Sure, but providing operating funding to municipal bus operators is hardly a federal responsibility or concern, especially in a province as demographically and economically strong as Ontario…

TC, TB, I don’t care which branch of the federal government is the hold-up which prevents VIA from purchasing the Western end of the Guelph Sub - even though it’s of course not that surprising as long as VIA only operates a daily train (84/87) over these tracks. Either bridge will need to be...

VIA can’t sign property acquisition contracts without TC providing the necessary capital funding. I suggest you obtain a recent satellite image from the Agincourt Yard. I also struggle to identify any of the other roadblocks which would make you consider building a ~20 km long new greenfield...

I don’t think that CN is more of a holdup in selling the line to VIA than TC allowing VIA to purchase it…

From Ottawa, there should be something like 10 passengers heading to Montreal for each passenger going to Quebec. Also, passenger volumes should be much larger west of Montreal than towards Quebec City. I don’t see any scope for direct OTTW-QBEC trains, except for morning trains which would be...

Just like for bypassing Ottawa, there is no commercial case for bypassing Montreal Gare Centrale. As I’ve explained on a different thread, commercial logic dictates that QM trains connect with MOT trains at either Dorval or (less likely) Gare Centrale:

He is the mayor of Montreal-West and therefore only concerned about public safety within Montreal-West and therefore presumably right. Whether his concerns should inform a decision about adjusting the current frequency of trains is an entirely different question…

You might also come across “NIMBY” (not in my backyard) and - my favorite - “BANANA” (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone)…

People who prefer a HFR over an HSR solution are not “haters”, but people concerned about how expensive it would be and how long it would take until HSR would have any significant impact on how passengers travel in the Corridor. California is still in the process of building itself a monument...

TVO had a really well-informed panel about the HFR-morphed-into-HSR project: My two only criticisms would be directed Dr. Haider: Fully-allocated costs (“$60 per passenger subsidy on the Corridor”) are meaningless when making decisions about expanding service. VIA’s operating subsidy has...

Currently, CPKC has to pay for the ownership (property taxes), upkeep and excessive labour costs (due to the extremely low speed limits of mostly 10 mph) for a line which they use (IIRC) less than daily. Selling the line and having someone else pay for ownership and upkeep while saving labour...

That’s entirely dependent on how much appetite the new (likely: Conservative) federal government will have to spend the dozens of billions required to fund „real HSR“. This project has scope-creeped into a beast which is many times more expensive than what VIA would have ever dared to ask for…...

There are of course multiple ways for an HxR corrridor to leave Toronto, but you‘ll struggle to find a second existing rail corridor which already leaves the built-up area of tve GTHA after ~20 km, then continues in a straight line over farmland for another ~20 km while avoiding any populated...

I believe there are many shades of gray between „investing tens of billions of taxpayer into French-style TGVs“ and „letting VIA creep towards obscurity“. However, the last thing Canadians need is a to recreate the CAHRS mess where construction stretches over half a century, because the...

Short answer: most probably, no. Long answer: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2014/09/01/putting-rail-lines-in-highway-medians/

Just to back these two claims up, using Euclidean („as the crow flies“) distances: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/via-rail.21060/page-1033#post-1990476

No political reasons. Pure commercial and economic logic: Bypassing Ottawa escalates construction costs and reduces revenues. Only politicians could fund such a nonsense…

Only until PP moves into the PM office and asks why on earth totally-not-SNC-Lavalin would deserve any responsibility for such an important project. Their scandalous selection as project partners for the Confederation Line and the no leas controversial execution of said mandate will also not...

I truly believe that we can disagree with each other without feeling any strong emptions and I recall the discussions here as very respectful. The point of my graph (which I should update, I know) is not to dispell the case for building HSR infrastructure, but to highlight that the length of a...

I’m still not sure what the metric “average top speed” measures and what its utility is supposed to be..