Alto High Speed Rail

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Not that Imbleau had a choice. But this is a poor decision by the minister to interfere. It basically destroys Alto's decision space. They have to use the southern routing now. And they have to build outside their mapped corridors to serve Kingston. Are we going to turn Kingston into an exurb of Ottawa? The only way the cost of this makes sense.

The Lakeshore communities should be more upset. If Kingston gets an HSR stop, Corridor East is dead.

This whole thing seems weird. They didn't announce a change in route or cancellation of Peterbourough. Why go via Ottawa if you are using a southern route?

The whole thing is starting to look not very serious and more about appearing to move at new speeds with new ambition than actually doing either of those things.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

As a small exercise I asked Google Gemini to run a basic gravity model of passenger demand on Alto and estimate share of total ridership. Some notes for Ottawa.

Ridership share:

Ottawa – Montreal ~42%
Toronto – Ottawa ~14%
Kingston – Ottawa ~2.3%

Traffic note:

Ottawa – Montreal Segment: Carries the heaviest load (approx. 66-67% of all passengers), as it transports Ottawa-Montreal riders plus Toronto-Montreal, Toronto-Quebec City, and Ottawa-Quebec City riders.

Ottawa will be second only to Montreal for ridership. 30% of all ridership flowing through Ottawa's station. Montreal is at 38%. Toronto is at 19%.

Plenty of obvious that this thing is massively impactful to Ottawa. So weird to me to see people in this particular forum who write off this project.

This is an interesting first stab but current Via traffic doesn't neccesarily predict where traffic will increase. If Ottawa is 1 hour from Montreal we start seeing commuting and daytrips. Kingston I suppose some some of the same potential if they are 60 minutes away. Teh current station in Kingston is kind of suburban making bus the go to for students and a faster more expensive ticket probably doesn't change that. Montreal from 5 hours to 2.5 or it looks like 3 with the way things are going won't be that impactful. Montreal also has less connection with Toronto than you'd epect given the two solitudes.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

This whole thing seems weird. They didn't announce a change in route or cancellation of Peterbourough. Why go via Ottawa if you are using a southern route?

The whole thing is starting to look not very serious and more about appearing to move at new speeds with new ambition than actually doing either of those things.

Or maybe they actually started looking into the northern route and discovered the Canadian shield.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

RE: Ridership Share
You neglected to show any ridership share between Kingston and Toronto. The main flow of passengers to Kingston is between Kingston, not Ottawa.

I pulled the parts that were relevant to this (the Ottawa) subforum.

Originally Posted by GoTrans

RE: Traffic Note:
How does the Ridership Share and Traffic Note correspond to each other?

It doesn't have to. I put that note there to point out how insanely busy the Ottawa-Montreal segment will be.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Or maybe they actually started looking into the northern route and discovered the Canadian shield.

During consultations they regularly said the Northern corridor had more construction challenges. And the southern corridor had more land acquisition and conflict challenges.

I don't think it's that bad to build on the northern route. And I personally think nimbys are the greatest threat here.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

During consultations they regularly said the Northern corridor had more construction challenges. And the southern corridor had more land acquisition and conflict challenges.

I don't think it's that bad to build on the northern route. And I personally think nimbys are the greatest threat here.

Paying off NIMBY’s or building elevated tracks is almost certainly cheaper and faster than tunneling through highlands or dealing with indigenous litigation. The only reason the Northern route was even considered is that the grifters at Via convinced the government that an oatmeal train with a 10mph speed limit could be upgraded for nearly free. Alto has possibly now talked to some engineers or geologists.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

During consultations they regularly said the Northern corridor had more construction challenges. And the southern corridor had more land acquisition and conflict challenges.

I don't think it's that bad to build on the northern route. And I personally think nimbys are the greatest threat here.

Agree. Our recent history suggests construction challenges are much easier and cheaper to overcome than NIMBY and Indigenous "consultations". I don't think the southern route avoids the latter. It's probably easier to pay them to go direclty through an established reservation than come within 50 km of a southern one and claim they need to be compensated.