Alto High Speed Rail

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by phil235

To be clear, it is 15 local routes, 25 Quebec routes, and an LRT station. If there are several dozen similar-sized hubs in the city, I would really like to hear where they are, because that is news to me. Even if they did exist, none of them would be as centrally located.

There is no doubt that the Senate itself is a tight location, but no one is suggesting that it wouldn't require reconfiguration for pick ups and drop offs. Presumably if we are spending 90 billion dollars on this project, there would be a few dollars dedicated to infrastructure upgrades. I so note that the same point you are making about Union could be made about Union Station in Toronto. Car access there is far worse than it is for Union here. It will also require massive changes for HSR, as will Gare Centrale in Montreal.

I think the points about the suitability of the site and the risks associated with tunnelling there are entirely valid. I was taking issue with the point that downtown isn't the hub of the regional transit system.

Yes there is some weird idea we will use the same tracks straighten things out a bit and poof HSR. There is no point in blazing and expropation path through Farmland or Canadian Shield just to slow down and meander through the last 10 km of each stop. A downtown station below the Senate could have a direct path the Rideau station and and multiple exits from underground allowing taxi ranks at say the back of the Rideau station but really a 60 minute train from Montreal isn't worth much if you still need a 30 minute taxi ride. Why not just drive directly? The idea is to add totally new patterns. You can now work downtown 3 days a ween in one city or the other. You can go to a Canadiens game after work etc. It is also presumedly meant to soldify a downtown urban oriented pattern of development.