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Urban Sky

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An open access regime would not require government to nationalize the infrastructure (even though it is exactly what was done with roads), even if the "it would be unconstitutional !!1!" assertions are set aside (after all, until 1994 some people were convinced that the cessation of Vancouver Island passenger service was unconstitutional).

It would merely be a change in how a public utility was regulated, obliging railway companies to fairly allocate paths their infrastructure by cooperation with a rail regulatory agency in exchange for access charges, and to separately account their infrastructure expenses from their railway operation expenses so that the charges passed on to open access operators were fair. We have seen Bell and Rogers obliged (yes, with bad grace, footdragging and arguable undermining) to accommodate new entrants into telecoms into their infrastructure. I cannot see how this would be beyond the legislative power of Parliament. The question for this thread of course would be to what extent this leaves VIA in a better position compared to their existing agreements with CN and CP - which are not public documents, I believe.
It's not beyond the power of Parliament. Doing so at little to no cost, however, probably is. Our courts aren't in the habit of allowing governments to seize assets at will without substantial justification and substantial compensation. Our government knows this. The freight companies know this. VIA knows this. They've moved on to an idea that they think works. And yet here we are discussing this fantasy every 3 months, even though we all know it's not going to happen.
Maybe those of you who have a fetish for freight rail nationalization should start another thread, so we can save this thread for actually discussing ideas and topics that involve VIA right now.
Given that certain commenters in the VIA Rail thread (myself included) grow increasingly frustrated that the discussions are flooded with arguments which challenge the entire structure which defines this nation's transportation systems, I would like to create a new thread where these big questions can be discussed, while allowing the discussions which remain in the VIA Rail thread to stay within the framework which has emerged from transport policy decisions made since the first settlers established their companies and institutions and which narrow the scope of what measures are considered politically feasible in a way which is unique to this country.

In the following, I will try to provide an (explicitly non-exhaustive) list of questions which directly concern transportation policy rather than the respective threads about VIA Rail, GO Transit or Ontario Northland:

  1. Passenger rail policy
    1. VIA Rail
      1. Mandate
        1. Intercity services
          1. Should daily-or-better service be expanded beyond this Nation's most populated corridors?
          2. Should the Corridor operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
        2. Transcontinental services
          1. Should new routes be added to its transcontinental network or existing routes expanded to daily service?
          2. Should the transcontinental operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
        3. Remote services
          1. Should new routes be added to its remote network or existing routes expanded to daily service?
          2. Should the remote operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
      2. Legislation
        1. Should VIA Rail (or parts of it) be privatized or abolished?
        2. Should there be a VIA Rail Act?
        3. Should VIA Rail enjoy statutory (and enforceable) rights towards its host railroads?
        4. Should private operators have the right to operate as "open access" operators in direct competition with VIA Rail?
    2. Non-VIA intercity rail
    3. Commuter rail
    4. Non-VIA tourist rail
  2. Freight rail policy
    1. Vertical separation
      1. Should the freight railroads be restructured into rail operating companies (ROCs) and rail infrastructure companies (RICs), which operate independently from each other?
    2. Nationalization
      1. Should the networks and/or the operations of freight railroads be nationalized?
      2. Should stations (or any other passenger facilities) owned by freight railroads be nationalized?
    3. Regulation
      1. Should freight railroads be compelled into granting passenger operations operational priority?
      2. Should freight railroads be compelled into sharing corridors, thus freeing up rail corridors for passenger operations?
      3. Should freight railroads be compelled into ensuring that all trains fit into all sidings?
  3. Aviation policy
    1. Taxation
      1. Should airlines be taxed in a way that internalizes the external costs of flying?
    2. Regulation
      1. Should airlines be banned from competing with passenger trains?
      2. Should airlines be compelled into replacing short-haul flights through code-share agreements with passenger train companies?
  4. Road policy
    1. Taxation
      1. Should driving be taxed in a way that internalizes the external costs of driving?
    2. Regulation
      1. Should coach (i.e. intercity bus) companies be banned from competing with passenger trains?
    3. Legislation
      1. Should a national coach operator (or regulator) be created to establish a comprehensive national bus network?

Admittedly, above list is rather centered around passenger rail (and especially VIA Rail), but I've deliberately chosen a broad thread title to acknowledge that this is not a second VIA Rail thread and that there is much more overlap of these discussions with similar discussions in non-rail threads than with issues pertinent to the VIA Rail thread (where almost all of the questions I just listed are currently discussed).

Anyways, if you like the idea of this thread, I would like to encourage you to use it and the more distinctively different the discussions here and in the VIA Rail thread become, the more this new thread fulfills its purpose...

Thank you for your interest in this new thread and let the discussion begin! :)
 
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  1. Passenger rail policy
    1. VIA Rail
      1. Mandate
      2. Legislation
        1. Should there be a VIA Rail Act?
Thank you for your interest in this new thread and let the discussion begin! :)
Hi Urban Sky, thanks for starting this new thread. I do have a question regarding legislation for VIA. So I read somewhere that compared to Amtrak, VIA lacks a 'mandate', which limits it from providing better service. I believe I also read somewhere (I may have misread) that the VIAFast proposal would've given VIA such a mandate. If you have a bit of time, could you please let me know what an Amtrak-style 'mandate' for VIA would look like and whether it would improve VIA's ability to negotiate with Railroads?
 
Hi Urban Sky, thanks for starting this new thread. I do have a question regarding legislation for VIA. So I read somewhere that compared to Amtrak, VIA lacks a 'mandate', which limits it from providing better service. I believe I also read somewhere (I may have misread) that the VIAFast proposal would've given VIA such a mandate. If you have a bit of time, could you please let me know what an Amtrak-style 'mandate' for VIA would look like and whether it would improve VIA's ability to negotiate with Railroads?
Thank you for inaugurating this thread!

I believe you rather mean "enabling legislation" and "enforceable rights" when you say "mandate", as you seem to refer to how VIA lacks the operational priority Amtrak is entitled to and the legal mechanisms to enforce these rights.

Back in the VIA Rail thread, @roger1818 provided an excellent explanation for why the situation with Amtrak is quite different from the one with VIA:
One has to understand the history of how Amtrak and VIA were formed. Amtrak was formed because the freight railways were begging the US government to let them get out of the responsibility to transport passengers, so the government agreed to take over that responsibility (in the form of Amtrak), if, in return, the railways would be required to give Amtrak priority on their rails.

VIA was formed because CN (a crown corporation at the time) split their passenger and freight operations and formed VIA Rail. Since both were crown corporations, there was no need for a requirement of priority. VIA then went to CP and asked to take over their passenger rail services. Presumably since the request came from VIA, not CP, VIA was in a position of weakness and they weren't able to negotiate priority access. Later when CN was privatized, since priority access for VIA was never a thing in Canada, it was not made a requirement.

While theoretically it would be possible to legislate priority access for VIA now, it would be a very dangerous thing to do politically as CN and CP would apply significant political pressure to prevent it from happening.

If you have a look at Sections 2.4 and 3.0 of Greg Gormick's 1-4-10 Plan, you get an idea of how such enabling legislation could look like (at least in the eyes of a railway consultant who has a commercial interest in selling reports which claim to know how to "fix" VIA, rather than ensuring that the recommended actions are actually politically feasible and thus actionable)...
 
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  1. Passenger rail policy
    1. VIA Rail
      1. Mandate
        1. Intercity services
          1. Should daily-or-better service be expanded beyond this Nation's most populated corridors?
          2. Should the Corridor operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
        2. Transcontinental services
          1. Should new routes be added to its transcontinental network or existing routes expanded to daily service?
          2. Should the transcontinental operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
        3. Remote services
          1. Should new routes be added to its remote network or existing routes expanded to daily service?
          2. Should the remote operations be abandoned, privatized or handed over to a different operator?
      2. Legislation
        1. Should VIA Rail (or parts of it) be privatized or abolished?
        2. Should there be a VIA Rail Act?
        3. Should VIA Rail enjoy statutory (and enforceable) rights towards its host railroads?
        4. Should private operators have the right to operate as "open access" operators in direct competition with VIA Rail?
    2. Non-VIA intercity rail
    3. Commuter rail
    4. Non-VIA tourist rail
  2. Freight rail policy
    1. Vertical separation
      1. Should the freight railroads be restructured into rail operating companies (ROCs) and rail infrastructure companies (RICs), which operate independently from each other?
    2. Nationalization
      1. Should the networks and/or the operations of freight railroads be nationalized?
      2. Should stations (or any other passenger facilities) owned by freight railroads be nationalized?
    3. Regulation
      1. Should freight railroads be compelled into granting passenger operations operational priority?
      2. Should freight railroads be compelled into sharing corridors, thus freeing up rail corridors for passenger operations?
      3. Should freight railroads be compelled into ensuring that all trains fit into all sidings?
Thank you for your interest in this new thread and let the discussion begin! :)

I don't like monopolies, first and foremost. Being technically employed by a "rival" company, I genuinely oppose my nation's national operator, Trenitalia, and the shady and non-transparent separation present within the Ferrovie dello Stato holding. But that can be said for most European countries that still retain some form or another of monopoly.

However, I acknowledge it would be naive to copy-paste the European model to the entire North American continent.

Regarding the "mandate" issue, I'm sorry, but I can't find Mr. Gormick's remarks to be completely out of place. Without a clear legal base, any kind of operation would be subject to some form or another of external pressure. The lack of a coordinating agency between the various actors has led to the present situation, with the REM "monopolizing" the Mount Royale Tunnel representing the last of the reciprocal trips. This is most probably due to a lack of a national passenger transportation policy.

IMHO, the most urgent thing to do would be defining mandates for passenger rail operation, whatever it may be. At least, it would provide a framework upon which VIA could base its future policies. In the case of the HFR, for example, the lack of both such a mandate and a coordinating agency means that, unless VIA manages to acquire the entire GOT and CP ROW from Union Station all the way past Peterborough, their trains would still be subject to potential delays, conflicts, and whatnot.

We can talk for hours about vertical separation, nationalization, regulation... but without said "mandate", it's going to be pretty much like talking to a wall.
 
This is most probably due to a lack of a national passenger transportation policy.

National policies wouldn't govern the use of a local tunnel.

Something Europeans struggle to understand is how strong and dominant the provincial governments are in Canada. There is no equivalent in Europe.
 
@UrbanSky has given us a nice meaty list of things to kick around.

Personally, I am more of a believer in incremental moves than wholesale redesign. That’s especially true here, since (as was amply discussed already) our freight network is a national asset, and merits retention.

A good policy always leaves room for the parties to sort out their interests. The key is for the playing field to simply be level enough that each party has bargaining leverage, so that there is greater gain in negotiating a voluntary agreement than in looking to a third party (such as parliament, or an arbitrator) to impose a solution.

It’s often the case that the third party knows less about the issue, so their solutions are to be feared.... but that fear is what drives people to find common ground..

As for VIA, I would not turn the freight business upside down to achieve a passenger network, especially since large parts of the freight network will never see a passenger train under any scenario. But.... one can make incremental changes. The status quo is not that sacred, nor is it a deck of cards that will collapse if we adjust a few things.

The key for me is that there will never be a pure, total separation of freight and passenger assets or operations. We have to address “sharing” where it happens.

CN/CP have little pressure to negotiate, and less to agree to compensation that is fair but not cushy.. The fact that we don’t know, and cannot discover, the current arrangements with VIA, are proof of that. At the very least, we should know the performance standards that have been agreed to...l and the levers that VIA has to enforce them.

That’s not a very big tweak.

- Paul
 
National policies wouldn't govern the use of a local tunnel.

Something Europeans struggle to understand is how strong and dominant the provincial governments are in Canada. There is no equivalent in Europe.

You are technically right on that. Aren't Canadian provinces akin to the various US states? If so, they are, on a different level, similar to German Länder, or federal states. I've never heard of a German Land doing stuff in its own way regarding transportation issues bypassing or avoiding talking with agencies, such DB, which lie on a federal level.

But again, I hope to get a better understanding of that.
 
If you have a look at Sections 2.4 and 3.0 of Greg Gormick's 1-4-10 Plan, you get an idea of how such enabling legislation could look like (at least in the eyes of a railway consultant who has a commercial interest in selling reports which claim to know how to "fix" VIA, rather than ensuring that the recommended actions are actually politically feasible and thus actionable)...

First of all, thank you Urban Sky for linking the excellent post by @roger1818 and Greg Gormick's plan. Both of them have been immensely helpful.

I did read through the report, and I find Mr. Gormick's arguments to resonate, at least from a technical perspective. While the European model is out of the realm of reality, if Amtrak can provide superior passenger service (compared to VIA) without crippling freight movement in the US (I assume freight efficiency in the US is not worse than here in Canada), then VIA and CN/CP should be able to work out a similar arrangement.

Of course, such a proposal would be a considerable political undertaking and require considerable effort from both the public and our politicians. Thus, I would argue that a VIA Rail Act is a goal that we should work towards in the medium to long term. As has been suggested, the current priority must be to implement HFR (and other small improvements), not only to provide immediate benefits in terms of better service but also demonstrate the potential (and necessity) of passenger rail in Canada. If we get HFR off the ground, then I think Canadians would be on board with further improvements to passenger-rail service, with a VIA Rail Act being the central component of a comprehensive plan to achieve said improvement.

Have I misinterpreted anything?
 
Aren't Canadian provinces akin to the various US states?

Close.

f so, they are, on a different level, similar to German Länder, or federal states. I've never heard of a German Land doing stuff in its own way regarding transportation issues bypassing or avoiding talking with agencies, such DB, which lie on a federal level.

The difference is that DB is huge relative to the regional transport agencies in Germany. This is not the case in Canada. Just looking at suburban transit ridership and comparing to VIA tells you the difference in scale. GO Transit serves 70 million riders per year in Toronto. Exo serves 45 million riders per year in Montreal. VIA serves 5 million riders in ALL of Canada. When push comes to shove, governments will tend to defer to the regional transit authorities simply because they serve way more people.
 
The difference is that DB is huge relative to the regional transport agencies in Germany. This is not the case in Canada. Just looking at suburban transit ridership and comparing to VIA tells you the difference in scale. GO Transit serves 70 million riders per year in Toronto. Exo serves 45 million riders per year in Montreal. VIA serves 5 million riders in ALL of Canada. When push comes to shove, governments will tend to defer to the regional transit authorities simply because they serve way more people.

Yeah, that's true.
If the HFR manages to make a dent in all of that, well... so be it. 🤷‍♂️ Still, not my cup of tea, but I'll be gladly saying "I stand corrected."
 
You are technically right on that. Aren't Canadian provinces akin to the various US states? If so, they are, on a different level, similar to German Länder, or federal states. I've never heard of a German Land doing stuff in its own way regarding transportation issues bypassing or avoiding talking with agencies, such DB, which lie on a federal level.

But again, I hope to get a better understanding of that.
Arguably Canadian provinces have more sovereignty and more independence within their own jurisdictions relative to the Federal level than even US States. Canadian provinces are really like small countries.

One of those areas of jurisdiction is transportation. Provinces have jurisdiction over transportation within their own provinces, but the federal government have jurisdiction over inter-provincial transportation and international transportation.

This is why traditionally the federal government was not involved in public transit, and Canada remains the only G20 nation without dedicated transit funding at the Federal level. This has slowly started to shift with the Harper and Trudeau governments, where the federal level has begun to get more involved, but it also gets more complicated given that municipalities are creatures of the province, so any federal funding of municipal transit infrastructure initiatives has to be done under tripartite organizations (like Waterfront Toronto) or through conditional transfers to the provinces which are then instructed to allocate the federal funding on conditional terms (e.g. on a per-transit user basis, which given mode share distribution across the province is another way to indirectly say give $$$ to Toronto) rather than directly funding municipal projects.

VIA Rail is in an interesting spot because it provides both intra-provincial and inter-provincial service, is a Canadian crown corp, and according to Wikipedia, only owns 3% of its track mileage.

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If the HFR manages to make a dent in all of that, well... so be it.

It's supposed to more than double Corridor ridership within 5 years of launch. Getting VIA to 10 million riders by 2030 would be a notable accomplishment. And should change a lot of the conversation around how VIA is funded, railways are regulated, etc.
 
VIA and GOT/EXO serve significantly different markets, one is medium to long distance rail trips, the other two are short trips. Of course the regional rail services will have higher ridership, plenty of people used them to get to work, and as such, ride hundreds of times per year.

1a) I think the federal government should encourage provincial regional railways which are of use to VIA, and the funding comes with rights for VIA to use the track. Are CN or CP actually interested in having much Class 4+ track? Meanwhile I feel like Metrolinx could be very much on board with funding to make some of their track Class 6, in exchange for VIA being able to use the track. GOT/EXO are also complementary to VIA because while VIA focuses on medium to long trips, the regional trains and buses, are better for getting people closer to their destination. I think the federal government supporting rail between Edmonton and Calgary would also be quite beneficial.

1b) When talking about nationalization, privatization, or breaking railways into rolling stock companies, I suggest viewing this video on the British rail system

1c) I think VIA should work with Amtrak to improve transportation between Toronto and New York City, there are significant potential benefits from linking the biggest city in Canada, and the biggest city in the US. Joe Biden, president elect, and Pete Buttigieg, presumptive DOT head, are both rail fanboys, and will get a hard on for it such a proposal, Chuck Schumer, the ranking Democrat in the Senate is from New York, and as such, would be happy to get a barrel of money spent in New York State. To shut BC up, have something to link Cascadia together. Between Corridor improvements, an Edmonton/Calgary train, and a Cascadia train, that should be more than enough money spread across enough seats to buy the votes.

2) See 1b regarding privatization, also remember that CN & CP operate extensively in the US, and that as such, any changes to them out of sync with the US could have significant consequences on Canadian competitiveness

3) At minimum, domestic flying should have to pay the carbon tax, exempting it is an unconscionable subsidy when trying to reduce emissions.

4) I believe that all 400 Series highways in Ontario should be tolled, primarily to fund their maintenance, and the gas tax directed to municipalities for more general transportation policy. In areas where after tolling is introduced it is still congested, there should be additional congestion charges levied. I would make Metrolinx a true province wide agency tasked with improving transportation in Ontario (both passenger and freight), and they get any profits from congestion pricing. Alternatively to tolling all the 400 series highways, or in addition to it, Metrolinx should get money from a land value tax across the province, as improved transportation has significant benefits province wide.
 
1a) I think the federal government should encourage provincial regional railways which are of use to VIA, and the funding comes with rights for VIA to use the track. Are CN or CP actually interested in having much Class 4+ track? Meanwhile I feel like Metrolinx could be very much on board with funding to make some of their track Class 6, in exchange for VIA being able to use the track. GOT/EXO are also complementary to VIA because while VIA focuses on medium to long trips, the regional trains and buses, are better for getting people closer to their destination. I think the federal government supporting rail between Edmonton and Calgary would also be quite beneficial.

Basically, that's what happens in the US with state-supported regional corridors. If Alberta really wants an intercity service between Edmonton and Calgary, they should support it with provincial funding instead of wasting money on fancy HSR projects.

1b) When talking about nationalization, privatization, or breaking railways into rolling stock companies, I suggest viewing this video on the British rail system

There's a reason why other countries in Europe haven't quite caught up with the privatization of the regional operators: it's normal for such operations to be at loss, so why bothering with a tendering process at all? Also, the video final remarks about trains being "the transport mode for the rich" only really apply to the UK case, and that is because private companies were allured by the potential financial gains they could extract from their customers to the point that they were placing such low offers at the tendering for the franchises, only to re-direct that allure to public money (subsidies) for the actual operation of the trains once they discovered they couldn't raise ticket prices "ad libitum".

2) See 1b regarding privatization, also remember that CN & CP operate extensively in the US, and that as such, any changes to them out of sync with the US could have significant consequences on Canadian competitiveness

Then ask CN and CP the same level of service required by Amtrak in the US in terms of passenger rail punctuality, priority, etc.

3) At minimum, domestic flying should have to pay the carbon tax, exempting it is an unconscionable subsidy when trying to reduce emissions.

4) I believe that all 400 Series highways in Ontario should be tolled, primarily to fund their maintenance, and the gas tax directed to municipalities for more general transportation policy. In areas where after tolling is introduced it is still congested, there should be additional congestion charges levied.

I don't understand why this isn't a thing already, like... at a global scale. It took a damn pandemic to convince France, Austria, and a few others to literally ban domestic flights under a certain distance, provided there exists an alternative.
 
Wouldn't a Toronto-NYC rail line struggle a bit to compete with air travel? It couldn't really be all that direct with Lake Ontario in the way.
 

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