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

[crs1026]

This is a case where "have" and "have not" applies. There are provinces that would have to make a choice between surfacing roads and fixing potholes versus rail passenger.... guess which way their electorate would favour. There are provinces that might have the money but prefer to wait and see if Ottawa will pick up the check first. And there are provinces that have no option but to get on with rail .... but know that Ottawa will fund many things if the politics align. They too wait to see if Ottawa will step up.

What goes on in one province may not apply in another.

- Paul

 

[Admiral Beez]

This is a case where "have" and "have not" applies. There are provinces that would have to make a choice between surfacing roads and fixing potholes versus rail passenger.... guess which way their electorate would favour. There are provinces that might have the money but prefer to wait and see if Ottawa will pick up the check first. And there are provinces that have no option but to get on with rail .... but know that Ottawa will fund many things if the politics align. They too wait to see if Ottawa will step up.

An Alberta PST would give the province more than enough money to fix the roads and create a passenger rail network.

Alberta hopes to see passenger rail connecting Fort McMurray and Edmonton

Alberta's plan for commuter rail is in its early stages, but passenger trains could return to Fort McMurray for the first time in decades.

www.fortmcmurraytoday.com

 

[crs1026]

Meanwhile, down east....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/commuter-rail-cape-breton-feasibility-study-1.7250315

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

An Alberta PST would give the province more than enough money to fix the roads and create a passenger rail network.

Alberta hopes to see passenger rail connecting Fort McMurray and Edmonton

Alberta's plan for commuter rail is in its early stages, but passenger trains could return to Fort McMurray for the first time in decades.

www.fortmcmurraytoday.com

Taxes in Alberta? hat is a good way to never win an election.

You are right though.

Meanwhile, down east....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/commuter-rail-cape-breton-feasibility-study-1.7250315

- Paul

That is very interesting. It then will shut down all arguments against something like that across the country, if it gets built.

 

[crs1026]

Taxes in Alberta? hat is a good way to never win an election.

You are right though.


That is very interesting. It then will shut down all arguments against something like that across the country, if it gets built.

Until one notes that a full 25% of the study cost will be spent developing a request to Ottawa for funding…..
I give this very low probability of going anywhere.
We need to stop letting people treat higher order transport as a field of dreams - this ain’t baseball.


- Paul

 

[C_Johnson_1995]

Passenger rail plan loses $1M commitment from Nanaimo regional district

RDN chair Bill Veenhof says the RDN has "lost confidence that the day-to-day operations of the ICF reflect the interests of the RDN"

www.goldstreamgazette.com

The Regional District of Nanaimo has pulled its support for passenger rail and the ICF. Honestly, this is a pretty big win for the "Just take the bus" school of thought in transit and urbanism. According to the Vancouver Island Transport Corridor Coalition on Facebook, rail is being pulled now on First Nations land.

Hopefully this puts the idea of using the corridor for rail to bed for good. Vancouver Island doesn't have the population for rail and never will. It really sucks the oxygen out of the room when discussing transit improvements in BC. Freight could be another story, but I would assume it's vastly cheaper to truck to the mainland anyway compared to rebuilding the line. Depending on how things go, I could see Wellcox Yard getting redeveloped too.

 

[micheal_can]

Until one notes that a full 25% of the study cost will be spent developing a request to Ottawa for funding…..
I give this very low probability of going anywhere.
We need to stop letting people treat higher order transport as a field of dreams - this ain’t baseball.


- Paul

There was a time where across Canada many smaller cities and towns had some sort of streetcar/interurban system. In Northern ON, Thunder Bay SSM and Sudbury all had one. While I am doubtful it will go anywhere, it does give me hope that we might be at a turning point that will mean that smaller cities could ask for LRT funding and get it. This could be the same as Halifax's commuter rail or Alberta's HSR in that it is studies and never done, but always revisited.

 

[micheal_can]

Passenger rail plan loses $1M commitment from Nanaimo regional district

RDN chair Bill Veenhof says the RDN has "lost confidence that the day-to-day operations of the ICF reflect the interests of the RDN"

www.goldstreamgazette.com

The Regional District of Nanaimo has pulled its support for passenger rail and the ICF. Honestly, this is a pretty big win for the "Just take the bus" school of thought in transit and urbanism. According to the Vancouver Island Transport Corridor Coalition on Facebook, rail is being pulled now on First Nations land.

Hopefully this puts the idea of using the corridor for rail to bed for good. Vancouver Island doesn't have the population for rail and never will. Freight could be another story, but I would assume it's vastly cheaper to truck to the mainland anyway compared to rebuilding the line. Depending on how things go, I could see Wellcox Yard getting redeveloped too.

With the loss of the corridor due to FN wanting the land back,t his was only a matter of time.

 

[Admiral Beez]

With the loss of the corridor due to FN wanting the land back,t his was only a matter of time.

The trick there is to ask the FN to run it or otherwise participate. Like the Keewatin Railway in Manitoba.

First Indigenous owned and operated railway in Canada to be modernised

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is to invest in Tshiuetin Rail, alongside the Government of Canada and Government of Quebec.

www.globalrailwayreview.com

 

[micheal_can]

The trick there is to ask the FN to run it or otherwise participate. Like the Keewatin Railway in Manitoba.

First Indigenous owned and operated railway in Canada to be modernised

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is to invest in Tshiuetin Rail, alongside the Government of Canada and Government of Quebec.

www.globalrailwayreview.com

Absolutely. The question is whether the FN along the route want to do anything with it.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Absolutely. The question is whether the FN along the route want to do anything with it.

Everyone and everything has their price. As an example, look how the FN's bought into the Trans Mountain pipeline, something that we'd expect they would be dead set against.

 

[lenaitch]

The trick there is to ask the FN to run it or otherwise participate. Like the Keewatin Railway in Manitoba.

First Indigenous owned and operated railway in Canada to be modernised

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is to invest in Tshiuetin Rail, alongside the Government of Canada and Government of Quebec.

www.globalrailwayreview.com

Everyone and everything has their price. As an example, look how the FN's bought into the Trans Mountain pipeline, something that we'd expect they would be dead set against.

For sure, and the Tshiuetin in Quebec as well as the still-in-development FN service on the former ACR. I don't know enough about the situation on Vancouver Island but, regardless of ho runs it, there has to be an economic foundation to it. If they ever lay tracks to the Ring of Fire, I can see it set up as a miner-FN partnership.

There was a time where across Canada many smaller cities and towns had some sort of streetcar/interurban system. In Northern ON, Thunder Bay SSM and Sudbury all had one. While I am doubtful it will go anywhere, it does give me hope that we might be at a turning point that will mean that smaller cities could ask for LRT funding and get it. This could be the same as Halifax's commuter rail or Alberta's HSR in that it is studies and never done, but always revisited.

So did Cobalt, but nostalgia for a time when there were few cars and drivers, roads were probably dirt and a wooden doodlebug could trundle down the street isn't the foundation for modern rail-based transit. Passenger trains used to run hither and yon between all sorts of small communities in Ontario. They ceased for a reason; ridership failed.

 

[micheal_can]

For sure, and the Tshiuetin in Quebec as well as the still-in-development FN service on the former ACR. I don't know enough about the situation on Vancouver Island but, regardless of ho runs it, there has to be an economic foundation to it. If they ever lay tracks to the Ring of Fire, I can see it set up as a miner-FN partnership.

The only other way the FN could push for it is if they make it about reconciliation and have the governments pay for it.

So did Cobalt, but nostalgia for a time when there were few cars and drivers, roads were probably dirt and a wooden doodlebug could trundle down the street isn't the foundation for modern rail-based transit. Passenger trains used to run hither and yon between all sorts of small communities in Ontario. They ceased for a reason; ridership failed.

Locally, the ceased operations due to a war taking all the materials away from their maintenance. Postwar, everyone saw the Autobahn and wanted that. So, they were ignored and then it was to expensive to keep and people did not want to ride that which was failing. Had the maintenance been kept up, who knows if they would have suffered the same fate.

There is always the need for someone to go first. So, if the Sidney area goes first and shows how to do it successfully, then in places like London ON where even BRT is scoffed at, LRT may be easier to sell. Highly doubt much will happen in Northern ON as nothing ever does due to the lack of needing to win the seats here.

 

[micheal_can]

Thinking about the LRT more, over on the Ontario Northland forum about the return of the Northlander to Timmins and it being 8km away from the downtown core, maybe the solution to that connection would be an LRT line down Highway 101. It most likely could even be a single track the whole way.

Ontario Northland/Northern Ontario Transportation

The station is (will be) "in Timmins", just not downtown. Timmins, like other northern Ontario communities founded on a mining camp, is a cluster of separate settlements that grew up around mines (some company towns) that turned into neighbourhoods. Much of the original alignment continues...

urbantoronto.ca

 

[just east of the creek]

The bottom line is that there must be a business case/budgetary case that somehow supports any political decision. You can craft that case in Southern Ontario and the GTA with more ease and conviction than N. Ontario. I am a rail transit supporter and a previous resident of N Ontario, but I have doubts on just how long, or if ever, the Northlander runs. And the same for the HSR project. And the reason is budget, deficit, debt service costs, and economic and political uncertainties. All of those things have been keeping bond yields at higher levels and political actions (such as the ongoing French election and the strong shift to a more radical right vote) have pushed yields higher and debt service costs higher as well. In the USA the costs to service their national debt may exceed 1 trillion dollars shortly, in Canada , well over 80 billion dollars in federal and provincial aggregate totals. Increasingly bond markets seem to be reflecting unease with the growing GDP to debt ratios and interest rates, investment appears to be showing the effects. Does it mean none of this may happen, well those are political decisions. And the politicians hands are being increasingly restricted by the realities of their fiscal budgets. And when debt service is the number 1 item in your fiscal budget, your other options become more constricted.