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VIA Rail

steveintoronto said:
Without getting into the argument, as a Brit with Residency status, I can state that more Brits speak French as a % of the population than Anglo Cdns do.
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I would love to read more on that...it is a fascinating concept (to me) that this could/would occur....do you have a link showing those numbers? It would mean that a uni-lingual country has developed into a bilingual one without any government policy/intervention (presumably the link you will provide will show reasons it happened...likely economic/trade within EU, I guess) at a faster clip than a country based on two languages, with specific policies meant to encourage bi-lingualism.
 
TOareaFan said:
I would love to read more on that...it is a fascinating concept (to me) that this could/would occur....do you have a link showing those numbers? It would mean that a uni-lingual country has developed into a bilingual one without any government policy/intervention (presumably the link you will provide will show reasons it happened...likely economic/trade within EU, I guess) at a faster clip than a country based on two languages, with specific policies meant to encourage bi-lingualism.
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I'd add a theory:
It's overall proximity to France as well, given the frequent travel, including business travel and the need to do EU business between the Eurpean titans.

Canada -- being the second biggest country in the world by land mass -- BC is more than an order of magnitude as far away from Quebec, than the distance between UK-France. As you surmised, I would bet far more business occur (as a percentage of GDP) between UK-France than any/all of BC/Alberta/Sask/Manitoba doing business with Quebec. Most of UK population is only a day's roadtrip/traintrip away from France, and in many cases, a same-day roundtrip. Londoners do and can visit France's Disneyland Europe for a day trip, no overnighter needed, in fact!

Both the Brits and the French are literally a stone's throw of immersion of each other.

It's really sheer economics and business, that bilingualism thrived in UK.
 
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mdrejhon said:
I'd add a theory:
It's overall proximity to France as well, given the frequent travel, including business travel and the need to do EU business between the Eurpean titans.

Canada -- being the second biggest country in the world by land mass -- BC is more than an order of magnitude as far away from Quebec, than the distance between UK-France. As you surmised, I would bet far more business occur (as a percentage of GDP) between UK-France than any/all of BC/Alberta/Sask/Manitoba doing business with Quebec. Most of UK population is only a day's roadtrip/traintrip away from France, and in many cases, a same-day roundtrip. Londoners do and can visit France's Disneyland Europe for a day trip, no overnighter needed, in fact!

Both the Brits and the French are literally a stone's throw of immersion of each other.

It's really sheer economics and business, that bilingualism thrived in UK.
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It would mean that a uni-lingual country has developed into a bilingual one without any government policy/intervention
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Government intervention was steep: Education System. And in the EU, for all her isolationist tendency, Blighty still expects 'the educated' to speak at least one other language. In many European nations, it's more than two.

MD is right on regional disparity within Canada though. The further west you go, the more marginalized bilingualism becomes. Ontario is actually quite comfortable for most French speakers. It's part of the cosmopolitan mindset here. Toronto? *Twice* as cosmopolitan as New York!

I'm still at work, time limited, but will attempt to link/reference later. This is 'off-topic' but a very valuable aside to VIA's policies.
 
on the off topic bilingualism discussion....part of the reason I am so interested is that outside of my parents, all my family remains in Britain....and they may be isolated minority but not of them can speak a word of French....none of their kids have ever studied or spoken French and on my fairly frequent trips to there whenever I mention I am from Canada I never encounter anyone in the service industry who says "oh, great I can practice my French on you"....but I have heard (on numerous occasions) "how do you deal with that French thing"......so the concept that Brits/the UK is more bilingual than Anglo Canada fascinates me somewhat.

EDIT: Statscan reports there are 5.8 million Canadians that are bilingual English/French. 3.3million in Quebec (we will use that as a proxy for Francophones who learnt English) and 2.5million outside of Quebec (we will use that as a proxy for Anglos who learnt French).
 
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Editorial: Via Rail on right track with 'frequency over speed' proposal
Montreal Gazette - http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/...ight-track-with-frequency-over-speed-proposal

No new information here, but it is great to see big newspapers' editorial boards endorse VIA's HFR proposal. The more media coverage this gets, the more people know, and if people know about HFR I think they will tend to like the idea of it. I dislike the "frequency over speed" tagline however - I know its not HSR, but HFR will be faster and that should also be widely communicated.
 
Language isn't an issue. Comes down to what kind of service is offered.

If TKL is a high speed commuter line under GO, then service will be more similar to GO, which means employees as bilingual as the rest of GO.

If it's an intercity rail service, it would be under VIA. And should have bilingual staff. This makes sense under a scenario where TKL ops are through services, such as where HFR TOM trains continue through Union on to TKL.

In reality, we may have mixed services. Through HFR trains. And regular high speed commuter service.
 
alexanderglista said:
I know its not HSR, but HFR will be faster and that should also be widely communicated.
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I hope this happens.

My worry is that this plan may sound too conventional for many.

If they fail, and they need to market it as HSR....then bump a 10 kilometer section to 200-240kph, and just call it HSR for the whole system just because a sliver is HSR, and bedonewithit, get the HSR marketing done and bullety-EMUs ;) and worry about incremental corridor upgrades later? Whatever bare minimum they need to do to pull off an Acela.
 
They should just call it medium speed rail or something like that. The marketing spin on this is sort of a letdown. I understand not wanting to label it HSR, since they need to manage expectations. But HFR is not that great a moniker. Especially if the frequency is only hourly. The public is going to see that as absurd too. And rightly so. Hourly frequency is hardly "high" frequency. Even for inter-city trains.
 
The thing that stands out is how this Caisse started with the Canada Line, figured out the formula, and is now tackling bigger things. Learn to crawl, then walk, then run......

It would be interesting to hear from other pension funds as to what they think the challenges/opportunities would be in the GTA - would they touch it at all? What would their expectations and needs be?

And yes, I'd continue this discussion closer to RER and/or Smarttrack.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
The thing that stands out is how this Caisse started with the Canada Line, figured out the formula, and is now tackling bigger things. Learn to crawl, then walk, then run......
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I can't be 100% sure, but I would be surprised if this was CDPQ's first infrastructure investment.
 
minilude said:
Not sure where this belongs, why Ontario doesn't have the similar using our pension funds?

Quebec’s largest pension fund manager announced Friday it will build a new high-speed rail network to link the West Island, the South Shore, and the northern suburb of Deux Montagnes.
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High speed, my [bleep]!

This is just Montreal's version of SmartTrack/RER.
If properly structured, this can be a good project for them, but...."high speed"?

VIA HFR is a maglev in comparison to that, and it just makes VIA seem more conservative not using high-speed terminology to describe 177kph HFR that outperforms an American high speed train called Acela Express.
 
minilude said:
Not sure where this belongs, why Ontario doesn't have the similar using our pension funds?

Quebec’s largest pension fund manager announced Friday it will build a new high-speed rail network to link the West Island, the South Shore, and the northern suburb of Deux Montagnes.

http://montrealgazette.com/news/loc...-update-for-montreals-west-island-south-shore
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Dynamite! That belongs right in this string and the GO one, it is *exactly* the model we're discussing. Pardon me for quoting this minilude. I've yet to read Alexander's link, it's up on the taskbar, but I immediately have to wonder if they're linked, there's so much serendipity between the two:
Quebec’s largest pension fund manager announced Friday it will build a new high-speed rail network to link the West Island, the South Shore, and the northern suburb of Deux Montagnes.

“What we’re announcing today is the most important public transit project in Montreal in the last 50 years,” said Macky Tall, the president of CDPQ Infra, the infrastructure arm of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

The Caisse said it will lead a $5.5 billion project using existing tracks and building new ones dedicated to passenger traffic. The project calls for a fully electric, automated, and universally accessible train, with Wi-Fi and place for bicycles. The stations will enter into service by 2020.

The 67-kilometre network will use the track running through the Mount Royal tunnel, taking over the Deux Montagnes Line currently run by the Agence Métropolitaine de Montréal. New tracks will be built over the Champlain Bridge, and link to the South Shore, ending near the intersection of Highways 30 and 10 in Brossard. Two other dedicated tracks will be built, branching off from the Deux-Montagnes Line where Highway 13 meets Highway 40. One track will head to the airport, with a stop in the Technoparc in St-Laurent. Another will follow along Highway 40 towards Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. [...]
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Not mentioned is the re-establishment of catenary south over the Champlain Bridge. Wow! This is the sign we needed to confirm Desjardins-Siciliano is on beam. More than ever there's good reason to believe if the Feds via VIA don't make this happen, private enterprise will. Being the only existing heavy rail passenger catenary system in Canada, and connecting to the Mon-Tor Corridor....this could well be a model to copy.

Edit to Add:
The announcement follows about a year of study by the Caisse ever since the Quebec government proposed it build the two train projects. The government adopted a law last year to permit a private company to build public transit projects for the first time.
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FinTimes had an article two days back which impacts 'safe' and 'low fee' investing like bonds, and perhaps it's time for the provinces as well as Ottawa to start issuing guaranteed bonds to finance projects like this, especially in league with the Retirement Funds:
Hedge funds have suffered their worst quarter in seven years after more than $15bn was pulled out by investors starting to fight back against the high fees being charged across the industry.

The total amount invested in hedge funds fell to $2.86tn in the first three months of the year, marking the first time since 2009 that the sector has faced two consecutive quarters of net outflows, according to data from Hedge Fund Research.[...]
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/72b5a244-06fd-11e6-9b51-0fb5e65703ce.html#ixzz46ZTgbDDU

The financial vectors are aligning!
 
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