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VIA Rail
- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
To be fair, some newer HSR in places like Saudi Arabia and Indonesia run at 300 kph. And a lot of Asia is designed for 300+ kph. But that's still hardly the norm for the average intercity rail passenger in those countries. And they've also achieved this by sacrificing last mile access in many places. Building HSR with termini in Richmond Hill, Barrhaven and Dorion would be a lot cheaper and allow for faster speeds. Not as useful though.
guavadelic
New Member
Its a big risk. The CEO should be doing the legwork to get the support of the conservative premiers of Ontario and Quebec to support this project in order to insulate it from the political winds in Ottawa.
It's unfortunate that it's necessary but that's how things work in Canada.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Both provinces support the plan. It's more a question of getting vocal public support.
guavadelic
New Member
Will be tough to get vocal public support when the entire process seems very slow.
The CEO is saying it'll be 3-4 years before they can even confirm how fast the trains will go. The scope of the project will be largely shaped by the speed of the trip so will be hard to get the public at large behind this until then.
kEiThZ
Superstar
If there's a contract in place, the best case scenario is the next government allows the design phase to proceed. But we have seen governments happily pay several hundred million in cancellation costs just to fill a campaign pledge. So far no idea if the CPC is for or against. O'Toole actually supported HFR in his platform. No idea if Poilievre will do the same. We'll see. More pressure from the premiers would help.
Garuda
Active Member
Well then offer discounted tickets for passengers willing to shovel coal into the steam engine! What an authentic rustic train experience.
Chris R.
Senior Member
We really have to make the money case. HSR will increase economic activity immensely, give Canadians affordable.alternative transportation options, reduce congestion on the highways for goods movements and those that need to drive. Whether you're conservative or not, advocates need to adapt their advocacy to the government in charge, and also work on wording their advocacy to the general public.
A key element of my advocacy is that I change how I approach a topic when I speak go different audiences. When speaking to our conservative MPPs I specifically discuss reduced taxpayer costs, increased business activity, and less car congestion and more freedom to choose options. This is something I find progressive advocates really struggle with.
micheal_can
Senior Member
One of the cases could be that the area reserved in Pickering for a new airport could be used for housing and the flights along the Corridor could be reduced and replaced with a train doing the same trip in about the same time.
dowlingm
Senior Member
That land already has a useful and necessary purpose - agriculture.
micheal_can
Senior Member
While I do agree that it should remain agricultural, As that area grows, it is in a prime location, so ignoring that it will ever be developed would be foolhardy. It also does not look like it is included in the Greenbelt.
dowlingm
Senior Member
Why would it be? The airport hold on the land long preceded it, and McGuinty likely wouldn’t have wanted to agitate the feds. In a way, an airport designated but not built was better protection than the Greenbelt turned out to be.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Sorry,I guess it is more about showing how HSR in the province and along the W-QC corridor would have many benefits.One of them would be no longer needing a new airport in the GTA.I'd imagine most, if not all of the inner corridor air travel could be reduced or cut completely if we had real HSR that would actually compete with flying, not just driving.
IRT_BMT_IND
Active Member
I unfortunately wouldn't expect a lot of capital funding for any transit projects under a Poilievre government though, given how he's a hardcore fiscal conservative who will be laser focused on spending cuts. One also shouldn't underestimate how much the CPC base has become radicalized against urbanism and Canada's largest cities, and any large spending program that benefits them, way more so then when Harper was PM. Poilievre doesn't seem to want to get along with the Premiers either. FWIW Doug Ford has been surprisingly pro-transit, but I don't think he could win the PC leadership today either. If anything a Poilievre government may be more willing to fund upgrades to highways in Western Canada than any transit projects. Of course this is 100% speculation as Poilievre has said very little if anything about transportation policy, but he often complained about OC Transpo in his twitter rants before becoming leader.
I would say it's lucky that so many huge generational transit projects (like the Ontario Line, GO Electrification, REM, Broadway Subway, Edmonton and Calgary LRT expansion, even the Ottawa LRT) made it over the line while the money spigots were wide open.
crs1026
Superstar
I agree that PP’s DNA will be skewed towards highways and the West …. However I am hopeful that governments often all do the same in the end because there are sometimes good solutions that trump both ideology and previously stated positions.
Ford is an interesting case study, because one would never have expected him to be so pro transit, but he was - for two reasons - first, transit is the obvious and cheapest solution to mobility in the GTA, and second, because every premier wants signature projects for bragging rights, and the signature transit projects give him that… especially Line 2 and Ontario Line, where he can maintain that he did something better that TTC and Toronto Council couldn’t move on.
The unavoidable rocks in the river that the next government (regardless who it is) will face include decisions about costly airport expansion, a decision about the VIA long distance fleet, and decisions about Quebec’s hunger for north shore HSR. PP may not like it, but no PM can afford to completely snub Quebec. There is an opportunity to get something going that is cheaper and more quickly built than the Liberal’s poor effort to date. So maybe there is a spin that gives him hero status by “saving” HxR instead of killing it..
- Paul.