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Originally Posted by someone123
By the way, people sometimes mention that Vancouver doesn't have much commuter rail but there is the West Coast Express. It is operated by TransLink, the regional transportation authority.
Without TransLink to operate this service, what are the odds that VIA or some other federal level agency would have stepped in and set it up? What would Toronto have if there were no Metrolinx and VIA were the only potential operator?
We cannot know for sure but for whatever it's worth, my take on it is that very little would have to change in a parallel universe to end up with no commuter rail at all in those cities and that, if it didn't exist, people would treat it as something exotic and unproven. To some degree this is the world many other metro areas or provinces are stuck in, where there is nobody to champion regional public transportation goals.
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A single line that really hasn't expanded since day one!
Read that again......
GO and AMT/REM have added lines, frequency and stations since inception. Vancouver might have added a station and an extra time per day.
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
1) There's a very limited market for an expensive week long ride through rural Canada and wilderness. Especially at the amount of time the Canadian takes and at its prices.
2) Why should the Government of Canada be in the business of running tourist services? If so, why stop with VIA? Do we expect the federal government to run Arctic cruises too?
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1) and 2) Via could operate both, but we need to focus transporting more Canadians across Canada.
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad
VIA needs to be a national rail passenger service - i.e., transcontinental and interconnected.
If it is neither of these two things, then, in my mind, the need for a federally operated rail passenger service ceases to exist. Montreal to Toronto is not Canada - Halifax to Vancouver is (I would include St. John's, but there is no longer a railway on the island of Newfoundland).
If VIA is not going to offer services in eight provinces, then why should taxpayers in those provinces want to continue to hand over their dollars to fund what is essentially a Toronto/Montreal intercity service!
If the Canadian and the Ocean are eliminated, then eliminate VIA too. Let Ontario and Quebec fight over how to fund the Toronto/Montreal service (or not)………..
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I like your thinking....
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Originally Posted by milomilo
VIA already does not serve all of Canada, the existence of the Canadian is a mirage, its service is irrelevant as it serves no useful transportation service. It is a relic of the past that we keep only for emotional reasons, not rational ones.
While the Canadian is a waste of money, I don't find that to be its greatest problem. The biggest problem it causes is the damage to the national conversation on passenger rail. The starting point is always "what should we do with the Canadian?", not "how can we best serve Canadians with public transport?". And you would never answer the second, correct question by building the Canadian.
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Let's start by making major cities hubs.
Have trains terminate there.
Have trains start there.
Run them at least once a day, every day, both directions.
In other word, copy what makes the Corridor successful.
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad
I repeat - Montreal to Toronto is not Canada. If your vision of VIA is to serve the corridor and nothing else, then it is no longer a national passenger rail carrier, and the feds have no business operating the service. Sell the whole damned thing off...………
If you want to maintain VIA, then let it fulfill it's entire mandate, from coast to coast, and fund it appropriately. Also look at route expansion and give passenger trains priority on the trackage.
In other words, make VIA relevant again.
If you build it, they will come...………...
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I doubt outside the Corridor there will ever be enough demand for HSR, but regular, frequent, on time train service should have enough demand.
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Originally Posted by wave46
In a certain sense, you're probably right. Effectively, VIA 'steals' passengers from other modes of transportation even on the Corridor and subsidizes their journey, so why should someone from New Brunswick pay for that?
On the other hand, the current trajectory is 'mediocrity for all'. Which makes it increasingly irrelevant and a hole to flush tax dollars down. So, I keep sounding like a broken record: What is VIA's mandate? As it stands, it currently has none.
In a sense, it reminds me of our Navy's Iroquois destroyers - a decision to replace them was continually put off until basically they suffered catastrophic failure. Now we're just getting around to the idea of replacing them. I suspect VIA will have a similar trajectory. We won't decide what VIA wants to be before it needs a huge capital injection, at which point killing it might be the better option (at least in some political circles).
Admittedly VIA needs to be retained in some form for those isolated communities with no other service, but that's a handful of routes.
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I served on 2 of our destroyers.... "they are great", until you understand they had to use water compensating tanks for stability. That means that as we suck fuel out, we are filling those tanks with water. They bob too much. The crew bunks are below the waterline. The list goes on....
They had their use, back in the 60s, when they were designed. They weren't relevant towards the last 20 years of their lives.
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Originally Posted by Truenorth00
I'm always surprised that those who advocate for expanded VIA services think this argument will work.
If VIA closed up shop, I would bet money literally the only service that would remain operational is the Corridor, subsidized by the Ontario and Quebec governments. I doubt other provincial governments would care to maintain services in their provinces at all. The demise is Greyhound in Western Canada should prove instructive here.
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Right now, you would be correct. That is because everything outside of the Corridor has become irrelevant. It's time to change that.