Quote:
Originally Posted by thewave46
Hence the concept of ‘rough guide’.
Rail conceptually sucks in Northern Ontario, even with ‘dangerous’ 2-lane highways.
Why? Let me name the ways:
1. High level of automobile ownership, acceptance of the risk of driving, and cultural acknowledgment of driving long distances.
2. Smaller and more dispersed populations that don’t travel much between the various cities within the region. When they do, they often end up in a place that one needs a vehicle to get around.
3. The highest traffic volume highways are being improved.
4. The fact that long-distance bus service was so marginal a business case that the private sector got out of it. It’s now a subsidized government service.
5. The speed advantage of flying over longer distances.
6. Rail cannot serve smaller towns very efficiently.
Passenger rail is optimized for large volumes of passengers moving between higher-density, spaced apart nodes. In short, it is optimally suited for anti-Northern Ontario development patterns.
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1) That is very true. Most own at least 1, and many have a second which is usually a truck. We have these large 4x4 vehicles specifically because of the risks of driving. If there was an alternative, this may not be the case.
2) They would be traveling to the cities of Timmins, North Bay, Sudbury, Ottawa and the GTA. Many of those small towns have rail stations that would connect to some of those places. Some of those places have transit that is/could be connected to the train station.
3) 2+1 is not really an improvement.
4) In bad weather, how much safer us a bus?
5) Reminds me of the time I was flying from North Bay to Victoria. I had booked the first flight out of North Bay so I can get home at a decent time in Victoria. I managed to get on the last flight of the day out of North Bay due to fog. This was just after Christmas. So, flying is not much better than the bus or driving.
6) Most towns along Highway 11 north of North Bay have a station in town.
Multiple trains a day is not likely to be a success, but a train a day may be. We shall see whether it is.