VIA Rail network developments

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Here is what the Globe and Mail says

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics...est-in-via-rails-planned-expansion-says/

From your link:

Tuesday’s announcement means the project now enters an 18-24 month “pre-procurement” phase that will include environmental assessments and First Nations consultations along the proposed 850-kilometre route from Quebec City to Toronto. The government would then make a final decision on whether to go ahead with construction.

[danishh]

i'm generally optimistic that this gets the HFR plan to a point that whoever is in government in 2021 will have the option of greenlighting a shovel-ready project, and opposition parties will have the option of putting this shovel-ready project in their platforms for the 2023 election if it's not approved before then.

I dont think a new government will be able to easily cancel this pre-procurement planning without mucking around in supposedly arms-length CIB and VIA.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

From your link:

Thank you for the quote. I believe this is a necessary step towards making this a reality.

We all know how politics works and that major announcements are made before an election to influence voting.

These announcements are part of the Liberal political platform for the next four years.

One thing this is proving, is that the Liberals are not a stale government. They have major projects in mind for the next term.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Here is what the Globe and Mail says

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics...est-in-via-rails-planned-expansion-says/

They have to make it sound like they are serious. If they were serious though, why are they launching this less than 6 months before the election? What have they been doing for the last three and a half years?

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What have they been doing for the last three and a half years?

Virtue-signalling and apology tours

[Kitchissippi]

I think the study will conclude that it will take way more than $4 to 6 billion to do it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by danishh

i'm generally optimistic that this gets the HFR plan to a point that whoever is in government in 2021 will have the option of greenlighting a shovel-ready project, and opposition parties will have the option of putting this shovel-ready project in their platforms for the 2023 election if it's not approved before then.

I dont think a new government will be able to easily cancel this pre-procurement planning without mucking around in supposedly arms-length CIB and VIA.

You are far too optimistic. CIB hasn't accomplished very much at all. There's not a single project they can point to where they were make or break. They have committed to two projects. Both were already planned/announced. Both had provincial governments committed. One (REM) was already being fully funded and launched by an arms length institutional investor (Caisse). Nobody is going to cry or even notice, if the Conservatives win and simply dismantle the CIB. Which is entirely possible.

The timeline in the press release says through 2020. After that, is when the "pre-procurement planning" actually starts with environmental assessment, market surveys of rolling stock, etc. This study seems more like what David Collenette did for the Ontario government on the Toronto-Kitchener-London High Speed Rail study.

And just like the provincial Liberals turned around and launched the EA before the election (correction....the Liberals retained WSP to write Terms of Reference for an EA...), that's exactly what we'll have in 2023 for whatever government is in power.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think the study will conclude that it will take way more than $4 to 6 billion to do it.

Can we even be sure, we'll hear about the study?

In 2023:

"Our study took longer than anticipated. And has not achieved the level of detail we need to make a sound decision on behalf of Canadian taxpayers. This is why the Government of Canada has committed to further study with our provincial partners to....."

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

From your link:

Also from that link:

Mr. Garneau said Tuesday that the reviews to date have focused on whether there is public demand for increased passenger rail and whether there is private-sector interest in investing in the project. He said the response was positive on both fronts.

Took them two years and $15 million to figure out that more people want to use the train and the same pension funds investing in rail around the world are willing to do it here?

“This is very serious,” he said. “It’s not just another study. We are moving into a critical phase for this project.”

At least he's aware of how much of a joke this looks like. I want Rick Mercer to do an interview with him.....

[lrt's friend]

What is the alternative? We can go ahead or we can just cancel it? We need to do what they state if we ever want to move this forward.

It is easy to vote for a tax cut party, who will follow through with a slash and burn agenda. That will not get a rail line built. Clearly, this is advancing the project more so than any other rail project in the past that never got past the preliminary study stage.

This study appears to look at the nitty-gritty so that we are in a position to approve it or not. This is no different than the Confederation Line that took years to reach final approval and only covers 12.5 km. This is a much more complex project.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think the study will conclude that it will take way more than $4 to 6 billion to do it.

At least we will know.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

What is the alternative?

At this point? I'm ready to admit defeat and call for full liberalization of air travel so we can get reasonably priced airfare.

If we can't even get a study on a regular speed rail line completed in a single government term, no rail line will ever actually get built.

Canadians clearly don't care enough to press politicians to deliver on this. So let's just cop to reality and move on.

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

At this point? I'm ready to admit defeat and call for full liberalization of air travel so we can get reasonably priced airfare.

If we can't even get a study on a regular speed rail line completed in a single government term, no rail line will ever actually get built.

Canadians clearly don't care enough to press politicians to deliver on this. So let's just cop to reality and move on.

So just give up. Let the planet warm by 10 degrees. Destroy our environment because doing anything is hard.

This is the last chance the liberals have to prove they actually give a damn about stopping climate change. If they can't get this through they lose my vote. I hope more people will also see sense here

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

At this point? I'm ready to admit defeat and call for full liberalization of air travel so we can get reasonably priced airfare.

So you want to reduce airfares so we can provide air service between cities that are an hour or less away with no concern as to the amount of greenhouse gases these services produce. I know, you want to invest in air services but refuse to subsidize rail service. You are calling one form of government support an apple and another an orange.

If we hadn't privatized CN ( and yes I am a shareholder ) we would have still controlled the Mount Royal tunnel. It shouldn't have been sold without any provision to retain service for Via through the tunnel. Of course that fact that we cancelled all the passenger rail service on the north shore between Montreal and Quebec took away the need for the tunnel. Now we are paying for these past mistakes.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

So just give up. Let the planet warm by 10 degrees. Destroy our environment because doing anything is hard.

This is the last chance the liberals have to prove they actually give a damn about stopping climate change. If they can't get this through they lose my vote. I hope more people will also see sense here

The Liberals don't care about climate change. They just want to act like they do and have another excuse to cut cheques.

Kyoto, Rio, Paris. Name one agreement where they had a concrete plan to meet targets and a whole of government effort launched to do so. The Liberals are all about virtue signaling. The Conservatives who follow in government usually don't have cojones to drop the charade so they give those deals lip service like the Liberals.

See Millennium Development Goals, NATO Spending targets, etc. Whatever the issue. We sign up. Talk a big game. Slink out before the bill arrives at the table. It's a Canadian tradition.

If they were genuinely serious about climate change, we would have seen a massive investment in public transport, legislation against sprawl, etc. Instead, we get a carbon tax scheme which seems more concerned with cutting cheques to lower and middle income earners than cutting emissions. They've run up something like $80 billion in deficits to date. And most of that was on social programs not infrastructure. Would that be the case with a government that genuinely perceivedclimate change as a serious threat?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

So you want to reduce airfares so we can provide air service between cities that are an hour or less away with no concern as to the amount of greenhouse gases these services produce. I know, you want to invest in air services but refuse to subsidize rail service. You are calling one form of government support an apple and another an orange.

Read my post history. I've been a strong advocate for this project. But I'm sick of being duped and strung along for decades with more studies. It's time to admit the truth. The public just doesn't care like those of us here. And I want to see it become cheaper to travel in the 30-50 years I have left. That leaves very few options.

I also submit that the public doesn't care about climate change. Sure they are "concerned". But they don't want any lifestyle changes. Just think it's a problem for rich people and corporations to solve.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Read my post history. I've been a strong advocate for this project. But I'm sick of being duped and strung along for decades with more studies. It's time to admit the truth. The public just doesn't care like those of us here. And I want to see it become cheaper to travel in the 30-50 years I have left. That leaves very few options.

You are correct that we have had decades of studies going back to the early 1970's all saying the demand is there but that the cost is too high. With HFR the cost will be less than HSR and most of the right of way already exists.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I also submit that the public doesn't care about climate change. Sure they are "concerned". But they don't want any lifestyle changes. Just think it's a problem for rich people and corporations to solve.

This is the problem. Do we provide people with viable alternatives or do we say there is nothing we can do because no one will take the train, park their car, insulate their house or use a paper bag? The easy decision is going to lead us more quickly to an unsustainable planet. We have to make the hard decisions.

[lrt's friend]

The Liberals have to walk a fine line between improving the environment and maintaining economic prosperity.

We all know that Conservative plans lack any teeth.

At least the Liberals are making some moves, perhaps as a campaign gimmick, but we now have two big proposals, the other being the elimination of single use plastic. I am old enough to have seen how plastic packaging has taken over, while there were much less use of plastic when I was growing up.

[JohnnyRenton]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Read my post history. I've been a strong advocate for this project. But I'm sick of being duped and strung along for decades with more studies. It's time to admit the truth. The public just doesn't care like those of us here. And I want to see it become cheaper to travel in the 30-50 years I have left. That leaves very few options.

Canada spent the last 70 years developing as a car based suburban nation (if you say that all started around 1950). It has gone from a population of 14 million, to 37 million. Yes, there is a reurbanization that has started a few decades ago. But changing from an auto centric society into one built on public transport isn't going to happen over night, and it isn't going to happen without struggle. Developing modern intercity rail is one of those battles, and its one that is still in its very earliest stage.

I have said before that part of the reason the public doesn't seem to care is because every plan so far (and I would lump HFR into that category, to a certain degree), has really just made rail travel better for those who currently use it, and does nothing to attract new users.

And if you want a perfect example of this in action, just look at bike lanes. When cities create bike lanes by simply painting some lines on the road and leaving bikes to essentially keep running with regular car traffic, the only people who benefit are those that already bike. But when a city creates separate, protected, safe, AAA bike lanes, bike use explodes, especially among women, children and families (see Vancouver for the radical increase in ridership they have experienced by building AAA bike lanes). When safe, protected bike lanes are created, it suddenly attracts all kinds of people and interest from those who had no interest in wearing helmets, reflective gear, and being terrified of being run down by a car, but love the idea of being able to just get on a bike, in any kind of clothes, and safely ride, be it for a commute, or to get groceries, or to take their kids to soccer.

And yes, there is a massive amount of struggle to get politicians to be bold enough to not just paint some lines on a road and call it a bike lane. And car culture treats bikes and cyclists like pests and as disposable and irrelevant when they get run down by cars. But some people figured out what was missing to get more and more of the public on board, and now there is growing momentum, though lots of battles still remain.

HFR is the equivalent of painting lanes on a road. It will make things better for those currently using the train, but it will do nothing to attract new users for the most part (obviously the addition of new markets in Peterborough and Trois Rivieres, and the potentially sizable reduction in Quebec-Montreal travel time are the exception). The public doesn't care because it hasn't taken that leap needed to make people think differently about taking a train, in the way fully protected bike lanes makes people totally rethink what biking can be like.

It is easy to be cynical and say this is just "another study". Except that not all studies are equal, and this is not like any of the past expansion studies that have been done in the past. This is being done with the seemingly explicit goal of making construction the next step. And yes, like everything, it is subject to all kinds of political whims. But everything in the public sector is subject to that. Maybe this study wasn't full scale funding of HFR. But considering they still would have had to do the planning to get shovels into the ground, that still would have left the project just as vulnerable as it is today.

It is going to be a battle to get those first stages of intercity rail modernization underway. And it wont come from the current, backward thinking "rail advocacy" which simply tries to revive the past. It's going to take a real leap to something different. This is a step in the right direction but even if/when HFR does get built, it is only the beginning and a lot more radical change will have to follow for intercity rail to really become a viable alternative to a large part of the population (not just the current customers).

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRenton

Canada spent the last 70 years developing as a car based suburban nation (if you say that all started around 1950). It has gone from a population of 14 million, to 37 million. Yes, there is a reurbanization that has started a few decades ago. But changing from an auto centric society into one built on public transport isn't going to happen over night, and it isn't going to happen without struggle. Developing modern intercity rail is one of those battles, and its one that is still in its very earliest stage.

I have said before that part of the reason the public doesn't seem to care is because every plan so far (and I would lump HFR into that category, to a certain degree), has really just made rail travel better for those who currently use it, and does nothing to attract new users.

And if you want a perfect example of this in action, just look at bike lanes. When cities create bike lanes by simply painting some lines on the road and leaving bikes to essentially keep running with regular car traffic, the only people who benefit are those that already bike. But when a city creates separate, protected, safe, AAA bike lanes, bike use explodes, especially among women, children and families (see Vancouver for the radical increase in ridership they have experienced by building AAA bike lanes). When safe, protected bike lanes are created, it suddenly attracts all kinds of people and interest from those who had no interest in wearing helmets, reflective gear, and being terrified of being run down by a car, but love the idea of being able to just get on a bike, in any kind of clothes, and safely ride, be it for a commute, or to get groceries, or to take their kids to soccer.

And yes, there is a massive amount of struggle to get politicians to be bold enough to not just paint some lines on a road and call it a bike lane. And car culture treats bikes and cyclists like pests and as disposable and irrelevant when they get run down by cars. But some people figured out what was missing to get more and more of the public on board, and now there is growing momentum, though lots of battles still remain.

HFR is the equivalent of painting lanes on a road. It will make things better for those currently using the train, but it will do nothing to attract new users for the most part (obviously the addition of new markets in Peterborough and Trois Rivieres, and the potentially sizable reduction in Quebec-Montreal travel time are the exception). The public doesn't care because it hasn't taken that leap needed to make people think differently about taking a train, in the way fully protected bike lanes makes people totally rethink what biking can be like.

It is easy to be cynical and say this is just "another study". Except that not all studies are equal, and this is not like any of the past expansion studies that have been done in the past. This is being done with the seemingly explicit goal of making construction the next step. And yes, like everything, it is subject to all kinds of political whims. But everything in the public sector is subject to that. Maybe this study wasn't full scale funding of HFR. But considering they still would have had to do the planning to get shovels into the ground, that still would have left the project just as vulnerable as it is today.

It is going to be a battle to get those first stages of intercity rail modernization underway. And it wont come from the current, backward thinking "rail advocacy" which simply tries to revive the past. It's going to take a real leap to something different. This is a step in the right direction but even if/when HFR does get built, it is only the beginning and a lot more radical change will have to follow for intercity rail to really become a viable alternative to a large part of the population (not just the current customers).