Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
My point here is that the political consensus on HSR in Ontario, is not nearly as universal as you suggested. And even the Liberals who put forward the plan, basically made a suggestion in one election and then sat on it till they got called out. All they basically got done was a basic scoping study in all their years in power.
|
Agreed. It's definitely not universal and I wasn't trying to suggest it is. HSR-support was on an upswing before the last Ontario election, politically speaking. But again, it's a moot point now given the current government's priorities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The thing is you, VIA and me don't get to judge this. Unless, we're willing to expropriate, it's CN (and/or CP) who get to judge this. And I am going to guess, that HFR is being pursued because the freight cos probably gave them a ridiculous price for cooperation (or something that would have ended up in the ballpark of expropriation).
|
Agreed on the former point, but that applies to both my optimistic outlook and your pessimistic one. Your latter point, on the other hand, is overly speculative. There could be a dozen legitimate reasons for the HFR preference that we won't know about until the study goes public. I could sit here and speculate as well but it won't get us anywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
This all sounds great. And I absolutely agree with VIA running bus shuttles. But again, who is going to pay for any of this? Even HFR is being pitched on the idea that it's going to be sufficiently profitable that VIA won't need subsidies for Corridor East. If that's having a tough time, just imagine a plan that requires VIA's subsidies to increase dramatically.
|
Is it having a tough time? Haven't heard anything in a while, but I presume the lack of traction is because of covid, not necessarily because the feds aren't supportive of the general initiative.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
There's no such tradeoff here. If you insist that all improvement be restricted solely to higher speed rail on Lakeshore and funding never comes, you're actually taking on both short term and long term losses.
You seem to be approaching this as a bit of a static situation where investment can be poured on at anytime. I don't see that. There's development happening along the Lakeshore. And GO is expanding as well. Every year that goes by, building the 40-50m RoW that would be required for this gets more and more expensive, and further and further out of reach. We're already at the point that the Ecotrain study would be at least $12B for a diesel 200kph train. Just imagine what the numbers will be with another decade of inaction coupled with more development along that corridor. And along with that inaction, you also get a smaller and smaller proportion of residents who don't use VIA and see it as anachronistic. Eventually, they won't care if VIA is scrapped or privatized at all.
|
You're right, it does get more complex, expensive and out of reach with every passing year. But I guess I'm approaching it from a "HSR should've been pursued ages ago, but now is the next best time" POV, whereas you seem to be approaching it from "HFR is better than nothing and we probably won't get a funding opportunity like this anytime soon".
Difference of opinion and outlook I suppose.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
And the political will just isn't there.
Every federal government basically looks at the $12B it would take to build HSR for just Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal and starts dreaming of the votes they could buy in most of Canada by spending that on transit projects. Every provincial government looks at intercity rail as the responsibility of the federal government. So Queen's Park most certainly isn't interested in paying for a TOM HSR line. You can hope that this will change in our lifetimes. But, I'm looking to ride improved service on the Corridor, before I leave this world....
|
That's not necessarily true. Both Ontario and Alberta governments have explored intercity rail options in recent years. Of course they would look to the feds as a funding partner but it is not seen entirely as a federal responsibility. A large proportion of VIA ridership in the corridor is purely intraprovince travel.
As for the prospect of riding improved service within my lifetime, it would be nice, but my approach to planning has always been based on the greek proverb, "a society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in". So if a better final product means I won't be alive to see it, that's fine with me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The genius of HFR is that for once VIA's leadership recognized the political limitations of constantly begging for HSR funding and decided they could get an improvement plan that could be pulled off with very little government funding. Let's not forget the original pitch was to try and get large institutional investors. Those kinds of investors tend not to like messy plans that involve lots of stakeholders (like say freight operators owning and using the same corridor). Even now, we aren't looking at a $4B grant from the feds to VIA. It's a $4B loan from the CIB to build this.
|
The CIB didn't even exist until recently, so I'm not sure that option was ever explored for HSR to begin with. However, even though HSR would cost more, it's revenue and net-operating income would probably be even greater than HFR due to its ability attract more riders and to better compete with air travel. Perhaps such a model could work, but I don't think it's ever been properly explored with an institution like the CIB that can provide low-interest loans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
I really don't get this obsession. If they service that stops at all the stations en route and is better timed than today (because of a different origin), why is that not enough? This is more than what most of Canada gets today. And it's a lot more than they'll get if VIA goes under, which is a threat that a lot of people seem to strangely discount despite having watched Greyhound fail.
|
Because the major issue has always been reliability and run-time, and there's no realistic way to improve that aspect of the service under the HFR proposal. Also, Kingston will probably get a net downgrade if all trains stop at every en route station, since it won't have the express bypass service that it has today for some of the trips.
I understand your concern about VIA going under, but I personally can't see the feds allowing that to happen, especially with greyhound going under.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
Moreover, this concern is not reflected by the politicians in those communities, who like the idea of a service tailored to them. So we're now at the point, where you have to ignore the preferences of their own elected officials. This is just bizarre to me.
|
Obviously, they aren't going to say no to some kind of improvement. But this is equivalent to throwing scraps to the peasants so they don't feel left out. The hub idea could've been done ages ago if they wanted to add more morning and late evening departures. That still won't address reliability and run-time issues, though.
Prev
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/18283256/Plan_3D_MR_63_Phase_1__2_.jpg)
Linear Mode
