Alto High Speed Rail

[phil235]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

New York and Montreal have their stations in their city centres, so not sure where you're going with those examples.

Also Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lyon, Marseille and numerous other European cities.

The goal of going city centre is to have the most central location in the region and to provide the best service to business travellers and tourists coming to Ottawa, who will make up a good chunk of ridership. It is debatable how big of a competitive advantage a central station would be, but it is clearly an advantage.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What's the goal here? What exactly is achieved for both Ottawa pax and thru pax with placing that station downtown?

For tourists and business travelers, it drops them off right t their destination in Downtown Ottawa. For locals, it provides better connections to transit options. For the City itself, it provides a new (old) focal point and (newly accessible) landmark.

Tremblay is fine. If we build up the parking lots with apartments, hotels and a bit of office space, it would be an acceptable station location, but Union would be a game changer for Ottawa.

I ask again, why is it ok to spend billions to get HSR to Downtown Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City but its inconceivable to do the same for Ottawa?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

For tourists and business travelers, it drops them off right t their destination in Downtown Ottawa. For locals, it provides better connections to transit options. For the City itself, it provides a new (old) focal point and (newly accessible) landmark.

Tremblay is fine. If we build up the parking lots with apartments, hotels and a bit of office space, it would be an acceptable station location, but Union would be a game changer for Ottawa.

I ask again, why is it ok to spend billions to get HSR to Downtown Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City but its inconceivable to do the same for Ottawa?

Yeah I'm surprised by that argument from Ottawa urban enthusiasts. Tremblay is next to the highway and very suburban. LRT connection is nice but it seems strongly preferable to be a downtown to downtown connection.

If we really want to save the through passengers why go via Ottawa at all?

[J.OT13]

Martin Imbleau interview on CBC Ottawa Morning.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio...tations-ottawa

[Kitchissippi]

Some people are infatuated with a building that for a mere 54 years functioned as waiting rooms for a railway station that is no longer there. In order to build a station you'd have to dig a cavern south of that building. Imagine having a seat at the tail end of that train, you'd have to walk almost half a kilometre to exit out on to Rideau.

If your hotel was out on Lyon, where a good number of them are, the time savings between getting off at Tremblay next to an O-Train station and a downtown station where you have to make your way down to the deepest station in the system are virtually nil. Same as if you come for a game at the future LeBreton arena. I suspect that the majority of passengers will spread out to the rest of the city, to our homes or families, or to business meetings out in the tech hub of Kanata.

The only thing you'll get for the extra billions is the "cool" experience of going to and from a sleek modern high speed train through a building that was modelled after an ancient Roman bath. To quote Mark Carney's Davos speech: "Nostalgia is not a strategy."

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I ask again, why is it ok to spend billions to get HSR to Downtown Montreal, Toronto and Quebec City but its inconceivable to do the same for Ottawa?

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Yeah I'm surprised by that argument from Ottawa urban enthusiasts. Tremblay is next to the highway and very suburban. LRT connection is nice but it seems strongly preferable to be a downtown to downtown connection.

There's a large contextual difference. Most notably starting with travel time. Alto has target travel times. Toronto-Ottawa: 2 hrs. Toronto-Montreal: 3 hrs. Those travel times are needed to be competitive with air, to attract high yielding passengers. Given that any move to a downtown station slows down the larger group of passengers going to Montreal this basically means spending billions more to speed up the Ottawa-Montreal sector to make that travel time competitive (Alto says 1 hr). Toronto-Ottawa and Ottawa-Montreal travel times are already competitive with Tremblay. Moving to downtown won't make much of a difference in Ottawa. But it could hurt the much larger group of Montreal bound passengers and injure the overall business case. This is how scope creep kills these projects. Also, that extra spending just means higher ticket prices or more debt (which we will pay through taxes). It's not justifiable value for money. For me.

Originally Posted by YOWetal

If we really want to save the through passengers why go via Ottawa at all?

There's no real business case without serving Ottawa. But that doesn't mean the station has to be downtown either.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's a large contextual difference. Most notably starting with travel time. Alto has target travel times. Toronto-Ottawa: 2 hrs. Toronto-Montreal: 3 hrs. Those travel times are needed to be competitive with air, to attract high yielding passengers. Given that any move to a downtown station slows down the larger group of passengers going to Montreal this basically means spending billions more to speed up the Ottawa-Montreal sector to make that travel time competitive (Alto says 1 hr). Toronto-Ottawa and Ottawa-Montreal travel times are already competitive with Tremblay. Moving to downtown won't make much of a difference in Ottawa. But it could hurt the much larger group of Montreal bound passengers and injure the overall business case. This is how scope creep kills these projects. Also, that extra spending just means higher ticket prices or more debt (which we will pay through taxes). It's not justifiable value for money. For me.

So your argument is that Ottawa is used to a mediocre station location?

[Truenorth00]

I wonder how many here would support the idea if Alto demanded that city taxpayers party the difference in cost between the two plans. We'd quickly find out who really thinks there's value in this idea. Everybody loves free stuff when somebody else is paying for it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So your argument is that Ottawa is used to a mediocre station location?

Everything else is mediocre in this town and the locals love it that way. I don't see anybody really complaining about VIA's current station not being downtown right now. If it's so important.....

And again I'll ask, if they asked city ratepayers to pay the difference, how many people do you think would say it's important enough to do so?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Everything else is mediocre in this town and the locals love it that way. I don't see anybody really complaining about VIA's current station not being downtown right now. If it's so important.....

And again I'll ask, if they asked city ratepayers to pay the difference, how many people do you think would say it's important enough to do so?

And Alto should do exactly that. Let people put $$ where their mouth is.

[Nouvellecosse]

I feel like it would be a much different scenario if the current station were less central, like say, out at the airport. But the current VIA station is already in a fairly core part of the metro area less than 4km from Parliament Hill. So that's already a big advantage compared to flying since the airport terminal is over 11km out, and a lot could be done to improve the pedestrian connection to the LRT even with 1/10 of the money needed for an HSR tunnel. I also think building a downtown tunnel would offer a greater value proposition if it was shared by other services such as a commuter rail line.

[Dengler Avenue]

I also think building a downtown tunnel would offer a greater value proposition if it was shared by other services such as a commuter rail line.

At that point, we should just do one thing at a time. That’s a scope creep right there.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I wonder how many here would support the idea if Alto demanded that city taxpayers party the difference in cost between the two plans. We'd quickly find out who really thinks there's value in this idea. Everybody loves free stuff when somebody else is paying for it.

It's not free. Ottawa income tax payers are partly funding this. Why would the City of Ottawa property tasked to chip in, but not the Cities of Montreal for a new Mount Royal tunnel, Toronto, Quebec City? Again, we're seen as being second class. Ottawa (and even more so Gatineau) has historically been underfunded. We paid 50% of our O-Train while Toronto and Montreal get basically "free" transit lines (as in City Governments don't need to chip in much, if at all).

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I feel like it would be a much different scenario if the current station were less central, like say, out at the airport. But the current VIA station is already in a fairly core part of the metro area less than 4km from Parliament Hill. So that's already a big advantage compared to flying since the airport terminal is over 11km out, and a lot could be done to improve the pedestrian connection to the LRT even with 1/10 of the money needed for an HSR tunnel. I also think building a downtown tunnel would offer a greater value proposition if it was shared by other services such as a commuter rail line.

Originally Tremblay Station was supposed to be located on Walkley. If that was the case, reopening Union would no longer be a nice to have but a necessity.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's not free. Ottawa income tax payers are partly funding this. Why would the City of Ottawa property tasked to chip in, but not the Cities of Montreal for a new Mount Royal tunnel, Toronto, Quebec City? Again, we're seen as being second class. Ottawa (and even more so Gatineau) has historically been underfunded. We paid 50% of our O-Train while Toronto and Montreal get basically "free" transit lines (as in City Governments don't need to chip in much, if at all).

I call BS. In both Toronto and Montreal cases whatever is being built is being done to access existing stations/infrastructure that would be a full terminus on one side or substantial service terminus on the other. The Ottawa Union fan club is asking Alto to build a hub that doesn't exist while giving up one that does. For a station that would not be a terminus for most of the services. So no, this isn't some great conspiracy to shaft Ottawa. Come on now.

Also, a metro of 1.7M is nowhere close to contributing the same as the metros of 7.1M and 4.6M.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Ron has Questions (not really, he hates the idea!)

• Video Link

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I call BS. In both Toronto and Montreal cases whatever is being built is being done to access existing stations/infrastructure that would be a full terminus on one side or substantial service terminus on the other. The Ottawa Union fan club is asking Alto to build a hub that doesn't exist while giving up one that does. For a station that would not be a terminus for most of the services. So no, this isn't some great conspiracy to shaft Ottawa. Come on now.

Also, a metro of 1.7M is nowhere close to contributing the same as the metros of 7.1M and 4.6M.

Alto has said that it may not use Union in Toronto or Gare Central, so no guarantee they will use existing infrastructure.

Sure, Ottawa is not a City with multiple millions of people, but neither were Montreal and Toronto in the 60s. Do we sell ourselves short today, ignoring what we could be in 50 years?

I'm not saying Alto is a conspiracy to shaft Ottawa. I'm saying Ottawa-Gatineau has been historically shafted. There's no denying this.

Union represents an opportunity to elevate Ottawa into a more serious City instead of maintaining this inferiority complex.

If Tremblay is chosen, it too represents other opportunities like potentially becoming a regional hub with HSR, commuter and intercity buses that may not be possible at Union because of space constraints. Tremblay also provides a better opportunity for links to the airport via the SE Transitway with high frequency bus service.

Fact is Alto, not just the few of us, but Alto, is considering both options. Who knows, they may just build new at Hurdman.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Some people are infatuated with a building that for a mere 54 years functioned as waiting rooms for a railway station that is no longer there. In order to build a station you'd have to dig a cavern south of that building. Imagine having a seat at the tail end of that train, you'd have to walk almost half a kilometre to exit out on to Rideau.

My first reaction to this is that is pretty much the case in lots of current European stations, so probably not that big a deal.

I'm also wondering - if you are digging a completely new cavern, could you not orient it to minimize distances and maximize connectivity? It wouldn't need to extend directly out from the current station.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Ron has Questions (not really, he hates the idea!)

I don't know who Ron is, but the only questions i heard were, a) "How are you going to cover all that with ticket prices?" to which the answer is the same as to the question of how you're going to cover the cost of highways with ticket prices. And b) Can we just build something that's going to make money (like pipelines?) to which the answer is no. There are some types of infrastructure and services that range from the necessary to the merely beneficial that don't make money or that don't function well as for-profit products. That's why we pay taxes rather than only using money to directly buy things.

The rest was all just ignorant ranting which claimed that only China is currently building HSR while places like Europe only did it decades ago which is false. Both because Europe has HSR routes that are either recent or currently u/c and because there are other regions outside China and Europe that have done it recently and/or currently (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, S. Korea, Indonesia, etc.) He also claimed that we're just incapable of doing it as a country since we don't have enough engineers. As if expertise has to all be domestic or something even though foreign entities have already been included in the Alto consortium. So i guess the conclusion is that if we need or would benefit from a particular type of infrastructure, that we just shouldn't bother if it isn't easy or convenient. Because we're a country that only does low effort things.

Basically the same things that every naysayer has said about every ambitious proposal since the invention of naysaying. Too hard, too expensive, too uncertain, and anyone who did it successfully, no matter now numerous, is some type of exception. Either got lucky with the right conditions or the right talent.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Ron has Questions (not really, he hates the idea!)

• Video Link

So his argument is "it's too hard"? Oh, and spend the money on pipelines instead, because that's so much more useful to Canadians. If pipelines are profitable, why aren't private companies raising their hands? HSR isn't meant to be profitable. That's the point of Government; providing service to its citizens.

[Dengler Avenue]

I'm saying Ottawa-Gatineau has been historically shafted. There's no denying this.

I did mention this when I wrote to my local liberal MPP asking if she would consider running for the leadership (which she declined, by the way). However, if this HSR thing doesn’t go well, we end up shafting everybody, including ourselves.