VIA Rail

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Do we have something to show trains would work?

Of course we do. There are numbers for people driving, flying and taking a bus between Calgary and Edmonton. If you want to pick up just the bus riders, the train has to be faster than the bus, if you want the car drivers the train has to be faster than a car, and to get the people flying the end to end journey needs to be faster than going by plane. It's quite simple.

A train travelling on the CP line won't meet any of those criteria, so it will fail.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by acottawa

On one side of the line in Markham is existing sprawl. The other side is a national park.

I'm not picky - you can do it at the 401 or something if you want. The City of Toronto has a large public works yard that can probably be consolidated or moved to free up space at the 401 and Kennedy if they want.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You're presuming that their opposition was based on concerns over service to them. It wasn't.

Their opposition was entirely based around HSR's corridor severing a few lots. They held that line for years. And then moved to asking for "High Performance Rail" when they realized their NIMBYism was a particularly — look.

Good news for them. VIA is going to give them exactly what they want: nothing. At least for a decade, while it works on HFR East and while Metrolinx sorts out all other precursor projects. After that, public support for expropriation and to shut down their NIMBYism should be pretty solid.

And yet Highway 401 managed to get built. There aren't a lot of interchanges between Woodstock and Cambridge.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

They probably want a park and ride station of some sort in Toronto. I agree that Markham is probably a better spot than Eglinton for that.

No indication that park and ride is a priority. A lot of their material is heavily focused on transit integration. And as such a station on Eglinton, either at Kennedy or Eglinton GO makes sense.

I do think if they build something in Markham, they might be able to connect Viva to it. And build a large parking structure.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

And yet Highway 401 managed to get built. There aren't a lot of interchanges between Woodstock and Cambridge.

The 401's large right of way was established in the 1950s, prior to the organized opposition. The 401 is also used by many locally and could be sold to the public as getting traffic off local roads.

VIA's just easier to stop because it can be pejoratively dismissed as benefiting cities only, especially in farm country.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Of course we do. There are numbers for people driving, flying and taking a bus between Calgary and Edmonton. If you want to pick up just the bus riders, the train has to be faster than the bus, if you want the car drivers the train has to be faster than a car, and to get the people flying the end to end journey needs to be faster than going by plane. It's quite simple.

A train travelling on the CP line won't meet any of those criteria, so it will fail.

You know, the drive between Toronto and Montreal is faster than the train. Why is the train as successful as it is there? Why would that same metric not be equivalent between C-E?

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You know, the drive between Toronto and Montreal is faster than the train. Why is the train as successful as it is there? Why would that same metric not be equivalent between C-E?

In case someone wants to give this — a reality check: Google Maps gives a driving time estimate of around 5:40h (i.e. leaving now at 3.20 pm and arriving in Toronto at around 9pm, whereas VIA's pre-covid schedules had a fastest scheduled travel time of 4:49h and an average scheduled travel time of 5:04h. Also, it's 566 km distance by road and 100 km/h is the maximum speed limit on either side of the interprovincial border...

[Innsertnamehere]

If you have ever driven that route you would know that absolutely nobody does remotely close to the speed limit.

Google Maps also tends to overestimate long distance drive times as it assumes you do something like 10km/h over the speed limit. If you drive any faster than that the drive time is much less, even with a few pit stops thrown in there. No traffic Toronto-Montreal is about 5 hours for most people doing the speed of traffic, less if you are a faster driver.

Of course traffic is a big factor to consider, especially if you are going / coming from downtown Toronto which has 10-30 minutes of congestion to access it at most times of the day.

If you aren’t going to downtown the travel time for driving becomes even better as you don’t have to make your way downtown first to catch a train.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You know, the drive between Toronto and Montreal is faster than the train. Why is the train as successful as it is there? Why would that same metric not be equivalent between C-E?

1) It's only faster on a nice summer day, at night with no traffic. Try leaving downtown Toronto at 4pm and getting to downtown Montreal in 5.5 hrs. Try to do that on any winter day with even the slightest bit of precipitation en route. And given that the GTA keeps growing along the 401, this isn't going to get better.

2) The sheer population of the two metros guarantees there will always be a few people to fill the trains. Let's not forget that the GTA alone has over 6 million people. And that isn't even the whole Golden Horseshoe catchment feeding the line. This is on par with the TOTAL population of the Prairie provinces. And Corridor East connects the GTA to a metro of 4.4M in Montreal and 1.4M in Ottawa.

3) En route stop. From Oshawa to Cornwall, Lakeshore East has over a million residents. They provide some ridership en route. Including ex urban commuting to Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. CalEd really doesn't have much of this.

Contextually, Calgary and Edmonton isn't even close to Ottawa-Montreal or Quebec City-Montreal. And both these city pairs have limited rail service and only 4 lane highways between them too, despite much higher combined populations than CalEd.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You know, the drive between Toronto and Montreal is faster than the train. Why is the train as successful as it is there? Why would that same metric not be equivalent between C-E?

Along with what else has been said, let's not forget the corridor service is basically on death's door and is limping along, continually suffering worse service due to increased freight even after spending money on increased capacity. Hence why VIA wants to build HFR, to get the bare minimum required for the service to be sustainable.

Passenger service using the CP line between Calgary and Edmonton without extensive upgrades would be in an even worse situation, it would be doomed from the start. Because it would likely have a journey time of over 4 hours, be unreliable and be very infrequent, since no sane person would use it. And since no one would use it, the subsidy would be very high. So if someone ever was so stupid as to attempt this service, it would either need to be immediately upgraded to something better, or (more likely) it would be scrapped after a year or so.

[hw621]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

In case someone wants to give this — a reality check: Google Maps gives a driving time estimate of around 5:40h (i.e. leaving now at 3.20 pm and arriving in Toronto at around 9pm, whereas VIA's pre-covid schedules had a fastest scheduled travel time of 4:49h and an average scheduled travel time of 5:04h. Also, it's 566 km distance by road and 100 km/h is the maximum speed limit on either side of the interprovincial border...

To be fair for train rides you also need to factor in the time between your end points to/from the stations, and the wait time, while driving is direct end to end...

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

If you have ever driven that route you would know that absolutely nobody does remotely close to the speed limit.

Google Maps also tends to overestimate long distance drive times as it assumes you do something like 10km/h over the speed limit. If you drive any faster than that the drive time is much less, even with a few pit stops thrown in there. No traffic Toronto-Montreal is about 5 hours for most people doing the speed of traffic, less if you are a faster driver.

Of course traffic is a big factor to consider, especially if you are going / coming from downtown Toronto which has 10-30 minutes of congestion to access it at most times of the day.

If you aren’t going to downtown the travel time for driving becomes even better as you don’t have to make your way downtown first to catch a train.

First off, Google doesn't base travel time on the speed limit. They base it on real time data collection from the little spy device you carry in your pocket.

Next, I have always found that Google Maps is actually pretty reasonable for a realistic travel time, based on say the average person doing one stop. If you have the bladder of a 20 yr old male and the testosterone, that lets you book it without stopping, well Google Maps won't reflect that. But we don't build infrastructure for outliers.

Lastly, all these discussions are about downtown to downtown. Obviously, if you leave from elsewhere, it'll be faster. Leaving Eglinton station and getting off in Fallowfield would be 2.5 hrs or less. Doesn't mean that HFR has reduced Ottawa-Toronto to 2.5 hrs.

[Urban_Sky]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

If you have ever driven that route you would know that absolutely nobody does remotely close to the speed limit.

Google Maps also tends to overestimate long distance drive times as it assumes you do something like 10km/h over the speed limit. If you drive any faster than that the drive time is much less, even with a few pit stops thrown in there. No traffic Toronto-Montreal is about 5 hours for most people doing the speed of traffic, less if you are a faster driver.

Of course traffic is a big factor to consider, especially if you are going / coming from downtown Toronto which has 10-30 minutes of congestion to access it at most times of the day.

If you aren’t going to downtown the travel time for driving becomes even better as you don’t have to make your way downtown first to catch a train.

At an average speed of 100 km/h, your travel time over the full 566 km would be 5:39h, at 110 km/h 5:08h and at 120 km/h 4:43h.

Nobody implied that Calgary-Edmonton would have to be faster than anything else than the downtown-to-downtown travel time by car or bus, therefore, the driving time from Beaconsfield to Scarborough is irrelevant for the dispute we are having here. Therefore, given that at least the first 10 km out of downtown Montreal have a speed restriction (70 km/h even on the Highway, IIRC), I conclude that it's physically impossible to beat VIA's average scheduled downtown-to-downtown travel time without exceeding the speed limit by (on average) considerably more than the customary 10 km/h...

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by hw621

To be fair for train rides you also need to factor in the time between your end points to/from the stations, and the wait time, while driving is direct end to end...

Sure, which is why caveats are needed. If you're going from Markham to Vaudreuil then yeah, driving's probably the safer bet, but if you're going downtown to downtown then it really isn't much of a contest. The difference is that the former is Markham-Vaudreuil and the latter is actual Toronto-Montreal.

Driving can be direct end-to-end but once you're downtown you need to deal with traffic delays and parking, which quickly add up both in time and money.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Urban_Sky

In case someone wants to give this — a reality check: Google Maps gives a driving time estimate of around 5:40h (i.e. leaving now at 3.20 pm and arriving in Toronto at around 9pm, whereas VIA's pre-covid schedules had a fastest scheduled travel time of 4:49h and an average scheduled travel time of 5:04h. Also, it's 566 km distance by road and 100 km/h is the maximum speed limit on either side of the interprovincial border...

People definitely drive the speed limit on the 401.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Sure, which is why caveats are needed. If you're going from Markham to Vaudreuil then yeah, driving's probably the safer bet, but if you're going downtown to downtown then it really isn't much of a contest. The difference is that the former is Markham-Vaudreuil and the latter is actual Toronto-Montreal.

Driving can be direct end-to-end but once you're downtown you need to deal with traffic delays and parking, which quickly add up both in time and money.

Yeah, if your trip is downtown to downtown and you’re travelling alone then the train makes more sense. Adding suburban destinations, intermediate stops and passengers decreases the value of the train, but it would still make sense in some circumstances.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by acottawa

People definitely drive the speed limit on the 401.

Absolutely all the time ....
I can get from Sudbury to London in under 5 hours. One time going to Montreal, I took the long way through Toronto. I was there just shy of 5 hours. That was on a Friday daytime. I also spent less than $50 one way on gas.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) It's only faster on a nice summer day, at night with no traffic. Try leaving downtown Toronto at 4pm and getting to downtown Montreal in 5.5 hrs. Try to do that on any winter day with even the slightest bit of precipitation en route. And given that the GTA keeps growing along the 401, this isn't going to get better.

2) The sheer population of the two metros guarantees there will always be a few people to fill the trains. Let's not forget that the GTA alone has over 6 million people. And that isn't even the whole Golden Horseshoe catchment feeding the line. This is on par with the TOTAL population of the Prairie provinces. And Corridor East connects the GTA to a metro of 4.4M in Montreal and 1.4M in Ottawa.

3) En route stop. From Oshawa to Cornwall, Lakeshore East has over a million residents. They provide some ridership en route. Including ex urban commuting to Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. CalEd really doesn't have much of this.

Contextually, Calgary and Edmonton isn't even close to Ottawa-Montreal or Quebec City-Montreal. And both these city pairs have limited rail service and only 4 lane highways between them too, despite much higher combined populations than CalEd.

1) Middle of winter with a 4x4 truck. Fortunately no snow to slow me down.

2) Very true.

3) That is true. Which begs the question why HSR is the only option.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

1) Middle of winter with a 4x4 truck. Fortunately no snow to slow me down.

Cause everyone drives a 4x4 truck and we should design public infrastructure around what Michael from Sudbury uses to get around in Toronto?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

3) That is true. Which begs the question why HSR is the only option.

HSR is not the only option. The federal government literally just announced HFR. Are you trolling just to have something to say?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

People definitely drive the speed limit on the 401.

Once again for those too lazy or illiterate to read earlier posts. Google Maps does not base its estimate of travel time on posted speed limits. They use historical and real time speed and traffic data for that estimate. This becomes really obvious if you have an in-car navigation system that isn't real time. Those systems do base ETA on speed limits. And the difference between those systems and Google Maps on your phone will be notable.