If I counted correctly, I've now reached the sixth part of this post, which is artificially kept alive by a circling argument between myself and
@micheal_can (with various members participating in either side of the argument), while new, fresh discussions keep getting added (we are already dealing with a dozen of topics by now), which is why I've added these links for better navigation:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
#6 About VIA's mandate
Your chart shows a lower number of people traveling between Ottawa and Toronto.
Which chart exactly are you referring to? Because I only recall posting charts on a per-route level, which showed either the population, the travel time or (looked up for a random day also) ticket prices, but certainly not ridership figures, as this information is commercially sensitive and therefore not available through public sources. If you are referring to ridership figures provided in VIA's Annual Reports, then these figures unfortunately aggregate multiple routes and the transition from M-O-T trains (which were - or in the case of train 51: still are - reported as part of "Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto") to Q-M-O trains (which are reported as "Quebec-Montreal-Ottawa") makes it difficult to analyze any ridership trends below the "Corridor East" (i.e. anything Corridor east of Toronto) level...
So, the normal person would wonder why they would increase frequency when there is a lower ridership. You said that the Canadian proved you could run on lower frequency and still do well. If you use that attitude, then, between Toronto and Ottawa should have less on it due to the lower ridership, or is this where your logic becomes flawed and you only want a self serving service?
Other than deriving implausible conclusions from data which was never presented to you, your mistake is that
frequency doesn't matter much to
tourist or
remote markets, while it is an integral element of the competitiveness in
intercity markets...
In general, most government departments are not there to make money. They are there to serve the citizens with a needed service. Just imagine if the military had to make a profit, or EI had to be profitable... So, Via does not need to make a profit. They need to serve Canadians.
You are right that VIA's mandate (unlike say, Amtrak's) is not to make money; yet (just like any government agency), it is expected to fulfill its mandates in a resourceful manner which protects the interests of the taxpayers (i.e. of the society as a whole and not just of those individuals who demand its services)...
#7 About finding viable intercity corridors outside the Quebec-Windsor Corridor
I would argue for a City-pair model (typically), with select intermediate stops.
Kenora-Thunder Bay; Thunder Bay-Sudbury (or Sault); Sault to North Bay, North Bay to Ottawa; Sudbury/NB to Toronto.
I'm not suggesting all of these are of equal or imminent priority, but that any business case for servicing this area would be based on this type of service, not a 'cruise ship' model.
Likewise, out west, Edmonton-Calgary; Regina-Saskatoon, Calgary-Banff, Calgary-Regina, Calgary-Lethbridge, Regina-Winnipeg etc. are where more reasonable potential exists.
We've already discussed in the
third part of this post that apart from Edmonton-Calgary, the size and position of the population centers along every single of the routes you list west of Winnipeg is inferior to that of any Corridor route (even Sarnia-Toronto) and would thus make it difficult to even justify one service per day. Given that one train per day could never justify the investments required to make travel times remotely competitive with driving or taking a bus (if one existed), what is the point of discussing such routes? And if Saskatoon (295 k), Regina (236 k), and Lethbridge (117 k) are too small and too distant from other population centers to become viable as termini for intercity rail services, why do we need to discuss Thunder Bay (121 k, but much more remote than Lethbridge) Saulte Ste Marie (98 k), North Bay (70 k) or Kenora (15 k)?
I actually like the idea of rail-connected 'city-pairs' provided there is a travelling demographic to support them. It's one thing to say that people could take the train but quite another to say they would in sufficient numbers.
Amen.
#9 About expanding transcontinental VIA services
You like to argue that everything should be buses.
[...]
Try to go from Thunder Bay to Winnipeg by passenger train? You cant. I am not suggesting we put more service on CN's norther route. I am suggesting s southern route through Sault St Marie and Thunder Bay be put it.
A daily is not a tourist train. A daily means you as a business or student person can take the train to where you need to.
There is no demand for buses. Just like there is no demand for trains. Except for transport enthusiasts and tourists with a strong preference for a particular mode of transport,
bus transport or
rail transport are not needs -
mobility is. I'm not saying "everything should be buses", what I'm asking is (and I'm asking it all the HSR, Maglev or Hyperloop enthusiasts/groupies I argue on Social Media or in real life with) "What is the problem you are trying to fix?"; because a doctor is more likely to prescribe the appropriate medicine if he first listens to the patient describing his symptoms...
Maybe you should take a history lesson why Toronto is the only one in Canada that still has streetcars. You might even enjoy the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It is proven that GM and Firestone paid millions to have cities pull up lines or to make passenger rail unappealing to the public so they can sell buses. Buses will not help us reach our climate promises, trains will. If you are a climate denier, say now so I can simply scroll on instead of wasting my time with someone who does not understand basic physics.
The sentence I highlighted above is actually a perfect representation of your habit of proposing a solution without understanding the problem: If you have to transport 2,000 commuters, then choosing a 12-car bi-level GO train (still with almost 2000 seats the largest-capacity-vehicle-by-seat-count I've ever seen, despite having been in Japan) surely wins on any count (economic/environmental/speed) over transporting the same crowd with individual buses; however, if you only have 20-30 passengers traveling the same way, a 40-seater highway bus wins on all these counts over transporting the same amount of people with a train hauled by a 3,000 hp locomotive and frequently slowed down by poor track maintenance and intense freight traffic.
Climate change is a powerful argument to highlight the urgency of changing our transportation priorities. Nevertheless, abusing it to justify ideological biases does a severe disservice to the existential task of preserving our livelihood, as this abuse (as well-intended as it might be) will be ruthlessly exploited by the very climate change deniers you suspect me (though at least with a big question mark, as it seems) to be part of...
It is circular because we have differing views on what we should have. I like being educated on why it wouldn't work. The problem I am finding is many do not understand history.
I would rather argue that your trains-are-good-therefore-buses-are-evil bias is the single-biggest obstacle in allowing yourself in being educated why your ideas would only work under circumstances which are unfortunately very unlikely to materialize within the next few decades and that you certainly are part of those who lack historic context to sufficiently understand the problems in the complexity in which they are discussed here...
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This time, the 10,000 character limit does not even allow me to include any new points, which will therefore have to be outsourced into a Part 7...
