AnarchoSocialist
Active Member
^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 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.