Rail: Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

[gweed123]

You don't drive between Quebec City and Montreal very often, do you ...

I do on occasion. Not sure what your point is. There are quite a few instances where HSR has turned relatively major cities that are 2-3 hours away by car into potential commuter communities. There's been talk in this very thread about how HSR along the TOM corridor would make Kingston a viable option for living there and working in downtown TO. Ditto for London.

 

[nfitz]

It's inconceivable with the population densities between Montreal and Quebec City, that there's going enough demand to run commuter services to over 250 km away, in the next half-century or so. High speed intercity travel is remote, and would be priced far higher than what a daily commuter is going to pay.

That's the same distance as from London UK to Sheffield!

 

[gweed123]

It's inconceivable with the population densities between Montreal and Quebec City, that there's going enough demand to run commuter services to over 250 km away, in the next half-century or so. High speed intercity travel is remote, and would be priced far higher than what a daily commuter is going to pay.

That's the same distance as from London UK to Sheffield!

Is it though? It's ~2 hours from Kitchener to Toronto now, and there were quite a few people who used Via to do that commute every day, and now that GO services it, even more do. And that's with a pretty long and slow train ride. Same as there are people who take Via from Port Hope and Cobourg every day.

If you could do London-Toronto or Kingston-Toronto or Montreal-QC in under 2 hours, I'm sure there are people that would. That's outside the max ~2hr ring with current Via speeds, but if you can increase Via speeds and widen that ~2hr ring, there's no reason why it wouldn't happen.

You mention specifically commuting services, and I didn't say that. I said that the HSR would be used by commuters. Big difference.

 

[nfitz]

Is it though? It's ~2 hours from Kitchener to Toronto now, and there were quite a few people who used Via to do that commute every day, and now that GO services it, even more do. And that's with a pretty long and slow train ride.

And it's priced for the 100 km commuter service that it is. A 250 km high speed run is going to be priced differently. Will someone do it ... probably. Will there be any significant uptake on this ... no.

 

[gweed123]

And it's priced for the 100 km commuter service that it is. A 250 km high speed run is going to be priced differently. Will someone do it ... probably. Will there be any significant uptake on this ... no.

That remains to be seen. With HSR theoretically you can get more runs out of the same crew during the day, leading to a lower cost per trip (at least as far as wages go). This could help drive prices down. Yes, it will probably be more expensive than doing a 100km trip, but I don't think it will be the same cost as Via today. And even now, a Via trip from Kingston to Toronto isn't that bad.

 

[nfitz]

That remains to be seen. With HSR theoretically you can get more runs out of the same crew during the day, leading to a lower cost per trip (at least as far as wages go). This could help drive prices down. Yes, it will probably be more expensive than doing a 100km trip, but I don't think it will be the same cost as Via today. And even now, a Via trip from Kingston to Toronto isn't that bad.

You think a high speed train to Montreal would be cheaper than the current train? That's not how it's worked anywhere else. Look at the new high speed commuter services in Kent. They are priced significantly higher than the old conventional train (or current conventional trains on other routes), despite the shorter travel time.

 

[Urban Sky]

That remains to be seen. With HSR theoretically you can get more runs out of the same crew during the day, leading to a lower cost per trip (at least as far as wages go). This could help drive prices down. Yes, it will probably be more expensive than doing a 100km trip, but I don't think it will be the same cost as Via today. And even now, a Via trip from Kingston to Toronto isn't that bad.

The possibility to use one train crew for more than one trip, thus reducing relative labour costs and not at last: accommodation (i.e. Hotel) costs is one of the main reasons why HFR will allow VIA Rail to be so much more profitable than it is currently on the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. The prerequisite is a dedicated infrastructure and trains at least every 2 hours, in order to allow return trips for the LEs within their 12-hours limit...

You think a high speed train to Montreal would be cheaper than the current train? That's not how it's worked anywhere else. Look at the new high speed commuter services in Kent. They are priced significantly higher than the old conventional train (or current conventional trains on other routes), despite the shorter travel time.

I've looked up the prices for season rail passes between Dover and London for the HSR commuter rail service (124 km in 1:06h) and the conventional commuter rail service (124 km in 1:51h) and they are as follows:

£5,184 ($10,682) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Terminals [conventional commuter rail service]
£5,848 ($12,025) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [conventional commuter rail service]
£6,204 ($12,757) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Terminals [any rail service]
£6,864 ($14,121) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [any rail service]

A commuter rail pass for Macclesfield (30 km south of Manchester) to London (1:40h for 267 km, thus equivalent to Quebec-Montreal) costs as follows:

£12,724 ($26,219) for Macclesfield (MAC) to London Terminals [any rail service]
£13,372 ($27,555) for Macclesfield (MAC) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [any rail service]

As you can see, the faster (i.e. HSR) commuter rail services between Dover and London are 20% more expensive to use than the conventional ones and passengers need to ask themselves if they value their free time for at least $5.76, which is the additional cost divided by the time saved: ($12,757-$10,682)/(0.75[h]*240[days]*2[directions]) = $2,075/360[h] = $5.76/h

Note that the median weekly earnings of someone working in London is £659.90 (thus £34,315 annual income) and a daily commute from Macclesfield to London costs 37% (i.e. £12,724/£34,315) of an average worker's income, which should highlight how limited the demand potential for such a commute is (even given the huge differences in property prices between London and the rest of the UK, whereas I'd assume that those in Montreal and Quebec City are more or less equal).

 

[mdrejhon]

The possibility to use one train crew for more than one trip, thus reducing relative labour costs and not at last: accommodation (i.e. Hotel) costs is one of the main reasons why HFR will allow VIA Rail to be so much more profitable than it is currently on the Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor. The prerequisite is a dedicated infrastructure and trains at least every 2 hours, in order to allow return trips for the LEs within their 12-hours limit...


I've looked up the prices for season rail passes between Dover and London for the HSR commuter rail service (124 km in 1:06h) and the conventional commuter rail service (124 km in 1:51h) and they are as follows:

£5,184 ($10,682) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Terminals [conventional commuter rail service]
£5,848 ($12,025) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [conventional commuter rail service]
£6,204 ($12,757) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Terminals [any rail service]
£6,864 ($14,121) for Dover Priory (DVP) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [any rail service]

A commuter rail pass for Macclesfield (30 km south of Manchester) to London (1:40h for 267 km, thus equivalent to Quebec-Montreal) costs as follows:

£12,724 ($26,219) for Macclesfield (MAC) to London Terminals [any rail service]
£13,372 ($27,555) for Macclesfield (MAC) to London Travelcard Zones 1-6 [any rail service]

As you can see, the faster (i.e. HSR) commuter rail services between Dover and London are 20% more expensive to use than the conventional ones and passengers need to ask themselves if they value their free time for at least $5.76, which is the additional cost divided by the time saved: ($12,757-$10,682)/(0.75[h]*240[days]*2[directions]) = $2,075/360[h] = $5.76/h

Note that the median weekly earnings of someone working in London is £659.90 (thus £34,315 annual income) and a daily commute from Macclesfield to London costs 37% (i.e. £12,724/£34,315) of an average worker's income, which should highlight how limited the demand potential for such a commute is (even given the huge differences in property prices between London and the rest of the UK, whereas I'd assume that those in Montreal and Quebec City are more or less equal).

Good research!

That said, we also need to parcel out the audience as well. The average family income of a GO train commuter is $100K+ (from 2011 statistics), which appears higher than the average Canadian family income.

So there's a bit of distortion there; the people that use rail for commuting, we also have to analyze an urban sub-audience in multiple ways:

-- The average income of people already commuting and the percentage who would upgrade;
-- The average income of people already taking alternate transportation on the same route (e.g. Gardiner)
-- People who live close to the corridors (urban higher income), versus far away (rural lower income)

So there's somewhat of a fudge factor there...

Unquestionably, commuters often make or break the viability of ALL of the break-even HSR projects worldwide, so it must be factored in, wheter it be 5%, 10%, 25% of riders...

However, I agree HFR is a better interim step than HSR at least for the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor at first. For London-Kitchener-Toronto, assuming LRT's already exist in both London and Kitchener-Waterloo by the time HSR is built, it would actually become a more economical commute given the huge price differential of London/Kitchener-Waterloo homes versus Toronto homes, and contribute to a major densification acceleration above-and-beyond those made by the upgrades to rapid transit in all of those cities.

Kingston does not have rapid transit, its train station is far away, and Ottawa/Toronto can't as easily be bedroom communities of each other, so Kingston is a relative disadvantage to the current progress going on in London/Kitchener-Waterloo whereupon London's train station is much more central and they are actually much further along in rapid transit studies than Kingston currently is. So there's more potential (assuming a +20-25 year timeline from now). That, and the shorter already-more-ready routing, would probably provide a ROI sooner (assuming a projected 2030s-2040s timeline).

So for the 2030s-2040s construction completion timeline, HFR is better for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal (TOM) segment, while spending money on HSR instead of 401 widenings, for the London-Kitchener-Toronto (LKT) segment, LKT seems to make sense first than it would be for the TOM segment.

(Obviously, by the end of this century (2100!) by then we'll probably have HSR all the way from Windsor to Quebec City -- it's mostly just a matter of when, and best order of upgrades and construction.)

 

[kEiThZ]

HSR commutes are certainly possible. But when they do arise in Europe and Japan, it's usually because of a differential in wages, property prices, etc. where the commute has certain value. We'd be a long way from that at the start of any HSR service. But it's possible over time.

My skepticism on the HSR arises from the fact that governments don't seem more than casually interested at all. The Toronto-London proposal is the most serious one we have to date. And apparently that was barely more than a napkin exercise before the election. So what happens when the final analysis done costs rise significantly?

I think it's pathetic that VIA Fast is being considered. But I acknowledge reality. This is the best that Canada may have going for it. Especially if we're entering a prolonged recession where all levels of government will have far less revenue.

Just to do my bit though, I did fill out the Minister's pre-budget survey and talked about how HSR was a vital investment for Canada.

 

[Euphoria]

Let's all push our MP's and MPP's to make HSR a priority joint Ontario-Quebec-Canada infrastructure project now that proposals are going forward for Trudeau's infrastructure funding envelope. This is a perfect economic kick-start. It will pay productivity dividends later on, especially as HSR branch routes that can be added over time reduce commute times and improve air quality around Montreal and Toronto. Fuck the endless studies. Do it now.

 

[Urban Sky]

Just to do my bit though, I did fill out the Minister's pre-budget survey and talked about how HSR was a vital investment for Canada.

Let's all push our MP's and MPP's to make HSR a priority joint Ontario-Quebec-Canada infrastructure project now that proposals are going forward for Trudeau's infrastructure funding envelope. This is a perfect economic kick-start. It will pay productivity dividends later on, especially as HSR branch routes that can be added over time reduce commute times and improve air quality around Montreal and Toronto. Fuck the endless studies. Do it now.

Following multiple news reports last week, the federal government's priority is to fund projects which provide both, a significant short-term and long-term effect to the national economy, as outlined in the following article:

Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi said earlier Wednesday that the government is looking at expediting spending on projects already queued to receive federal cash through existing infrastructure funds. [Funding] will flow to shovel-ready projects that cities and provinces identify as priorities.

He said the government is asking cities and provinces to finalize the list of priority projects so they can be quickly reviewed and green-lighted for funding. Those projects, he said, need not be new work, but revamping existing infrastructure. [...]

Some critics have already questioned how the Liberals will find enough worthwhile, shovel-ready projects on which to spend the $5 billion promised for infrastructure this year, much less any additional money. Still others have wondered whether the Liberals should loosen their restrictions to spread the new cash equally between transit, "green" project and "social" infrastructure.

The only inter-city passenger rail project which is anywhere near "shovel-ready" is VIA Rail's High-Frequency Rail Proposal, which would achieve the main advantage of HSR - a dedicated infrastructure which eliminates interference between passenger and freight rail operations - by upgrading currently underused or disused rights-of-way rather than building greenfield alignments, which avoids its main disadvantage - lengthy processes of expropriations and delays from frequent modifications of the desired route. HFR would probably be already operable by the time all necessary funding, lands and government approvals have been obtained for HSR construction to even start. Even more so if you consider that HFR seems much more likely to leverage the (considering the scale of funding required) limited availability of public funds with those of private-sector investors like pension funds. If there is one conclusion we should have draw by now from a quarter century of HSR Study in Canada, it is that repeatedly studying the same over-ambitious HSR project will not produce anything beyond paper...

 

[Euphoria]

If it really can reduce the trip between Montreal and TO to 3.5 hours and between TO and Ottawa to 2.5 hours, let's hope it goes forward.

 

[Urban Sky]

If it really can reduce the trip between Montreal and TO to 3.5 hours and between TO and Ottawa to 2.5 hours, let's hope it goes forward.

First of all, VIA Rail's Corridor services already offer average speeds which are comparable to many HSR services in Europe (and only slightly slower than Acela Express or certain regional Shinkansen services):

One of the reasons why so many passenger rail supporters are so obsessed with HSR and therefore underwhelmed by HFR is their misconception of what travel time actually constitutes from an average passenger's perspective: They will be the first to point out that the access times to and from the origin to the departing airport and from the arriving airport to the destination need to be included, but they forget the presence of waiting time. You may want to ask yourself: would you rather have a train with a travel time and frequency of 4h or one which takes 5h but runs every 2h? What is the point of reducing travel times by, say, one hour if that hour will only add to the time you will have to kill between arrival at your destination and whatever appointment you have.

Given frequencies of only 6 trains daily between Montreal and Toronto and gaps of up to 3:55h (trains 65 and 67 departing at 11:50 and 15:45), the by far cheapest way to minimize the time between leaving home and desired arrival time is to offer more arrival time by increasing the frequency and thus reducing the difference between desired and available arrival (or departure) times. As VIA Rail has acknowledged, you will still need to build a dedicated infrastructure with exclusive dispatching control, but while fixing the frequency (i.e. capacity) and punctuality (i.e. dispatching) problems has become a necessity which can be financed now for less than what replacing one single god-damn highway bridge is projected to cost ($4.2 billion for Pont-Champlain bridge), building a greenfield alignment to cut maybe another hour off is for many years to come an unaffordable luxury which would take many years to provide any benefit and cost almost as much as all the other projects which are currently competing for the same funds combined...

 

[kEiThZ]

If it really can reduce the trip between Montreal and TO to 3.5 hours and between TO and Ottawa to 2.5 hours, let's hope it goes forward.

It'll go forward. And the Liberals will sell it as HSR despite what HSR purists like HSR Canada will say. Despite all the studies, this is the only plan that's ready to go which can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time, for a reasonable cost.

 

[Euphoria]

I hope you're right. Rail and transit have become so second rate in Canada. We're one of a few developed countries without HSR, so HFR seems like the least we can do. We seem only to look at the short term financial capital costs rather than the long term environmental, productivity, and quality of life benefits.