Quote:
Originally Posted by ssiguy
It maybe a somewhat biased article but it makes a good point..............why spend $4 billion to run trains no faster than the ones running today? VIA has legitimate beef about needing dedicated track but even if they were to get them the country would still need to spend more money on top of that to get the needed HSR.
VIA is being very selfish but I won't say I don't have some empathy for them. The feds have forced VIA to operate lines that are huge money losers {which is basically everything outside The Corridor} for strictly political reasons and yet not provided the subsidies to run those routes. The result has been VIA having to spend a vastly disproportionate amount of it's revenue subsidizing these very low ridership lines and the money invariably comes out of the lines bringing in real money........The Corridor routes.
If VIA wasn't forced by Ottawa to subsidize these routes then it's possible that VIA would already have dedicated track in the entire Windsor/Quebec corridor and therefore wouldn't have lost as many passengers as it has due to it's slow speed and reliability.
VIA sees an Ontario HSR line from London to Windsor as just the start of a bigger problem. They know that HSR to London will be a first step with Windsor coming next and potentially Ottawa and Montreal. Ontario wants to build on the turf it gets 90% of it riders from. An extension to Windsor would also mean that anyone coming from the US south or west of Detroit can get to Toronto and completely bypass VIA altogether.
It's is self centred of VIA but when it's all said and done it's Ottawa that has forced them into this position.
|
What should be happening instead is VIA taking the leadership role and development of HSR in the Corridor. They should also have had more support from the feds and been able to have dedicated tracks and higher frequency.
Threaded Mode