And it crosses A LOOOOOOOT of sidestreets just from long branch to clarkson go. And there are only over/underpasses at main roads currently
Who's gonna tell him?
- Thread starter timtune
- Start date
The cheapest and maybe only feasible solution is to cut all the side streets and make them dead ends from both directions. Locals would lose their minds.
I don't know what crash safety measures are required for high speed. It would suck to get donkey punched at 300 km/h while sleeping in your bed.
FTFY
Wife goes Ottawa to Welland every other week on Via rail to visit her dad. Actually, it’s Ottawa to Toronto on Via, then a bus to St Catherine’s and then uber or a friend to Welland. Direct bus to Welland got cancelled a couple of years back. The train is never on time, freight > passengers. When it’s over an hour late, you get a partial credit for future trips. She’s had many “free” trips now. The trains aren’t crowded because of the unreliability, and the high prices. They’re still trying to build extra tracks through Toronto. Let’s get that done, and the trains running on some semblance of a schedule, before we jump ahead and collapse the entire structure.
Stupid's only goal is Virtue signaling and wasting money. He can't promote a single idea that actually has any benefit. Ideas must sound good, sound like they are environmentally friendly and cost billions. That is his entire list of requirements before signing contracts.
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KLR Junkie
Well-known member
3 hours from Toronto to Montreal. That's actually pretty good. Oh, but since I live in Whitby first I have to take a 20 minute bus ride to the GO station then take the GO train from Whitby to Union Station. That adds about 90 minutes, if the bus and the GO are on time. Then when I get to Montreal I'm stuck at the train station with no car so I have to take transit or a cab to where I actually needed to go. So we're up to 4.5 hours to get from my front door to the Montreal train station. Total cost? Depends on how heavily subsidized it is. Maybe $500 at minimum?
Or I could just drive directly to the spot in Montreal that I actually need to be in about the same time using about 35L of gas...
I love trains but this is an idiotic idea. There are many reasons why this project has never gotten beyond the planning phase.
They should add 2 more tracks to the existing freight corridor, leaving one track just for VIA and possibly put some kind of toll on the 401 for trucks to encourage using the train to ship along the Montreal-Toronto corridor. That would take pressure off the highway, reduce emissions from transport trucks and make VIA a much more appealing option for commuters.
Or I could just drive directly to the spot in Montreal that I actually need to be in about the same time using about 35L of gas...
I love trains but this is an idiotic idea. There are many reasons why this project has never gotten beyond the planning phase.
They should add 2 more tracks to the existing freight corridor, leaving one track just for VIA and possibly put some kind of toll on the 401 for trucks to encourage using the train to ship along the Montreal-Toronto corridor. That would take pressure off the highway, reduce emissions from transport trucks and make VIA a much more appealing option for commuters.
Actually the "Lakeshore line" is what they called the trackage they built in the early 1900's that goes through Pickering, North Whitby, Oshawa, Port Hope etc. nearer to the shore of Lake Ontario. The Original line through Peterborough, Havelock, to Ottawa was originally part of the Ontario & Quebec Railway and was part of the original main line across Canada.
There used to be multiple lines crossing east to west in Ontario, including one that ran north of Algonquin park through Madawaska to North Bay carrying "The Canadian", CPR's premier trans Canadian passenger train.
Mad Mike
Well-known member
The sensible thing would be to flush the idea.
That train will need 2 billion trips of if there is $50 ticket - this is a loser proposition any way you look at it. It would be hard to pay off that investment in 200+ years if they captured 100% of the travelers for ViA and every airline that runs those routes.
And at the realistic price of ~$500-1500/ticket, it will be running back and forth empty other than politicians that get free tickets (and even most of them will fly).
Has to be less than driving to make sense and be used 20 a ticket no more. Otherwise if 2 people the car is better.
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While I agree conceptually, VIA is $400+ each way and this will be far more expensive. They could make tickets $20 each to get ridership but taxpayers across the country would be subsidizing $1000/trip in perpetuity. If you write off the $100B+ construction cost ($2500 for every person in canada), operating costs would still be hundreds of dollars per trip. UP Express is $25 return for 22km and used to be much higher but it was a ghost town. So about $1/km return (or maybe $1/minute in one-way?) is the absolute cheapest it could be. There is no possible way this is anything other than an epic boondoggle that costs every citizen thousands so a few liberals can feel good about themselves. Maybe 1% of the population will ever step foot on this thing (and that's being generous).
Yup... they're doing that in Aurora at the Go Station (Grade Separation). Its going to take 3 years of congestion.
Just to accommodate all day Go Train Service (Union<==>Barrie). Which we don't need since Covid anyway.. nor will we ever need it!!
He wasn't in charge of purse strings for that one. This will be the most expensive boondoggle in Canadian history. The coast to coast had to be economically viable and there were no alternative modes of transportation.
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Even their own rosy predictions call for $15 to 27B in economic impact over 60 years. So invest 100B over years minus 10 to zero and get back 15 to 30% (and probably far less) over six decades is beyond insane. That won't even cover the interest on the loan before the whole thing is mothballed.
High-speed rail line would generate billions in economic benefits: report
A new report finds that a high-speed rail link between Toronto and Quebec City could deliver billions of dollars in economic benefits.
www.ctvnews.ca
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In September I booked a Toronto-Montreal-Toronto Via trip for my sister at $300. I booked through CAA as it avoided the Via bingo dial-a-thon.
IMO, under 500 Kms it's as fast to drive once you add in the cavity search, luggage restrictions, airport car rates etc. If Tesla ever gets its Auto-drive fixed you could even catch a snooze without someone in the seat behind you kicking your back.
