Crazy to think that if Alberta follows through with it's 15 year master plan for passenger rail, it could surpass all other provinces in terms of rail connectivity.
If Alberta can pull this off, it'll ignite a rail renissance in Canada. Everyone else will want to replicate Alberta's success.
I'm currently in Edmonton and the downtown is hurting bad. A central train station with direct access to other parts of the province would definitely help to revitalize DT Edmonton.
That this announcement came from
this Alberta government, of all the possible provincial governments, should be an embarrassment to all of our premiers who complain about intercity transport but always want someone else to pay.
I have my doubts about the sincerity of this announcement, but at the same time, if she wasn't sincere, this would only alienate their base without gaining support. We'll know by 2026.
I can't imagine Ottawa declining to offer funding.
The interesting part is, the proposal of a third (fourth? I'm not aware what body in BC runs the West Coast Express) provincial level planning and decisionmaking body for passenger rail. Ottawa dares not add this to the list of tug-of-war issues with Western Canada by imposing itself on the planning, but it says something that despite a federal mandate on railways, Ottawa is pretty much out of the picture on decisionmaking about passenger rail. Ottawa even apparently wants to stay out of Ontario-Quebec planning (as indicated by severing HxR planning from VIA). In a world where empire building and turf protection is paramount, the federal bureaucracy is pretty much firewalled from any useful role in rail passenger planning across the country. Having brought nothing to the table over the past few decades, they have dug themselves into a hole of their own making. Hopefully Alberta attracts some bright minds and puts together a well informed, doable plan.
The fact that this particular Alberta government is willing to promote the idea (sure, so far the promotion is inexpensive, but they are not afraid of being laughed out of the room by their own grass-roots support base) is still sinking in. Who would have thought?
And what will PP say now to VIA ?
- Paul
I believe Translink operates the WCE.
The federal government has consistently led, as their own PR release for the 413 says, on impact analysis studies for over fifty years. Not in actual building things. And actually, many of the HSR studies in this country have been provincially-led.
I do hope that the UCP goes ahead with this. It makes HxR more palatable: "look, we're funding both Alberta and the Laurentian Elites,!" and also (hopefully) makes the AB heartland less hostile to intercity transit.
Of note, the timeline says 2027 for the first shovels. If some line is U/C by the election, it's harder to cancel, and the NDP are not going to cancel rail lines anyways.
Lets have a look at the meager details on offer:
Alberta is developing a Passenger Rail Master Plan that will serve as the foundation to advance passenger rail in the province.
www.alberta.ca
The only commitment here is to 9M in planning; and to create a crown corporation that Premier Smith apparently wants to model on Metrolinx (so the goal is bad project management and high levels of secrecy apparently)
-snip-
* note the RFP is not for implementation of anything, its merely for a plan to be recommended to government.
This is a pessimistic line of thinking, especially with the Metrolinx comment.
Unlike HxR, there's not a proposal that could be a base for intercity rail. The timeline for construction says 2027; we'll see if they meet it, but it's something.
While we're on the subject, does anyone know what happened to
Prairie Link?
News coverage of the announcement in Alberta:
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From the Calgary Herald:
Alberta has unveiled its master rail plan with an eye to linking big-city regional lines with a network running throughout the province.
calgaryherald.com
In the above piece we hear objections from proponents of the Calgary-Banff service long in discussion.
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The timeline does say 2027 for construction ... so maybe?