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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
The Oxford dictionary defines the word "corridor" as "A belt of land linking two other areas or following a road or river", which pretty much prescribes a linear form, but that is not the point. I was only replying to your remark that "[t]he US has 9 times our population, which means it has 9 times as many potential rail corridors as we do".
Correct, but whereas I would count conventional rail systems (especially remote inter-regional or intra-urban Commuter rail networks) as a public responsibility, I have the expectation for HSR to be not only operationally profitable, but to recover the majority of its capital costs.
Zaragoza-Huesca is probably the most drastic example for a completely superfluous HSR line, as the 80 km long segment is only used by a daily round trip Madrid-Zaragoza-Huesca and a second on Fridays and Sundays (thus 2*9=18 trains per week), but I agree that Madrid-Barcelona recovering at least half of its capital costs (if the calculations made by Betancor and Llobet are anything near realistic) makes it a smaller financial disaster than the other three corridors, but what more suitable label would you suggest for having built over 2,000 km of HSR lines (i.e. quindrupling your HSR network) and yielded an increase in ridership which gets outpaced by population growth?
If I read the study correctly (I don't speak Spanish, even though I found it surprisingly similar to French and somewhat understandably), all calculations - financial and social - were based on a horizon of 50 years. I tried to provide the years of opening for the respective corridors, but I must admit that I'm not exactly sure what is exactly included and therefore removed these references in the table, while specifying that all figures refer to a 50-year horizon. For any questions regarding that study, I suggest to read and/or translate it yourself, as my Spanish does not allow me to understand the exact methodology. Nevertheless, a different team of Spanish researchers (Albalate et Bel, 2012, p. 102) has come to very similar conclusions:
You are right that the financial crisis was mostly caused by an unsustainable real estate boom, but the budget crisis was caused by unsustainable public funding in low-priority or outright superfluous infrastructure projects, leading to all these ghost airports, abandoned highways and grotesquely derused rail lines.
I fully agree and this is exactly the merits of Higher-Speed Rail: Maximizing the speed by modernizing signalling systems and tracks while minimizing costs by avoiding any greenfield alignments or forced physical separation of freight and passenger operations. However, the two reasons this doesn't work in North America is the much higher frequency of level crossings requiring costly grade separations and the coincidence of vertical integration (infrastructure ownership plus operations) for freight and disintegration for passenger rail operations. This is the reason why VIA Rail pursues a conventional rail solution at its maximum possible speed (i.e. 110 mph)...
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Euphoria
Active Member
We're going to rack up an additional $100 billion of federal debt by the end of Trudeau's first feed at the trough and we don't even get the promise of HFR, let alone HSR? Pathetic.
dowlingm
Senior Member
How dare we fix the issue of clean water on reserves and so on before bullet trains...
Or keep old bridges from collapsing, or stop dumping raw sewage into our rivers, or...
TOareaFan
Superstar
I don't think those are the only things we are spending money on though....one, for example, that was implemented before either of those was the restoration of the ability of civil servants to bank sick days....cost ~$1B a year....so if Via think they can implement HFR for, what, $3.4B you might be able to fix bridges and provide clean water and fund the Via plan.
Euphoria
Active Member
HSR is a wealth generator because it enhances productivity, which boosts tax revenues to pay for more social benefits.
Euphoria
Active Member
Trudeau is creating structurally long term money pits. He is naive and we'll pay for these mistakes when we have to cut spending and clean up the debt later on. I just hope the housing market and larger economy don't tank with his fiscal plan. I could be wrong. I hope I am.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Why don't we stop all other spending, investment and government activities till we fix the issue of clean water on reserves?
kEiThZ
Superstar
I have never had buyer's remorse with voting as fast as I have with this government. I honestly thought they'd do something for infrastructure. They said, they needed to run deficits to stimulate the economy. I agreed with that reasoning and voted for them.
And now, they are pledging $113 billion in deficits over the next 4-5 years. Of which, only $12 billion will be spent on infrastructure in the next 2-3 years. Ridiculous. That's only marginally more of an effort that the Conservatives, who weren't running massive deficits. And to boot, only $3.4 billion of the $11.9 billion is for transit. With no substantial investment on VIA Rail.
Their entire budget reads like a big "F**k you!" to Stephen Harper and the Conservatives. No strategy. Just fund whatever Harper cut. That's not governing. That's partisan revenge.
If they don't actually get serious about infrastructure, it won't just be my vote for the Conservatives next election, for the first time in my life, I might actually donate money to that party.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
"Yay politics in the VIA Rail thread"
TOareaFan
Superstar
I don't actually have voter's remorse as I resisted the urge to vote for them.....I am a traditional conservative (not a party member but "small c") voter but was tempted by some of their optimistic views and even the prospect of "modest" (which they defined as +/- $10B/year) deficts for 3 years did not worry me that much......and, afterall, it was only 3 years and then they promised to return to balance (even made it job one in the minister's mandate letter). In the end it was a non-financial platform issue that prevented me from voting for them.
This budget just angered me to the point I stopped reading after I got to 3 significant platform promises that were just flat out broken in their very first budget (and I don't even count the size of the deficits as one of those broken promises). They just flat out lied to get elected.
TOareaFan
Superstar
All transit is political....that's how we roll
"Yay politics in the VIA Rail thread"
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Candidate imperfection asides, and differing political choices respected, what is more important at this time is compatible transit policy between government levels -- this one and whoever gets elected next.
I am glad to see better alignment between federal/provincial/municipal on keeping the GO electrification moving forward even with making compromises that actually make better financial sense (like using Crosstown westward extension instead of creating a new Eglinton heavy-rail corridor). Enough said on this, but this is just my perspective. It is all an imperfect compromise and we have to remember the transit indecisiveness quagmire of the last twenty-five years.
I am disappointed that VIA did not get their turn already, but it's still early. They may still get their chance once their proposal is more shovel-ready. Budgets, after all, are often overlapped, so next year could be a big boon for VIA once there's something much more shovel-ready for HFR.
My fears is that the dice gets rolled again on transit infrastructure. Even SmartTrack (even if watered down as a bumper sticker on a GO RER train), and even the Union Pearson Express mess, is nowhwere remotely near Eglinton subway fill-in, Transit City disappearing act, Scarborough vaporway, Downtown Relief vaporway, the butchering of GO in the early 1990s.
(Note that Union Pearson Express, while lavish, is still recoverable as a roll-into-RER initiative that is thankfully starting with the fare unification with GO, and given a reforming of staffing, its farebox recovery ratio will still easily surpass the Sheppard stubway. Finally, things are going in the correct direction, a mid-course correction that never happened to Sheppard stubway).
So, to those angry voters (Angry at Harper, angry at Trudeau, whatever color YOU are), patience -- it looks like better things are happening NOW. Let things happen, please. Smart Track is actually a perfectly fine "tweak of GO RER" even if it was sold as a "new surface subway" originally. Technologically, it's been always the same "infrequent diesel commuter train being upgraded to a more frequent electric train that is more transit-friendly, more than what was planned by the province originally", regardless of branding.
So many things are in the transit pipeline already, Union revitalization, GO RER, electrification, reforming of UPX, a high-performance electrified route roughly on Bramalea-Unionville (whether you wish to call it RER/SmartTrack), Eglinton Crosstown, significant increases in VIA service including the Kitchener redo, York subway extension, more urgent and concrete DRL study, ongoing continuous GO service expansions, LRTs under construction in many locations and more to come. There has been a large amount of additional transit projects being pushed into the pipeline. Fewer done-deal projects are being permanently cancelled late in process, and even the Transit City leftovers are being resurrected piecemeal.
The transit project modifications (e.g. Brampton LRT portion) are more minor compared to what happened to, for example, Sheppard Stubway or the aborted Eglinton Subway. Those are even bigger massive wastes as the modifications occured during construction.
So, patience! Things are so much better than the preceding 25 years -- and even for VIA.
Yes, I am not happy either about some elements (we differ probably), but, look at the whole picture!
I am glad to see better alignment between federal/provincial/municipal on keeping the GO electrification moving forward even with making compromises that actually make better financial sense (like using Crosstown westward extension instead of creating a new Eglinton heavy-rail corridor). Enough said on this, but this is just my perspective. It is all an imperfect compromise and we have to remember the transit indecisiveness quagmire of the last twenty-five years.
I am disappointed that VIA did not get their turn already, but it's still early. They may still get their chance once their proposal is more shovel-ready. Budgets, after all, are often overlapped, so next year could be a big boon for VIA once there's something much more shovel-ready for HFR.
My fears is that the dice gets rolled again on transit infrastructure. Even SmartTrack (even if watered down as a bumper sticker on a GO RER train), and even the Union Pearson Express mess, is nowhwere remotely near Eglinton subway fill-in, Transit City disappearing act, Scarborough vaporway, Downtown Relief vaporway, the butchering of GO in the early 1990s.
(Note that Union Pearson Express, while lavish, is still recoverable as a roll-into-RER initiative that is thankfully starting with the fare unification with GO, and given a reforming of staffing, its farebox recovery ratio will still easily surpass the Sheppard stubway. Finally, things are going in the correct direction, a mid-course correction that never happened to Sheppard stubway).
So, to those angry voters (Angry at Harper, angry at Trudeau, whatever color YOU are), patience -- it looks like better things are happening NOW. Let things happen, please. Smart Track is actually a perfectly fine "tweak of GO RER" even if it was sold as a "new surface subway" originally. Technologically, it's been always the same "infrequent diesel commuter train being upgraded to a more frequent electric train that is more transit-friendly, more than what was planned by the province originally", regardless of branding.
So many things are in the transit pipeline already, Union revitalization, GO RER, electrification, reforming of UPX, a high-performance electrified route roughly on Bramalea-Unionville (whether you wish to call it RER/SmartTrack), Eglinton Crosstown, significant increases in VIA service including the Kitchener redo, York subway extension, more urgent and concrete DRL study, ongoing continuous GO service expansions, LRTs under construction in many locations and more to come. There has been a large amount of additional transit projects being pushed into the pipeline. Fewer done-deal projects are being permanently cancelled late in process, and even the Transit City leftovers are being resurrected piecemeal.
The transit project modifications (e.g. Brampton LRT portion) are more minor compared to what happened to, for example, Sheppard Stubway or the aborted Eglinton Subway. Those are even bigger massive wastes as the modifications occured during construction.
So, patience! Things are so much better than the preceding 25 years -- and even for VIA.
Yes, I am not happy either about some elements (we differ probably), but, look at the whole picture!
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TOareaFan
Superstar
Not sure you got better alignment though....so the feds are kicking in some money over 3 years that is to apportioned to municipalities based on a ridership formula.
They just leaped past the provincial level and it's transportation implementation body (Metrolinx).......If Ontario was to say "wow, with all that federal money allocated to Ontario we can do "X" project in Toronto"...the feds would not allow it because some of that money has to be spent in York, Brampton, Mississauga, etc.
The province, who's job it is, has lost the co-coordinating/prioritizing pen as it relates using/matching these federal funds.