Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
My, this is well known part of the project. As I said, it is win-win.
The focus of the revised Lakeshore schedule will be to serve the smaller cities better. That will include Cornwall, Brockville (the main Montreal-Ottawa junction), Kingston, Belleville, Trenton, Cobourg, Oshawa and few others. This will mean more daily trains for the smaller cities (no need for express trains), better schedule adherence, and better schedule distribution through the day.
Here is what the Kingston mayor says.
https://mayorpaterson.com/why-via-ra...-for-kingston/
I would also like to point out that HSR would only make sense with one or two stops between Montreal and Toronto. So, most of the smaller cities would not benefit from HSR. Service to smaller cities would still be local, and no different from what is proposed. Kingston would be the only benefactor of HSR on the Lakeshore route and does not justify the extra cost of trying to wedge HSR onto the Lakeshore corridor. It is not reasonable to expect CN to agree to restrict freight service to night hours. This is one of the busiest freight lines in Canada.
The issue concerning use of track into Montreal is well known and is part of the current study. What is the best routing from both west and east is being studied. |
Only problem with the proposed HSR alignment is that there's too many stops on the Ontario segment. The Quebec segment has less stops, but the only problem with that is that it seems to use the old alignment with a lot of at-grade crossings. In order for it to be truly HSR, you'd have to make the route above-grade or below-grade with very little or no at-grade crossings.
We'll see how Canada gets this project rolling. Admittedly, I'm on the side that the project proposed won't come to fruition, not because of my proposal to use mid-size cities isn't realized, but I believe that taxpayers, landowners, rural interests, and even the NIMBYs may eventually overcome Canada's effort to bring HSR to the Montreal-Toronto corridor.
I'm pro-transit, but I also have to weigh the cons as well as what people may think or say about the new alignment. We all want HSR to be a reality, but the Canadian people are the ones who'll see if this alignment becomes reality.