afransen
Senior Member
Does anyone really want to spend 12+ hours on a train when you could fly in 2 hours? There's no market for this.
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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
afransen
Senior Member
3 hours by train vs 45 min by air? You'd still need to go through customs.
sacred
Active Member
As a zoomer, I care about my carbon footprint-- many others in my generation would also prefer to take the train if it's a reasonable option (i.e. not 12 hours+).
kEiThZ
Superstar
Cooperation from the Americans. The service would pretty much have to be run by Amtrak. The Americans probably wouldn't allow VIA to run something like this. There's also the customs and border security issues too if the service is actually continuous across the border.
It would. But in a country where flying is cheap, what's the market for this? You could easily drive/bus to Buffalo and get a cheap flight to NYC.
Sure. But you have to convince the Americans to build a high speed rail corridor from New York to Buffalo or Niagara Falls. And then we'd have to build one from Toronto to Niagara Falls or Fort Erie. This in a country that has been talking about building HSR between Toronto and Montreal for half a century.
So would the rest of us. But for some reason, it's been a massive struggle to get support for investment in intercity train service in Canada. It's even worse in the US.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Agreed on this. There's work VIA could do on integration. They do offer some combined GO fares. But some of this is also on the other agencies like Metrolinx and the TTC. And gets even more challenging as they move to fare cards, etc. I don't think it's the most pressing priority. Most riders will be able to figure transit out on arrival. But as those agencies move to open payment systems, VIA could be better positioned to do that kind of integration.
I keep saying that Union is not a natural terminus for HFR. It should be Pearson as a minimum. And we'll probably see westward expansion in due course.
Thank you. I've taken some early flights out of Pearson. Getting there by transit is ridiculously difficult. Impractical enough to be basically impossible. Anybody leaving that early is usually going by taxi, uber, being dropped off or driving themselves. Where HFR would help in this regard is that anybody east of Union doesn't have to haul it to Union for 0630. They just meet the train at Eglinton or whatever other GTA East station they do build.
micheal_can
Senior Member
So, people are able to show you other countries have a national parking standard, and you want to ignore it? It is relevant, even if you choose not to pay attention to it.
kEiThZ
Superstar
The national parking standard mentioned has to do with parking at housing and businesses. And exactly zero to do with parking at rail stations. In fact, if we're going to use foreign precedent, they'd probably have less parking than we would build at a comparable station.
If you read my subsequent posts, I've said that VIA should build parking structures at stations that have traffic to support it. But there has to be the ridership to support this and it can't be the primary last mile solution or they will never have the traffic to actually make HFR successful.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Agreed. But there's a real limit to what VIA can do and what can be tossed into the HFR budget envelope. Parking isn't exactly cheap. A while back, @ShonTron wrote a great piece on the cost of all that "free" GO parking. Most notable was the cost of building all these parking structures. If VIA has to start building massive parking structures at $40 000/spot, at every HFR station, the price tag of the whole project is going to go up pretty quickly. This is not all that dissimilar to the dilemma faced by the GTAA which is now pushing to have the modal share of transit at Pearson increase because they don't want to have to build quarter billion dollar parking garages.
The logical solution is to leave the downtown stations at Union and Gare Centrale as they are, and have them focus on transit, taxis and rideshare for last mile. But build up the suburban stations (and Ottawa) with garages and car rental counters. Don't think the Lakeshore centres could support auto rentals, but several of them may end up with large lots or even parking structures, as they largely focus on lots of daytripping and commuting. The real challenge will be convincing local authorities to build a transit node at some of these stations (Kingston and Belleville particularly come to mind for me).
Darwinkgo
Active Member
The CIB expanded the exploration of the Calgary-Banff business case to include an international airport link. Would be interesting to see if they are that adventorous for HFR!
micheal_can
Senior Member
Well, one train a day is a much more higher frequency than now....
lrt's friend
Active Member
I hope they consider allowing for possible future extension to Edmonton in any plans.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
The feasibility study looked at 8 round trips, plus 3 commuter runs from Cochrane. The inclusion of the airport link would change that significantly.
Darwinkgo
Active Member
Unlikely as part of this. But I have heard there is a private proponent starting a process for HSR process soon. The province set up an 'unsolicited opportunity' framework for freestanding infrastructure projects.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Is that one of everpromising Hyperloop proposals?
Darwinkgo
Active Member
No. Conventional HSR.