micheal_can
Senior Member
In this polarized world, everything has become polarized. It should come as no surprise that ALTO would be drawn in, whether they wanted to be or not. Had they not been dragged in, I would have been shocked.
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- Thread starter innsertnamehere
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picard102
Senior Member
Maybe projects like this shouldn't take 3-4 years to get anywhere.
Thaboss
Active Member
It's par for the course in canada for even remotely controversial ideas.
See opposition to even the idea of a pipline to the west coast.
See opposition to socialized housing.
See opposition to chinese cars.
See opposition to gentle densification in big cities.
See opposition to anything BUT a tax cut for anyone.
See opposition to even the idea of Ontario place redevelopment. (Before details of the plan came out)
See opposition to bike lanes in montreal.
I'm not saying all the above are good ideas but there's no doubt that large sections of the canadian populous has a history of very much conservative behavior towards development.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
Was obvious it was going to get politicized when the price tag was announced. The nature of Canada. OAS is at $80B/yr going to $100B/yr by 2030. You won't hear a peep about that. Doesn't start phasing out till $90k and phases out at $140k. We would rather give seniors with six figure incomes beer money than give our grandkids proper infrastructure.
But the project office didn't help themselves with this Southern route out of nowhere. And then these 10 km wide corridors. So now there's easily 20x the number of people thinking their land is at risk than there actually is. Just driving up opposition.
Northern Light
Superstar
While we completely agree on the substance of the above; clawing back OAS from higher earners actually polls well.
It is getting some media attention as well (multiple pieces in the Globe) and I think its more a question of political cowardice and/or indifference than broad public opposition.
I also think when you look at how many 'big' ideas poll, Canadians show a lot of openness to them. Of course, there is invariably some opposition to every idea; but again, there's a need to be bold; but also to 'sell' why something is worth higher taxes or some other type of sacrifice (disruption, cuts to other programs etc.)
Northern Light
Superstar
@Thaboss I'm not sure I see things the same way. Don't get me wrong, all of the things you've listed below certainly attract some measure of opposition, but everything does. Do you want pineapple on your pizza? Some people would oppose that. Still, you can get pineapple on your pizza if you want.
Which is to say, you have to understand why opposition exists in each case, how formidable or widespread it is; determine if it can be mollified (at reasonable expense), and/or, where the idea merits, you push ahead.
Let me try this below:
I think opposition to TMX was actually quite low, the route already existed, (pipeline twinning) and the coastal end already had a large commercial port and tankers.
Opposition is higher to a more northerly terminal where tankers of heavy crude are currently banned for risk of habitat destruction, and where relatively more unspoiled habitat exists.
That doesn't mean we don't consider building a new pipeline; but certainly, I think we go the low opposition route first, because the arguments for same are compelling above and beyond less squawking. You don't need the same degree of new infrastructure, construction is easier, and cheaper.
We also do want to consider, part of Canada's lagging productivity is that we don't refine a large part of what we export, (likewise in other segments were we're at the low value end of the chain); and that we might actually do better economically by constricting supply than goosing it.
See current supply disruption from Iran resulting in much higher prices and profit for Canadian companies and government. What if we didn't try to get it all out the door as fast as possible at a bargain basement price?
This tends to occur in North America, because its associated with slums/crime. This often isn't fair or true. No one draws this association in Vienna. In large part, because they hire great architects and build mixed income buildings where market rent units support subsidized units, and they are often desirable places to live, for people with means.
Build the same thing here, see the opposition fade.
I haven't see any mass opposition, I've seen Unifor lobbying against; we haven't heard the details of any proposal, but I'd imagine that even if Stellanitis continued to own the Brampton factory, that they would consider this a new venture, and not feel a need to honour the union agreement of all the laid off workers.
I could understand why that might rankle some folks.
We have lots of examples of the above that have generally sailed through, great architecture that doesn't stand out like a sore thumb moots a lot of opposition. So does talking to the immediate neighbours before a public announcement or lawyers letters.
Again, I think polls show people here would vote for a tax hike, IF they believed that it would address one or more important issues and the money would be well spent and achieve the promised result. Rarely do politicians provide such a choice.
As example, the very anti-tax United States (as a whole, both real and reprieved) Saw California voters in a referendum support a sales tax hike and bonds to support high speed rail and LA voters supported a tax hike for more subways.
The former may be having regrets due to a project that is years late and wildly over budget; but when people were told 'If you give us this much, we can deliver this" The vote was 'here, take our money'.
Well, that's understandable, trusting Doug Ford is a non-starter, and the resulting scheme verifies same.
Which is to say, you have to understand why opposition exists in each case, how formidable or widespread it is; determine if it can be mollified (at reasonable expense), and/or, where the idea merits, you push ahead.
Let me try this below:
I think opposition to TMX was actually quite low, the route already existed, (pipeline twinning) and the coastal end already had a large commercial port and tankers.
Opposition is higher to a more northerly terminal where tankers of heavy crude are currently banned for risk of habitat destruction, and where relatively more unspoiled habitat exists.
That doesn't mean we don't consider building a new pipeline; but certainly, I think we go the low opposition route first, because the arguments for same are compelling above and beyond less squawking. You don't need the same degree of new infrastructure, construction is easier, and cheaper.
We also do want to consider, part of Canada's lagging productivity is that we don't refine a large part of what we export, (likewise in other segments were we're at the low value end of the chain); and that we might actually do better economically by constricting supply than goosing it.
See current supply disruption from Iran resulting in much higher prices and profit for Canadian companies and government. What if we didn't try to get it all out the door as fast as possible at a bargain basement price?
This tends to occur in North America, because its associated with slums/crime. This often isn't fair or true. No one draws this association in Vienna. In large part, because they hire great architects and build mixed income buildings where market rent units support subsidized units, and they are often desirable places to live, for people with means.
Build the same thing here, see the opposition fade.
I haven't see any mass opposition, I've seen Unifor lobbying against; we haven't heard the details of any proposal, but I'd imagine that even if Stellanitis continued to own the Brampton factory, that they would consider this a new venture, and not feel a need to honour the union agreement of all the laid off workers.
I could understand why that might rankle some folks.
We have lots of examples of the above that have generally sailed through, great architecture that doesn't stand out like a sore thumb moots a lot of opposition. So does talking to the immediate neighbours before a public announcement or lawyers letters.
Again, I think polls show people here would vote for a tax hike, IF they believed that it would address one or more important issues and the money would be well spent and achieve the promised result. Rarely do politicians provide such a choice.
As example, the very anti-tax United States (as a whole, both real and reprieved) Saw California voters in a referendum support a sales tax hike and bonds to support high speed rail and LA voters supported a tax hike for more subways.
The former may be having regrets due to a project that is years late and wildly over budget; but when people were told 'If you give us this much, we can deliver this" The vote was 'here, take our money'.
Well, that's understandable, trusting Doug Ford is a non-starter, and the resulting scheme verifies same.
StreetcarRider
Active Member
Just wanted to note the Regent Park redevelopment as an example. There are criticisms, of course, but that neighbourhood is so much different and better than it was before.. If something like the new Regent Park was proposed elsewhere in the city, my guess is that people would generally support the social housing part of it and focus the complaints on the usual things (height, density, traffic, etc)..
zang
Senior Member
No, we would rather avoid taxing the rich to the levels we did in the past when we could afford to properly fund transit, build infrastructure, fund social programs, etc. We can afford to do all of it, if we stop pretending capital flight really happens, and put the interests of society ahead of corporations and the ultra rich.
Aside from that, means testing anything is ridiculous. Yes, give the rich OAS, too. Just tax it back from them. Otherwise, you're giving an arbitrary level that can be actively cut, or passively reduced with a failure to adjust for inflation. See; The number of people currently on the Sunshine List for how BS like that works.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Ya, I don't know why they don't start a team of bulldozers from east and west and meet in the middle, followed by navvies hacking down trees along the way for ties and laying rail that is just piled in warehouses somewhere.
McGillicuddy
Active Member
I can sympathize with the fact that it does take years to get a project up and running.
But let's not forget: the government spent the better part of a decade dicking around with High Frequency Rail before they "committed" to this. If they'd arrived at a definite conclusion a few years earlier, the project might now be quite uncancellable.
But let's not forget: the government spent the better part of a decade dicking around with High Frequency Rail before they "committed" to this. If they'd arrived at a definite conclusion a few years earlier, the project might now be quite uncancellable.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Exactly. Trudeau did basically nothing on HFR during his entire first term. Then funded a Project Management Office to do a few hundred million worth of studies. And then during his second term? Funding priority was setting up the Infrastructure Bank. It didn't become Alto until his third term.
He basically did exactly what Kathleen Wynne did in Ontario with HSR. Talking about like be was serious but did nothing of substance for years. It's unfortunate that we don't have a choice because the Opposition Party is outright opposed to this.
ericmacm
Active Member
It is also worth remembering that the feds launched the RFQ for VIA-HFR in 2023, but only publicly pivoted to Alto HSR in February 2025. We are effectively only ~1 year into the process of the project being HSR right now. There were suggestions that the bidding consortia under the VIA-HFR process were pushing the government to be a bit more ambitious with their plans due to cost and value of HFR vs HSR and this is the result of that. I believe they should have targeted HSR right from the start, but it is what it is.
At the end of 2026 I think we will get a better idea of how quickly we are actually going to be moving, and the subsequent political immunity of the project down the line. What is going to make or break this project, in my opinion, is what they are able to get done during the development period through to 2029. Alto is slated to finalize the route this year and ramp up property acquisition immediately. The end goal of the development period is apparently a 50% design as per their corporate plan summary. The summary also indicates that they will be pursuing construction in city pairs (as evidenced by Ottawa-Montreal taking precedence) so I think it’s possible that a “50% design goal” won’t be distributed evenly (i.e., that first segment reaching a more advanced design of >50% while the others are not as advanced). If this is able to happen, the project will be in good shape.
It is also important that formal construction doesn’t start until certain design milestones are reached, so we don’t want them jumping the gun. This has been one of the key failures in HS2 and CAHSR that led to improper de-risking and unrealistic cost estimates, amongst others, and fortunately for us, it seems our approach is going to be slightly different based on the pre-construction design target. There are also other provisions in how the feds are approaching the project (jurisdiction simplification to federal only, right of first refusal for land sales within the corridor, expropriation rights, as-of-right CTA approval, and segmenting of Impact Assessment jurisdiction by city pairing) that have me extremely optimistic on how far they will be able to progress.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
This post is a prime example of the Canadian Exceptionalism attitude that causes Canada to lag behind other developed countries in rail transportation, I'm sorry to say. Rather than acknowledging that there are things we could learn from other countries, it just goes on a diatribe about how different the Netherlands is from Canada with the implication that we couldn't possibly learn anything from their rail operations.
The case I was making was:
The fact that the Netherlands is denser than Canada does not change the fact that 1-2 trains per hour is only about 10% of the capacity of a high speed line. Just because the exact service pattern used in the Netherlands doesn't make sense in Canada doesn't mean that we should completely dismiss the possibility of using the multi-billion-dollar high speed line for more than just a couple long-distance trains per hour.
As @crs1026 described, the demand from Peterborough to Toronto is inherently greater than the demand from Ottawa to Peterborough, especially during peak periods, so the basic HSR service pattern either needs to leave some Peterborough-Toronto demand unserved, or carry a bunch of empty seats between Peterborough and Ottawa.
Regional rail stations in the northeastern GTA with a high-speed connection to downtown would generate substantial commuter demand, given how much faster the train would be than driving, especially during peak periods. Even with stations in the middle of nowhere, the stations would generate a sizeable commuter demand that would otherwise go completely unserved by Alto. Keep in mind for example, that Pickering is undergoing an enormous urban expansion northward.
I can't claim with complete certainty that there is a good business case for a Peterborough-Toronto high-speed regional service, but given the significantly greater population density around that portion of the line I think it is irresponsible to dismiss the possibility without a more serious look. The federal government may not be interested in serving commuter demand in the GTA, but it seems like something the Province should consider once the Alto alignment becomes a bit more concrete.
Here's a concept for a high-speed regional service that could be considered:
And in the initial Ottawa-Montreal HSR segment, there is an obvious opportunity to build rail connections to Alto's proposed Mount Royal tunnel to give the existing Mascouche and St-Jérome Exo lines a direct connection to downtown. The cost of those connecting tracks is almost certainly justified by the benefit that would be created by those links.
The Netherlands fills 1 to 2 high speed trains per hour, which is exactly the same as Alto's proposal. So if 1-2 trains per hour isn't enough demand to justify HSR, then HSR doesn't make sense in Canada either.
Unlike Alto, the Netherlands also uses their high speed line to allow conventional services to travel at 200 km/h. It is the only place where Dutch regional trains travel at speeds of over 140 km/h. Besides, Canada also has regional trains travelling at 150 km/h and intercity trains travelling at 160 km/h so the existence of fast conventional trains is not a distinction between Canada and the Netherlands.
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crs1026
Superstar
Peterborough might justify a stub from HSR onto the existing CPKC line to achieve a downtown terminal for a commuter line.... or even extend further east to a terminus east of Peterborough, collecting from the highways to the north/east without bringing cars/buses into central Peterborough, (I wonder what the pro/con split among Peterborough residents will be when they discover that an HSR station will inevitably be on the edge of town)
My only reservation about even talking about a Peterboro commuter line is - There are parts of the Toronto- Peterborough line that should be excluded from any commuter service, as they are greenbelt and should remain as such. I don't trust the Province to have this level of self discipline when the developers start phoning Doug on his private number. But having said that, some development is happening along that route and certainly as one gets to Brooklin for example the density is there. And this does not argue against your core point, which is eminently sensible. Some model of trains other than HSR and other than traditional GO bilevels would fit the bill here.
- Paul
micheal_can
Senior Member
The Green Belt is a great conception till the development jumps over it, like in Ottawa. What is really needed is a better plan for growth. Not a local one, but a regional/provincial one that can allow the GTA/Golden Horseshoe to be able to expand and not be a detriment.