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Rail: Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

^Though I disagree with the idea of upgrading the corridor as a substitute (and I won't go on a point by point explanation since it isn't all that important) I think you have made a good point about political will to get a project off the ground. This is true. No one has really pushed the idea onto and election agenda. But, Canada has also been an auto-centric society for so long that rail has really taken a back seat. Though this is changing so with each passing day it becomes somewhat less of an issue. Airlines are another issue, but with fuel costs going up and down (and in the long term going way up), they might not be opposed to HSR if they could get in on the action (this is not far fetched either as Air France-KLM is looking at HSR services in Europe once the open rails agreement begins).

I think the biggest problem is that no one really gets behind this because there is no one leading the way. There is no politician who is making it his own personal mission to put it forward. There is no bureaucrat in VIA or elsewhere who is producing documents and visions for people to latch on. And when there are no solid ideas, or visions, or anything really for the public to see, for them to be inspired by, its pretty hard to put forward any large scale project like this.

My own take is that until someone, in some sector of society, really comes out and offers a vision and concrete ideas and plans for HSR, nothing is likely too happen. And until then, I think that expanding VIAs customer base is a good idea, though I would say it would be best done by creating or adding service to markets off the mainline so that once HSR does get underway you really have a strong, diverse network feeding it in addition to all the stops that would be on the mainline.
 
I agree that it hasn't been politically viable, but that's not because of fear of an Alberta uprising. It has to do with the power of the airline and bus lobbies, and opposition from within Transport Canada.
 
I see it as kind of a chicken-and-egg situation. If you try to look at it from a politician's point of view... "nobody rides the train, so why would I make a promise/effort to improve the system... it's not going to win any votes".

Meanwhile, people don't ride the train because the system sucks. (And I don't mean to say no one rides the train). Some politician either has to take the initiative (bravo McGuinty, Charest... but why the study again?) or ordinary citizens have to start putting pressure on their representatives.

From a federal point of view, a Edmonton-Calgary project and a Toronto-Montreal project would be most balanced and probably politically palatable (woo, alliterations!) Not sure how viable a Calgary-Vancouver train would be crossing the Rockies and such, but the Euros have done the equivalent. That being said, I think a "phased" high-speed rail plan would be great, starting with the highest-travelled corridors first. Oops... here I go dreaming again:

Phase 1: Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal
Phase 2: Calgary-Edmonton
Phase 3: Toronto-Windsor(by Kitchener), Montreal-Quebec
Phase 4: Calgary-Vancouver
Phase 5: Calgary-Saskatoon-Winnipeg (could be just an upgrade of the current system)

If we get even one of those phases built I'd be happy. I'm kind of out of ideas when it comes to linking the eventual western section and eastern sections. Currently the trip from Toronto to Winnipeg on VIA is about 32 hrs. But building HSR on that section is out of the question. I suppose HSR would be more of a "corridor" service rather than a cross-country service. Maybe we just need a corrupt PM like Sir John so we can get the HSR built coast-to-coast? The project today can't be any more enormous than the original trans-Canada railway was back then can it?
 
Perhaps if we petition Steven, he will offer some oil and wood in exchange for Chinese workers. If the Emirates can do it, why can't we!?
 
jswag, I agree with the first few phases. Doing it in smaller, $5 billion chunks might be more doable. We should try to get a Canadian (and ideally North American) consensus on technology so that whatever system springs up over the next few decades is compatible.

As far as impetus for HSR between Winnipeg and southern Ontario, it's a tough one. Going through the US would probably make more sense, to be honest (Winnipeg-Minneapolis-Chicago-Detroit/Windsor-Toronto). Other than that, if you combined it was some sort of fast freight initiative, it could work too. Electrified rail from Vancouver to Toronto would be a huge boon to intermodal freight. If rail could get products door-to-door in 36 hours (quite possible with 200 kph), it would put a huge chunk of the long-haul truck freight industry out of business.
 
jswag said:
If we get even one of those phases built I'd be happy. I'm kind of out of ideas when it comes to linking the eventual western section and eastern sections. Currently the trip from Toronto to Winnipeg on VIA is about 32 hrs. But building HSR on that section is out of the question. I suppose HSR would be more of a "corridor" service rather than a cross-country service. Maybe we just need a corrupt PM like Sir John so we can get the HSR built coast-to-coast? The project today can't be any more enormous than the original trans-Canada railway was back then can it?
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Connecting the Prairies to Southern Ontario will never happen, nor should it. HSR is ideal for connecting major cities in densely populated areas, not thousands of kilometres of nothing...which is exactly what you have between Toronto and Winnipeg. There's no need to have distant HSR systems connecting to each other. Trips beyond, say, 1000 km are best done by plane.

It may or may not be a bigger job than the original CPR was in the 1800s, but back then there was no alternative to rail for those distances. Now we can fly, which blows away any train that goes across the country in terms of speed, including an HSR. That's why the Canadian is a tourist-oriented service.
 
Having been on the HSR in Taiwan from Kaohsiung to Taipei in two hours (though I recall reading that it can do it in 1.5 hours if some stops are skipped), I'd personally love to see a Montreal - Toronto - NOTL - Niagara Falls HSR.
 
This is probably putting the cart before the horse, but has anyone considered not using Union Station for a HSR station? I was thinking it would be hard to string HSR up to and into the station without some major renovations, maybe it would just be easier to build an ad hoc HSR station in the Yonge/Finch area. With the odd airport scale parking complex thrown in, it could be pretty useful to 905ers as well. Could also be easier to string to YYZ.
 
Whoaccio said:
This is probably putting the cart before the horse, but has anyone considered not using Union Station for a HSR station? I was thinking it would be hard to string HSR up to and into the station without some major renovations, maybe it would just be easier to build an ad hoc HSR station in the Yonge/Finch area. With the odd airport scale parking complex thrown in, it could be pretty useful to 905ers as well. Could also be easier to string to YYZ.
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Or use the crosstown alignment and revive North Toronto Station. Even if people had to switch to the subway it would only add approx 15 mins to their trip into the downtown core.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Or use the crosstown alignment and revive North Toronto Station. Even if people had to switch to the subway it would only add approx 15 mins to their trip into the downtown core.
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The two issues I could see with that are:

1.) Toronto keeps making a big deal about North York being "downtown north" and all. If they are serious about that, it might be worth putting something big to anchor the area a bit more. As far as I know, the Summerhill area isn't planned for much intensification.

2.) I've got nothing against it, but the NIMBYism that would come out of trying to string HSR through the crosstown corridor would be quite something to see.
 
Whoaccio said:
This is probably putting the cart before the horse, but has anyone considered not using Union Station for a HSR station? I was thinking it would be hard to string HSR up to and into the station without some major renovations, maybe it would just be easier to build an ad hoc HSR station in the Yonge/Finch area. With the odd airport scale parking complex thrown in, it could be pretty useful to 905ers as well. Could also be easier to string to YYZ.
Click to expand...
There are lots of existing tracks in Union Station for HSR to use and the station itself is underused, epecially the VIA concourse. Existing rail corridors connect it to the airport and other cities. It's in the middle of the densest part of the GTA in residents, jobs (key for business travellers), and attractions. With all the existing and proposed rapid transit lines going downtown, Union is more accessible to the majority of the city's residents than Finch Station. It's also the busiest transporation hub in the city, the GO concourse alone is busier than all of Pearson. It might cost a lot to renovate Union, but consider that:

-it's a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of building HSR lines to other cities,
-the station is being renovated anyway,
-it couldn't possibly cost as much as building a whole new rail corridor through the north end, and building a new central station from scratch in the Yonge and Finch area.

People from the suburbs looking to park and ride can use stations that will likely be built in places like Oshawa, Brampton, and Mississauga. Maybe in the long term a bypass could be built, I think Paris has one. But that's no substitute for serving downtown.
 
^Exactly. The strength of HSR comes from the fact that it can offer fast service to the most convenient locations possible. Giving up a downtown location would not make sense. If you are going to build an HSR system, do it right. And on top of that there would be little to no gains in speed either. Once the train enters dense urban areas, so probably around the Oshawa/Ajax area, it will have to slow down to 160km/h or a bit less, regardless of whether it is running on Lakeshore or a cross town line. A cross town line would be great for commuter type services, and perhaps well into the future it could be part of HSR service, but Union should be the focus, without question.

And if a deal could be made with the GTAA to share parking facilities with them at Pearson that could easily become a perfect station for west end suburbanites. In addition, once more rail lines in the GTA are electrified, you can switch up the terminus point for some HSR service using GO stations (with some renovations, but nothing too complex). Again, a little bit further down the road but also another way to allow more people access to HSR service.
 
It's a great day for high-speed rail. California proposition 1A appears to have passed. We may just see real high speed rail in North America after all.
 
I think like a lot of things last night this is encouraging, and a step in the right direction, but hardly something to jump for joy about. In the end I still think that HSR will start to be planned and built in Canada before the US. Despite issues surrounding airlines, unmotivated governments (especially in the past), and a general disregard for rail travel in the past decades, these problems will be easier to overcome here.
 
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