TOareaFan
Superstar
Funny that because OHL teams within the GTA were/are ignored by GTA residents....but sure, lets build transit so they can travel to London to see that which they would not watch in their own backyards.
|
|
|
High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Funny that because OHL teams within the GTA were/are ignored by GTA residents....but sure, lets build transit so they can travel to London to see that which they would not watch in their own backyards.
dunkalunk
Senior Member
Easy come, Easy GO,
Will you let me GO?
Will you let me GO?
TOareaFan
Superstar
I am seeing some vague references on Twitter that part of the way the province is going to deal with their revenue shortfall* is to back away from the high speed rail promise.
An example (but there are others) is below:
*(in case you have not heard, the Fall Economic Statement today indicated that revenues are some $509million short of the budgeted figures...which is quite shocking since a) the budget was only passed in July and b) the budget itself had a $12.5B deficit)
An example (but there are others) is below:
twitter said:
*(in case you have not heard, the Fall Economic Statement today indicated that revenues are some $509million short of the budgeted figures...which is quite shocking since a) the budget was only passed in July and b) the budget itself had a $12.5B deficit)
innsertnamehere
Superstar
not the way I interpreted it. Reads much more like the NDP being the NDP and criticizing nothing (I.E. why the liberals haven't been intently focusing on the HSR with a news update bi-weekly on the subject)
Until there is something official, I presume that they are still preparing to conduct an environmental assessment on the project. disappearing likely just references the lack of news on it, and the NDP therefor coming (somehow) to the conclusion that the Liberals have pushed the project aside.
Until there is something official, I presume that they are still preparing to conduct an environmental assessment on the project. disappearing likely just references the lack of news on it, and the NDP therefor coming (somehow) to the conclusion that the Liberals have pushed the project aside.
1overcosc
Active Member
The Fall statement also said that expenses have been about $200M lower than expected. So all in all we're out $300M relative to the budget. Not a big deal at all because the budget already had a $1B contingency fund in it.
The 'actual' budgeted deficit was $11.5B. They added a $1B contigency fund to reach $12.5B. $300M is being pulled out of this contingency fund to cover this shortfall. If nothing changes, at year-end, the remaining $700M won't be used, and then the 2014-15 fiscal year will have a $11.8B deficit.
Since the budget was passed, two new trends have emerged that, if they continue, will aid the province's finances in the years to come: a drop in the value of the dollar and the drop in the price of oil. Both will help the manufacturing sector.
I wonder what effect the changes to income splitting will have on next year's budget. The original version of the federal government's income splitting proposal was designed in such a way that it would force provinces to give the tax cut too, which would have reduced Ontario revenue by about $900M or so. With the final announcement of income splitting a few weeks ago, the mechanisms were changed so as to leave provincial revenues untouched. I wonder if Sousa had designed the revenue outlooks for 2015-16 and onwards to account for this $900M cut, and now that's it not happening after all, did he basically just find $900M to help with next year's budget?
Last edited:
TOareaFan
Superstar
True....but the $200million in lowered expenses should not be confused with any sound management or prudent expense reductions.....it is virtually all due to lower than expected interest rates.
I guess what is a bit alarming is that a budget passed on July 24 could be seen to be so far off already....it is a bit disconcerting.
1overcosc
Active Member
It's not anything unusual. Budgets have a history of being way off. In one recent federal fiscal year (I think it was 2012-13 but it might have been 2013-14) the year end deficit ended up being something like $6B off from the budget originally planned.
A $300M correction halfway through the fiscal year is not that dramatic. Remember the budget as a whole is about $130B. It's a total correction of only about 0.2%.
Also, while the budget was passed on July 24, it was written in April. It was designed as an election budget which means that it's quite likely there were specks of unrealistic optimism thrown into it. It's unfortunate but every government in this history of this country both federal & provincial has been guilty of such things, so I highly doubt Wynne avoided doing the same. Yes, she has an astounding commitment to transparency but she's not a saint.
I imagine that $200M savings on interest payments was because the government forecasted a credit downgrade that didn't happen (the province's credit outlook was changed from stable to negative, but the actual rating remained at AA2).
Last edited:
1overcosc
Active Member
I also fail to see how HSR would be the target of a fiscal axe because of this specific shortfall.. the funding for the project (if it happens) will come from the Move Ontario Forward fund which would be close to the last thing Wynne would cut. It's too precious to her political career.
Not to mention the fact that the only real expenses associated with this project right now is probably one group in one office doing feasibility and route analysis studies. It's not like there's a whole construction team out there that the government is footing the bill for right now.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
I've been a bit busy in the last weeks on the Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study thread (that is: as busy as you can commit yourself to internet forums when you are taking a full-time Master course...), but I wanted to respond quickly to some of the replies and comments you've made in the meanwhile:
As for my tables and graphs, I principally use Excel to create them and make then a screenshot which I crop in Paint. For maps, I use Google Earth and whenever I need to add texts, labels or arrows, I use Paint.NET since it has the ability to work on multiple layers and therefore allows to revert any modifications without damaging the background image…
One explanation for the very low acceleration capabilities stated for the JetTrain could be of course explained through the footnote on page 13
whereas page 15 clearly deals (when it comes to vehicle weight and train length) with a train consisting of 2 locomotives and 6 passenger cars. This inconsistency in methodology comes of course handy if you compare a Maglev (Transrapid) with conventional rail (JetTrain) in a report made by the American Magline Group…
As for my tables and graphs, I principally use Excel to create them and make then a screenshot which I crop in Paint. For maps, I use Google Earth and whenever I need to add texts, labels or arrows, I use Paint.NET since it has the ability to work on multiple layers and therefore allows to revert any modifications without damaging the background image…
Given the advantages of the Kitchener alignment which I have already pointed out in a previous post (higher population, straighter alignment and less freight traffic to just name 3), I have no doubt that VIA Rail would route all their London-Toronto services on this slightly longer route (195 vs 185 km) if they should ever be lucky enough to receive the capital funding required to allow attractive travel times (i.e. minimum travel time of significantly below 2 hours). Therefore it would be up to the Government of Ontario to pay for any regional service which serves Ingersoll/Woodstock/Brantford. This could be done through either a mandate for GO Rail or – preferably, but currently legally impossible due to the absurdities of being a crown corporation – if they pay VIA Rail to establish such a service, as it is common practice for regional and short-distance inter-city services in the United States or European countries.
I don’t really understand your reference to DB Regio, as it is merely a subsidiary to the Deutsche Bahn AG and operates a large variety of urban, regional and inter-regional services which are all funded individually by any of Germany’s 16 states:
You talk about multiples of one billion dollars (i.e. the combined annual pre-tax income of 50,000 full-time minimum wage workers) as if you were referring to $20 bills in your wallet. I don’t know if you already pay (income) taxes yourself but you may want to talk to some taxpayers to hear whether they think that taking “some number of Kitchener-Toronto commuters per hour off the 401” or ”the same number of Windsor-Toronto travelers off the 401 every hour” sounds compelling enough to justify spending “a few billions” or “many more billions” of taxpayer money. I’m really the last one who denounces investments into passenger rail infrastructure as “communist” or “pipe dreams”, but it is exactly this "think big" mindset of far too many passenger rail supporters (just think of the repeated studies of planning, funding and building 1200 km HSR line in one single project - a LGV network length which took France 14 years to build), which has contributed to the 40 years of zero real progress for passenger rail in Canada...
Attachments
Last edited:
I was just looking at the way that German rail travel is stratified. You have the HSR network at the national level, and runs between major urban areas only (almost no local stops except for maybe a major mid-point city). And then you have DB Regio, which will nationally owned, is funded largely by the states. It deals with travel between urban areas and the surrounding rural areas (Regional Bahn), while S-Bahn deals with travel within the metro areas.
My point is that this is the type of system that Ontario needs. HSR would be run by Via at the federal level, while GO would operate 2 types of services:
1) GO REX: high frequency electrified regional express rail within the urban area (S-Bahn basically).
2) GO+: hourly or every few hours service, either electrified or not, running between the urban area and a ~2hr catchment area around the urban area. It would provide rail service t the smaller communities that have been bypassed by the federal HSR route, as well as link smaller exurban communities (Guelph, Brantford, Port Hope, etc) to the larger adjacent metro area.
This 3 tiered service would give each of these services a distinct purpose and market segment, so that their service can be optimized to the travel patterns. You don't want HSR stopping at too many small towns in between Toronto and Montreal, but at the same time you want to make sure those small towns at least have some type of rail service. You don't want GO REX lines stretching too far out into exurban areas, because otherwise the trip would be incredibly long.
I just used the German example because I think it's a perfect example of how this stratification can be set up, and how it works very well.
crs1026
Superstar
You seem to have taken my comments as saying exactly the reverse of what I was saying. I wasn't advocating spending oodles of money, I was pointing out that the lowest-envelope approach to reducing congestion is the one that will prevail. My point was, taking local travellers off the 401 will make the same reduction in cars/hour at less cost than taking longer distance travellers off it.
The only scenario that I can envision ANY public money being spent on true HSR in this country is if there is a demonstrated congestion problem in an air or road corridor, and it dawns on the politicians that HSR might be cheaper than building more highways or airports. That was the premise for GO Transit back in its early years.
In recent years, there seems to be money being spent on local airports....Peterboro just got a longer runway, and KW is seeing more commercial flights. London has a good sized airport, and Hamilton is booming. Windsor has lots of flights. For the foreseeable future, it will be tempting to leverage the capacity in these smaller airports rather than pitch HSR to connect Ontario's communities outside the GTA. Only if Pearson or Dorval max out, will HSR be competitive compared to the cost of new terminals and runways.
The best approach to improved rail transport is probably incremental improvements to existing lines....continue to eliminate crossings at grade, increase track and turnout speed to make modest trip time reductions, add capapcity selectively to reduce conflict with freight trains. There is lots of room for significant improvements in competitiveness.
Of course, every politician and bureaucrat seem to like to attach the "HSR" moniker to things that aren't really HSR, but I presume this discussion is about the merits and business case of a true system.
- Paul
Last edited:
dowlingm
Senior Member
I don't see losing High Speed Rail as "promised" during the last election doing much to Wynne - I haven't seen any polling on it but it doesn't strike me as a thing that moved many votes. Glen Murray was the face of that and he's changed portfolios and announced he's leaving QP at the end of this term. The promises being made for it were way above what I reckoned could be delivered in any realistic scenario and therefore it's an easy cut.
BurlOak
Senior Member
Being a blatant lie, it can easily be cut with no political consequences - or at least that is what has happened to the Liberals in the past dozen years.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Let's remind ourselves what the official Liberal platform promised.
Investing in High-Speed Rail: We will invest in high-speed rail service between southwestern Ontario and Toronto, through London and Kitchener-Waterloo. We will move forward by finalizing the business cases and proceeding with environmental assessments on the line from Toronto to London and between London and Windsor. We will invite the private sector and Ontario-based pension plans to invest in this project.
In otherwords, since they knew it was by no means clear they could afford to build anything (or that it makes economic sense to), and it would take most of a mandate to figure out if they could, they promised to study it. There was some more detailed and speculative talk yes, but I don't see any false promises, just some careful, hedged ones.
Investing in High-Speed Rail: We will invest in high-speed rail service between southwestern Ontario and Toronto, through London and Kitchener-Waterloo. We will move forward by finalizing the business cases and proceeding with environmental assessments on the line from Toronto to London and between London and Windsor. We will invite the private sector and Ontario-based pension plans to invest in this project.
In otherwords, since they knew it was by no means clear they could afford to build anything (or that it makes economic sense to), and it would take most of a mandate to figure out if they could, they promised to study it. There was some more detailed and speculative talk yes, but I don't see any false promises, just some careful, hedged ones.