mdrejhon
Senior Member
The idea used to be much more outlandish, and the siloing of "VIA is the one that should do high speed trains, if someone does something".
But today, we've got jaw-dropping proposed Metrolinx megaprojects and Ontario train infrastructure budgets that massively out-funds VIA nation-wide by at least a full order of magnitude. We see the electricifation officially funded by Ontario, and this electricifation is going to cover several hundred kilometers of GO corridor -- almost enough electricified track to reach Ottawa! Including roughly 100 kilometers of the corridor (Bramalea to Oshawa) that high speed trains will need to go over to go between Kingston and Kitchener. Now once this is done, even without owning any high speed trainsets, any compatible high speed trainset can now thusly simply least taxi into Toronto at fairly brisk faster-than-VIA speeds (until tracks get upgraded a bit more and curves eventually straightened out). The more we electricify and prepare Ontario, the lower the barrier to high speed trains. We see the aspirations for Metrolinx to speed up GO service over time, even if lots of deadlines are bumped out or jiggled politically (e.g. UPX versus improved Georgetown corridor service). And Ontario has funded the high speed EA. The vaporware environmental assessments of yesteryear on high speed trains, has turned into a more hopefully relatively more-serious environmental assessment that is now a bit harder to gamble against happening. The announced budgets includes many millions of dollars towards the cost of just this mere EA that is being started this year and will take a few years to complete, perhaps before the next election to make it a new political promise. It may all still be vaporware in a massive cancellation or postponement, but if even merely half of the now-funded train infrastructure gets built (including electricifation of some of the GO system), we've made very massive step towards opening the door to high speed trains.
Ontario is spending multiple tens of billion of dollars on rail infrastructure all over Ontario (GO & LRT) in just the next ten years alone, and at these budget numbers, HSR becomes just a lineitem bullet in a future cycle of funding as the economy improves and the deficit is actually eliminated. This is of course, assuming Ontario manages to stay solvent (which is doable, given we've got a relatively flexible economy far better than Greece and others).
So.... The idea is no longer outlandish anymore.
Urbantoronto members are no longer laughing at this theoretical concept anymore, unlike 5 years ago.
But today, we've got jaw-dropping proposed Metrolinx megaprojects and Ontario train infrastructure budgets that massively out-funds VIA nation-wide by at least a full order of magnitude. We see the electricifation officially funded by Ontario, and this electricifation is going to cover several hundred kilometers of GO corridor -- almost enough electricified track to reach Ottawa! Including roughly 100 kilometers of the corridor (Bramalea to Oshawa) that high speed trains will need to go over to go between Kingston and Kitchener. Now once this is done, even without owning any high speed trainsets, any compatible high speed trainset can now thusly simply least taxi into Toronto at fairly brisk faster-than-VIA speeds (until tracks get upgraded a bit more and curves eventually straightened out). The more we electricify and prepare Ontario, the lower the barrier to high speed trains. We see the aspirations for Metrolinx to speed up GO service over time, even if lots of deadlines are bumped out or jiggled politically (e.g. UPX versus improved Georgetown corridor service). And Ontario has funded the high speed EA. The vaporware environmental assessments of yesteryear on high speed trains, has turned into a more hopefully relatively more-serious environmental assessment that is now a bit harder to gamble against happening. The announced budgets includes many millions of dollars towards the cost of just this mere EA that is being started this year and will take a few years to complete, perhaps before the next election to make it a new political promise. It may all still be vaporware in a massive cancellation or postponement, but if even merely half of the now-funded train infrastructure gets built (including electricifation of some of the GO system), we've made very massive step towards opening the door to high speed trains.
Ontario is spending multiple tens of billion of dollars on rail infrastructure all over Ontario (GO & LRT) in just the next ten years alone, and at these budget numbers, HSR becomes just a lineitem bullet in a future cycle of funding as the economy improves and the deficit is actually eliminated. This is of course, assuming Ontario manages to stay solvent (which is doable, given we've got a relatively flexible economy far better than Greece and others).
So.... The idea is no longer outlandish anymore.
Urbantoronto members are no longer laughing at this theoretical concept anymore, unlike 5 years ago.
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