Alto High Speed Rail

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't know who Ron is, but the only questions i heard were, a) "How are you going to cover all that with ticket prices?" to which the answer is the same as to the question of how you're going to cover the cost of highways with ticket prices. And b) Can we just build something that's going to make money (like pipelines?) to which the answer is no. There are some types of infrastructure and services that range from the necessary to the merely beneficial that don't make money or that don't function well as for-profit products. That's why we pay taxes rather than only using money to directly buy things.

The rest was all just ignorant ranting which claimed that only China is currently building HSR while places like Europe only did it decades ago which is false. Both because Europe has HSR routes that are either recent or currently u/c and because there are other regions outside China and Europe that have done it recently and/or currently (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, S. Korea, Indonesia, etc.) He also claimed that we're just incapable of doing it as a country since we don't have enough engineers. As if expertise has to all be domestic or something even though foreign entities have already been included in the Alto consortium. So i guess the conclusion is that if we need or would benefit from a particular type of infrastructure, that we just shouldn't bother if it isn't easy or convenient. Because we're a country that only does low effort things.

Basically the same things that every naysayer has said about every ambitious proposal since the invention of naysaying. Too hard, too expensive, too uncertain, and anyone who did it successfully, no matter now numerous, is some type of exception. Either got lucky with the right conditions or the right talent.

Ron is mortgage specialist who has for years called out the unsustainability of the Toronto/Vancouver condo market. He knows his stuff about that part of the economy but he should not delve into the HSR debate. And I do not agree with him at all.

[zzptichka]

Call me small-minded but I live here, and I don't want to blow up half the downtown and cover it with construction detours and fences for the next 10 years. All so some tourists don't have to spend extra 10 minutes and contribute $20 towards our local transit system.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't know who Ron is, but the only questions i heard were, a) "How are you going to cover all that with ticket prices?" to which the answer is the same as to the question of how you're going to cover the cost of highways with ticket prices. And b) Can we just build something that's going to make money (like pipelines?) to which the answer is no. There are some types of infrastructure and services that range from the necessary to the merely beneficial that don't make money or that don't function well as for-profit products. That's why we pay taxes rather than only using money to directly buy things.

The rest was all just ignorant ranting which claimed that only China is currently building HSR while places like Europe only did it decades ago which is false. Both because Europe has HSR routes that are either recent or currently u/c and because there are other regions outside China and Europe that have done it recently and/or currently (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, S. Korea, Indonesia, etc.) He also claimed that we're just incapable of doing it as a country since we don't have enough engineers. As if expertise has to all be domestic or something even though foreign entities have already been included in the Alto consortium. So i guess the conclusion is that if we need or would benefit from a particular type of infrastructure, that we just shouldn't bother if it isn't easy or convenient. Because we're a country that only does low effort things.

Basically the same things that every naysayer has said about every ambitious proposal since the invention of naysaying. Too hard, too expensive, too uncertain, and anyone who did it successfully, no matter now numerous, is some type of exception. Either got lucky with the right conditions or the right talent.

He's a mortgage broker who got popular during Covid. I used to dial in to his Twitter talks during Covid. I like him when he talks about housing.

But yeah this was rather ignorant. And ironic on the day that consultations are starting. He doesn't seem to realize how advanced this this thing is. Or who is involved. Was bizarre that he said Europe is not building anymore HSR. They are building a whole network of HSR sleepers that they hope will substantially reduce demand for continent wide air travel. Their TEN-T network is being called possibly a "Gigaproject".

Anyway, this is how it's going to go as people who aren't transport advocates like us, start hearing about this.

[bolognium]

As an outsider without a dog in this fight (at this stage of Alto), I'm getting the same vibes from some posters in this thread that I'm getting from Kingston residents right now.

"It's only a little extra money" or "it's only a little extra travel time." Other posters are rightly pointing out that this is how scope creep and service degradation happens. Let's keep in mind the main focus at this stage of Alto is connecting Toronto and Montreal. I'm not trying to insult Ottawa or Kingston, but both of these cities are not the main attraction here. Though I do fully understand why residents of these cities want to push their interests.

Using Kingston as an example. If hypothetically the southern route down to Kingston is chosen because of social/political pressure, and travel time suffers or construction costs balloon, would you guys in Ottawa be okay with that? A city of 200,000 causing the line to divert south, likely negatively impacting the travel times of the vast majority of its users?

Not suggesting this is apples to apples, but there's a bit of that happening in this thread. Again, Toronto and Montreal are the main attractions here. If Ottawa Union can be used without ballooning the budget, and without negatively affecting travel time, then great. But my gut is telling me Ottawa should be a through-station, and making Ottawa Union a through-station seems extremely unlikely. I get that people in Ottawa want the best outcome for their city, but I'm not sure it's useful comparing your downtown station situation to the downtown station situations in Toronto and Montreal.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by bolognium

As an outsider without a dog in this fight (at this stage of Alto), I'm getting the same vibes from some posters in this thread that I'm getting from Kingston residents right now.

"It's only a little extra money" or "it's only a little extra travel time." Other posters are rightly pointing out that this is how scope creep and service degradation happens. Let's keep in mind the main focus at this stage of Alto is connecting Toronto and Montreal. I'm not trying to insult Ottawa or Kingston, but both of these cities are not the main attraction here. Though I do fully understand why residents of these cities want to push their interests.

Using Kingston as an example. If hypothetically the southern route down to Kingston is chosen because of social/political pressure, and travel time suffers or construction costs balloon, would you guys in Ottawa be okay with that? A city of 200,000 causing the line to divert south, likely negatively impacting the travel times of the vast majority of its users?

Not suggesting this is apples to apples, but there's a bit of that happening in this thread. Again, Toronto and Montreal are the main attractions here. If Ottawa Union can be used without ballooning the budget, and without negatively affecting travel time, then great. But my gut is telling me Ottawa should be a through-station, and making Ottawa Union a through-station seems extremely unlikely. I get that people in Ottawa want the best outcome for their city, but I'm not sure it's useful comparing your downtown station situation to the downtown station situations in Toronto and Montreal.

From what I understand, the southern route via Kingston is being considered due to soil conditions (hard rock that requires blasting) along the northern route. It doesn't seem to be about Kingston. I can understand the sentiment of, if it's going by Kingston, might as well build a station. Kingston, Peterborough and Trois-Rivière are all roughly the same size (but a Kingston Downtown Station is out of the question, unlike the other two that will get a station).

Union Station in Ottawa is not some far fetched idea. Alto is considering it. It's "within scope" of the route considerations. It's no longer enthusiast dreaming up a preposterous idea.

If Union is eliminated because of an insurmountable cost and technical challenges, or if it would add half an hour to the trip (which I highly doubt) then so be it, but I doubt joining up Union in Ottawa would be anywhere near the cost of going through the Mount Royal tunnel to reach Downtown Montreal, which to be clear, I do not question the relevance. HSR needs to each Downtown Montreal and Downtown Toronto.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by bolognium

As an outsider without a dog in this fight (at this stage of Alto), I'm getting the same vibes from some posters in this thread that I'm getting from Kingston residents right now.

"It's only a little extra money" or "it's only a little extra travel time." Other posters are rightly pointing out that this is how scope creep and service degradation happens. Let's keep in mind the main focus at this stage of Alto is connecting Toronto and Montreal. I'm not trying to insult Ottawa or Kingston, but both of these cities are not the main attraction here. Though I do fully understand why residents of these cities want to push their interests.

Not sure it's particularly fair to compare Ottawa and Kingston (and not just because Ottawa is eight times the size.) Ottawa will be the terminus of the initial segment and every through train will stop here. Even if the Kingston is chosen, I'd bet that fewer than half of the trains would even stop there, and ridership would be a tiny fraction of Ottawa ridership. Yes, Toronto and Montreal are the main attractions, but ridership between Ottawa and each of those places is quite a significant part of the justification for the project, and would justify much more infrastructure here.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by phil235

My first reaction to this is that is pretty much the case in lots of current European stations, so probably not that big a deal.

I'm also wondering - if you are digging a completely new cavern, could you not orient it to minimize distances and maximize connectivity? It wouldn't need to extend directly out from the current station.

Look up Stuttgart 21 and see how much of a boondoggle that has become. I picture the same thing happening with the old Union station. It'll be "oops, it's 10 years and 10 billion dollars more" in the end. It could just cripple this project from the beginning and jeopardize future phases.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I feel like it would be a much different scenario if the current station were less central, like say, out at the airport. But the current VIA station is already in a fairly core part of the metro area less than 4km from Parliament Hill. So that's already a big advantage compared to flying since the airport terminal is over 11km out, and a lot could be done to improve the pedestrian connection to the LRT even with 1/10 of the money needed for an HSR tunnel.

Exactly. It's basically spending billions to replace a 4 stop LRT (< 10 mins) ride while making access by car worse. And given that it's a 2 hr ride from Union Toronto to Ottawa Tremblay, we're talking about getting downtown to downtown in less than 2.5 hrs. That means HSR + LRT will be competitive with air + taxis. Other than some vague notion of city building, there's just no value to this idea.

At least in Toronto and Montreal, the VIA stations currently there are actual large transit hubs. Not just nice looking buildings. And in both cases the plans to reach those or get really close. It's not at all clear that having the HSR meet the LRT at Rideau instead of Tremblay is substantially different. Oh and even aesthetically, what's appealing about entering downtown Ottawa in a tunnel where you can't see anything anyway?

I attended the original LRT consultations over a decade and a half ago. They briefly had the idea to use Ottawa Union instead of the current Rideau Station. It was passed up because of cost concerns and some worries about geometry into the core. So having passed up a great opportunity to build an appropriate use case for that building, we're now going to push to slow down the HSR for the sake of basically vanity?

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I also think building a downtown tunnel would offer a greater value proposition if it was shared by other services such as a commuter rail line.

Maybe. But who the heck will build a commuter rail system in Ottawa? The City can't even afford to do Stage 3. And the number of outlying commuters who go to downtown Ottawa is actually quite limited.

Originally Posted by bolognium

As an outsider without a dog in this fight (at this stage of Alto), I'm getting the same vibes from some posters in this thread that I'm getting from Kingston residents right now.

"It's only a little extra money" or "it's only a little extra travel time." Other posters are rightly pointing out that this is how scope creep and service degradation happens. Let's keep in mind the main focus at this stage of Alto is connecting Toronto and Montreal. I'm not trying to insult Ottawa or Kingston, but both of these cities are not the main attraction here. Though I do fully understand why residents of these cities want to push their interests.

Using Kingston as an example. If hypothetically the southern route down to Kingston is chosen because of social/political pressure, and travel time suffers or construction costs balloon, would you guys in Ottawa be okay with that? A city of 200,000 causing the line to divert south, likely negatively impacting the travel times of the vast majority of its users?

Not suggesting this is apples to apples, but there's a bit of that happening in this thread. Again, Toronto and Montreal are the main attractions here. If Ottawa Union can be used without ballooning the budget, and without negatively affecting travel time, then great. But my gut is telling me Ottawa should be a through-station, and making Ottawa Union a through-station seems extremely unlikely. I get that people in Ottawa want the best outcome for their city, but I'm not sure it's useful comparing your downtown station situation to the downtown station situations in Toronto and Montreal.

This scope creep is 100% what I am worried about. And every city en route is going to push for this. I want them to get it built as quickly and as cheaply as possible. My biggest fear is this becomes like California or HS2 in the UK and then we end up with a stub line.

Kingston is actually a great example. The southern route is about 10 km from the current VIA station. And say 15 km from downtown kingston. Let's say they demand a downtown station. Billions would have to be spent on a spur and a tunnel. The diversion down the spur and back isn't a small thing. That would add over 20 mins. So now the line becomes less attractive for every traveler between Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal. Or they spend billions more to make up for that time elsewhere. Oh, and Kingston is probably not going to want to give up the promised VIA hub they would get either.

[Truenorth00]

You know what impacts me a lot more as an Ottawa resident? The lack of connection/stop at Dorval airport.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You know what impacts me a lot more as an Ottawa resident? The lack of connection/stop at Dorval airport.

I made that point this evening at the Alto meeting and the person I spoke to said I was not the only one who brought up Dorval.


It appears that they are considering a variation of the old CPR corridor going east from Ottawa and crossing the Ottawa around Rigaud to Laval then through a tunnel through Mount Royal. Perhaps, it is unlikely to be successful to follow CPR and CNR freight corridors to Gare Centrale

[lrt's friend]

Let's be clear, the southern corridor under consideration does not go to Kingston. It appears to be the old Canadian Northern route that went from Smith's Falls to Napanee via Jones Falls. The HSR route would vere west before reaching Napanee.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I made that point this evening at the Alto meeting and the person I spoke to said I was not the only one who brought up Dorval.


It appears that they are considering a variation of the old CPR corridor going east from Ottawa and crossing the Ottawa around Rigaud to Laval then through a tunnel through Mount Royal. Perhaps, it is unlikely to be successful to follow CPR and CNR freight corridors to Gare Centrale

Which means you then have a REM connection to the airport which is a 25 min. Add in connection times and getting to Dorval from Ottawa will be a 1.7 hr trip. Pretty much the same travel time as today......

[Kramata]

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle...priations-alto

Au micro de l'émission du retour à la maison Sur le vif en décembre 2025, le président-directeur général (PDG) d'Alto, Martin Imbleau, a toutefois indiqué avoir un penchant pour la gare de Via Rail située sur le chemin Tremblay

Tremblay seems to be the preference as of Dec 2025. As stated before a renovated Ottawa Union station has questionable connectivity.

Downtown Toronto and Montreal have transit hubs that would directly feed into positive network effects with a high speed rail station. Their networks and the high speed rail would encourage the use of each other. The way transit is in Ottawa it is doubtful a new station at Union would help that. I also question whether it should be the job of Alto to do that for Ottawa.

If it ends up successful then maybe we can consider a new grand station for Ottawa. A successful high speed rail line would eventually necessitate a higher capacity station in the future and could allow such grandiose plans to be part of the maintenance cycle. Perhaps it could act as a stop on a 'milk run' train if the line prove popular enough to get infill stations while an express train would use whichever station is the quickest.

Speaking of fantastical infills in an uncertain future (many decades), I think (given my ignorance on all the technical issues that is a generous word to use) reserving land for a hub in Confederation Heights near Mooney's Bay LRT station would be prudent. The transit way, the Trillium line, perhaps the Baseline BRT would have a lot of network effects. An extension of the airport line to there even more so, as it can at least mean the airport can pivot to long haul flights that then feed into the train.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Look up Stuttgart 21 and see how much of a boondoggle that has become. I picture the same thing happening with the old Union station. It'll be "oops, it's 10 years and 10 billion dollars more" in the end. It could just cripple this project from the beginning and jeopardize future phases.

Don’t know that one, but there is no doubt that using Union would add complexity and risk to a project that they really have to get right. I really doubt it will happen. I was more thinking along the lines of an ideal world, and challenging the comments arguing that there aren’t real benefits to travellers being right downtown.

My guess is that it will be Tremblay, but I expect that it will require quite a bit of modification and I still don’t know how trains go west very easily or quickly. Was also wondering about Confederation Heights, but that really doesn’t solve the going west problem and requires a transfer to get downtown. It’s probably not as good as Tremblay on balance.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I call BS. In both Toronto and Montreal cases whatever is being built is being done to access existing stations/infrastructure that would be a full terminus on one side or substantial service terminus on the other. The Ottawa Union fan club is asking Alto to build a hub that doesn't exist while giving up one that does. For a station that would not be a terminus for most of the services. So no, this isn't some great conspiracy to shaft Ottawa. Come on now.

Also, a metro of 1.7M is nowhere close to contributing the same as the metros of 7.1M and 4.6M.

I think big picture you are right. The building is not a train station so that is a big difference. If we are going to build an underground station we might as well put it somewhere from scratch actually.

I'd just hope in this Ottawa thread we would at least try for the optimal outcome for Ottawa. I think I forgot about all the work that would be needed to make it a train station but envisioning we would see a tunnel that wouldn't really add any time and actually might be faster as they avoid some of the curves in the current right of way.

Isn't the northern route also still on the table? That would logically for sure see a new station.

[roger1818]

I went to the meeting last night and while much of what I saw I already knew, I was able to glean a bit from my discussions:

• I gather the dark purple parts on the map are station locations.
• They are considering a second station in Toronto, but they aren't currently considering a second station in Ottawa.
• Even if they use the southern route to Toronto, they aren't currently considering a station for Kingston.
• The person I was talking to said she personally prefers the southern route to Toronto for environmental reasons, but she is only one vote.
• Regarding Dorval, no decision has been made, but there currently aren't plans for a station there.
• They definitely would not share the tunnel with the REM but would dig a new one instead.
• The current thought would be for trains to/from both Quebec and Ottawa to use the same tunnel in Montreal.

[stolenottawa]

If they chose Tremblay, would the train to Toronto follow the tracks that cross Pleasant Park or is there some other option they would have?

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I went to the meeting last night and while much of what I saw I already knew, I was able to glean a bit from my discussions:

• I gather the dark purple parts on the map are station locations.
• They are considering a second station in Toronto, but they aren't currently considering a second station in Ottawa.
• Even if they use the southern route to Toronto, they aren't currently considering a station for Kingston.
• The person I was talking to said she personally prefers the southern route to Toronto for environmental reasons, but she is only one vote.
• Regarding Dorval, no decision has been made, but there currently aren't plans for a station there.
• They definitely would not share the tunnel with the REM but would dig a new one instead.
• The current thought would be for trains to/from both Quebec and Ottawa to use the same tunnel in Montreal.

They should at least protect for a station on the west side, if not Fallowfield. Maybe not all trains would stop there, but Nepean-Kanata-Barrhaven is hundreds of thousands of people that would have to backtrack a substantial distance from Tremblay.

Also, if they are going to build a second Toronto station in Northeastern Scarborough, getting from Markham to Kanata in just over 2 hours would be great for building a Canadian tech cluster.

[c_speed3108]

I attended the open house. I learned a couple things.

1. The tracks are completely incompatible with any other trackage (via, freight, etc. ) So even at stations it would need separate tracks and platforms. Nothing will be shared.

2. Zero level crossings. Fully fenced the entire way.

3. The trains are expected to take about 7-8 minutes to reach full speed.


The dark purple parts are where stations are being considered. In Ottawa that is Tremblay to old Union along the Nicholas corridor. No where else.

The broader corridor map shows where tracks could potentially go (although common sense dictates some corridors are a bit more likely)


The plan _seems_ to be to keep a good portion of VIA's current routes. That would make Tremblay useful as it would allow transfers to VIA trains serving smaller places.

[lrt's friend]

It would be foolish not to have 2 stations in Ottawa, to save a few minutes. Ottawa has spent decades building rapid transit to both stations, with further plans at Fallowfield. Ottawa has become a very spread out city and to add an hour to reach your destination from a single central station defeats the benefits of what we are trying to accomplish.

Regarding Confederation Heights. It might be a transit hub, maybe, but that is not part of OC's current plan A further problem is the lack of rail that goes directly downtown

One of the issues with current VIA route to Montreal is service to small towns. Then the consideration of maintaining service during construction. It was mentioned about a similar meeting in Madoc. This surprised me, so I asked about milk run service that would stop in a few smaller communities a couple times a day by building sidings at the station. Not in the card as I was told