High Speed Train Coming?-split from boosting Canada’s military spending"

[mariomike]

Those high and mighty front ends always get my attention.

 

[Altair]

Those high and mighty front ends always get my attention.

They do for me as well, after watching all the tik toks of people making 1000 dollar plus monthy payments they cannot afford.

I ran into the negative equity trap when my first financed car crapped out on me in year 3 of a financing deal.

I almost paid off my second before it was crashed into, and definately paid off my 3rd and have been buying cars outright ever since. My most recent one I financed for a grand total of 1 month as I waited for an insurance payout, but having learned at a young age how banks and dealerships trap you in the negative equity cycle I promised myself I would not play that game.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Newest year of a car I've ever owned is the 2008 Santa Fe I bought almost 4 years ago.
Hoping to squeeze a few more years out of it...

 

[mariomike]

They do for me as well, after watching all the tik toks of people making 1000 dollar plus monthy payments they cannot afford.

I like watching them roll coal. ( Long as it's not me! )

 

[YZT580]

Transportation between points within a province is a provincial responsibility. Alberta is in the very early stages of their proposal. Once they get into dollars that start with a 'B', it will be interesting to see if they go it alone. I'm not, out of principle, against federal contributions - they do it for all provinces.

The Ontario-Quebec HSR is inter-provincial.

VIA intra-provincial routes are the remaining carry-overs from the routes they inherited from CN and CP.

so never a harmonized system. Bad news and the leftover infrastructure from VIA doesn't extend beyond the corridor. I know that Altair and YTZ have high hopes for this thing but I fear they are leaving most of the market completely out of the picture.

 

[Altair]

so never a harmonized system. Bad news and the leftover infrastructure from VIA doesn't extend beyond the corridor. I know that Altair and YTZ have high hopes for this thing but I fear they are leaving most of the market completely out of the picture.

Most networks already have feeders leading to existing transit hubs in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa.

As for those outside of out of the picture as you put it, they are already out of the picture. So what, because they are out of the picture, everyone else needs to be as well?

Bucket of crabs, eh?

 

[YZT580]

Most networks already have feeders leading to existing transit hubs in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa.

As for those outside of out of the picture as you put it, they are already out of the picture. So what, because they are out of the picture, everyone else needs to be as well?

Bucket of crabs, eh?

The reason for the train going through to BC was to unite all provinces. The same logic can be applied to Perth. It should be part of the consideration of any new transit system and for the same reason: they are part of Canada. 90 billion dollars is a lot of cash especially since it will probably double by the time the first track is laid. EV's are great for short hauls and summer excursions but a person living outside of the HSR stops deserves to be able to utilize a transportation system provided the location has the population to justify it. I mean the idea is to get rid of the ICE, right? Hell, half of the Niagara district, Halton and parallel to hwy 7 out to Guelph used to have tram lines> It doesn't need to be fancy as you are talking short haul but it should be available.

 

[Altair]

The reason for the train going through to BC was to unite all provinces. The same logic can be applied to Perth. It should be part of the consideration of any new transit system and for the same reason: they are part of Canada. 90 billion dollars is a lot of cash especially since it will probably double by the time the first track is laid. EV's are great for short hauls and summer excursions but a person living outside of the HSR stops deserves to be able to utilize a transportation system provided the location has the population to justify it. I mean the idea is to get rid of the ICE, right? Hell, half of the Niagara district, Halton and parallel to hwy 7 out to Guelph used to have tram lines> It doesn't need to be fancy as you are talking short haul but it should be available.

So by your logic, if the Canadian Pacific Railway didn't go all the way to BC, it shouldn't have been built?

 

[lenaitch]

The reason for the train going through to BC was to unite all provinces. The same logic can be applied to Perth. It should be part of the consideration of any new transit system and for the same reason: they are part of Canada. 90 billion dollars is a lot of cash especially since it will probably double by the time the first track is laid. EV's are great for short hauls and summer excursions but a person living outside of the HSR stops deserves to be able to utilize a transportation system provided the location has the population to justify it. I mean the idea is to get rid of the ICE, right? Hell, half of the Niagara district, Halton and parallel to hwy 7 out to Guelph used to have tram lines> It doesn't need to be fancy as you are talking short haul but it should be available.

The reason for 'the train' going to BC was it was one of the 'terms of union' for the colony of BC to join confederation. The land in between, including a lot of Ontario, weren't provinces yet.

You should clarify when you say "transit" whether you mean rail or bus, because many people feel that bus transit, especially inter-urban, is for 'po folk'. If you mean some kind of connectivity with other municipalities and/or orders of transit, then I agree. However, I'm not convinced this needs to be unified at the provincial or certainly not at the federal level. This is a perfect area for sub-provincial governments (counties, regions, etc.) or, at the very least in the case of Ontario, a separate division of Metrolinx for each part of the province.

If you, in fact, mean rail transit, Perth is 6500 people. The logic that it 'deserves' a passenger train could be applied to pretty much every town in the country. That's the way life used to be when rail was the primary mode of travel and commerce. People and freight stopped using it and much of the spiderweb of tracks that used to exist was removed. Maybe people could argue that, by virtue of chance that Perth may be proximate to an HSR route (hint: it likely won't cut right through town like the current CPKC does), the more stops, the worse the overall performance. Maybe not all trains could stop; for a few extra million in infrastructure. Then why not Smiths Falls - it's larger? Why not Tweed - ~6000 (amalgamated)? Why not Sharbot Lake - closer to Kingston?

 

[PrairieFella]

The reason for 'the train' going to BC was it was one of the 'terms of union' for the colony of BC to join confederation. The land in between, including a lot of Ontario, weren't provinces yet.

Point of privilege, MB was a province at that time (1870), the first to join Confederation after the initial bunch. The railroad was started in 1875.

 

[YZT580]

The reason for 'the train' going to BC was it was one of the 'terms of union' for the colony of BC to join confederation. The land in between, including a lot of Ontario, weren't provinces yet.

You should clarify when you say "transit" whether you mean rail or bus, because many people feel that bus transit, especially inter-urban, is for 'po folk'. If you mean some kind of connectivity with other municipalities and/or orders of transit, then I agree. yes However, I'm not convinced this needs to be unified at the provincial or certainly not at the federal level. This is a perfect area for sub-provincial governments (counties, regions, etc.) or, at the very least in the case of Ontario, a separate division of Metrolinx for each part of the province. with Ontario integrating the planning.

If you, in fact, mean rail transit, Perth is 6500 people. The logic that it 'deserves' a passenger train could be applied to pretty much every town in the country. That's the way life used to be when rail was the primary mode of travel and commerce. People and freight stopped using it and much of the spiderweb of tracks that used to exist was removed. Maybe people could argue that, by virtue of chance that Perth may be proximate to an HSR route (hint: it likely won't cut right through town like the current CPKC does), the more stops, the worse the overall performance. Maybe not all trains could stop; for a few extra million in infrastructure. Then why not Smiths Falls - it's larger? Why not Tweed - ~6000 (amalgamated)? Why not Sharbot Lake - closer to Kingston?

good questions. Why not? I am referring to rail, as rail is the route we should follow for giving as many Canadians as possible an option to the PMV. Everyone talks about the volume on the 401. As a regular driver between Toronto and Kingston I can testify to the fact that, except for Friday and Sunday nights in the summer it is down to a reasonable 3 lanes by the 115 interchange. All that congestion is gone so the logical assumption is that the journey of the majority ends around Bowmanville. Relatively few drive the full length. Providing a service along the corridor or encouraging its development and sustainment with a standardized design would be just as beneficial from the carbon standpoint by removing 10 vehicles, each travelling 30 miles as it would be removing 1 travelling the full 300. I would advocate for a planned network of interurbans as Europe has throughout that interlock with those precious few HSR stops using increasingly sophisticated equipment i.e. trams, Budd style cars, trains as distances and potential for speed increase and starting the planning now so that once the routes are verified the network begins to develop.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Newest year of a car I've ever owned is the 2008 Santa Fe I bought almost 4 years ago.
Hoping to squeeze a few more years out of it...

Got my daughter a 2008 Chevy Cobalt last month with only 101,000km on it. It was my brother's father-in-laws who's in his mid-80s and can no longer drive. It was always in the garage and lovely maintained by the old Sicilian CDN who treats everything that he own's like gold.

 

[lenaitch]

good questions. Why not? I am referring to rail, as rail is the route we should follow for giving as many Canadians as possible an option to the PMV. Everyone talks about the volume on the 401. As a regular driver between Toronto and Kingston I can testify to the fact that, except for Friday and Sunday nights in the summer it is down to a reasonable 3 lanes by the 115 interchange. All that congestion is gone so the logical assumption is that the journey of the majority ends around Bowmanville. Relatively few drive the full length. Providing a service along the corridor or encouraging its development and sustainment with a standardized design would be just as beneficial from the carbon standpoint by removing 10 vehicles, each travelling 30 miles as it would be removing 1 travelling the full 300. I would advocate for a planned network of interurbans as Europe has throughout that interlock with those precious few HSR stops using increasingly sophisticated equipment i.e. trams, Budd style cars, trains as distances and potential for speed increase and starting the planning now so that once the routes are verified the network begins to develop.

The 'why not' is largely cost, coupled with population density. Linking communities along the north shore of Lake Ontario, such as VIA does, is a side benefit to the service that connects T-O-M, but at least has a somewhat decent population base. If the question is 'would the area get passenger service if they were not between T-O-M, my answer is I don't know, but suspect not.

However, providing rail service to Teeswater, Killaloe, Plaster Rock or Fort St. John is completely different. Many of those place had passenger rail and, guess what, they fell out of use. If the intent is for public money to both build and operate passenger rail to every burg in the country, I'm afraid my pockets aren't that deep. Canada does not have European population distribution.

Even if it was financially realistic, who's problem should it be? The feds? The provinces? Go Transit's expansion estimate, to either add or improve service feeding the GTA, which largely involves existing corridor work except a new corridor to Bowmanville, is $32Bn. That's to feed one large urban area from no further than 130km.

 

[dapaterson]

Even if it was financially realistic, who's problem should it be? The feds? The provinces?

Calgary to Edmonton is an Alberta problem. A local train within Lloydminster is a federal problem.

 

[YZT580]

The 'why not' is largely cost, coupled with population density. Linking communities along the north shore of Lake Ontario, such as VIA does, is a side benefit to the service that connects T-O-M, but at least has a somewhat decent population base. If the question is 'would the area get passenger service if they were not between T-O-M, my answer is I don't know, but suspect not.

However, providing rail service to Teeswater, Killaloe, Plaster Rock or Fort St. John is completely different. Many of those place had passenger rail and, guess what, they fell out of use. If the intent is for public money to both build and operate passenger rail to every burg in the country, I'm afraid my pockets aren't that deep. Canada does not have European population distribution.

Even if it was financially realistic, who's problem should it be? The feds? The provinces? Go Transit's expansion estimate, to either add or improve service feeding the GTA, which largely involves existing corridor work except a new corridor to Bowmanville, is $32Bn. That's to feed one large urban area from no further than 130km.

the history of a number of those lines suggests sabotage rather than loss of passenger loads. Havelock to Toronto operated full until they changed the times to ensure commuters couldn't use it; just as an example. They said that it was too expensive to keep a station master for one train a day which is true. They could have automated the ticket process however but chose not to. The Port Dalhousie electric died because of the QEW. It was a popular run up until the end but building an overpass and paying the taxes proved to be a bridge too far for the company. I do wonder what impact the greed of local councils has made on interurban. Towns seem to think that transit is a cash cow and they charge for every foot of right of way in town.