[zagox]

It all depends on the financial model for the capital side. But fortunately in context of provincial transportation spending, the numbers are very small (provided at the bottom of this post). I think the operational funds is pretty minimal placed in the context of how much the highway costs to run. And if the province can hold off triple laneing for a number of years, that has value too. 1st, can private capital plus the infrastructure bank handle a 40 year payoff (build plus 30 years). 2nd, will CP come in and help a bit more than offering land and cooperation, paying a yearly or as used fee for capacity? Even a million or two a year would really help. 3rd, can this be seen as a boon for tourism - the government is going in for a comparable cost convention centre, does this make the package for Calgary even more compelling and how much is that worth? How much is less congestion (or the equal amount of congestion but more visitors) worth to Banff and Banff tourism operators (could there be an incremental hotel room fee capture of some type?) How much is not building a new parkade worth to the Town of Banff?

Given the NPV of the rail project at negative $370-350 million or so (over a 25 year time horizon, and it is unclear whether the NPV included operating and revenues), minimal greenhouse gas savings (given a diesel trainset), and around $1 million a year in reduced highway maintenance, there is a hole - not a huge one. Add operational costs of $7-9 million. So need to find $23 million a year.

In context, operations and maintenance would be 0.6% of the highways operation and maintenance budget for the province. The capital portion would be 0.8% of the provincial transportation capital budget per year. And those numbers are without any other partners providing funding.

When is the highway forecast to require triple lanes? One joy of living in Calgary compared to Denver is that a day trip to the mountains is fairly easy, even on the weekends. Denver-Vail is about the same distance as Calgary-Lake Louise, and both have mostly 4 lane highways in between. But it is no fun to go to Vail on a weekend day because you either have to leave at 5am or slog through traffic the whole way up. I hope we continue to enjoy excess capacity to the mountains far into the future. I assume the prairie section could be triple laned fairly easily? Colorado has already triple laned every possible spot short of massive tunnneling works, so it seems impossible to see improvement on that corridor in the future (and rail service would also cost an order of magnitude more than this proposal).

 

[darwink]

It depends how often it is acceptable to you to have the highway enter failure modes. Summer weekend evenings it is pretty common in my experience. The report had the volumes at the park gates by hour, so could look at that.

And already traffic is in failure mode in Banff townsite and Lake Louise. Adding lanes won’t solve that.

 

[CBBarnett]

It depends how often it is acceptable to you to have the highway enter failure modes. Summer weekend evenings it is pretty common in my experience. The report had the volumes at the park gates by hour, so could look at that.

And already traffic is in failure mode in Banff townsite and Lake Louise. Adding lanes won’t solve that.

I would also wonder what the failure rate is on the approach to the mountains. Every winter we have had multiple - multi-hour delays/closures, including these two where the full highway was closed off the top of my head and a 3 second google search.
Feb 21: https://globalnews.ca/news/4981609/40-vehicles-off-highway-1-canmore-blocked/
Oct 3: https://www.kelownanow.com/watercoo...ther_closes_Trans_Canada_Hwy_west_of_Calgary/
Add up all the times where conditions were dangerous and driving was discouraged. The road might be open, but the travel time was much longer and far more dangerous. Now add up every long-weekend induced car crash and congestion delay in the summer. All anecdotal without some hard numbers, but surely the amount of highway delays due to congestion/accidents/weather is material.

It would be difficult to model - I don't know if there is a location database of all highway closures and collisions available - but surely resiliency and redundancy is worth something as opposed to relying on a single point of failure highway. Trains are not entirely impervious to all weather, but can definitely outperform a snowy highway.

 

[JasperTF]

Depends on the definition of failure:

• Lack of success.
• Deficiency of a desirable quality/outcome.
• State of not functioning.

Is failure when something stops or when it no longer operates at its most efficient/design?

The capacity of a transit mode refers to how many passengers per hour can be expected to carry at its operating speed. A gridlocked highway will have more cars per unit area than one at free flow, but this does not mean that gridlock represents the capacity of the highway, because a highway is not designed to operate at a state of gridlock.

A case can be made that a highway is in a state of failure during peak periods and when there is a road traffic collision that involves the closure of at least one lane, and therefore highways around Calgary can be considered in failure a few hours each and every weekday and sometimes at weekends.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Interesting read on regional rail.

A Vision for Regional Rail in Calgary | Klumpentown

The professional website of transit researcher Willem Klumpenhouwer

www.klumpentown.com

 

[JasperTF]

Many mountain resorts in Europe have mass-transit rail access.

Banff Eco Transit Hub | Banff Starts Here

banffecotransithub.ca

Reimagining Banff's historic Rail Lands, changing the way people move through Banff National Park and the Banff townsite.
Banff Railway Lands will be an arrival centre for green transit systems including intercept parking, aerial transit to Norquay, and services that support passenger rail.

 

[heightjunkie]

I was discussing the reality of large scale infrastructure projects with some friends last night: our central topic was how, applying the current infrastructure thinking/rational to our forefathers, the Canadian government would never have been able to fund/build a trans continental railroad. The result of course would have been intrepid Americans continuing their expansion and believing in their manifest destiny, and no western Canada as we know it.
I have been thinking a lot about how we have a vast amount of land that is really not being used at all right now, and I think one of the central reasons is a lack of infrastructure or public development to spur interest for industry and citizens alike. It's not like living in northern Alberta is impossible, it's just difficult to get in and out of right now.
A few things could fix this. Investing in a new, northern trans Canada highway is a great example that I think has a lot of merit. I like to dream bigger though.

I think you could argue to stage a future rail map for Alberta like so. Stage 1(Red) is obvious: link the three most populous cities in the province, and provide an additional economic boon to Canada's second most densely populated corridor with some form of high speed rail. Red Deer is guaranteed to benefit as it could become a logical commuting city, while the two hubs would benefit from increased potential for tourism and intraprovincial trade. But we shouldn't stop there. Much like our forefathers, we should look ahead and plan our infrastructure roots to accommodate a growing population (and perhaps a warmer climate up north!)
Stage 2 In my proposal is in blue. It would add in 3 important elements: Banff, an international tourist hub, Lethbridge, a growing student/young adult hub and a nice potential link for future ability to reach into the US, and Fort McMurray, a global industrial hub and a vital piece of the global oil industry. I think adding these three stops is a no-brainer, you diversify the usefulness of the system by incorporating different revenue streams while also allowing better access to major growing population hubs in the north and south of the province. Stage 3 (black) is along the same lines of thinking: add in Medicine Hat, Lloydminster and Grande Prairie to accommodate more burgeoning population centres and essentially deliver potential immigrants to their front door (much like the rail allowed initial settlements in Alberta to rapidly grow.) Depending on the cost, further expansion into the park (up to Jasper) could also be a potential use of this stage, but is much less important.
In purple, I have added where the interprovincial links would come in, creating 2 links (north and south) into BC (Prince George, Kamloops) and Saskatchewan (Saskatoon and Regina). In my view, the total result would create 4 independent 'lines' : 1: Slave Lake-Edmonton-Red Deer-Calgary-Lethbridge 2: Fort McMurray-Slave Lake-Grande Prairie 3: Edmonton-Lloydminster and 4: Medicine Hat-Calgary-Banff

Now please go ahead and dissect my idea. I believe this sort of infrastructure could dramatically increase the population capacity of some major Alberta centres that are already seeing significant growth, and could really establish Alberta as the future of Canada.

 

[darwink]

You might find this map useful: https://rac.jmaponline.net/canadianrailatlas/

I believe we are much more likely to see twinning of existing lines, and that twinning providing capacity to run passenger rail, and finding a way to build out a passenger rail network on its own.

 

[heightjunkie]

You might find this map useful: https://rac.jmaponline.net/canadianrailatlas/

I believe we are much more likely to see twinning of existing lines, and that twinning providing capacity to run passenger rail, and finding a way to build out a passenger rail network on its own.

You are probably correct! Though I would say that, in my fictional reality, it seems unlikely that CN and CP would so willingly cede any sort of capacity to passenger rail. As such, my corridors were thought to be mostly new *with the exception of the entry points to the major cities.*

Rail is imperative to better and more effective access to some of these more distant areas, the higher speed the better. If somewhere like Grande Prairie was accessible to Edmonton within an hour, I would wager it would boom even faster.

 

[JasperTF]

Interesting idea, but I would propose a few minor alterations.

Although High Speed Rail is a noble idea, it is thoroughly impractical. HSR will only connect downtown Edmonton, downtown Calgary, and where-ever the station would be in Red Deer. What about the bedroom community of Airdrie, the industrial areas of Leduc/Nisku, YEG, YYC, Olds Agricultural College, etc? As you state, the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is "Canada's second most densely populated corridor", the entire corridor needs to be connected, Regional Express Rail would be a more beneficial investment.

Also HSR would have to be built in its entirety before any semblance of service could operate (+$20 billion), where as, Regional Rail can be progressively introduced in a phased manner, starting with commuter services into the main urban centres, and expanding to Regional Express Rail connecting the entire corridor, and beyond.
Stage 2 is good.

However for Stage 3, Medicine Hat would be better connected from Lethbridge, which could extend west through the Crowsnest Pass to Cranbrook. Building anything new in the National Park is practically impossible, the connection to Jasper would be better facilitated from Edmonton.

Further extensions would be to Saskatoon, Regina, Kamloops and Prince George, and beyond to Winnipeg and Vancouver, but also a spur to Kelowna and Penticton, and along the Columbia and Kootney valley between Cranbrook and Golden.

Check out:

Rail for Alberta Society

The Rail for Alberta Society engages with communities, businesses, and all levels of government to make sustainable and efficient passenger rail a reality in Alberta.

www.railalberta.com

Alberta Regional Rail

Commuter rail into Calgary, Commuter rail into Edmonton, and an intercity rail connection between Edmonton and Calgary

www.albertaregionalrail.com

and the Twitter and Facebook pages.

 

[Chowda7]

Still iffy on this technology but I would welcome the investment if this went through

Edmonton-Red Deer-Calgary bullet train waiting for provincial blessing - Red Deer Advocate

A high-speed train project between Edmonton and Calgary, proposed in April 2018, is in the hands of the United Conservative government.

www.reddeeradvocate.com

 

[CBBarnett]

Still iffy on this technology but I would welcome the investment if this went through

Edmonton-Red Deer-Calgary bullet train waiting for provincial blessing - Red Deer Advocate

A high-speed train project between Edmonton and Calgary, proposed in April 2018, is in the hands of the United Conservative government.

www.reddeeradvocate.com

Very iffy. Stick with conventional trains with a secured right-of-way that is flexible enough for some future speed improvements. A 160km/hr train with reliable performance (e.g. few delays, no snow or accidents) is light-years ahead of intercity travel options today. Build the ridership and transit culture then make iterative improvements for speed over the years - assuming we secured the proper right of way. Full “high-speed” is probably unnecessary in any future (300km/h plus) especially given the cost escalation that comes with designing for such speed.

A key thing about all this is we have a provincial political system that is neutral on transit - and hasn’t even considered inter-city transit as a thing - at the best. At the worst they are skeptical of transit investment at all. The provincial government would need to secure the right-of-way and probably be cool with some operating subsidy to make anything work, so there’s logic to going with reliable, proven and cheaper technology than untested new tech with dubious transportation merits.

 

[darwink]

Except this has been repeatedly found to be NOT the case. To get reliable 160 kph or 200 kph service you need to spend 2/3rds of the money. The ridership you gain from the gain of speed to HSR pays for the higher capital costs and helps pay for the capital cost of the basic service.

 

[JasperTF]

Still iffy on this technology but I would welcome the investment if this went through

Edmonton-Red Deer-Calgary bullet train waiting for provincial blessing - Red Deer Advocate

A high-speed train project between Edmonton and Calgary, proposed in April 2018, is in the hands of the United Conservative government.

www.reddeeradvocate.com

Hyperloop/Transpod will work, but at what cost?

In layman's terms what is Hyperloop/Transpod? It is an object travelling at high speed in a vacuum. Why a vacuum? A vacuum has little to no air, air creates resistance (aerodynamic drag), if there is no air there is no drag and objects can travel at much higher speeds. Think of space travel.

However when it comes to passengers, we need air to breathe, so for passengers Hyperloop/Transpod becomes a pressurized vehicle travelling in a vacuum tube.

What is an object that operates with an interior pressure greater than the exterior? An aeroplane.

What is an object that operates with an interior pressure less than the exterior? A submarine.

What is the fastest form of propulsion? Electro-magnetic.

So an aeroplane propelled by mag-lev, inside a submarine.

As temperatures get colder, all metals and materials become more brittle and susceptible to fracturing. Over the past winter both CP and CN have been operating their trains at slow speeds to prevent breaking rails, causing the grain backlog. Ski hills will shutdown chair lifts below -20degC, to prevent cables snapping.

The temperature in the Prairies gets below -30degC in the winter. The frost level in Alberta is considered to be 3.0m, all water utilities are buried below 3m in the ground to prevent freezing.

To work effectively in Alberta, Hyperloop/Transpod would have to be underground. Also with a speed of 1000kph it would have to be dead straight and dead level, which can easily be achieved with tunnelling.

So what will Transpod cost between Calgary and Edmonton?

A simple train tunnel costs CAD20million per km, Crossrail is costing more. A Transpod tunnel would also need to be sealed in order to maintain a vacuum, and this does not include the mag-lev propulsion technology or the construction of the terminals and pods.

For a quick relevant example, Tokyo to Nagoya mag-lev. The direct route is 286km with the majority in a tunnel, it is currently estimated at JPY5.1Trillion or CAD 60 Billion.

Hyperloop/Transpod is a fantastic idea and a great use of technology, but it will be a massive white elephant for Alberta. The population of Tokyo and Nagoya is 47 million, the best place for this technology in North America is in the North East Corridor between Washington DC and New York.

 

[JasperTF]

Except this has been repeatedly found to be NOT the case. To get reliable 160 kph or 200 kph service you need to spend 2/3rds of the money. The ridership you gain from the gain of speed to HSR pays for the higher capital costs and helps pay for the capital cost of the basic service.

Basic rail, non-electrified, averages $7 million per km, Brightline in Florida was built for $3 million per km. High Speed Rail, +300kph electrified, costs over $20 million per km in Europe, and will cost more in North America as the regulations and requirements are different. But the main argument against HSR in Alberta is population, there are only 3 HSR services that are considered "profitable", TGV Sud-Est between Paris and Lyon/Marseille,
Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka, and Eurostar services between London, Paris and Brussels. The populations of these areas exceed 30 million, the population of Alberta is 3 million.