micheal_can
Senior Member
Why the focus on Montreal's airports when it is unlikely that ALTO will go to Pearson or Ottawa's airports?
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- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
JasonParis
Moderator
I thihnk ALTO will be designed to eventually serve YYZ. I can't really speak to Ottwa though.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I don't doubt that a phase 2, 3+ could see airport connections. This first phase, I doubt it. And with what has been released, I am more certain of it.
reinventingthewheel
Active Member
I think the working theory is it would be ideal for Air Canada, apart of the Cadence consortium, to free up intl. flight capacity at their airports by redirecting some regional trips onto high speed trains.
Presumably not a priority for first phase.
micheal_can
Senior Member
In 15 years, once the first phase is built, I do not doubt that adding the airports along the route would make sense. This would likely also see a code share with AC. May even include a booking system that includes rail for some of the trip. But, all of this is 15+ years away.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Yes but the reason it was unpopular was because it's in the middle of nowhere. The planned express train from Mirabel to central Montreal was never built, let alone a connection to central Ottawa. Adding a high-speed rail link fundamentally changes the calculus for Mirabel's functionality. The question is really how much expansion YUL needs (if any) and whether that expansion can be accommodated within that airport's compact footprint.Mirabel was supposed to replace Dorval, and ended up becoming a white elephant instead. Lots of companies and people got burned in the process. The experience is now gradually leaving institutional memory, but the history is still recent enough that any effort to relaunch Mirabel would attract significantly more opposition than you might otherwise expect.
The whole thing is also something of a sore point within Quebec: part of the reason this plan failed is that traffic into Montreal declined as the commercial centre of Canada shifted to Toronto. Mirabel was dreamed up in the Drapeau, sky's-the-limit era of Montreal and Quebec's potential, which is part of how it hung on for so long. Closing it down was tantamount to admitting that Toronto had won.
Montréal–Mirabel International Airport - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
JasonParis
Moderator
Which is why I used the word eventually.
Voltz
Senior Member
With Ottawa, there is not much of a point, no one would take the train to Ottawa instead of Montreal to connect with a flight.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Correct. Connections to YUL would be useful to people in both Ottawa and Quebec city. Connections to Pearson via HSR are less obvious. Peterborough yes, but people in Ottawa, I can assure you, don't want a multi-billion dollar system to get them to Pearson. They want a multi-billion dollar system ensuring they never have to go there.
Although personally I think Trudeau is a dump and I'd gladly never set foot in it again.I think the services from Kingston and London/Kitchener on the legacy routes are the ones that should be directed towards Pearson.
McGillicuddy
Active Member
Surely one of the lessons of YUL is that placing multi-billion-dollar bets on where the airline industry will be in 40 years is a mug's game.
crs1026
Superstar
40 years ? Mirabel was declared a white elephant by the time it opened. Its one positive contribution was providing proof that a Pickering airport wasn't needed.
- Paul
generalcanada
Senior Member
I think someone got their expropriation notice lol
ShonTron
Moderator
Michael Schabas has his own idea for high speed rail, in this unsolicited submission. Ignore the spelling errors.
drive.google.com
Alto Conceptual Design and Business Case Schabas.pdf
drive.google.com
micheal_can
Senior Member
I joined a group on FB that I thought would be on ALTO and the benefits of it. It was full of NIMBY. Their thinking is if they do not directly benefit from it, it is a bad thing. I left soon after I realized how negative it was. This picture is from that thinking.
Ignoring west of Toronto,isn't this effectively what has been discussed here?Michael Schabas has his own idea for high speed rail, in this unsolicited submission. Ignore the spelling errors.
Alto Conceptual Design and Business Case Schabas.pdf
View attachment 712091
reinventingthewheel
Active Member
Far too early for expropriations, more likely someone informed (and outraged) by the recent Alto community information sessions.