[kEiThZ]

I think that's what LemonCondo was saying, that they're in favour of a Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal service before Toronto-London is built, even if by some metric, one could argue that Toronto-London makes more sense.

And that is absolutely wrongheaded.

I don't get how one can claim to be in favour of passenger rail and then caveat that with a personal favourites and priorities list.

If you support rail, you should support any and every rail project that has a reasonable chance of getting built. You should support it regardless of the order in which it gets built. This is not a zero sum game.

 

[kalis0490]

Applying gravity model:
for Kitchener - Toronto CMAs
(575,000)*(6,202,000)/(93.78)^2 = 405 489 067.697

for Montreal - Toronto CMA's

(4,300,000)*(6,202,000)/(508.87 )^2 = 102 987 975.53

Montreal-Toronto has1/4 the theoretical demand of Kitchener -Toronto.

But curiously when ever someone talks about improvements for the Kitchener line - these are brushed away as a waste of money.

A user on UrbanToronto recently argued that there was no need for a larger Kitchener central station.... um if one thinks that Kit-Tor doesn't need capacity, then toronto - montreal is way down the priority list. Like If a Montreal- Toronto project came up I would support it but there are better ways to plan

 

[LemonCondo]

And that is absolutely wrongheaded.

I don't get how one can claim to be in favour of passenger rail and then caveat that with a personal favourites and priorities list.

If you support rail, you should support any and every rail project that has a reasonable chance of getting built. You should support it regardless of the order in which it gets built. This is not a zero sum game.

And is rail to London being built?

 

[kEiThZ]

And is rail to London being built?

No. But this is a whole different topic from your supposed prioritization.

Let me guess, if the feds announced tomorrow that Banff-Calgary-Edmonton and Toronto-Kitchener-London were their lead HSR projects, you'd be here saying that it's dumb because Toronto-Montreal should be first.

The shorter projects are attractive because they are far less risky. 200-300 km is the absolute sweet spot. Too close to have any competition from air. Too far too make driving regularly comfortable. Yet close enough that HSR could actually create an exurban commuter market. Nobody will ever commute between Toronto and Ottawa or Toronto and Montreal with HSR. But you will absolutely get commuters on Ottawa-Montreal and Toronto-London. Possibly even on Calgary-Edmonton and Montreal-Quebec City depending on speed. This is where speed returns a disproportionate return in ridership.

 

[kEiThZ]

Applying gravity model:
for Kitchener - Toronto CMAs
(575,000)*(6,202,000)/(93.78)^2 = 405 489 067.697

for Montreal - Toronto CMA's

(4,300,000)*(6,202,000)/(508.87 )^2 = 102 987 975.53

An easy way to do this, so the numbers don't get huge is to use the population in thousands (ie. 1 million becomes 1000 in your calculation). It also works out nicely because when you then divide by the square of the distances, you usually get tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands in your denominator. So that way you get a nice round double or triple digit score at the end. For distances, I use the Google Maps road distances between stations usually. Also significant figures. LOL. You don't need distances in tenths of a kilometre when you are rounding off your population to the nearest thousand or even ten thousand. It's a rough order of magnitude estimate (ROME) technique to gauge potential demand. Doesn't have to be precise to 5 decimals.

Using your numbers and my technique:

Kitchener-Toronto: 404
Montreal-Toronto: 103

 

[kEiThZ]

But curiously when ever someone talks about improvements for the Kitchener line - these are brushed away as a waste of money.

Yep. And it's absolutely ridiculous. A Toronto-Kitchener-London line has substantially more demand potential than Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal when you add up the segments. And a huge part of this is because HSR makes all these places commutable with each other. Something that only happens on the Ottawa-Montreal segment of the TOM corridor.

HFR is going east first because there's an underutilized rail corridor that can, in part, make for an easy buildout going east. There's substantially more complications going west of Union. And at some point, they are going to have to figure out how a TKL line approaches and connects at Pearson. Those are all pre-requisites to building that line unfortunately.

 

[crs1026]

There's also the small matter of cost. I took a really crude poke at relative cost of various options, basing my numbers on miles of track and using a relative cost multiplier value rather than trying to get to actual dollars. I gave the cost of rebuilding an existing mile of track a cost factor of 2, restoring an abandoned line a factor of 3.5, adding capacity to an existing CN/CP route a 5, and new ROW on virgin land a 10. I think those relative weights are demonstrative, even if they are utterly arbitrary and coarse. I left M/T terminal segments, and Smiths Falls-Ottawa-Dorion out of the picture as the cost will be identical for all scenarios.

I was actually pretty surprised at just how much cheaper a single Toronto - Ottawa HFR line, with no attempt to add a direct route to Montreal, turns out to be.

Adding a shared segment from Smiths Falls to Dorion to bypass Ottawa proved to be hugely expensive as an incremental addition to basic HFR. Improving the existing line and living with the resulting end to end time makes far more sense.

My utterly back of envelope conclusion: Compared to HFR, trying to build competing routes to Ottawa and Montreal from Toronto is a hugely expensive proposition, no matter which line one chooses. The use of an existing direct route is limited to whatever capacity the landlord railroad chooses to offer.

I do believe that we will need to build a dedicated regional rail line along the Lakeshore, but probably not in my lifetime. Maybe that would improve direct Toronto-Montreal service.... but by then we will be upgrading HFR to HSR anyways. My grandchildren may find it useful.

- Paul

.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

I’ve lost track of where we’re at with the HFR/HSR project. Are we any closer to getting a shovel in the ground?

I’m not very optimistic that we’ll end up with anything by the current rate and politics. I have a feeling that Via Rail will be mothballed before any shovel ever hits the ground.

 

[kEiThZ]

What's the current demand for the two pairs and the modal split?

Aircraft movements at the respective airports are much smaller for Ottawa than either Pearson or Trudeau.

So I decided to investigate this. I looked at the schedules for Friday, May 26th 2023 on Air Canada, Westjet and Porter, for departures from YYZ and YTZ to YOW and YUL. Wanted to look far enough out to discount the current issues. I then took the scheduled aircraft and the seat counts from Wikipedia to get a rough idea of how many seats are offered on each city pair. Here's what the schedules look like:

(Excuse the formatting. I have no idea how to do up tables here.)

	AC	WS	PD
YYZ-YOW	17 x A223	5 x Q400
		1 x B738
YTZ-YOW	4 x Q400		12 x Q400
YYZ-YUL	1 x E175	5 x Q400
	15 x A223	1 x B73G
	1 x A321
	1 x A333
YTZ-YUL	14 x Q400		12 x Q400

Here's what the total seat counts look like on each city pair:

	AC	WS	PD
Toronto-Ottawa	2641	564	936
Toronto-Montreal	3710	524	936

If you look at the above, you'll notice that the airlines are scheduling about 25% more seats to Montreal than Ottawa. But it's specifically one carrier that is Montreal focused: Air Canada. They have over 52% more flights to Montreal and 40% more seats. But a large chunk (about a quarter) of the 40% more seats they send to Montreal is literally one aircraft: the A330-300 they are sending there. That's highly likely a repositioning flight that they want to make some money on. For both Westjet and Porter, Ottawa and Montreal are equally important in both the number of flights and the number of seats offered.

I also look at the number of departures on VIA from Union to Ottawa and Montreal. VIA is planning on sending 8 trains to Ottawa and 6 trains to Montreal that day. So even here, Ottawa is actually slightly more important than Montreal.

The idea that Montreal is so much more important as a destination for travelers from Toronto is a myth. It's on par with Ottawa. And the difference in seat counts between Montreal and Ottawa certainly doesn't line up with the population differential between those two cities. It's highly likely a large chunk of the flights and extra seats that Air Canada offers to Montreal is a function of them being a network carrier and needing to shuttle travelers back and forth between YYZ and YUL to make connections at those hubs. It's not entirely about origin-destination demand between Toronto and Montreal.

Is anyone here in that description?

The routine whining here about Toronto-Montreal travel times certainly leaves that impression that there's people who think that way.

I've no problem is HFR is built to entirely benefit Ottawa. It's trying to use it to provide frequent faster service to Montréal that's the issue.

What's the problem with doing that? Nobody is suggesting that this is a primary goal of HFR. Broadly improving travel times is a goal. But from the beginning they've always had other goals that were paramount. Reliability, capacity and frequency are at the top of the list. A secondary benefit of efforts to improve those things is faster travel time. And nobody has suggested that this secondary benefit will be evenly applied.

 

[kEiThZ]

I’ve lost track of where we’re at with the HFR/HSR project. Are we any closer to getting a shovel in the ground?

I’m not very optimistic that we’ll end up with anything by the current rate and politics. I have a feeling that Via Rail will be mothballed before any shovel ever hits the ground.

It's touch and go here.

The RFEOI presentation laid out substantial details on what amounts to effectively privatizing the entire corridor. There's going to be substantial leeway for bidders to effectively build whatever kind of service they see fit for HFR. As long as it falls within some rough government goals for the project. This is basically scope creeping in to HSR-lite.

But the increased cost and timelines laid out pose substantial political risk. For one, there's not even going to be an RFP till late next year. And there's no contract award till 2025. Right before an election. And that's their plan, not accounting for slippage. The last CPC leader supported HFR and had it in his platform. The next one doesn't seem like the type who is even interested in keeping VIA alive. And by their own admission, we're still in pre-planning with a long way to go before even awarding a contract:

Source:

What's Happening Now - hfr-tgf.ca

Canada is committed to ensuring that the views of Canadians inform the future direction of the via high frequency rail project

tgf-hfr.ca

This is why it's crazy to hear the constant whining about Toronto-Montreal travel times. Just getting shovels in the ground on absolutely anything is the priority. Who even cares what it is? If there's no shovels in the ground on any intercity rail project sometime this decade, VIA is probably unlikely to survive to the next.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

More Charger/Venture testing in southern Ontario over the next few days:

Bonus, another trainset is evidently in delivery from Siemens and has been spotted in the US Midwest.

 

[Bordercollie]

More Charger/Venture testing in southern Ontario over the next few days:

View attachment 417754

Bonus, another trainset is evidently in delivery from Siemens and has been spotted in the US Midwest.

Have they completed the modifications at TMC to support these new trains?

Good to see that the second trainset is on its way.

 

[crs1026]

This is why it's crazy to hear the constant whining about Toronto-Montreal travel times. Just getting shovels in the ground on absolutely anything is the priority. Who even cares what it is? If there's no shovels in the ground on any intercity rail project sometime this decade, VIA is probably unlikely to survive to the next.

I won't speak for Montreal, but it wouldn't be Toronto if someone didn't insist that projects be halted altogether because they have down sides and we need to go right back to square one and start over and do a different design.

That's how we've been planning local transit for the last thirty years..... and it shows.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

Applying gravity model:
for Kitchener - Toronto CMAs
(575,000)*(6,202,000)/(93.78)^2 = 405 489 067.697

for Montreal - Toronto CMA's

(4,300,000)*(6,202,000)/(508.87 )^2 = 102 987 975.53

Montreal-Toronto has1/4 the theoretical demand of Kitchener -Toronto.

But curiously when ever someone talks about improvements for the Kitchener line - these are brushed away as a waste of money.

A user on UrbanToronto recently argued that there was no need for a larger Kitchener central station.... um if one thinks that Kit-Tor doesn't need capacity, then toronto - montreal is way down the priority list. Like If a Montreal- Toronto project came up I would support it but there are better ways to plan

The gravity model estimates overall demand, not just HSR demand. To get the potential demand for HSR, you need to compensate for the competition from other modes of travel. CityNerd does a good job of explaining this in his video Top 10 Places to Build High Speed Rail In the U.S. At about the 8:00 mark, he shows the following chart showing travel time vs. distance (I added conversion of the distances to kilometers). At a distance of only 94 km, HSR between Kitchener and Toronto CMAs is going to have difficulties competing with driving. Now traffic will play a role, but I would argue that KW-TO is in the range that regional rail would be more appropriate.

 

[kEiThZ]

At a distance of only 94 km, HSR between Kitchener and Toronto CMAs is going to have difficulties competing with driving. Now traffic will play a role, but I would argue that KW-TO is more of the range that regional rail would be more appropriate.

I'm not sure his model translates well here. His model does not account for traffic or higher fuel prices here. And traffic, cost of gas and parking are highly relevant in this example. At rush hour (8AM), from Kitchener GO to Union, it's 1:50 hrs to drive and 1:43 hrs on the train according to Google. GO RER is supposed to reduce travel times by 20%. That should take it down to 1:22 hrs. The proposed Ontario HSR would have cut that down to 48 mins. The biggest competition to any HSR proposal from Kitchener will then be GO RER. It will essentially be a trade-off between a longer ride and a higher fare with people falling along the spectrum. I suspect Toronto-Kitchener would still have similar ridership numbers to Toronto-Montreal.