Quote:
Originally Posted by GoTrans
You have not explained your above mentioned point. On one hand you say that you don't disagree that smaller cities should not have service but you say it makes more sense to provide service in a different market. The point here is that relatively speaking there is lots of service in the corridor, even though it is inadequate but no daily service anywhere west from Toronto. Why are any points between Toronto and Vancouver regardless of their size not entitled to passenger rail service. You wonder why the West feels alienated. This is a classic example. The total funding envelope needs to be expanded, but not at the expense of providing service on a reasonable basis through out the country.
You cannot say that Regina does not deserve service because it only has 228,928 people. It is the travel demand between Calgary and Regina, including the points in between. Here is a list of all the cities that you say do not deserve to have the service back that they once had in order that we can service towns on the current route from Winnipeg to Edmonton that for the most part have populations less than 10,000. Why does this make sense? Are the northern prairies any more scenic than the southern?
Calgary 1,336,000
Brooks 14,451
Medicine Hat 63,260
Swift Current 16.604
Moose Jaw 33,890
Regina 228,928
Brandon 48,859
Portage la Prairie 13,304
Winnipeg 808,419
Total 2,563,685 Note: this is not a small number in comparison with service currently provided on some Via routes.
Some of these potential travellers would also access rail service to Red Deer and Edmonton.
This is about addressing western alienation, climate change and providing accessible public transport. Nobody is suggesting running trains on a daily basis to smaller towns.
|
The reason that my statements probably don't make sense to you is that I'm you're thinking in terms of whether or not locations "deserve" rail service (just like the Toronto suburbanites) and I'm not. I don't consider it a relevant part of the discussion. What's important to me is which locations make the most sense for rail service in terms of things such as the greatest increase in ridership kilometers and pollution reduction in proportion to the investment. I agree it's about addressing climate change, but I'm not as interested in the causes of "western alienation" or "accessible public transport" because there are other ways to address those things besides railways which aren't necessarily the best (or even a good) solution for them.
I've never said that Regina or any of the other places don't "deserve" rail service, because I think every single part of the country deserves it. Every town and city in Canada is wonderful and deserves all the best of every type of infrastructure. But with limited funds, I want to see the funds get priority where they'll get the best returns.