Alto High Speed Rail

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Re 1 and 2 Yes it's true HSR. 7-8 minutes is very long. I suspect they are giving that likely false number in order to keep political pressure down to add too many stops. Dorval seems like a missed opportunity. Heck arguably just sell the land the Ottawa Airport is on to help pay the bills if we can get a 50 minute train to Dorval.

Shutting down YOW? A 50 minute HSR ride to Droval is not competitive with having our own airport.

HSR could fully eliminate short haul flights to Montreal and Toronto, and what I hope will happen is YOW and the airlines will be able to shift their focus to more service to other Canadian destinations and international flights.

Originally Posted by phil235

I don't think that HSR is the right technology for milk runs. You add in 4-5 stops and the advantages over regular rail start to diminish very quickly. There is also very little potential ridership warranting a stop on either of the routes shown. The only significant population centre between the three big cities is Peterborough, and even 80,000 is pretty debatable to warrant a stop, particularly given that there isn't much around. Maybe it will be big with Toronto people wanting to get to the cottage more quickly.

I agree. Barrhaven will keep its VIA station. If people from Barrhaven don't wan to take the O-Train, they can take a VIA train to Tremblay. For the airport, we could have a frequent bus from YOW to Tremblay via the SE Transitway.

We're talking about scope creep and slowing down trains with Union, but adding stations that aren't even considered is far more problematic.

Originally Posted by White Pine

Apologies as I'm in a rural area. Just by what I see so far, I honestly think that HFR was a better idea.

Also, what clientele will really use this other than VIA's current ridership? Maybe it will be more effective for montreal or QC- Toronto, but I don't see it making a huge difference in ottawa. Maybe it might take a chunk from the Porter crowd. But I was under the impression that a lot of the market for yyz-yow-yul flights was for connections, and I doubt very much that alto will affect that. Does anyone actually fly from ottawa to Toronto just because?

I only really see this as a premium service that will financially crater VIA while offering no real benefit. Smaller places may end up losing service and people there are more likely drivers so it might be counter productive.

Regarding station location, I'm sympathetic to both. Union has good transit access but the multimodal benefits of Tremblay (ie VIA, Ontario Northland), better taxi/pickup options and such give it the edge. Although one could argue that Union's central location distributes the passenger load more evenly on transit instead of joining line one where it will likely be already busy.

As per my rarely to YOWetal, HSR could replace all short-haul flights. It could very well eliminate thousands of car trips between the cities if the ticket price is right.