Design phase alone will cost $6B and take 5 years.
This kind of infrastructure seems like a no brainer as most of Canada’s population lives along that corridor, and considering how many flights per day run between toronto, ottawa and montreal, but I’d like to hear opinions from the Ontario/Quebec people here.
Too bad bad Bombardier sold off it’s rail division
It would be nice, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Seems right to be skeptical. Australia has had proposals for high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne for more than 40 years. It’s the 5th most used airline route in the world, with almost 10 million flights pa, so the demand would be there.
We even have a new “High Speed Rail Authority”, but these mega-projects have a very patchy history. We will shortly have a 2nd airport, though. That also took about 50 years of planning.
You’re right about [quote=“Bone_Idol, post:4, topic:1286186, full:true”]
Seems right to be skeptical. Australia has had proposals for high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne for more than 40 years. It’s the 5th most used airline route in the world, with almost 10 million flights pa, so the demand would be there.
We even have a new “High Speed Rail Authority”, but these mega-projects have a very patchy history. We will shortly have a 2nd airport, though. That also took about 50 years of planning.
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There’s so much demand for air travel between Montreal and Toronto Air Canada fills a A330 I think 4 times a day in peak hours, that’s a big plane for a 1 hour flight. Lol
Montreal/Toronto is just under 10 flights per day. Syd/Melb is just under 60 (Airbus A330 or Boeing 737). In peak hour they are stacked and take off every 5 minutes. Also only a 1 hour flight. I’ve done it as a work commute too many times. More time is spent getting to and from the airport at each end + security shit than flying - hence the appeal of a train from city centre to city centre.
The only positive I can think of is the flight crew does 4 flights and goes home…lol
Bummer it does not go all the way to Windsor. The challenge I think will be finding where to put the rails. Presently Via Rail uses CN Rail tracks and freight trains have priority. Resulting in pretty well every Via train I have been on in the last year being late. Still I consider myself lucky to have the train pass through my town which is a perk very few Canadians have. If we have trains that went say 150km/h it would be faster than air given the hassle of getting on a plane. So I am not sure we need high speed rail. Not sure if there is a business case for it. Avoiding the gridlock of the 401 would be a big bonus.
Considering the glacial pace of infrastructure development in Canada (enviromental assessments take too long and for sure protracted negotiations with native groups and likely one or two who will be against it no matter what) it should only take a few decades. If it ever happens given Mr Trudeau who is promising it is on his way out
Seems like a good idea for business travel. I might consider using it. This past weekend we drove to Ottawa and never used our car once we were there so a high speed rail option would have been nice.
The drive home was horrific, 6.5 hours instead of the 4 it should have taken. So many trucks in the ditch from the snow storm the day prior.
Ignoring the political and financial headwinds, i am kind of surprised kingston is not a stop. I know it shouldn’ t be a milk run, but it is a pretty major stop to miss. University, major businesses and tourism vastly outweighs peterborough.
My career has been developing/procuring/financing projects like this. We looked at this 20 years ago and it didn’t make sense. I’m not privy to current (if there are) ridership and revenue forecasts but one thing for certain with all such projects is it’ll need a very significant subsidy for the capital cost and likely for operating costs as well - they’re just too complex and expensive to cover their costs hence why it’s ’public transit’.
Further, linear projects like trains, roads and pipelines are the most complex by far. The line will be crossing thousands of different properties and many, many municipalities and First Nations areas. So have to get all parties on board and also compensate those whose land the line will transit. Not easy.
Assuming the ridership forecasts make sense (skeptical I am) and political will is there it’s certainly technically doable but, and it’s a big butt (I can not lie), these type of projects need a very strong proponent/champion to make it happen. And I, perhaps cynically, don’t see the needed strength of will and commitment in the Federal, Provincial or Municipal authorities.
That said, out of naked self interest I truly hope it gathers some momentum as I’ve pitched for a role on the project. Unfortunately it’s in Ontario (cue Blep).
I’m sure they will come up with a way to get them some money anyway.
Especially if they partner with SNC-Lavalin.
I can guess who is doing the engineering work for the design.
I guess they don’t want to duplicate the Via rail setup. I don’t know if the cost of land for rails is prohibitive closer to the lake and the higher population density. Having said that having only Peterborough as a stop between Ottawa and Toronto doesn’t seem to be a good business case. Having Ottawa as a stop seems like a detour as well.
Going through Kingston then up to Ottawa makes no sense at all. Going through Pete is likely cheaper and makes more sense then down to Montreal and across.
I didn’t know that Kingston is any bigger/better than Pete. Both have large universities. So the line might be useful for that.
ETA I should look at a map more often. I was thinking that Montreal is much further south than Ottawa. It’s basically east of Ottawa.
D’oh.