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VIA Rail --- big secret Toronto Montreal high speed link better without including Quebec City

So CTV news came out with  "secret report" commissioned by ViaRail that to build a $4 billion high-speed rail link should not include Quebec City...now that's a real surprise!  (no not really at all).  The world's investment banks have been telling ViaRail that the most logical option was actually to "exclude" Montreal and Quebec City from a high-speed corridor.  Now, this analysis was done 20 years ago (I know I was the architect of one of these studies -- I know at least two other IB guys who said the same thing, something that ViaRail didn't want to hear at the time).   To give you a sense of timing all this took place prior to 9/11.  Since then Montreal has grown tremendously -- slowly catching up to the rest of Canada!

Our conclusion, at the time, was there very little demand for travel from Quebec City to Toronto and only marginal traffic to Ottawa that was served daily (with a 42 seat aircraft), don't know the aircraft now, but there is still only one direct flight per day...20 years on!  It was impossible at the time to justify a high-speed rail link (there is already a relatively fast train between Quebec City and Montreal -- the added speed is probably not worth the effort -- more interesting would have been higher frequency).

Anyway, the results still show today, 20 years later that there is very little demand for traffic between Quebec City and Ottawa and Toronto, the added speed between Montreal and Quebec City would be better served with higher frequencies rather than a high-speed train.

Transport economics is interesting and most people misunderstand the working components; obviously, the time it takes to get from A to B is important, but that's not all -- there is also convenient to get to city-center (where trains win big) and also, even more importantly, frequency.  If there are only two trains a day, and you miss the train, your total journey time has increased dramatically since you have to wait for the next train.

It is actually the argument being made for improving rail services to the suburbs should be done by increasing frequency -- if the travel time is 30 minutes by train but you've got to wait 1 hour between trains, then your average travel time is 60 minutes (30+30), but if there's a train at the 15 minutes then your travel time is 37 minutes (30+7).  Frequency is key, and it actually promotes ridership.

The other issue, high speed, let's say that Quebec City to Montreal can justify 4 trains a day ( not impossible but it means 2,000 riders per day -- on average).  Because of the rail configuration and the right of way for freight trains higher speed link would require brand new rails.  Still the distance of 250 KM, right now the train takes 3 hours, you could reduce that slightly by having a deal with CN (maybe) so that the train could attain a top speed of 150 KM/h, but right now they are limited to 100 km per hour.

Anyway, once again ViaRail doesn't want to hear the truth, that demand for high speed rail is really in the Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa corridor....Montreal could be added but the cost would be substantial because of the building of so many viaducts. 

Anyway, the secret is out!


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