VIA Rail

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

So that would be virtually the entire country outside of Eastern Canada, cities and Edmonton - Calgary.

The existence of the Canadian is irrelevant. Even along that route, the residents would be better served by buses that could potentially come every few hours, rather than a train that comes every 2 days if you are lucky. And could very likely be delayed by many hours.

First, let's connect all major cities. Then, let's connect buses to those cities. Anywhere they follow the train is a good spot to work the schedules so that those that wish to take the train the last leg can. Where it doesn't, then it doesn't matter. So, if every 2 days a train stops at noon somewhere, and a bus goes there too, it should be there at noon to meet the train.

Originally Posted by milomilo

He's being very sensible with his support for reducing VIA's reliance on government subsidy and increasing ridership of politically important demographics. The more VIA can fund itself, the less they have to go cap in hand to the government, and the less risk they have of having their funding cut. And the more people that ride those trains and like them, the more vocal the opposition to cutting service.

The way you get those large increases in ridership and revenue is on the sorts of routes where you can transport thousands of people an hour, not a handful of people a day.

Can we start reducing road reliance on subsidies? I do agree that we should not just throw money at something, but all transportation is subsidized. The gas tax does not cover the cost of the road maintenance and construction.

So, let's get off the "reliance on subsidy" stupidity, and instead, make them as low as is reasonable. So, how can we make existing routes rely on less of a subsidy? Where could we add more routes that will be no worse than any other existing route? If we do that, we would have better service, and might even be able to get them improved to the point that it is as good as the Corridor is, if not better.

Originally Posted by Acajack

The Canadian's purpose is not transport Canadians. At least not in any practical way.

And, that is part of the problem. That is why cutting it up and improving those sections would be good. You cannot take the same train from Windsor to QC, so why should Vancouver to Toronto be any different? Maybe the Edmonton - Winnipeg section could be run every day, whereas the rest stays at 2-3x a week. I was already shown that Vancouver-Edmonton is run 3x a week where the rest is only 2x a week in the winter.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Agreed. Its existence makes the discussion on how best to provide public transit in the west more difficult. If it didn't exist, you would never say that a service that comes every two days, is really expensive to run, is usually late and can only serve a very limited route, is a good public transit solution.

So, why not fix the issues instead of get rid of it?