VIA Rail

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

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 system do base ETA on speed limits. And the difference between those systems and Google Maps on your phone will be notable.

The post I was responding to gave the distance and the speed limit as the reason it takes longer than the train. Your facts about google maps are interesting but of no relevance to my post.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The post I was responding to gave the distance and the speed limit as the reason it takes longer than the train. Your facts about google maps are interesting but of no relevance to my post.

The post you quoted specifically referenced the Google Maps travel time between Toronto and Montreal.

The post you were responding to, was also a follow up on a specific point made earlier that traveling faster than the train requires one to break posted speed limits substantially. It's not physically possible to average 100 kph without at least going 120 kph. But speeding is hardly a practice that government should encourage and normalize with infrastructure design.

[Truenorth00]

For folks who think Google looks at speed limits....

Google Maps on my phone says it's 542 km from Union Station to Gare Centrale and would take 5:22 hrs, leaving right now (8am). That's an average speed of 101 kph, an impossible average if Google was at all considering posted speed limits, especially those in the downtown core of either city. Set the departure time to 4pm and the travel time estimate goes up by 28 mins to 5:50 hrs.

So a consistent 4.5 hrs or less, on HFR, would absolutely beat driving.

[Innsertnamehere]

Google accounts for traffic but in no traffic situations assumes an average speed for the vehicle. It's faster than the speed limit but not super fast. Looking at 140km on the 407, it claims it would take 1:13 to travel that distance, or an average speed of 115km/h.

If you drive faster than that in low traffic situations, you get better travel times. And most people drive faster than 115km/h on the 401 towards Montreal.

Google Maps, for a trip from the 401/DVP to Autoroute 40/13, claims it takes 4:46 in no traffic to cover 532km. That's an average speed of 111km/h. That stretch should easily be able to be done at full freeway speeds, so if you drive an average of 120km/h on that stretch, which shouldn't be hard or even particularly irregular, it would take 4:26, or a full 20 minutes faster than google maps.

Again, mileage varies with driving as everyone drives different speeds. My point was that google maps assumes that people drive relatively slowly for long range drives.

This whole thing is a red herring anyway. VIA doesn't need to beat driving by a few minutes to be competitive, it needs to offer a better quality ride for a competitive price that is reliable and in the general same realm of travel time. When you are talking about 5 hours of travel, people don't care as much if it's 4:45 or 5:00 if the 5:00 option lets you sit back and read a book for the time instead of staring out over a steering wheel.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

If you drive faster than that in low traffic situations, you get better travel times. And most people drive faster than 115km/h on the 401 towards Montreal.

Again. Average speed =/= nominal speed. Yes people drive 120-130 kph on the 401. But they don't average anything close to that. A personal example....I routinely drive from Ottawa to Scarborough. In both cases, not far off the highway. Door-to-door of 430 km. And yet, I find 4 hrs to be on the quicker side. If there's anybody else in the car, breaks inevitably drive that closer to 4.5 hrs door-to-door. But at least my family lives right at the eastern edge of the 416. I am sure it would be a slower trip, if I had to get to say Etobicoke.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

This whole thing is a red herring anyway. VIA doesn't need to beat driving by a few minutes to be competitive, it needs to offer a better quality ride for a competitive price that is reliable and in the general same realm of travel time. When you are talking about 5 hours of travel, people don't care as much if it's 4:45 or 5:00 if the 5:00 option lets you sit back and read a book for the time instead of staring out over a steering wheel.

Consistency (through improved reliability) and price are probably the big selling points. However, train service does have to at least be faster on door-to-door travel to actually gain modal share over driving. That translates to a maximum trip from Union to Centrale of 4.5 hrs. And really closer to 4 hrs is probably the sweet spot between price (driven by needed investment) and time saved over driving.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

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

Once again you have decided to mis-state people's position. Assuming we are talking about Calgary - Edmonton, who has stated HSR is the only option? I said average speed of 110km/h would be the minimum, but you might even get some riders at a 3 hour journey, perhaps even slower.

But that would still be faster than could be achieved using the existing infrastructure.

[MolsonExport]

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.

This,
this,
this, and
this.

[Nouvellecosse]

I find it so funny how in my experience, people drive faster in Ont and PQ than in the Maritimes even though the speed limit here is 110 instead of 100. The first time I drove outside the Maritimes was during a road trip to Niagara falls and when i saw the lower limit I was thinking how nice it would be not to have 90% of people whizzing past me since I usually drive 100 to maximize fuel efficiency. Well i was right. Instead of 90% it was 100% of people zooming by.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I find it so funny how in my experience, people drive faster in Ont and PQ than in the Maritimes even though the speed limit here is 110 instead of 100. The first time I drove outside the Maritimes was during a road trip to Niagara falls and when i saw the lower limit I was thinking how nice it would be not to have 90% of people whizzing past me since I usually drive 100 to maximize fuel efficiency. Well i was right. Instead of 90% it was 100% of people zooming by.

It's my experience but I always found people drove slower in Nova Scotia even compared to New Brunswick. Hitting the border and driving through Cobequid it always felt like people actually drove at or near the limit...whereas on a lot of NB highways you can easily blitz well above the limit and be fine. Nothing says driving in NB quite like doing exceptional speeds between Fredericton and Edmundston.

I always have difficulty when I go back out east and visit family because people in the Maritimes drive so passively compared to here in Ontario. Drivers stop for cars at driveways, stop for people jaywalking, and there's just less urgency and purpose in how they drive. The key to driving in big cities is to keep moving because that's what people expect of you - whereas it seems to be the opposite in that area at least; you should expect cars to stop or slow down altogether.

[Nouvellecosse]

Yes, NB drives faster than NS, but the fastest drivers in my experience are from PEI. It's actually kind of rare to see a PEI plate in NS despite the proximity, (far fewer than even Ont or PQ) but if you ever do spot one in NS, get out of the way!

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

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

For another post elsewhere, I had decided to find out the top 3 new vehicles. They were the Ford F series trucks, the Ram truck and the Rav4. All 3 come with 4x4.
The top 10 are:
10)Nissan Rogue
9) Hyundai Kona
8) Toyota Corolla
7) Honda Civic
6) Honda CRV
5) GMC Serria
4) Chevrolet Silverado
3) Toyota Rav4
2) Ram P/U
1) Ford F series

If those, only 2 don't come with 4x4/AWD.

So, maybe not everyone, but lots of us drive 4x4/AWD
Many people in the bigger cities tend to drive 4x4s due to being afraid of not seeing a plow.

https://driving.ca/column/driving-by...hicles-in-2020

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

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

I was referring to the C-E corridor. HFR at existing speeds ins't good enough, it must be fast.

Originally Posted by milomilo

Once again you have decided to mis-state people's position. Assuming we are talking about Calgary - Edmonton, who has stated HSR is the only option? I said average speed of 110km/h would be the minimum, but you might even get some riders at a 3 hour journey, perhaps even slower.

But that would still be faster than could be achieved using the existing infrastructure.

You have stated it. HFR isn't good enough, it must be faster than the bus and cars.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I find it so funny how in my experience, people drive faster in Ont and PQ than in the Maritimes even though the speed limit here is 110 instead of 100. The first time I drove outside the Maritimes was during a road trip to Niagara falls and when i saw the lower limit I was thinking how nice it would be not to have 90% of people whizzing past me since I usually drive 100 to maximize fuel efficiency. Well i was right. Instead of 90% it was 100% of people zooming by.

I find I was the same way. I feel it is like peer pressure. Someone is going that fast, so I must keep up.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You have stated it. HFR isn't good enough, it must be faster than the bus and cars.

HFR is not a defined word, it's branding from VIA and isn't even accurate. Hourly service is hardly high frequency.

HSR is defined, and is not (necessarily) what I described. 110km/h average speed is not HSR but it would be faster than using the existing infrastructure. Yes rail must be at the bare minimum faster than a bus, otherwise why would anyone take it? Other than railfans. Especially considering it would be very expensive unless subsidized much more than a bus would be.

The only market for a 4+ hour heavily subsidized train journey to not even downtown Edmonton would be poor people with lots of time on their hands that like trains. Not a large market, and not one you provide something very expensive to. They already have something better - buses.

[MolsonExport]

The movement towards bigger/higher trucks is a fucking arms race. Trucks get bigger, so drivers of smaller cars feel like they are dwarfed, and cannot see over the excessively high front grills. So they opt towards higher riding SUVs or trucks. And on it goes. Truckity truck truck truck. It is high time that those driving prickup trucks pay fully for the externalities of their choice. It is a true case of the tragedy of the commons (society accrues the cost whereas the individual accrues the gains).

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Yes, NB drives faster than NS, but the fastest drivers in my experience are from PEI. It's actually kind of rare to see a PEI plate in NS despite the proximity, (far fewer than even Ont or PQ) but if you ever do spot one in NS, get out of the way!

I say this lovingly as an ex PEIslander, but there are no expressways on PEI, and aside from the TCH (speed limit 90 km/hr), all other roads are limited to 80 km/hr or less.

Once an Islander gets on the mainland and is confronted with an actual grade separated limited access divided highway, they tend to go kinda berserk. It's just such a novel experience to them that they feel inclined to push the limits a bit and actually experience the exhilaration of driving.

I agree, Islanders drive really fast on the mainland. I have always noticed this.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I find it so funny how in my experience, people drive faster in Ont and PQ than in the Maritimes even though the speed limit here is 110 instead of 100. The first time I drove outside the Maritimes was during a road trip to Niagara falls and when i saw the lower limit I was thinking how nice it would be not to have 90% of people whizzing past me since I usually drive 100 to maximize fuel efficiency. Well i was right. Instead of 90% it was 100% of people zooming by.

That says more about our ridiculously low speed limits than driving habits. Good design practice says that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile natural speed of drivers on that road.

https://www.ite.org/technical-resour...-speed-limits/

This would probably be 120 kph on the 400 series highways in Ontario. Instead of good design practice, we normalize deviance by setting speed limits ridiculously low and then having the police ignore enforcement. And this is only going to get worse with EVs, as the cost to drive at 120 kph instead of 100 kph will be far less when burning electrons instead of gas, even if the change in efficiency is similar.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The movement towards bigger/higher trucks is a fucking arms race. Trucks get bigger, so drivers of smaller cars feel like they are dwarfed, and cannot see over the excessively high front grills. So they opt towards higher riding SUVs or trucks. And on it goes. Truckity truck truck truck. It is high time that those driving prickup trucks pay fully for the externalities of their choice. It is a true case of the tragedy of the commons (society accrues the cost whereas the individual accrues the gains).

Yep. And sadly while all those vehicles are killing more everyday, there's almost zero discussion on halting the trend towards heavier vehicles. Nobody wants to entertain taxes or surcharges based on GVWR. And it's only going to get worse with EVs which are actually substantially heavier than gasoline/diesel counterparts, yet come with higher acceleration and a lower operating cost. Imagine our roads filled with Cybertrucks 20 years from now. What a dystopian nightmare.

Originally Posted by milomilo

HFR is not a defined word, it's branding from VIA and isn't even accurate. Hourly service is hardly high frequency.

HSR is defined, and is not (necessarily) what I described. 110km/h average speed is not HSR but it would be faster than using the existing infrastructure. Yes rail must be at the bare minimum faster than a bus, otherwise why would anyone take it? Other than railfans. Especially considering it would be very expensive unless subsidized much more than a bus would be.

The only market for a 4+ hour heavily subsidized train journey to not even downtown Edmonton would be poor people with lots of time on their hands that like trains. Not a large market, and not one you provide something very expensive to. They already have something better - buses.

The more I look at the map, the only kind of service that makes sense to me is something akin to an HFR/Commuter hybrid. Any line in Alberta needs intercity speeds, but it also needs more stop than just Red Deer and the two airports. I would think Airdrie, and another stop between Airdrie and Red Deer would be needed for the Calgary commuter shed. And then maybe stops at Lacombe and Wetaskiwin between Red Deer and YEG. I wonder if a 125 mph service with 7 intermediate stops can make it from city centre to city centre in 2.5 hrs.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

That says more about our ridiculously low speed limits than driving habits. Good design practice says that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile natural speed of drivers on that road.

https://www.ite.org/technical-resour...-speed-limits/

This would probably be 120 kph on the 400 series highways in Ontario. Instead of good design practice, we normalize deviance by setting speed limits ridiculously low and then having the police ignore enforcement. And this is only going to get worse with EVs, as the cost to drive at 120 kph instead of 100 kph will be far less when burning electrons instead of gas, even if the change in efficiency is similar.

Anecdotally I've heard of the exact opposite trend with EV owners because while electric power may be cheaper in terms of monetary cost, it's much more expensive in terms of time/effort cost since many EVs have a lower range than ICE vehicles, it takes longer to recharge them even with fast charging, and in many regions there are still fewer places to charge. Of course we don't know how the tend toward increasing EV range and charge speed will pan out, but there's still a ways to go before the average EV can charge for the same potential distance as quickly and easily and an ICE car can refill.

In terms of the speed limits, apparently Ontario and Quebec imposed the 100km/h speed limit during the oil crisis in the 70s specifically to reduce energy consumption and there have been groups pushing to alter it for quite awhile. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, they've just lowered it to reduce emissions.

Personally I don't think it's a bad idea to reduce speed to reduce energy consumption/emissions (not surprisingly considering that i already do it voluntarily) but there's no point without actual enforcement and compliance.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Anecdotally I've heard of the exact opposite trend with EV owners because while electric power may be cheaper in terms of monetary cost, it's much more expensive in terms of time/effort cost since many EVs have a lower range than ICE vehicles, it takes longer to recharge them even with fast charging, and in many regions there are still fewer places to charge.

Sure. But this is still sort of early days where a lot of EVs have around 400 km of nominal range, which turns out to be more like say 300 km if they are driving at highway speeds with air conditioning/heating going, etc. That will change as battery packs getting larger, chargers become more common and charging speeds become faster. Once you get to vehicles with over 500 km nominal range that are capable of charging at over 100 kW, there's zero practical reason to drive like a hypermiling early EV adopter. And we are going to hit this point well before most of the population has an EV. Sometime this decade probably.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In terms of the speed limits, apparently Ontario and Quebec imposed the 100km/h speed limit during the oil crisis in the 70s specifically to reduce energy consumption and there have been groups pushing to alter it for quite awhile. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, they've just lowered it to reduce emissions.

Personally I don't think it's a bad idea to reduce speed to reduce energy consumption/emissions (not surprisingly considering that i already do it voluntarily) but there's no point without actual enforcement and compliance.

None of this is relevant when the roads are designed to be comfortable at 120 kph and the police won't enforce anything below 120 kph.

To get back on topic, VIA most definitely shouldn't be designing any service around the idea that the average driver can be made to drive at 100 kph on the 401. VIA should have gate to gate average speeds on any city pair of 120 kph or higher. That's the only way to be competitive enough to steal modal share from drivers.

[hipster duck]

Back to the subject of HFR alignment, I'm really curious what they plan to do around Peterborough.

I think building a Peterborough bypass is important to the project's success. It won't be cheap, but I think the status quo of routing the line along the Havelock sub through downtown Peterborough will cost tremendous amounts of travel time. It's not just the mandatory stop, but also the fact that the line trundles through a lot of residential neighbourhoods and has many grade crossings at funny angles. Having a mandatory stop will be particularly useless for people traveling westbound from Montreal to Toronto. The number of people who want to disembark in Peterborough from Montreal on any given train can probably be counted on one hand, and it doesn't make sense to have empty seats for 80% of the ride just to pick up the large number of Peterborough riders heading to Toronto.

Here are two significant roadblocks that have to be addressed at the very least with the existing line:

This crossing, at the very least, will have to be grade separated. It's a busy commercial stroad and the crossing is at a weird angle with a busy T-intersection just a few meters away.

This swing bridge over the Trent-Severn waterway is 120 years old and in need of replacement. During the summer months, it's permanently open because of the volume of boat traffic. This will have to be replaced with a high clearance bridge, otherwise trains won't be able to keep a schedule.


My preference would be for a Peterborough bypass that roughly travels along the median of Highway 7 south of the city with a park and ride station roughly here.

Apart from ROW agreements/acquisition, I don't think it will be much more expensive than routing the line through town, and will have better long term benefits. Having a greenfield station also allows for multiple tracks/platforms, allowing for local Peterborough-Toronto service which is really where the vast majority of Peterborough passengers are heading to.

[milomilo]

Going through Peterborough does indeed look like a nightmare. Not having a downtown station would be a mistake too though. It's problems like this that make me skeptical that the option of a a cheap bare bones line really ever existed.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Going through Peterborough does indeed look like a nightmare. Not having a downtown station would be a mistake too though.

Agreed. They have a large city bus garage near where the old station was (now Chamber of Commerce building) that they could repurpose as a bus and HFR and GO terminal.

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's problems like this that make me skeptical that the option of a a cheap bare bones line really ever existed.

This is why the budget went from $4B for bare bones and $2B more for electrification to $10-12B. They need money for bottlenecks like Peterborough, the whole stretch inside Toronto west of the CP yard, the 100 km of straightening they need east of Havelock, and the approaches into and out of Montreal. The new budget and timeline are much more realistic.

The plan also still needs some tweaking in my opinion. Bypassing Ottawa doesn't make much sense. Would be better to just spend a billion or two more and get the 4:15 hr trip time to Montreal they are clearly aiming for. They can clearly do that with a bit more straightening and double tracking. They also need to add stations to the plan. They clearly need one in Markham and another at Dorion.

I hope they end up spending closer to $12B and delivery something that is a bit more robust. Twin tracked most of the way. All the bridges, urban approaches and corridor straightening sorted. That would allow for most of the corridor to run between 100-125 mph. They can leave the grade separation that would bump up speeds to 250-300 kph for later. If you look at the math, it's the slow running in and around the cities that really kills their times. Going from running at say 100 kph instead of 80 kph in Toronto, is much more important than going from 177 kph to 200 kph after Havelock.