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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Not stepping in when Greyhound finally left the scene to cease the opportunity to replace them with a nationwide franchise system which would be supplemented by provincial funding supporting regional routes is the single-biggest transportation policy failure of the Justin-Trudeau premiership (if that‘s the correct term).
However, that does not (and should not) have anything to do with VIA (and thus this thread)…
micheal_can
Senior Member
micheal_can
Senior Member
What metric does Via use to decide to expand if they ever expand?
roger1818
Senior Member
It’s quite simple. Do whatever the federal government tells them to.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
In theory, VIA could add as many new routes as they want. In practice, Transport Canada will veto everything which risks increasing VIA‘s subsidy need, even if it would be just in the short term…
micheal_can
Senior Member
Unless the government gives them a higher subsidy to expand. But that still does not explain how they would choose where to go next. I am guessing that since the 1990s, expansion is like a bad word in Via.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I have no clue about the internal machinations of most government agencies, but I'm not sure I would would agree with the last two words. I highly doubt their Board (or ONTC's for that matter) are anti-passenger rail and sits around tossing route enhancement ideas in the trash bin. The very nature of a publicly-funded agency would be to happily expand its area of control. More things to do means more bureaucrats and a bigger empire. For all we know they might write weekly letters to their Minister whining for this or that new route, but I suspect not since they know that it is pointless; they don't have the funding and know they won't get it. Even in governments and their agencies, 'busy work' has its limits.
Why doesn't GO run trains to all sorts of places they do go now? Same reason. The one exception is GO *might* have a business case in a drawer saying they would like to - some day, if they get the authority and money to do it. Maybe VIA has a pile of businesses cases in a drawer too just waiting for the golden egg to be laid. I somehow doubt it.
Any of these agencies will get the approvals and requisite funding when their respective governments see the political advantage to give it to them.
The most likely outcome of the mythical ONTC '4-busses-per-day' threshold, if it exists at all, would be to have a 3 busses per day corridor never expanded.
There's a lot of asks for public money these days.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Meanwhile, an actual 1990 timetable:
ShonTron
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That bus - painted with VIA’s colours with another company contracted to run the route - filled the gaps of what used to be a lousy Toronto-Ottawa rail schedule in the 1980s. The buses would meet Toronto-Montreal trains at Kingston. The Toronto-Ottawa route has many more trains these days.
The other VIA-branded bus was between Moncton and Charlottetown.
crs1026
Superstar
Well played. VIA has certainly not been prevented from building business T-O-M. And if you added a GO or Exo timetable from that era, Ontario and Quebec have certainly not been prevented from growing commuter train networks on their own dime. I do wonder if the cuts to the services feeding T-O-M could have been worth the cost to continue, and I do see the need for better service in Southwestern Ontario.
To be fair, there was an earlier era when (for instance) then-CEO Pierre Franche got his knuckles rapped for running with a plan to add a further Montreal-Quebec train, on the premise that a more frequent service which was more marketable could incrementally break even within the same overall subsidy. He was told, your mandate is to run x trains, not x+1. So some of us have justifiable grudges against the bureaucracy. But I'm quite certain that that historical antipathy is not what is preventing expansion..... rather, any funding proposal has to compete with other political priorities, and adding new VIA routes is only so sellable in an era where education, health care, reconciliation, climate change, and a pile of equity issues all are on the budget table.
Unfortunately, we at UT do not represent a significant voter bloc - and even if we did, I think I would personally choose access to a family physician before I would choose a train to Sudbury.
- Paul
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Urban Sky
Senior Member
Since 1990, VIA has added:
- A 5th frequency on QBEC-MTRL
- A 6th frequency on MTRL-OTTW
- A 6th frequency (then only operating on Fridays and Sundays) on MTRL-TRTO
- 7 (!) additional frequencies on OTTW-TRTO
- A commuter run KGON-TRTO
- A commuter run TRTO-BRTF-LNDN
- A weekly tourist run HLFX-Sydney (which would still be running today, if it wasn’t for the collapsing rail infrastructure on Capre Breton Island)
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kEiThZ
Superstar
To people who don't understand how corporate governance and mandates work, everything is a conspiracy. I've never once met a VIA employee who wasn't enthusiastic about public transport and rail itself. But they have no more control over services and resources than an employee of GO or TTC does over their transit services.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Indeed. I was more thinking of additional routes as opposed to frequencies on existing routes. I forgot about the 'Bras d'Or' service.
micheal_can
Senior Member
The federal government dictates the budget,along with all the other crown corporations. So,it is in their budget that they dictate what can happen, without actually saying what can happen. What irks me, and will always irk me is where that money is spent. Everyone outside of the QC - W feels they are ignored by the federal government.
Employees are not CEOs. Your average Via employee seems to be the type that feels this is a dream job for them. The problem is not them. They have no control on what is done with the money that the company gets. When the government hires someone who does not have a passenger train background, it can be a disservice to the company.