 4 tracks from about Acton to Toronto to have no issues with RER and HSR. RER takes the outer 2 tracks while HSR takes the inner 2 tracks.

 

[hw621]

You only need 4 tracks from about Acton to Toronto to have no issues with RER and HSR. RER takes the outer 2 tracks while HSR takes the inner 2 tracks.

Does HSR run on a special kind of tracks?

 

[crs1026]

You only need 4 tracks from about Acton to Toronto to have no issues with RER and HSR. RER takes the outer 2 tracks while HSR takes the inner 2 tracks.

With RER dialed back to Mount Pleasant, you don’t even need that. But fundamentally, RER and HSR need two reacks each. Sharing will inevitably constrain operations.

Does HSR run on a special kind of tracks?

‘Special’ only in the sense that a track for HSR will be engineered for speed, which may affect things like curvature, quality of subgrade and track materials, greater grade separation, different turnouts, more complex signalling, superelevation, etc. Fundamentally, so long as the rails are the same distance apart, a track is a track and any train can use any track....but speed limits and cost of maintenance will vary if the track isn’t designed and built for how it will be used.

- Paul

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

With RER dialed back to Mount Pleasant, you don’t even need that. But fundamentally, RER and HSR need two tracks each. Sharing will inevitably constrain operations.



‘Special’ only in the sense that a track for HSR will be engineered for speed, which may affect things like curvature, quality of subgrade and track materials, greater grade separation, different turnouts, more complex signalling, superelevation, etc. Fundamentally, so long as the rails are the same distance apart, a track is a track and any train can use any track....but speed limits and cost of maintenance will vary if the track isn’t designed and built for how it will be used.

- Paul

Ultimately the whole trackbed from Union to Kitchener will need to be upgraded to a deeper ballast with UIC 60 continuous welded rail, mono-bloc concrete ties and movable point frogs for crossings and turnouts