Bordercollie
Senior Member
To Trenton yes. Not to London.
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- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Urban Sky
Senior Member
No, they haven't: All the studies you refer to have been commissioned by the MTQ and the MTO and conducted by professional engineering firms, plus an unsolicited proposal from SNCF. The only thing VIA ever studied was VIAFast, which covered the entire Quebec-Windsor Corridor and featured exactly the kind of 200 km/h fuel-operated train service you keep demanding for Toronto-London here...
The only thing which speaks volumes is your complete ignorance of any facts, regardless of how often you get soundly and profoundly debunked: Montreal-Quebec wasn't part of the initial project scope either, but business leaders, political leaders and newspapers in Quwbec City and Trois-Rivières lobbied hard to get their cities included into the plan, whereas their peers in Southwestern Ontario condemned VIA for proposing any intercity passenger rail initiative at the same time as the Wynne government's ill-fated HSR project in Southwestern Ontario...
Sure, as long as Londoners don't mind transferring to a GO train in Georgetown to continue their journey to Toronto...
Londoners have every reason to be pissed, but their political leaders should be the target of their criticisms, not their co-signers...
Your posts reinforce what everyone already knew: that one just has to have read any four subsequent posts of yours to recognize every single word you write.
Now, if you could please do us a favour and create your own thread for your ever-same soundbites about how poor London is treated like the unwanted stepchild by every single transport policy decision maker in Ontario, Canada and the entire universe...^^
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crs1026
Senior Member
Actually, the Amtrak consist carried on into Toronto. That was the catch….very messy operationally.
- Paul
kEiThZ
Superstar
How many times does this have to be covered? There's no really economical way to go West of Union, as there is going East. They even found a lightly used freight corridor from Montreal to Quebec City that they could use. And this is all compounded by the fact that any westward extension has to serve Pearson. They can't have the largest passenger rail project in history skip the largest airport in the country. And that has to be done in conjunction with the air-rail hub that Pearson intends to build.
Given these realities, there is no politician or bureaucrat who would ever have picked going West before going East. Between Pearson's hub and the need to either acquire or build a whole new corridor, the Union-Pearson-Kitchener-London extension will cost as much as all of HFR from Toronto to Quebec City. It has to be a distinct phase.
crs1026
Senior Member
I don’t disagree with the premise that there had to be a starting point, and we can’t “boil the ocean” all in one step.
But I would quibble about the premise that Quebec City is easy and economical while Toronto-Pearson-Kitchener-London is hard and expensive.
For one thing, Quebec-Montreal is 180 miles where Toronto-London is 119. Second, the Toronto-Pearson leg is roughed in while the approach to Montreal is messy and needs re construction along CP and CN trackage. A true hub at Pearson is still a decade or more away, true, but I’m not convinced that a free bus shuttle from Malton to Pearson is not viable as a stopgap - Logan in Boston has such a shuttle, for example.
Population wise, Toronto-Pearson-Kitchener-London is way ahead of Montreal-Trois Rivieres- Quebec. One can assume that ridership potential is greater.
We have not seen a comparative business case showing the relative merits of Quebec-Montreal vs Toronto-London as an element of HFR. It has been reported that the Quebec leg of HFR is not a money maker. Perhaps a head to head analysis would have favoured London.
Perhaps political considerations, and not network or economic considerations, is why things ended up this way. Plus a federal-provincial disconnect that makes it tempting for Ottawa to pass the tab for the west of Toronto leg to the province, especially with GO needing to invest in that line anyways. (I do think there is a political agenda, not a network agenda, behind GO stretching to London…. mark my words…)
Because of the politics, I think it’s inevitable that HFR 1.0 had to stop at Toronto. But let’s not misportray that as a sound economic decision.
- Paul
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Allandale25
Senior Member
nfitz
Superstar
Not sure it's been covered that much. And I'm not sure why it's dismissed at all, given that there's plans for the longer Montreal-Quebec corridor, that has lower population. And as crs1026 points out, the approaches into Montreal from the east (heck, from anywhere other than south shore) are horrific.
There's currently three rail corridors from Toronto to London. Adding some extra track from Aldershot to London would be quite doable. Heck, if you want to go for speed, restore the Brantford bypass track, and switch to new track along the CP corridor from Woodstock to London. And with that alignment the Pearson "problem" vanishes (not that it is a problem really).
kEiThZ
Superstar
It's been covered. Over and over and over again. @Urban Sky just covered it above again. They went east because there were lower risk and lower investment (relatively) options. And, at the time that HFR was being conceived, there was an Ontario government pushing HSR to London. What exactly would the point of an HFR proposal to London have been then?
Was there an element of politics? Probably. But it's pretty damn defensible, based on looking at risk alone. Going West is far more difficult and expensive.
If there's no intention to terminate at Gare Centrale, or if VIA is simply willing to live with a break in service, it really is not all that complicated a project. It starts to look just like the TOM portions of HFR. Actually, less complex.
I don't, personally, see this happening with shuttle buses. The entire point of the Pearson hub, as per the GTAA, is to drastically cut car trips to the airport. To that end, they want to co-locate a departure and check-in hall at the rail hub. This means, not just HFR, but GO Kitchener eventually re-routed through the hub. I fully expect that the Pearson Hub, HFR West and GO Kitchener upgrades will be rolled into one large CIB package sometime this decade.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
When I talk about London service I am not talking about the route via Kitchener but rather Aldershot which is far more direct. This route is as direct as it could be and is only 180km. As noted above, restoring the Brantford Bypass would do wonders.
UrbanSky............You state that the reason why the line is going to QC was in, in part, due to politicians, business, and media demanding be so which just confirms what I have been saying all along, that this is very much a plan based primarily based upon political considerations and not transportation needs. This is to say nothing of the fact that TR/QC is one of the slowest growing areas of the country and SWO one of the fastest.
As far as people in SWO opposing Wynne's plan, that is crap. It got news coverage due to a couple of outspoken farmers but that was enough for QP to quickly rescind the plan that Wynne had created on the back of a napkin 20 minutes before the election call.
UrbanSky............You state that the reason why the line is going to QC was in, in part, due to politicians, business, and media demanding be so which just confirms what I have been saying all along, that this is very much a plan based primarily based upon political considerations and not transportation needs. This is to say nothing of the fact that TR/QC is one of the slowest growing areas of the country and SWO one of the fastest.
As far as people in SWO opposing Wynne's plan, that is crap. It got news coverage due to a couple of outspoken farmers but that was enough for QP to quickly rescind the plan that Wynne had created on the back of a napkin 20 minutes before the election call.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Not. Happening.
Zero chance that any rail network upgrade west of Union skips Pearson or Kitchener (AKA our "innovation corridor"). Especially since Hamilton is so well covered by GO.
crs1026
Senior Member
Even if the passengers alight in the north end, there is a need to get the trains to and from the maintenance base with reliability. I can’t see doing that with the status quo trackage. And the last ten miles into the north end station will need improvements to clear EXO trains.
So we are left with 80 miles of single track restoration from Georgetown to London, plus 10 miles of intensive construction Georgetown to Bramalea…. versus 160 miles of single track restoration, plus 10 miles of intensive construction into northern Montreal, plus an “escape” solution to bring the trains downtown at night.
On a pure cost to build and revenue potential comparison, I’d still vote for London.
You make a good point that we have to look over VIA’s shoulder as they saw things in 2014-2015, as that’s when the HFR concept was conceived. Given that date’s landscape, and the initial focus on a profit generating HFR, I can’t fault VIA for not looking to London. Neither London nor Quebec would have looked particularly profitable given the investment required.
But Quebec has more political sellability, so it found its way into the package.
I do wonder, though - if VIA had proposed an hourly HFR to London, offering semi express between Kitchener Guelph Pearson and Union, would GO have put much effort into expansion on that route beyond Georgetown? It’s chicken and egg, but VIA’s apparent inability/disinterest in Kitchener may be what earned us the GO service we have today.
I am not sure a transit hub that’s so far from the terminal will reduce the desire to connect by car. Only banning cars will achieve that. (hasn’t Manchester just done that ?)
For people arriving by TTC/Miway/BT/UP today, the hub is a step (more like 500 steps, actually) backwards.
For people coming from the hinterland by GO/VIA, it doesn’t matter how close the hub is. There will be a “middle mile”. Put the shuttle where the buses are today, loading at both ends of Terminal 1 as limos/taxis do today, and the transfer from train to terminal will be comparable.
Long runs of moving sidewalk are nobody’s dream airport experience, and Pearson already has too much of that. I’m not looking forward to the hub.
- Paul
kEiThZ
Superstar
It's a bit far. But not so far as to be unmanageable with movators. It's planned in front of the current Terminal 3.
And yes, they are planning this to completely change the way Pearson works. There's no other way to squeeze more capacity out of YYZ without getting a substantial modal shift in passenger travel to/from the airport, while simultaneously freeing up space at those terminals for ramp and gate expansions.
To that end, the roads, parking and transit into Pearson has to change drastically. It's a major undertaking. And there's no way any of the transport agencies involved want to expend capital in the vicinity, without real clarity on where this is going. Both for the opportunity involved and the risk of stranded capital.
TFC
Active Member
It has also been pointed out that a refurbished north mainline, while slightly longer in distance, could see travel times comparable with the southern alignment via Aldershot/Brantford. It's also quite apparent that the appetite for a southern alignment isn't so much about directness of travel than some insecurity/competitiveness around the prospect of Kitchener benefitting from HFR. This isn't a zero sum game.
rbt
Senior Member
The transit hub as envisioned at that time also included a consolidated security and customs for both terminals. Existing security/customs space would have become retail and additional gate space. So, the distance savings would have been quite low if arriving by vehicle as those people also went through the new structure.
The main goal of replicating the Amsterdam Schiphol office park, to unlock revenue from leased land not tied to airport operations, may well be impossible over the next decade. Since that was one of the primary drivers the project will undergo a significant redesign if it goes ahead. They'll probably need air-side revenue to pull it off rather than relying on commercial flex-office tenants like WeWork, Workhaus, and Regus and tech startups to pay for the expansion.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
I'm sure it'll go through a few iterations before it finally comes together. But the broader point here is that every transit agency in the vicinity has to consider the impact, of that hub, coming to fruition. At minimum, their plans can't hinder its development. Optimally, they would want to coordinate and time capital investments with the development of the hub.
These days, there's also the CIB, to bring a chequebook to exactly these kinds of transformative projects.
These days, there's also the CIB, to bring a chequebook to exactly these kinds of transformative projects.