On June 2, 2014, I appeared on Dale Goldhawk’s radio show talking about both the Murray High Speed Rail plan and the Tory “SmartTrack” scheme. A podcast of the show is available on Goldhawk’s site (running time about 34 minutes).
Even with half an hour, we couldn’t talk about everything including those pesky details that make superficially attractive projects run aground.
[Photo by Zoomer Radio]
Steve Munro 
I would like someone to tell mayoralty candidates that they don’t have to have a “long term” vision for anything at this point. Just be honest and tell the public what you’re going to do in the 2.5 years between consolidating authority and campaigning for another term.
Cheers, Moaz
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Moaz you are bang on. Most important thing they can do, is to get management focused and pulling together. Bus service and street car issues appear to be mostly cultural, and a question of fixes required. As you said before Steve ask them what they can do. Ask the same of each department and a plan of action will emerge, if not a vision.
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Compliments to Steve for fairly accurately describing the HSR scheme and Smarttrack. A few points:
International experience is that frequency is as important as speed for travellers. HSR can run every 30 minutes, while VIA are basically limited to the 4 existing trips via Brantford. They could run more via Stratford but the line is always going to take longer. When Virgin was awarded the West Coast high speed intercity franchise, the requirement was to run 2 trains per hour. Actually, they now run 3 trains per hour to Birmingham AND 3 per hour to Manchester, as well as hourly services to Liverpool and Glasgow. If you don’t believe it, check the timetable.
They don’t run the higher frequency for fun, but because it makes more money.
For access to suburban destinations, experience is that business travellers are happy to take taxis for the “last mile”. Go to any station outside London England and you will see taxis waiting to do this. This is what the London-based business traveller would do, to get to a meeting in Agincourt.
Steve: As a “last mile”, Agincourt is a long cab ride from downtown that, at a guess, would set someone back at least $50 provided that traffic on the Don Valley Parkway was not bumper to bumper. That adds a significant premium to the fare on the HSR. It is actually more likely that someone doing this trip would get off at the Pearson Airport stop and taxi across the top of the city, but it’s still not a cheap ride, especially if done as a “morning commute” to a business meeting.
Steve – you should also be able to figure out the incremental ridership and revenue of the “Smarttrack” line. You can also guess at the operating costs. I think you will discover that the line makes a big operating profit – not enough to pay the whole capital cost, but a significant portion of it.
Steve: A big problem with the SmartTrack proposal is that it is spoken of as initially having only a 15 minute service, but building up in later stages. The infrastructure for 4 trains/hour may not support 10/hour. Also, the degree of “relief” is very dependent on the ridership that is actually diverted off of the primary subway route through Bloor-Yonge, as opposed to net new transit riders who switch to rail because of the attractive new service. When demand estimates are done one line at a time, we don’t see the benefit, for example, of those new transit rides using the GO corridors rather than coming into the subway at a new outer terminal such as the north end of the Scarborough subway or the Richmond Hill extension on Yonge. This is a fundamental, and I believe fatal, flaw in many of the demand estimates we see because they are tailored for a specific project someone wants to build.
Smarttrack and GO RER are entirely compatible – Smartrack just includes a further branch. There are details to be resolved – whether it should all use bilevels and low platforms, or if some lines should be high floor with single deckers.
Not sure whether you meant to refer to the Dufferin Bus, but I am not sure how the DRL would help it either? As I have noted several times, neither Metrolinx nor TTC has never presented any sort of analysis of the benefits of the DRL, simply that it would obviously provide some, unquantified relief to the downtown but at a very high cost.
Steve: In the Toronto election, which from your perch over in London you may not follow in detail, there is a major difference in the campaigns of candidates. Some only promise new expensive lines that may be built in a decade, while others talk about the fact that the TTC badly needs improved service on its surface network. There’s nothing sexy about buses and streetcars, little opportunity for flashy press conferences (or big consulting contracts), but the surface network carries over 60% of total TTC ridership. None of the rapid transit projects does anything for the surface network except in those few cases where a new line is actually built and opens in a corridor that provides an alternate path.
A big problem for rapid transit advocates is that the surface network has a lot of many-to-many trips that do not lend themselves to replacement by a single line with widely spaced stations. If anything, this pattern is growing. A transit plan that ignores the surface network is, at best, half a plan.
The Transit City LRT plan, for all its problems, was supposed to be followed by the Transit City Bus Plan, but that was sandbagged thanks to a jurisdictional spat between the then Chair of the TTC and Council over which body could commit funding for improved service. Council won, and the idea went onto the back burner (it is still on the TTC’s website) awaiting a political climate where running the least service possible was not the primary objective.
SmartTrack is a great basic idea, and makes people talk about more use of GO corridors and, equally importantly, doing so at fares that do not act as a barrier to regular travellers within the City of Toronto. You talk about this line making money, but a lot depends on what we will charge people. If we use your sort of model with high end fares for infrequent, long trips (as in HSR), then anyone can concoct a model that “makes money” while ignoring that this does not address day-to-day transit issues. Please don’t tell me that “people will pay more” because they won’t, and fares are a big issue here. Even modest increases are not welcome, let alone the creation of a premium fare route that almost by definition will not be for everyone.
BTW, there’s plenty of capacity on the Weston rail corridor for both SmartTrack/RER and HSR, and for CP freights. The corridor is 4 track and in many cases 6 tracks.
Steve: Well you should tell that to Metrolinx who want to reserve a separate pair of tracks for UPX (which would be given over to HSR under Murray’s proposal), the KW service and the Milton service (CP) on the assumption that each of these will eventually have frequent enough service to demand their own track. Part of this has to do with Canadian regulations about train separation and the presence of freight traffic in some times and locations along the route.
Murray’s campaign commitment is, as I understand it, to complete an environmental assessment which I think also means also a full Feasibility Study. This would confirm all the estimates, or otherwise . . .
Tax Increment Finance is now being used in London, to fund two large new projects. One is at Battersea, the other Cricklewood. In both cases, the schemes have strong support from the affected major developers. I am not sure if I would trust Rob Ford’s maths, but I think John Tory knows his arithmetic a bit better.
Steve: Actually it’s Tory’s advisors I worry about. Every time someone describes TIF, the areas to be taxed and the type of uplift to be captured are described differently. His own backgrounder specifically talks about land along the downtown rail corridor which is developing quite nicely, thank you, without a DRL or SmartTrack. Only the easternmost part, the proposed development on the Unilever site east of the Don River, could be described in Canary Wharf terms as a difficult site that needs better transit to unlock the potential.
Developers in Toronto fought quite hard recently against increases in Development Charges which are a variation on the same theme. The idea that they should actually help pay for infrastructure required to serve their buildings is utterly foreign to them. What they managed to get was a staged implementation. Adding TIF on top of that would be a political challenge, and I am surprised that Tory’s folks do not understand the land mines lurking in this area.
You should have told me – I would have called in!!
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The folks on the High Speed Rail Canada facebook page aren’t impressed with you…
Steve: The feeling is mutual. A technology looking for a problem, while basic services rot for lack of investment.
There is actually a nice rebuttal by Johannes Urbanski in that thread.
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You look so young Steve!
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Kevin’s comment:
For many people this is true. For many it is not. According to CAA, a typical car driver spends about $10,000 per year on his habit. Even the most expensive of premium fares rarely gets anywhere close to that.
Steve: But the problem is that premium fares hit everyone, and those for whom a car is a larger proportion of their total income benefit from transit provided at “standard” prices.
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Market pricing means higher fares, but also lower fares. Check out the fares on a UK high speed route, say London – Leeds. The highest fares (last minute, morning peak) are higher than air fares (£150 or more), but the cheapest tickets are cheaper than the bus (£15). See my research for the World Bank on Market pricing (the paper is on my website, in English and 中文 (for Barry!). Like air travel, HSR generates lots of empty seats mid-day that can only be sold VERY cheaply. For TKL, fares will probably range from $20 to $200. The average will likely be about $40, because many more people travel on cheap tickets than on expensive ones.
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The problem with this is, that quite often those with the best ability to alter their plans are those who have higher earning or more accumulated wealth. If you look at the people with the least flexibility, it is typically those who are going to work, who are in lower level positions with little or no discretion, and little ability to set work hours.
I am much more likely than those working for me to be able to chose my hours of work, and when I have to meet the clients. Those who are travelling after a lifetime of work (and have made enough to do so) may have significant financial ability, and massive flexibility, the student travelling after exams or for an interview will not have. It is not perforce those that have least ability who are most likely to get best price.
Steve: The fundamental problem with “market” pricing is the assumption that it is “a good thing” rather than looking at the benefit the service is intended to convey both to the user and to the economy by promotion of better travel.
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I am not really convinced that TIF is ever a good idea. However, as I understand it, the idea was originated with brownfield cleanups that facilitated development. The brownfields that were not generating any significant tax revenue were fixed with money raised through debentures that were retired from a portion of the property tax on future development. However, those developments still require police, fire, sewers, park maintenance etc. Where is the money for that if a portion of the tax – assessed at the same level as elsewhere – is paying down the debenture.
In the case of Downtown Toronto, I think one is kidding oneself if one is to believe that it is necessary to build anything in order to assure future property tax income. Once a portion of the property tax is allocated to pay debt, it is not available for all the usual needs.
This scheme is another version of the “we can have it for free” (pay for it by fairy dust) myth that our current politicians who are afraid to tax expect us to swallow. What we need is a fair and complete discussion about the needs of our society and the understanding that societal needs cost money – and that the money comes from citizens through their taxes. (Where paying tax is only one small part of citizenship.)
I learned the framework for all this stuff in Grade 6. What is so complicated that modern citizens cannot understand.
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Yes, the problem with market pricing is sometimes people have to change their spending decisions so as to pay less. You could say the same about food, indeed about any product sold in a market place. The good thing about market pricing is that it makes it possible to deliver a wide range of products and services. It would be nice if everything in the world could be free, and everyone just take what they want or “need”. Alas, in the real world one needs price signals to match supply and demand. Without market pricing, the stores would be empty. And without market segmentation, few planes would fly. With market pricing, we can have a bigger rail industry too.
Steve: Now you really have stepped off the edge of a transit debate into a rather contemptuous attitude of those who believe that the market will fix everything. I never said that things should be “free”, but if we are going to invest a lot of public money in infrastructure, it should be everyone, not just those who can and will pay a premium.
There is a contextual problem here too. We are in the midst of an election and transit is one of many big issues. The ability of people to move around the GTA is and must be dealt with as more than a question of who can afford to pay a premium fare. When we shift to an HSR to London, it straddles the line of a moderately long distance aimed primarily at a business market and a shorter (and less “H”SR) trip from Kitchener-Waterloo by commuters. If the Liberals were not desperate to get votes in this corridor, the HSR would not even be on the table. As it is, the proposal only showed up as a one-paragraph mention in a background paper, not as a major election commitment.
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Ah, yes. The inevitable unwillingness to admit something won’t be profitable after it has been spun and sold to the politicians on that fictional basis. Here are two recent articles that seem germane to this discussion. The first concerns the travails of the “profitable” HSR operation in densely-populated Taiwan.
Then, there’s the unprofitable, publicly-supported Pacific Surfline in southern California, which has been developed incrementally by Amtrak, Caltrans and various local government agencies.
Which one fits the physical and financial realities of Ontario?
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Neither fits the financial and physical realities of Ontario, obviously. As someone who has done financial analysis of dozens of real-life railways all over the world, I know that you can’t tell just by looking – you need to study the specific situation and opportunity. Taiwan HSR carries 120,000 passengers each day, and was built with private money. It has become the transport backbone of Taiwan. At this point, it has received no public subsidy, nor is likely to require any, at least for operations. The Pacific Surfliner carries about 8,000 per day, about 5% of the Taiwan traffic, and I think fares cover about half of the operating costs and none of the capital costs. California has something like 30 million people. The Surfliner may be popular with a niche market, but for transport, it is irrelevant.
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If you do the arithmetic, you will figure out that the Taiwan HSR system has annual revenues of NT$36 billion (C$1bn) and operating profit of about NT$12 bn ($300m). This sounds like pretty big profit to me!! The problem is that the $300m is not enough to pay off the capital cost of the system, which I think was about $18 billion. The line is 345 km long, and mostly elevated or in tunnel. TKL will be only 180km, with no long bridges and no tunnels. Half will be along existing rail corridors. If you look at phase 1 of the French LGV-Est, you will find a post-project audit that gives numbers consistent with building TKL for about $2 – $3 bn. Sorry to be so boring.
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I am a strong believer in market pricing. However, there are notable exceptions where I do not want market pricing. Wherever there is a clear monopoly and real monopoly power exists I am uncomfortable if the monopoly does not face some form of pricing regulation (also true for a duopoly or close oligopoly). In the face of perfect or even reasonable competition or a market with easy entrance and exit, I would generally be happy to have goods priced by the market.
Also we need to look at who the provider is, and why the actual service is being provided. One would expect in the case of transit that there are strong reasons social reasons other than profit for the provider to be in the business as they are an arm of the government.
The ability of crown corporations to operate as normal market profit seekers is extremely dubious (otherwise the TTC would have addressed the loss of ridership due to headway management issues quite some time ago). There are also major third party impacts in terms of the choice between transit and car. So I would have real concerns about using market pricing mechanism for transit, I am somewhat less concerned with regards to HSR, but there would still be questions in terms of KW to Toronto. There are substantial social benefits of getting people on trains, these benefits only very partially accrue to the user. While economically appropriate raising road pricing and creating variable road pricing is likely still well beyond the political pale in Ontario.
For transit I can still see creating on and off peak pricing, but be aware that regardless of how this is done, in the province of Ontario, where there is no history of it, and no competitive providers or real market, this will be a political fudge, not real market pricing.
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Is this HSR meant to be a public product (good and service) or a private product (service)?
If it is a private product then by all means … have market pricing but use private financing to secure the rail corridor and build the line on the parts not owned by CN and Metrolinx, obtain track warrants from CN and Metrolinx on lines owned by them, pay for the cost of electrification infrastructure (or share it with Metrolinx and rent access to the overhead) … marketing, sales, HR, etc.
Once all those costs are paid for what do you think the ticket price will be, to cover costs and make a profit for the investors?
If this line is a public good and public service then “market pricing” is not really an option … because the product will eventually be controlled by the government, either directly or indirectly.
Cheers, Moaz
P’s. It’s funny but last month Malaysia’s National Infrastructure Company (the company set up to bail out the unprofitable operations of 2 private rail companies and 2 unprofitable bus companies) celebrated their 10th anniversary … and they also took over the unprofitable monorail company in December 2007. Just an example to show that private financing and market pricing (followed by deep discounts in the hopes of getting more passengers) rarely work out.
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If you just adjusted the route of the western portion of SmartTrack to run parallel to the airport rail link spur to Pearson and Airport Corporate Centre, then Tory’s plan makes sense. I don’t think that running along Eglinton is physically possible. Given that the remaining portion of Eglinton between the airport and Black Creek has little development along it, there is no need for the Eglinton line to go west of Black Creek.
Steve: The whole point of the Eglinton line running westward was to use the available right-of-way to provide a fast trip west to the airport (not just the corporate centre). This is somewhat compromised by the fact that some of the surplus land has been sold and developed, but this has a bigger effect on Tory’s proposal which requires a dedicated depressed right-of-way similar to the Yonge subway north of Rosedale Station, not just two tracks plus platforms.
I agree that Tory’s line should take the northern route up to the airport, but there are many claims on the use of that spur, and the UPX is the centrepiece of government plans at least until the Pan Am Games are out of the way. It, and the tracks it will use, need a complete rethink, but that is impossible in the current political environment.
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The problem with the Weston Corridor is that:
1) The CP tracks are for all intents and purposes unusable because it is CP’s main line to western Canada so throw those two tracks out.
2) Metrolinx has given two of the remaining three tracks to the Union Pearson Express link. That leaves only one track to handle GO, VIA, Smart Track, HSR, and the odd freight into Malton and north Etobicoke.
Please tell me how you are going to get Transport Canada to allow more trains on this one track, or on all three if you can get UPEx from monopolizing their two, given the current, antiquated operating rules when there will be basically no freights between Union and Woodbine. Anyone with a grade six education can figure out that there is lots of room for more trains until TC says that you must follow their rules.
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Many Transport Canada rules will need to be reviewed or revised if Canada is to have a modern passenger railway system. A move towards UIC standards seems the best route. It will need to be done without compromising the efficiency of freight railway operators. Watch this space for details!
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French Railways are state owned and operated, while UK Railways are privately operated but franchised by the state. Both operate sophisticated market pricing systems. Both have state regulation of key fares. Generally, it is the higher fares that are regulated. In the UK, the majority of intercity passengers purchase un-regulated fares that are actually CHEAPER than the regulated fares. Many fares in the UK are actually cheaper than the cheapest fares on similar trains in China! Read my article in Railway Gazette – “Without Market Pricing, half the benefits of HSR are wasted” and on my website . Market pricing is better for passengers and for taxpayers. The only “losers” are business travellers, who pay high fares to travel at the last minute, but they at least are able to get a seat when they want it.
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Why do the so-called justifications and excuses coming from this dream scheme’s chief proponent have the unmistakable aroma of flop sweat? This plan will simply collapse under its own weight. It would be more productive if the provincial mandarins and consultants du jour went looking for the bucks required to get a substantially improved conventional service running in southwestern Ontario in the near term. The feds and the province might want to reconsider the $300 million they earmarked for the politically-motivated Peterborough rail passenger project, which is still a long way from even producing the analysis that would justify the expenditure.
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Greg – you have been a faithful advocate of rail, but please learn to do arithmetic, and maybe even read a book about Cost:Benefit analysis. You say the Peterborough passenger rail scheme would cost $300m. Can you quantify any benefits that it might bring? If the benefits are less than $300m, it should not be built. Passenger rail will not move into the 21st century relying on charity from Government. It needs $billions of investment, as it has in other countries. This requires imagination and rigorous evaluation, not insults.
Steve: I believe that Greg was saying that the $300m for Peterborough might be better spent elsewhere. This line had political traction only when local MPs in positions of influence supported it. One has died (the former Finance Minister) and the other lost his position close to the PM. That said, I believe that the inner part of the corridor deserves serious study because it passes through northeastern Scarborough and the middle of Durham Region. But all the way to Peterborough over an abandoned line? No.
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The portion of this that I would be concerned about would be the fact that this is not really a true “market price”. This is a well understood, monopolistic pricing model, with design to specifically use differential pricing to capture as much of the consumer “surplus” as possible. The concerns I would have here would be
1. Whether GO would actually be able to carry off the political game, in that they would also be charging other last minute travellers high fares.
2. The pricing would be low enough, given the low relative costs of road use. From an economics perspective ideally we would also be charging a congestion charge (similar to the £10 one in London $18) for road use at peak that would push more riders to rail, however, this is not likely to be suggested by any party other than the Green Party, or someone else more interested in making a point than getting elected.
I cannot help but think a very large portion of the traffic on this line will come from KW-Cambridge, which would benefit nearly as much from improved GO. The vast majority of the benefit of this service will accrue to other drivers who are bound for areas beyond the Core, where transit would be impractical, and a taxi prohibitive. You remove 15% of traffic, you can completely restore flow.
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Just to clarify, unless you are referring to the Don branch, CP currently runs 6 trains a week (3 in each direction) over the line. The improved speed for freight traffic is one of the selling points for the project.
Steve: Mea culpa. The portion to Peterborough would need upgrading for passenger service. The question is whether the service should go that far on day one, or establish the benefit of a route from the northeast, but closer in, first.
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I can do arithmetic, Michael, but you seem to be having trouble reading. As Steve said, I was involved in that stupid Peterborough project and I am totally against it. The $300 million contributed 50-50 by the feds and the province should go into a cooperative VIA southwestern Ontario improvement program.
A good place to start would be through the purchase of some modified Bombardier bi-level equipment, such as BiLevels, MultiLevels or Superliners, all of which the company can deliver at about $4 million per car and with substantial domestic economic spinoff. All of these cars are good for 100-mph push-pull service and that’s all we need until such time as funds can be secured for serious infrastructure improvements and revisions.
As I said in my Toronto Star article and I will be saying in upcoming reports for two MPs, citizens are sick of snake oil salesmen promising miracles for tomorrow when they just want something reliable and affordable today.
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@Greg Gormick;
So tell us Greg, What do you really think? I have never read such a concise and complete response to a snake oil salesman. Keep it up.
Robert Wightman
Steve: I would not go quite so far as to use the term “snake oil”. The basic problem here is that we are being sold a “solution” to the wrong problem, and it is crowding discussion of things we really need off of the table. And if there is a “salesman” here, it is the Minister, not his consultant.
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I’ll ignore the insults. A quarter of a million passengers each day travel on railways I have helped to plan and build. How about you, Greg?
I am absolutely stunned that Steve has so many readers who seem not to want to support plans to invest the $billions that are needed to give Ontario the rail system it needs, if there is to be an alternative to building more roads. The solution Greg favours, upgrading existing lines, will have negligible impact even if it might attract a few enthusiasts. I will see you guys at the inaugural run of the TKL HSR, probably around 10 years from now. Signing off for now – it’s been swell, as they say! I will try and respond to intelligent questions from people who have first checked their facts.
Steve: I suspect you will be old and grey, Michael, before you take that inaugural ride. The number of schemes that have been politically buried in Ontario over the decades left a lot of people figuratively standing at the platform waiting for a first train that never came. Saying “I did it an you didn’t” ignores the huge difference between the environments in which systems you worked on were built and the situation in southern Ontario. If you can’t see that this is a combination of a sop to the London area to make them feel like the government is doing something about economic downturn, and a Ministerial trip into technological fantasy that will be stillborn the moment he moves to another portfolio, you don’t understand the political lie of the land.
Meanwhile, some of is would just like to see some credible improvements that can actually be built and used as an example of what can be done if we make it even better. We are not starting from a continent full of frequent, fast rail service (never mind “high speed”) and a general belief that rail can accomplish great things.
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The tragedy of this is that time is being wasted when we can least afford it. The mobility problems of southwestern Ontario are growing daily and they contribute to making the region an unappealing location for investment, particularly by the high-tech sector. When the theatre operators in Stratford have to operate what is essentially their own bus line to counteract this disease and partially fill the gap created by VIA’s service reductions, then you know we’re in big trouble. We should prepare for more.
Buried in a recent VIA report is the news that the corporation is facing a funding shortfall of $582 million over its 2013-2017 planning horizon, as well as a cut of $19.6 million in FY 2014. We should be concerned when the same VIA report says that frequencies on its current network are not sustainable. Chop, chop.
Meanwhile, that $300 million for Peterborough’s Slimy Waters Railway (as my CPR colleagues have taken to calling it) sits in federal and provincial hands doing no one any good, while Glen Murray & Co. muse about HSR.
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I think the bigger question is whether it can compete with the 407 which will open to highway 115/35 before the Peterborough rail service starts.
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I think at this juncture we need to focus our limited provincial resources in the area that had the biggest issues.
Release the UPX to high frequency local service. Fix the tracks as required to west of Kitchener and get frequency and speed on the line up. Sure run an hourly Budd car type service at say 160kph to London. The line maintenance should be done anyway.
Basic BRT & LRT are required to make rail work. How about we get the basic services working so we can make inter city really work and set the base for HSR. HSR is a service we should desire. Michael the skepticism is based on how big a leap it would be. Rail needs to get back basic credibility before we attempt a great leap. Yes HSR is a great service, but it will suffer from being viable in only one or two corridors in Canada. Eventually HSR should work Chicago-Montreal, and this would include London to Toronto. Right now this would be an easier sell. However for now Provincial money needs to stay focused on more transit issues.
It is important to discern which level of government should be involved as well. Federally on a larger scale tied to US project sure. This is an added complication in North America.
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So, I guess we poor colonials have now been put in our places. Speaking of inaugural runs, I’m still waiting to buy my ticket for the first trip of the Peterborough Rocket, which a certain Conservative MP, seconded by a Liberal MPP, said would occur on July 1, 2014. I rest my case, Your Honour.
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Perhaps I went too far but given the amount of money that would be required to build an operate it versus the actual benefit that would result I am afraid is very open to debate, especially when we cannot see the studies. Given the study of TTC and Metrolinx that was done for Neptis and the basic errors of fact in this one can anyone wonder why there are so may skeptics around.
There is only a finite amount of money around and its use has to be prioritized wisely. I do not believe that HSR to Kitchener and London that by passes Guelph and Stratford not to mention Hamilton, Brantford and Woodstock does not, in my opinion, meet those criteria. Tell me, why where those towns by passed? I know Hamilton, Brantford and Woodstock where on the wrong line and Guelph and Stratford were inconvenient and don’t have the right characteristics to qualify. What are the characteristics needed to be on the priority list?
Steve: Kitchener and London are priority ridings. Remember Scarborough East?
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Lost in all of this HSR trumpeting is how much power these trains take; such power will require a lot of power generation, which might have to come from nuclear power-which was got rid of by the Liberals in favor of gas plants which were then in turn canceled! Where will the juice come from for the trains in this new project?
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This sounds off-topic and has the tone of election campaign rhetoric. However, your statement is incorrect. The Liberals did not eliminate nuclear power: they eliminated coal power. Yes, the Oakville and Mississauga gas plants were cancelled, and new gas plants are planned for Sarnia and Napanee. So plans are still in place to increase generating capacity.
You can argue whether or not the government made good decisions, but let’s get the basic facts correct.
Steve: I have found it amusing that among some “green” advocates, the matter of “dirty electricity” comes up whenever they don’t happen to like a subway, LRT or rail project. The issue with any public transport project is the tradeoff between the energy a new or improved line will consume, and the savings in gasoline/diesel by motorists who switch to transit, or possibly don’t even buy an extra car in the first place. If there is something wrong with a project including its cost, location, business case, environmental impact of construction, then argue these points directly.
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Maybe we can harness all the hot air that constantly comes from the provincial politicians of all stripes on transportation promises such as this one.
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Sad to see so much negativity here. Where is the vision, the optimism? Toronto is now something like the 4th largest conurbation in NA. We’ve grown by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. But our rail (urban and intercity) hasn’t kept up. Could such attitudes be part of the reason?
Kudos to M. Schabas for his unfailing civility in the face of unrelenting pessimism and uncalled-for attacks.
Steve: The problem with the HSR proposal is that we would attempt to leap to 1st tier status for one rail corridor when we can barely make 3rd, let alone 2nd for rail travel generally. We may be the 4th largest conurbation, but one HSR line does not, repeat does not, give us a first class network.
There is a long, sad history in these parts of being conned into blowing a fortune on one “solution”, but losing sight of the overall goal. HSR has its place, but I believe that relative to other needs it is being oversold here.
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I’m sure there are also a few corpses getting some decent RPM’s as a result of the political incompetence on the transit file that we could tap as well.
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@TG I am with Steve. I would note that he responded to me nicely, but the suggestion that fixing a leaky roof and doing major renovations simultaneously is OK (see previous thread) is much like this notion. Basic transit is a must to get the GTHA and thereby Ontario moving. One of the worries we should all have is spending all of a small kitty on a want when a need goes unfilled (my concern with most current subway notions as well).
HSR is a marvelous idea but should [be] well down the list and to make it really work we need it to be part of a larger network which ultimately will require a federal sponsor and both an inter-provincial and international link.
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After nearly a half-century, we have failed to even move to that third tier of rail passenger service, as highlighted by Steve. First, we got the star-crossed CN Turbo. Then, the Liberal-mandated LRCs instead of conventional 125-mph equipment, as had been recommended by CP and CN. Finally, we’ve had all those overpriced HSR studies by various public agencies and private sector types, such as CP, Air Canada and Bombardier.
How many times do we have to tell the waffling politicians to just get on with conventional, incremental improvements? Beyond its 150-mph Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is now operating conventional trains over portions of the NYC-Buffalo, Detroit-Chicago and Chicago-St. Louis lines at 110 mph; more will soon arrive.
Meanwhile, Canada continues to get diverted by starry-eyed plans like this one from Minister Murray.
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Hilariously, the LRC is the closest thing Canada ever had to conventional, incremental improvements. The tilting technology, which does work and is still used elsewhere, allows trains to take curves at higher speeds without rebuilding railway corridors to broaden curves. What killed the LRC is that MLW/Bombardier decided to cut cost by taking an existing diesel engine design for the locomotive and push it to the limits resulting in poor locomotive reliability. That’s why the cars are still around, with their tilting system deactivated since it’s useless without a locomotive with tilting technology, while the last locomotives were retired 15 years ago.
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These counter-arguments are really confusing. Incremental change?! Are people really suggesting, since we have not had any improvements over several generations, that we need to go through each one in order rather than move directly to the most advanced? The analogy was that it makes FINANCIAL sense to get a whole new roof rather than patch 20 leaks if you’ve neglected it for so long.
A network has to start somewhere. Yes, my feelings also are that HSR should definitely be planned within a continental network context. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get started right here and lead the way. Someone has to get the ball rolling. The US has HSR plans. We used to be leaders. Nowadays, that’s debatable. Such myopia and poverty of imagination. I despair.
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