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

[lead82]

It may seem counterintuitive but the reason for high VIA subsidies is because the service levels are so low in comparison to the fixed costs to operative the services. We should look at immediately increasing frequencies of services to reduce the per rider subsidy. I recall there was a study that showed the Ocean operating costs are the same now when it runs 3x a week then when it ran 6x a week.

Part of the reason that Via is not top of mind for travelers outside the corridor is because the service frequencies SUCK. The service is non-existent and only those that absolutely have no option use it. Those with options will not plan their trips around a service that runs a few times a week. Daily service should be an absolute minimum.

I'm anxiously waiting an announcement by the Feds to find Vias HFR proposal. It would be a good step forward.

 

[Euphoria]

I appreciate the impassioned defense of Via from a country-building and human development perspective, but then I consider how much of our population lives within 100 miles of the border. Peter the Great made a concerted effort to settle northern Russia, bringing resources and settlers to clear forest, survey land, and develop industry in the far north of Russia. St. Petersburg, the 'Venice of the North,' has roughly 5,000,000 inhabitants. I don't understand why the Canadian government doesn't incentivize northern settlement, for example, by fast-tracking immigration for those willing to make, say, a five year commitment to living within a certain region. Basically those immigrants who opt for the fast-track or low-skill threshold route would maintain their primary residence within selected regions of the country in order to complete their citizenship, in areas where, for example, there are confirmed yet untapped natural resources that require a critical mass of workers to make extraction viable.

If our immigration and settlement was more targeted to areas that have been hard to service for health care, transportation, and other amenities due to sparse population, particularly where our most destitute native reserves are located, we'd see more such communities flourish and have a more even population distribution across the country. The railways made trans-Canada settlement possible, policed by the RCMP, serviced by CP hotels, the postal service, and military engineers. We seem to have forgotten the importance of bringing the population and manpower needed to tap resources in the ground and make the north successful. Via might find renewed purpose and financial viability under such a program.

Let's suppose a quarter of our immigration occurred under this program, let's say 100,000 people a year. Even if half of these immigrants opted out of the program at some point along the way, in ten years time there would be 500,000 new northern residents.

 

[ssiguy2]

Let's keep the immigration conversation out of this.

Canadians may SAY they value VIA but saying it and taking it are two very different things. By the ridership levels outside the Corridor, it is clear that VIA is essentially a non-entity. In Western Canada buses are both faster and far more frequent than VIA will ever be to say nothing of driving or flying. Outside of the Corridor people have voted with their feet and their foot is on the accelerator. Nearly everyone who lives in a rural community has a car, they wouldn't live there if they didn't just like the elderly don't live in places that are far from a hospital. For those who don't they can take the Greyhound.

VIA's rail system was built for an 19th century country but doesn't at all reflect our 21st century world. Facts are facts, in the 19th century rail was the easiest and fastest way for people to get around and today outside of the Corridor it is the slowest, least convenient, least reliable, and usually most expensive way to get around. If there is a case for tourist service in the summer than some routes could provide service then but seriously, who has the 24 hours in the winter to take the train from Vancouver to Edmonton? You could have frequencies of every half an hour and still no one would take it.

These operational subsidies should go to the Corridor and badly needed service like Toronto/London HSR and not for someone in Churchill, Terrace, Kenora, or Gaspe. These people enjoy the benefits of living in a region of cheap real estate due to their isolation from major centers. That is the choice they made buy it is patently unreasonable for these people to expect urban amenities in the middle of no where.

I live in Vancouver so have nothing to gain by a shutting down of VIA but I know bad policy and a waste of taxpayer money when I see it. The distances too great and population too small outside of the Corridor to justify year-round rail service. If these people in Churchill or Moosenee want a passenger service then give them a train passenger car and connect it to the end of a CN freight train and be done with it. The funny thing is there is only one place outside the Corridor that could justify regular train service........Calgary/Edmonton and yet it's the one service they don't provide. VIA is using it's subsidies to pay for connecting The Pas and Thompson as opposed to our 4th and 5th largest cities. This alone speaks volumes about VIA's inability to set priorities and the political influence that places political expediency over sound transportation policy.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Wow the "I'm from a big city forget about everyone else" mentality is really on display in this forum. People in Churchill and Moosenee (ONTC) would have to fly in/out if passenger rail didn't exist. But anyways...

Maybe we (all of us, myself included) should refocus the conversation on HSR or the TO-KT-LON corridor as we're not going to convince each other wether non-corridor VIA is worth it or not. One thing is for sure, I think that we are all curious as to what the looming VIA HFR announcement will tell us. It will be an important glimpse into the future in terms of what Corridor services will look like, and how the private sector will be involved in it and future rail projects. Also, we do have a VIA thread

Love the healthy debate however!

 

[kEiThZ]

I hope the mods move some of these VIA posts to the appropriate thread. I don't want Johannes' excellent posts lost in this thread.

 

[kEiThZ]

Again, the TKL line is being lost in the debate. Everyone is blaming VIA for what? VIA's mandate is not to provide regional rail service. It's to provide national rail service. The TKL line was a provincial initiative. And we're only discussing VIA because of a VIA initiative that intersects with this line...at Union Station.

Again. Blame Queen's Park. It's entirely a provincial initiative and is an expansion on existing GO service to Kitchener.

 

[crs1026]

Again, the TKL line is being lost in the debate. Everyone is blaming VIA for what? VIA's mandate is not to provide regional rail service. It's to provide national rail service. The TKL line was a provincial initiative. And we're only discussing VIA because of a VIA initiative that intersects with this line...at Union Station.
Again. Blame Queen's Park. It's entirely a provincial initiative and is an expansion on existing GO service to Kitchener.

There being no Via Rail Canada Act, we don't have a workable definition of what a "national rail service" looks like. But rather than debate that - I agree, this game is open to anyone that cares to join it.

Until we have one high-performing rail passenger example in this country, we won't have others, because the novelty factor makes this a solution that people aren't demanding of politicians, and that the private sector doesn't have sufficient experience with to assess potential for risk or reward.

Given the money sunk into GTS and (soon) the Bypass, a high volume express link between Kitchener and Toronto is a failure- unlikely proposition and could be achieved for a few hundred million dollars - a tiny sum in our overall transport budget and our economic engine, and much less than what T-O-M would require. This is the perfect place to show what this mode can do.... to leverage public interest in doing the same thing elsewhere. Even the Kitchener - London leg could wait, although I believe the case for it is already compelling.

The population served and potential ridership per seat-mile is on par with T-O-M, even if the margins may appear to be different. There is a healthy case that this route is a necessary alternative to further highway construction, since bringing more cars into Toronto is nonsensical. So, very much a good case for a provincial, taxpayer-funded initiative, without getting into P3 or private sector involvement to start, or debating if it should be Ottawa's job to provide it.

We just need it done - quickly.

- Paul

 

[steveintoronto]

Aside from the subsidy discussion, one thing I see routinely in Southern Ontario is the complete lack of vision for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and outlying region as a whole. No citizen sees themselves living in a megaregion. No politician sees their municipality as part of a megaregion. And the provincial and federal politicians seem borderline hostile to the concept.

This has direct resonance with the http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/should-the-megacity-stay-or-be-broken-up.26591/page-3 discussion. There may be factors that are within the region exacerbating the 'fragmentation' of the greater whole (and it's impossible to look for a solution that doesn't address the entire Golden Horsehoe), but it was the province that dangled the need for connecting London/Kitchener/Toronto with HSR, and has now gone completely silent on the very vision they deemed so necessary. The Megacity forum is riven with some posters who just can't value the need for a vision beyond the present Toronto borders. I'm exploring the vision of a 'Super-Region' as has been done in a number of advanced nations, but it takes a cohesive transportation network to achieve that. VIA has been left to fill the void that the province deemed so necessary with HSR.

Again, the TKL line is being lost in the debate. Everyone is blaming VIA for what? VIA's mandate is not to provide regional rail service. It's to provide national rail service. The TKL line was a provincial initiative. And we're only discussing VIA because of a VIA initiative that intersects with this line...at Union Station.

Again. Blame Queen's Park. It's entirely a provincial initiative and is an expansion on existing GO service to Kitchener.

Yup. Not even a peep from Queen's Park on Collenette's highly touted report, let alone the concept. HSR is late on arrival. Make that cancelled.

 

[steveintoronto]

Given the money sunk into GTS and (soon) the Bypass,

Besides an excellent post in entirety, that's the second mention of "Bypass" I've read in the forums today. It's like a beacon of hope in an otherwise dark void.

 

[Euphoria]

Across all of these threads the missing piece is how all of these projects and the related fiefdoms that deliver them come together as a whole to meet the goals of the overall visions for the city, region, province, and country. Although different political parties pursue different means, the end is usually the same: improving the participation and productivity of the greatest number of citizens. The more people who are working and contributing to the society as a whole, and the more efficiently (productively) they can do this, the more revenue is generated for things like transportation infrastructure. This becomes a positive feedback loop, a virtuous cycle, as better transportation in turn improves productivity.

Average Joe Shmuck in K-W or London doesn't care about the name of the provider, GO or VIA, as long as there's a fast rail connection to Toronto. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. It's for technocrats to decide who pays for or provides what under which jurisdiction. I'm not understanding why GO needs to provide an express link from K-W to Toronto if VIA is best positioned to do this, but as long as there are good reasons for GO, which is provincial, to pay some of the freight on this high-speed link, what does the user care? Don't lose the forest for the trees. The purpose of all of this work is to provide seamless, fast passenger rail (ideally HSR) between major centres. The user doesn't care whether this is achieved through HFR, provided by VIA, GO, or a ragtag bunch of guys. What's infuriating are the inane obstacles and excuses as to why this isn't getting done. Your PR for VIA is great Johannes, but unless VIA can deliver on providing this Lon-K-W-Tor link alongside GO and others, it's all empty talk. I hope we're not all here at the end of Wynne and Trudeau's respective mandates, waiting for the same promises to be fulfilled.

 

[kEiThZ]

The user may not care about the name on the side. But the governments do.

So again I don't get the excuse for the VIA bashing. If you expect quick progress on a regional initiative in your province look at your provincial leadership. Don't blame the Feds.

Passing the buck seems to be a Canadian thing. Toronto doesn't raise enough revenue on its own to meet all its transit needs. Blames the province and the feds without even a token effort of raising taxes to the 905 levels.

Queens Park has blown billions on crap like Presto, Ornge, the gas plants. So now it's the feds fault there isn't enough infrastructure money?

Again, there's absolutely no reason that Queens Park cannot make this a firm commitment as part of Kitchener RER. And because they won't, it's likely that it will fall through if the Liberals lose the next election.

Where is Collenette's report? That should tell you how much Wynne cares about this.

 

[ssiguy2]

I agree that this thread should be on TKL HSR but it has been VIA's meddling that has caused a lot of this. When Queen's Park came out with HSR VIA quickly turned it into HFR knowing full well that having both is not optional. If VIA had put forth a truly viable alternative then that would be OK but they didn't. All they basically did was say we are going to run more frequent trains. Big deal. I'm sure the good people of London are doing cartwheels at the prospect of massive money spent in order to get back to the speeds and reliability they enjoyed in the 70s. Londoners must be waiting with baited breath. London was promised by QP a 70 minute trip to Toronto and unless VIA could offer a similar time travel then it should have shut it's mouth.

VIA's HFR will not getting any new riders. Speed counts and HFR doesn't offer enough time savings over the present lousy service to entice anyone in SWO to switch from their car to the train. Frequency is of course important but unless is a real and meaningful reduction in travel times from London/Windsor VIA will still be viewed as the slow boat to China.

 

[kEiThZ]

I agree that this thread should be on TKL HSR but it has been VIA's meddling that has caused a lot of this. When Queen's Park came out with HSR VIA quickly turned it into HFR knowing full well that having both is not optional.

What?

They were two separate announcements. VIA has not yet comitted for anything on TKL. The HFR proposal has only ever spoken about TOM. We are all assuming here that the proposals will be merged simply because it makes a lot of sense to the merge them and have through service at Union. And also because it'll be the province's way to get a federal contribution to Kitchener electrification. But that definitely does not have to the be the case. HFR can only be restricted to TOM. And TKL could end up as a semi-premium GO service, with absolutely no connection to TOM HFR.

Heck, we have a history in this country/province/region of not coordinating anything. So it really wouldn't be that unusual to have a disjointed service at Union.

VIA's HFR will not getting any new riders.

VIA has been gaining ridership with the crap service they have today. I see no reason why faster and more frequent service won't fare better. Moreover, everyone forgets why both TKL and TOM HFR are being proposed: increasing population and pressure on the road network. Without these lines highway expansion is a must or the GTA and Eastern Ontario will have traffic flowing like molasses, after the extra 1 million residents are added in the next 15 years.

In 10-15 years if there is no highway expansion, even a 2 hr ride from London to Union will seem attractive on most days.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

I agree that this thread should be on TKL HSR but it has been VIA's meddling that has caused a lot of this. When Queen's Park came out with HSR VIA quickly turned it into HFR knowing full well that having both is not optional. If VIA had put forth a truly viable alternative then that would be OK but they didn't. All they basically did was say we are going to run more frequent trains. Big deal. I'm sure the good people of London are doing cartwheels at the prospect of massive money spent in order to get back to the speeds and reliability they enjoyed in the 70s. Londoners must be waiting with baited breath. London was promised by QP a 70 minute trip to Toronto and unless VIA could offer a similar time travel then it should have shut it's mouth.

VIA's HFR will not getting any new riders. Speed counts and HFR doesn't offer enough time savings over the present lousy service to entice anyone in SWO to switch from their car to the train. Frequency is of course important but unless is a real and meaningful reduction in travel times from London/Windsor VIA will still be viewed as the slow boat to China.

I disagree about ridership, but agree with you on VIA meddling. For those who don't know, evidently VIA has been slagging the HSR proposal in favour of HFR (article here) for South Western Ontario. I like HFR, but not happy with VIA competing overtly with the HSR plan for SW Ontario.

 

[kEiThZ]

I disagree about ridership, but agree with you on VIA meddling. For those who don't know, evidently VIA has been slagging the HSR proposal in favour of HFR (article here) for South Western Ontario. I like HFR, but not happy with VIA competing overtly with the HSR plan for SW Ontario.

There's zero evidence that VIA has been slagging the TKL HSR proposal specifically. Desjardins-Siciliano has been pushing HFR with specific talking points about how it compares to HSR. And he's right to do that. Canadians have a history of talking about HSR but balking when it comes time to do something. I fully support DS in his push to get HFR done.

HFR will be transformative. Not just for the TOM corridor, but for the transport debate in this country.

Moreover, I don't get why he'd slag the TKL HSR. We all know it's going to be closer the HFR speeds than actual HSR. The prelim briefing had a jump of $1.5 billion to go from 200 kph diesel service to 320 kph electric service. All to save 20 mins till London and 8 mins till Kitchener.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pu...ontario-high-speed-rail-feasibility-study.pdf

They aren't going to spend $2.5 billion when get the same political return spending $1 billion, for a project they can probably put into service inside 3 years.