Rail: Ontario-Quebec High Speed Rail Study

[GregWTravels]

I know its probably too much to expect a government study to be delivered on time, but does anybody know when the "EcoTrain Consortium" is going to deliver their report (or have they already), and will we get to see it? When the contract was first awarded in Feb 09, the news reports said that the report would be delivered in "one year."

 

[SlickFranky]

They're due to report to the gov in May IIRC. Yet another positive report to be ignored...yay!

 

[jswag]

It's unfortunate that there is serious leadership lacking on this issue. If Quebec and Ontario each really wanted this, they could have not studied it for so damn long, and instead had it "shovel-ready" for stimulus money. Instead, this will be pushed back once again, as all levels of government fight deficits instead of making investments in infrastructure. When they're all back in the black, sometime around 2015, this will reappear on the agenda, and they'll study it again, just in time for the next recession.

Sigh.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

It's unfortunate that there is serious leadership lacking on this issue. If Quebec and Ontario each really wanted this, they could have not studied it for so damn long, and instead had it "shovel-ready" for stimulus money. Instead, this will be pushed back once again, as all levels of government fight deficits instead of making investments in infrastructure. When they're all back in the black, sometime around 2015, this will reappear on the agenda, and they'll study it again, just in time for the next recession.

Sigh.

Is this project really going to be economically viable? Especially when people seem to always vie for auto and flight travel nearly 90% of time when travelling in this corridor....

 

[Mulder]

Is this project really going to be economically viable? Especially when people seem to always vie for auto and flight travel nearly 90% of time when travelling in this corridor....

It's about cost for the commuter vs time

I take the via when heading to downtown Toronto, from Belleville $77 round trip.
That's almost the cost of Gas + Parking. In almost the exact time it takes to drive.

Highspeed rail would almost match the plane times inculding security/checkin/wait for plane/and boarding. and baggage claim.

 

[GregWTravels]

Is this project really going to be economically viable? Especially when people seem to always vie for auto and flight travel nearly 90% of time when travelling in this corridor....

According to the VIA FAST proposal (available on http://highspeedrail.ca/), there are 4.4 million trips between Toronto and Montreal annually, 50% by car, 33% by air, 14% by train and 3% by bus. Increasing departures to 10 a day and increasing speed to 200 kmh (3 hours 30 minutes travel time), they expected to get 19% of the market, mostly taken from air (a 35% increase).

The report states that where true high speed rail has been put in, traffic volume increased by between 2 to 7 times. 7 times seems unlikely between Toronto and Montreal (as that would be all the traffic). I think a true high speed train could capture 60% of the air traffic (870k annual trips) and 20% of the vehicle traffic (440k annual trips) and 100% of the train traffic (obviously - 600k annual trips). That 1.9 million trips, an increase of over 3 times. I'd expect fares to be similar to air travel on a full service air carrier.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

Hmmmm, that sounds like it has a real case for it here, mind you, there would have to be a PPP involved in this for the project to get funded. I honestly can't see senior levels of government funding this fully.

 

[sjc]

Increasing departures to 10 a day and increasing speed to 200 kmh (3 hours 30 minutes travel time), they expected to get 19% of the market, mostly taken from air (a 35% increase)....I think a true high speed train could capture 60% of the air traffic (870k annual trips)... I'd expect fares to be similar to air travel on a full service air carrier.

Even at 3 hours 30 minutes, I would think the fares would need to be substantially lower than air. You can be in Montreal airport from Union Station in about two hours by Porter, with another half hour to get downtown. You are still saving an hour, possibly more if you aren't heading downtown. EDIT: While the train trip to Ottawa would be shorter, it is also quicker to get downtown from the airport in Ottawa than it is in Montreal and the flight is shorter as well.

 

[sixrings]

In general, which route do you think is more plausible for a high speed rail line between Toronto and Montreal?

TORONTO-Oshawa-Peterborough-OTTAWA-Dorval-MONTREAL ~540km
Pro
-Most Direct service to Ottawa
Con
-Little population density
-Expensive to build through the Canadian Sheild

TORONTO-Oshawa-Kingston-OTTAWA-Dorval-MONTREAL ~580km
Pro
-Most population density density
-Existing Right of Way
Con
-Most indirect service including Ottawa

TORONTO-Oshawa-Kingston-Dorval-MONTREAL ~525km
Pro
-Most Direct between Toronto and Montreal
-Existing Right of Way
Con
-Would require transfer to get to Ottawa

I like Option 2 because I think a link between toronto and Ottawa makes sense a well as ottawa and montreal... However I dont see the significance of having a stop at Oshawa. Couldnt the people here Go train it downtown and hop on at union? How much added time would it take to stop at oshawa?

Is there now a map picked out?

 

[valkoholic]

I think if the trains took 3.5 hours (i.e. they were as reliable or more reliable than flying) and ran hourly (similar to flying) you'd see a big jump in ridership and people would pay for it. I think a lot of people today would like to take the train but don't because they can't count on the timing and find the schedules less convinient than the three airlines. The nice thing about taking a train from a time stanpoint is that although it takes as long or longer than flying, when you're flying you're never relaxed for more than an hour (you spend half your time in taxis, lineups, airport probe-rooms, etc.), wheras taking the train gives a big chunk of time to sleep, work, etc. and less time in lineups.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Is this project really going to be economically viable? Especially when people seem to always vie for auto and flight travel nearly 90% of time when travelling in this corridor....

Hmm, I'm sure that has absolutely no correlation with the fact that rail is by far the worst service on the corridor, right? I mean, the trains average 70-80 km/h and cost several times of a bus, making it the slowest (except walking, I guess,) yet not the least expensive mode.

If you look at Europe, HSR has stolen almost all of the air travel across the continent, and has taken a huge chunk out of auto travel. The Quebec-Windsor corridor has that potential, easy.

 

[sjc]

Is this project really going to be economically viable?

The answer to this depends in great part to the answer to this question: Who pays for the infrastructure? If the government pays for it all, then it might very well be economical as the marginal cost of moving people by train is likely quite reasonable.

With both trains and airplanes, you need to buy the actual trains and airplanes and build stations or airports. The cost of airports can be spread across passengers to multiple destinations. The cost of train stations can only be spread among the passengers of one or two train lines.

One of the big costs is in the purchase of the land for the rails and the rails themselves (including maintenance) -- airlines do not have to pay for any infrastructure between airports. The rails for high-speed rail are likely only used for passenger traffic so you can't spread the cost to cargo trains. Every cent that goes into those rails needs to come from passenger ticket sales or government grants.

Does this all depend on the government throwing in huge piles of cash? Is that fair to other forms of transit that don't get huge piles of cash (or at least much smaller piles)?

It just seems to me that laying down hundreds of miles of track cannot be cheap (and uses up real estate) and it would take a lot of tickets to pay for that.

EDIT: For around $500 million Porter has put in infrastructure that feeds close to 20 70-seat flights a day each to Ottawa and Montreal. As a bonus, you can go quite a few other places. How much more would you need to spend to duplicate what Porter can do using rail, except somewhat slower and without the extra destinations? How much would the land alone be worth -- a long contiguous line from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal? Personally, I'd sooner see that land paved and made into a 407 extension.

On the other hand, I could perhaps Ottawa to Montreal working, where it is just a little too short to fly and the train would be very convenient.

 

[pman]

We need generous government capital and operating funding for public transit because of the externalities involved in building car-centric, sprawled cities. I'm at a loss to understand why we need government subsidies for high speed rail between Toronto and Montreal. It's reasonable to compare the benefits of high-speed intercity rail to spending the same amount of money to expand the Toronto subway system or GO transit, since we can't have everything and do have to make choices about where to spend scarce funds. On any rational measure of costs and benefits, I suspect high-speed rail would be the inferior option every time. There is the national unity argument of course -maybe the feds could ship Toronto tax dollars to Quebec faster if they loaded the cash on TGV's.

 

[The Mad Navigator]

We need generous government capital and operating funding for public transit because of the externalities involved in building car-centric, sprawled cities. I'm at a loss to understand why we need government subsidies for high speed rail between Toronto and Montreal. It's reasonable to compare the benefits of high-speed intercity rail to spending the same amount of money to expand the Toronto subway system or GO transit, since we can't have everything and do have to make choices about where to spend scarce funds. On any rational measure of costs and benefits, I suspect high-speed rail would be the inferior option every time. There is the national unity argument of course -maybe the feds could ship Toronto tax dollars to Quebec faster if they loaded the cash on TGV's.

Is it Possible that Virgin could see market potential here for HSR?

 

[MisterF]

According to the VIA FAST proposal (available on http://highspeedrail.ca/), there are 4.4 million trips between Toronto and Montreal annually, 50% by car, 33% by air, 14% by train and 3% by bus. Increasing departures to 10 a day and increasing speed to 200 kmh (3 hours 30 minutes travel time), they expected to get 19% of the market, mostly taken from air (a 35% increase).

The report states that where true high speed rail has been put in, traffic volume increased by between 2 to 7 times. 7 times seems unlikely between Toronto and Montreal (as that would be all the traffic). I think a true high speed train could capture 60% of the air traffic (870k annual trips) and 20% of the vehicle traffic (440k annual trips) and 100% of the train traffic (obviously - 600k annual trips). That 1.9 million trips, an increase of over 3 times. I'd expect fares to be similar to air travel on a full service air carrier.

Actually the last major government study, done in 1995, predicted ridership of 12 million in the whole Windsor-Quebec corridor. Well over half of that would be the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal portion. Remember, you have to include Ottawa in the figures since a single line would hit all 3 cities. Also keep in mind that a TGV style train would have significant induced ridership, about a fifth of the total.

Even at 3 hours 30 minutes, I would think the fares would need to be substantially lower than air. You can be in Montreal airport from Union Station in about two hours by Porter, with another half hour to get downtown. You are still saving an hour, possibly more if you aren't heading downtown. EDIT: While the train trip to Ottawa would be shorter, it is also quicker to get downtown from the airport in Ottawa than it is in Montreal and the flight is shorter as well.

According to the study I mentioned above the fastest trains between Toronto and Montreal would be 2 hours 18 minutes. By your own figures, that's faster than any plane downtown to downtown. It also has many other advantages, including reliability, convenience, comfort, and safety. That's why airline market share would be cut in half, and it's why HSR dominates market share wherever it's been built.