But even if, for the sake of the argument, an HSR line doesn’t make a profit, would that be so bad? .
When it does substantial damage to a strategic private sector? Yes. This is Canada. Aviation is strategically vital to our national survival, given our geography and population distribution. In my most humble opinion, you will not see any government put in billions of taxpayer dollars that threatens to both harm a vital private sector industry, only to then create further liabilities for taxpayers.
I could be wrong, but I just can't see it happening.
Almost all rural freeways have to be subsidized but that hasn’t stopped countless billions from being spent on them. It’s a clear double standard. Put it this way...which is a better use of money – a $2 billion freeway to Sudbury that will have limited use, be subsidized every year, and be inherently unsafe? Or a $3 billion high speed rail line to London which will benefit more people, increase safety and reliability over driving, reduce pollution, and potentially make a profit?
This is not a relevant comparison or choice. Government has an obligation to provide services to Sudbury. Full stop. By your rationale, we could save billions by abandoning cost-ineffective services to most remote communities and first nations reserves. We don't do that, because we've accepted as a society that we will support the services and infrastructure they need.
The actual choice is between supporting $2 billion in highway expansion to London or $2 billion in rail improvements to London. And on that front, nobody is going to argue with you. Neither is the government actually. Who has actually the pitched the most recent study, as an alternative to 401 expansion.
We can’t forget the indirect savings from high speed rail that aren’t accounted for in profits: reduced emissions, less need for highway expansion, fewer collisions on the roads, reduced economic costs from delayed flights and traffic jams, etc. These are all costs that are higher than they need to be because of the way we prioritize our transportation spending.
HSR is mostly competing with air. Not road. We're talking about investing $3-4 billion for VIA's most recent proposal vs. $20 billion for HSR. At that point, how much additional traffic are you taking off the road, and how much economic benefits are accumulated, over and above the $3 billion spent on VIA's proposal?
What you're describing isn't true HSR, it's more like what VIAFast was supposed to be.
And that's exactly what we'll be getting. Unless the private sector steps up, our governments will not put in $20 billion for HSR. Mark my words. That's because the opportunity cost is huge. For $10 billion, the feds could pay for all of VIA's plans and the entire GO RER build out and still have enough money left over for half the transit projects in the country during their first term. That benefits a multitude more people than HSR.
Think of this debate as the regional version of subway vs. LRT.
For HSR, the 1990s study estimated that airlines would lose 44% of their passengers to HSR on short haul corridor routes. That's consistent with other HSR lines, conservative even. It's not "maybe a little", it's a huge shift in how people travel.
VIA's own CEO has argued against HSR, dismissing the business case and the marginal utility of spending over and above his $4B propoosal. I just can't see the government overruling him to spend tens of billions more. And all to compete with Air Canada and Westjet?
De Gaulle isn’t Air France’s only hub, it has six of them including secondary hubs throughout France. Regardless of how many hubs Air Canada has, there are loads of flights coming in from Ottawa, Montreal, and even London. You keep saying that Air Canada would just keep flying feeder routes, but it isn’t really Air Canada’s choice. Travellers have shown a clear preference for high speed rail over flying (and driving) where it’s an option and there’s no reason to think that Canadians would be any different. With an HSR system, airlines can either adapt and offer partnerships with rail or lose massive business. It’s pretty tough to keep planes in the air when all your customers are taking the train.
You really should check out Air France's air-rail integration. It's not even as you describe it. Air France hasn't stopped regional flying completely. It's just offloaded low demand destinations to the TGV. Look at Paris-Lyon (comparable to say Toronto-Ottawa in distance). There's still 5 flights a day. Or Paris-Marseille (comparable to Toronto-Quebec City in distance) with 6 flights a day. Air France isn't moving you to those destinations by train. They are moving you by train, if you have to go to Nantes, Angers, etc. In the Canadian context, this would be the equivalent of dropping flights to Kingston, London, Kitchener-Waterloo. If we're talking about cutting flights to low demand Corridor destinations, then I agree, it's going to move to rail. But then this is a likely outcome whether we have true HSR or just really good long-distance rail like VIA's CEO is proposing. Simply offering more frequencies, with a stop at the airport would accomplish this. There's already plenty of people who drive from London to Pearson for flights. Simply having regularly hourly or bi-hourly service would move both the road and air traffic to rail. You don't need HSR per se. You just need a reasonably frequent service that drops you off at the airport, not downtown.
Essentially, the only flights likely to be offloaded by AC to rail would be Toronto-London, Toronto-Kingston, Ottawa-Montreal, Quebec City-Montreal, and possibly Quebec City-Ottawa, and Toronto-Windsor. But again, you don't need HSR for this. Just a regular rail service from Pearson. And unless you get the higher end of HSR service, Air Canada and Westjet, are probably still likely to have hourly service or least bi-hourly service to Montreal and Ottawa from Toronto. They are just likely to do it on smaller regional jets than large narrowbodies and occassional widebodies like they do today, with a a few less peak shoulder frequencies.
So is any of this enough to build a business case for HSR. We are talking about going from $4 billion to $20 billion. There's a lot you can do with that extra $16 billion. Even in transportation. I can't see the point in spending $16 billion just to kill Toronto-Ottawa, and Toronto-Montreal flights. I'd rather the government spend $4 billion and get me good solid VIA rail service (closer to VIA Fast), and then put that $16 billion building transit everywhere in the country. That would do more for the environment and the economy.