Lack of meaningful Passenger Rail service outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor

[Northern Light]

If every single person did 3 trips to Toronto per year that's less than 2500 trips a day. There are suburban bus routes in the GTA with more demand. And nobody would suggest replacing them with rail.

Just to reinforce the point above:

The Lawrence West route, which no one to my knowledge has suggested replacing with rail has daily usage of 43,900 or 17.5x on 2,500 daily trips.

Some ridership stats from Mississauga and Brampton that's a tad dated (2009) so would certainly be higher today.

Taken from: https://cptdb.ca/topic/6870-comparison-of-route-ridership-per-day/#comment-271136

 

[kEiThZ]

Let's be frank. Via is irrelevant, even on the Corridor. Via could shut down their operations and people in the Corridor still could take a bus or fly with private carriers.

The better part of a dozen trains in each direction with almost 300 seats each is not "irrelevant".

You're just trying to troll with some sour grapes nonsense just because the rest of us don't think service to Sudbury is a priority.

No. I is more along the lines of acceptance that most people here seem to just want Via Shut down and a tax cut passed on to them for it.

Flat out lie and misrepresentation. You should get booted for your trolling on here. Being opposed to inefficient and ineffective service development is not at all the same as advocating for the dissolution of VIA and it's slanderous to imply other members are thinking that.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Flat out lie and misrepresentation. You should get booted for your trolling on here. Being opposed to inefficient and ineffective service development is not at all the same as advocating for the dissolution of VIA and it's slanderous to imply other members are thinking that.

The more dangerous aspect of this game is that I can totally see the argument that VIA should cease to exist because it couldn't provide service to Timbuktu - the typical if I can't have what I want, neither should you type of rationalization which would serve the interests of those who wanted to get rid of passenger rail altogether just fine.

AoD

 

[dowlingm]

The problem with this forum in general but transportation threads specifically is they attempt to bring rational analysis to services and projects which simply can’t be analyzed rationally, because they all have a political foundation.

Take reinstatement of Northlander. The Tories never bothered to publish the Liberal government’s basis to cancel that service so that they could present their reasons why the numbers used then were faulty or outright fabricated. They just produced a business case of their own and we were off to the races. They then defied the recent history of ONR as a vehicle for northern development by buying Californian made trains and maintaining them in Toronto, rather than employ Thunder Bay made GO cars (as was tested) or put more ex-GO single levels into service, such as those on L’Amiral, and maintain them in North Bay. Why? Who knows for sure. But now we have no basis to assess what other regional services in Ontario could also get similar service, or what equipment employed.

Similarly, VIA runs uneconomic services wholly within a province (two of them) due to accident of history but similar services elsewhere can’t happen because it might increase subsidy. Meanwhile GO runs a regional service to London and then doesn’t and the reasons for both starting and stopping are murky. VIA is browbeaten into using slots through Smiths Falls to keep mid Ontario politicians happy and run a commuter service which is not explicitly within what most people consider VIA’s mandate, and results in timing conflicts with Greater Toronto’s actual commuter service.

Durham puts up a “business case” for stopping Northlander in Beaverton which omits cost (or the likelihood of CN being happy to halt a train they don’t directly make money from on a single track main bracketed by a riidculous number of grade crossings in a small town). We could all do that with a template and Google Earth.

At the local level, we see the Mississauga loop, the Brampton extension (both on the Hurontario line), the fiddling with the Hamilton LRT, and of course the SLRT/Scarborough subway.

For every time we look at the tea leaves and predict a project will or will not move forward, a level of government will make fools of us. So maybe let’s all accept that and just have fun with it.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The problem with this forum in general but transportation threads specifically is they attempt to bring rational analysis to services and projects which simply can’t be analyzed rationally, because they all have a political foundation.

Take reinstatement of Northlander. The Tories never bothered to publish the Liberal government’s basis to cancel that service so that they could present their reasons why the numbers used then were faulty or outright fabricated. They just produced a business case of their own and we were off to the races. They then defied the recent history of ONR as a vehicle for northern development by buying Californian made trains and maintaining them in Toronto, rather than employ Thunder Bay made GO cars (as was tested) or put more ex-GO single levels into service, such as those on L’Amiral, and maintain them in North Bay. Why? Who knows for sure. But now we have no basis to assess what other regional services in Ontario could also get similar service, or what equipment employed.

Similarly, VIA runs uneconomic services wholly within a province (two of them) due to accident of history but similar services elsewhere can’t happen because it might increase subsidy. Meanwhile GO runs a regional service to London and then doesn’t and the reasons for both starting and stopping are murky. VIA is browbeaten into using slots through Smiths Falls to keep mid Ontario politicians happy and run a commuter service which is not explicitly within what most people consider VIA’s mandate, and results in timing conflicts with Greater Toronto’s actual commuter service.

Durham puts up a “business case” for stopping Northlander in Beaverton which omits cost (or the likelihood of CN being happy to halt a train they don’t directly make money from on a single track main bracketed by a riidculous number of grade crossings in a small town). We could all do that with a template and Google Earth.

At the local level, we see the Mississauga loop, the Brampton extension (both on the Hurontario line), the fiddling with the Hamilton LRT, and of course the SLRT/Scarborough subway.

For every time we look at the tea leaves and predict a project will or will not move forward, a level of government will make fools of us. So maybe let’s all accept that and just have fun with it.

This is probably true to a certain extent to all jurisdictions - but I wonder how many has weaponized public transportation to the extent that we have.

AoD

 

[dowlingm]

This is probably true to a certain extent to all jurisdictions - but I wonder how many has weaponized public transportation to the extent that we have.

AoD

I mean, it’s very like Ireland other than only one level of government there (national) controls transit planning and funding - this is absolutely not a compliment

 

[Admiral Beez]

No. I is more along the lines of acceptance that most people here seem to just want Via Shut down and a tax cut passed on to them for it.

That's just dumb. Most anyone whose taken a Corridor route will be happy not to have driven, bused or flown to their destination. It's a great way to travel.

As for Sudbury, we have up to two trains a week on Tuesdays and Fridays at about $75 a trip to Toronto. And we have up to two trains a week on Sundays and Wednesdays at about the same cost back to Sudbury. How many passengers use this service to or from Sudbury? If for example, one was going to postsecondary school there (mainly one of Laurentian University, Cambrian College, Collège Boréal, and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine) how many students take this train to visit Toronto or return to school? The VIA to universities in Ottawa, Kingston, Montreal, Windsor and London can be jammed with students makes this same trip, for example. And business people going to Sudbury, arriving on the Sunday or Wednesday and staying for a few days before returning on Tuesday or Friday, is this popular? I would argue that the Sudbury to/from Toronto train is not popular is that it takes too long, not that it is infrequent. And there's no way to make it faster while VIA relies on freight owned railways, an issue that cannot be addressed due to the lack of passenger traffic.

Google suggested the train...

If I studied or had business in Sudbury, I'd take the train. It looks like fun.

 

[micheal_can]

You'd find most people on UT - the ones who participate anyways - to be broadly supportive of VIA. That doesn't mean supporting lost causes to service locales with so little demand that would bleed the organization dry. I am fairly certain you know this after 38 pages of posts. Consider this a friendly warning that the thread will be closed if we keep on doing this non-sequitur.

MoD

I guess this is a case of perspective.
I know that after 38 pages that if anything outside of what exists is mentioned, it does not matter. I would like to have good conversations of bringing rail to places that are not just the Corridor.

That's just dumb. Most anyone whose taken a Corridor route will be happy not to have driven, bused or flown to their destination. It's a great way to travel.

As for Sudbury, we have up to two trains a week on Tuesdays and Fridays at about $75 a trip to Toronto. And we have up to two trains a week on Sundays and Wednesdays at about the same cost back to Sudbury. How many passengers use this service to or from Sudbury? If for example, one was going to postsecondary school there (mainly one of Laurentian University, Cambrian College, Collège Boréal, and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine) how many students take this train to visit Toronto or return to school? The VIA to universities in Ottawa, Kingston, Montreal, Windsor and London can be jammed with students makes this same trip, for example. And business people going to Sudbury, arriving on the Sunday or Wednesday and staying for a few days before returning on Tuesday or Friday, is this popular? I would argue that the Sudbury to/from Toronto train is not popular is that it takes too long, not that it is infrequent. And there's no way to make it faster while VIA relies on freight owned railways, an issue that cannot be addressed due to the lack of passenger traffic.

Google suggested the train...

View attachment 572080

If I studied or had business in Sudbury, I'd take the train. It looks like fun.

It could be faster. Part of the problem is that it cannot run its top speed of ~90mph when a freight is in front of it doing ~60 mph. I do find it interesting how long it takes vs how long the Northlander used to and will take.

 

[roger1818]

I think as a priority we first should focus on cities with populations over 150k that have no VIA service whatsoever, such as Calgary and Regina.

The thing about inter-city rail is it, as the name indicates, is between 2 cities, so any conclusion that a city of a certain population should have rail service to another city is totally dependant on there being another city within a reasonable distance of significant population. Some like to use a gravity model, where you multiply the population of the two cities and divide by the distance between them, to estimate the demand, as compared to other city pairs. This model is far from perfect though, as it fails to take into account other factors that can travel demand (for example, one of the cities being a major tourist destination, or the cities on opposite sides of a boarder).

 

[kEiThZ]

I know that after 38 pages that if anything outside of what exists is mentioned, it does not matter.

One would think you'd have gotten the hint by now.

I would like to have good conversations of bringing rail to places that are not just the Corridor.

Your conduct on here doesn't at all demonstrate good faith interest in "good conversation". You try to brow beat others into accepting your point of view and when others balk you insinuate malintent and slander them.

 

[micheal_can]

The thing about inter-city rail is it, as the name indicates, is between 2 cities, so any conclusion that a city of a certain population should have rail service to another city is totally dependant on there being another city within a reasonable distance of significant population. Some like to use a gravity model, where you multiply the population of the two cities and divide by the distance between them, to estimate the demand, as compared to other city pairs. This model is far from perfect though, as it fails to take into account other factors that can travel demand (for example, one of the cities being a major tourist destination, or the cities on opposite sides of a boarder).

Calgary to Edmonton is a reasonable distance. Both are major cities.

 

[kEiThZ]

The thing about inter-city rail is it, as the name indicates, is between 2 cities, so any conclusion that a city of a certain population should have rail service to another city is totally dependant on there being another city within a reasonable distance of significant population. Some like to use a gravity model, where you multiply the population of the two cities and divide by the distance between them, to estimate the demand, as compared to other city pairs. This model is far from perfect though, as it fails to take into account other factors that can travel demand (for example, one of the cities being a major tourist destination, or the cities on opposite sides of a boarder).

Absent exceptional circumstances the gravity model tends to be a fairly decent indicator of demand. The problem with modeling is that you need to apply to gravity model to every stop en route and add it all up to get to total potential. That's going to be rare on forums.

 

[kEiThZ]

The problem with this forum in general but transportation threads specifically is they attempt to bring rational analysis to services and projects which simply can’t be analyzed rationally, because they all have a political foundation.

For every time we look at the tea leaves and predict a project will or will not move forward, a level of government will make fools of us. So maybe let’s all accept that and just have fun with it.

This mostly works in an environment where there is political support for an upgrade or service writ large. For example, there was never debate whether service should be improved in Scarborough. The debate was over what form.

Catering to these whims becomes a lot more dangerous when facing off against a political faction that simply discounts the entire utility for which you may be advocating. This is why transit and transport advocates in general have become more cautious and prudent to avoid causes that can more easily be portrayed as frivolous and wasteful.

 

[crs1026]

And before that we should actually build rail where it's fiscally sensible so that Canadians actually understand the benefits of rail and don't just think it's an anachronistic waste of their tax dollars, as a majority do today.

I don't think railfans fully appreciate how close we are to have a future government simply ditch national rail.

As a for instance, the capital cost of setting up a replicated Greyhound service on the Winnipeg-Calgary-Edmonton triangle (with a Saskatoon-Regina leg) are so ridiculously small compared to reinstating rail service. Sure, the bus service would lose money…. Which is why investors haven’t done so…. But if public money were available, the business case would exceed the case for rail by a country kilometer.

- Paul

 

[Urban Sky]

Calgary to Edmonton is a reasonable distance. Both are major cities.

Correct, but unfortunately there seems to be a strong inverse relationship between how viable a potential rail service would be and how interested you are in allowing us to have any focussed discussion about it…