The full report is posted on
highspeedrail.ca. Some highlights:
The corridor would take 14 years to design and build. The recommended route doesn’t go through Mirabel or Pearson. West of Toronto it goes along the lakeshore to Hamilton. Toronto and Montreal would have 2 suburban stations each, Toronto’s would be in the Oshawa and Hamilton areas. The route would largely be next to existing rail corridors. Downtown to downtown travel times would be competitive with flying - Ottawa in 1h50m and Montreal in 2h47m.
The entire corridor would get 11.1 million passengers in 2031 and make $1.3 billion. The Quebec-Toronto part that’s considered viable would generate 80% of the riders and 85% of the revenues. Total cost would be $21 billion ($16 billion for the Toronto-Quebec portion). Annual operating costs for the whole corridor would be $520 million, for an operating profit of $780 million. The Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal section is by far the best performer financially.
60% of ridership would come from people now driving, 27% from VIA Rail, and 10% from air. Buses would gain passengers serving small towns that would lose rail service. Airlines would lose 36% of their passengers.
The wholly public scenario would be more favourable financially because the private sector requires a higher rate of return. The financial analysis includes indirect benefits, the biggest of which is public safety.
Some gripes I have with the report:
-For some reason the trip to Montreal takes half an hour longer than in the previous study. It doesn't look like they planned for express trains, a pretty big oversight.
-The consultants didn’t have the right airfare information. The consultants believe that using the right information would have changed ridership and revenue for the better. Apparently the government didn't want them to update their figures.
-While the previous study said that “substantial ridership” would be generated from people going to airports, the current study completely ignores ridership from airports, connecting flights, and codesharing. It recommends no direct connections to airports. Very shortsighted, imo - serving Pearson would be basically free since the ARL is being built anyway, but instead they're forcing a transfer at Union.
-The study assumes that every grade crossing would be replaced with overpasses and no roads would be closed. That's about 100 unnecessary overpasses on minor roads. Assuming each one costs, say, $10 million, that's a billion bucks right there.
-Modal share would be 9%, pretty low by HSR standards. Airlines were said to lose 36% of their passengers, while in similar corridors around the world airlines have lost a lot more than that.
-Little if any thought given to connections to the proposed US high speed rail system, or even just connections to Detroit and Buffalo. Windsor is treated as an island.
Probably for some of the reasons above, ridership is actually lower than the 1995 study despite some pretty major population growth. Looks like the deck is stacked against HSR right from the get go.