High Speed Rail: Moonshot or Boondoggle?

Comments · 193

• KE

  @kevwwong · 3 weeks ago

  I did not have Erin O'Toole talking transit with RM Transit himself on my bingo card. You could not have picked a better person, Mr. O'Toole.

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• MO

  @MoriartySan · 3 weeks ago

  Insane crossover event hahaha

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• OH

  @OhTheUrbanity · 3 weeks ago

  I appreciate Canadian politicians, even retired ones, taking an interest in public transit. I agree with Reece that people underestimate Canadian transit by lumping it in with the US. The LRTs in Calgary and Edmonton get legitimately impressive ridership numbers for the size of their city. Edmonton was actually the first modern LRT system in North America!

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• SL

  @SLC1995 · 3 weeks ago

  Reese Martin should be the Minister of Transport someday in a future government. <br><br>Great show Erin!

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• ST

  @Stoddard777 · 3 weeks ago

  Canada has needed HSR for DECADES. The PM says &quot;Fortune favors the bold&quot;. Yes, building HSR is bold because it transforms Canada&apos;s transportation grid overnight. It opens up the door for extensions in other provinces like Alberta (who could see a Calgary-Edmonton-HSR high speed rail. It could see people opting for HSR over flying much like how some people opt for Shinkansens over flying in Japan.<br><br>The issue is: all of these bureaucracies are going to delay, delay, delay, the cost will balloon, the HSR won&apos;t be as advertised, and it&apos;ll be a huge waste of resources. I want to be proven wrong, but if Laos can get HSR before Canada, there&apos;s something fundamentally wrong with the way Canada conducts business.

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• NI

  @nicholaswise5818 · 3 weeks ago

  I cannot believe O&apos;toole talked with RM Transit. What is this timeline

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• S-

  @s-lando · 3 weeks ago

  Thank you for doing these productive and informative conversations Erin.

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• GR

  @Gronmin · 3 weeks ago

  Please have Reece back and I hope in future discussions you add in a bit more of your own view of what could be done or where you might disagree slightly. I enjoy both of your commentary so turning this into a series of podcasts would be great

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• TE

  @TechnicallyScryo · 3 weeks ago (edited)

  I miss this version of Conservatives so much. Respectful progressive conservatives focusing on solutions to the issues. Not just asking questions, but actively listening and taking feedback. Not just saying &quot;No&quot;, but offering alternative solutions. I just wish I trusted the rest of the Con party as much as I trust O&apos;Toole. It&apos;s hard for me as a LGBTQ Canadian to for PCs when I know what else is present in the Cons larger tent. I hope the Adults in the room like O&apos;Toole can get more in the driver&apos;s seat again. I hate having to vote Liberal out of safety concerns. Feels like blackmail.

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• KY

  @KyrilPG · 3 weeks ago

  Great to see Reece!<br>I really hope ALTO will follow the French HSR model, which is also used in Spain, as it allows the highest average speeds and shortest travel times, and thus is the most likely to bring a very large ridership.<br><br>Rather than having &quot;stops&quot;, the line would have &quot;destinations&quot; alongside a long, continuous, uninterrupted HSR corridor.<br><br>A good example of this would be the city of Reims on the French Eastern line between Paris and Strasbourg, about 150 km East of Paris.<br>The high-speed line begins in Paris&apos; suburbs and ends a few kilometers North of Strasbourg, without running through any city in between.<br><br>The line &quot;grazes&quot; the city of Reims on its Southern outskirts, where there&apos;s a high-speed station with central passing tracks (where trains run through the station at 320 km/h), and outer tracks with platforms where some trains stop, plus a couple local platforms for regional trains. This secondary station is also served by the city&apos;s tramway.<br><br>Reims also has a city center station, where trains that run back and forth between Paris and Reims stop at. Trains just leave the high-speed line to go to the city center station.<br>While some trains that continue to Strasbourg and other cities in France, Luxemburg, and Germany stop at the second station in the outskirts.<br>So the trains that travel non-stop between Paris and Strasbourg remain at full speed on the line without losing any time.<br><br>It allows trains that run without stops between Paris and Strasbourg to travel the distance in just 1 hour and 45 minutes, while the ones that run between Paris and Reims central station take only 42 minutes, and the ones that briefly stop at Reims&apos; second station straddling the line in the outskirts take only 38 minutes.<br><br>If the non-stop Paris Strasbourg trains had to run through cities, they would take well over 2 hours, as they would have to slow down in every city.<br>Which might not seem much, but for the many passengers who ride these trains to work, losing 15 to 45 minutes twice a day makes a huge difference.<br><br>It&apos;s the same on other lines, like the Southwestern Atlantic line, which puts Paris only 2 hours and 3 or 4 minutes from Bordeaux, and 1 hour and 25 minutes from Rennes instead of 4 hours.<br><br>The high-speed line runs near or around cities in between, and there are branches between it and the conventional rail network before and after the bypassed cities so that stopping trains can hop on and off the line to stop in the center of intermediate cities, while non-stop trains continue on the line at full speed.<br>Some cities only have a station in their outskirts and some have both like Reims, Montpellier, Lyon...<br><br>Travel times can get quite longer because trains stop in intermediate cities, so the French high-speed rail model allows both the fastest non-stop services and to serve more intermediate cities, while preventing trains from blocking each other.<br>Stopping in intermediate cities can add up to more than 15 minutes for each stop.<br><br>And even if 15 minutes here and there don&apos;t seem like much, it can greatly influence ridership. A few minutes shorter or longer can change ridership in the millions of passengers.<br><br>Certain city pairs saw their ridership pretty much double thanks to 30 minutes shorter travel times...

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• FI

  @firepower01 · 3 weeks ago

  CPC never should have ditched this guy

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• J.

  @j.g.6601 · 3 weeks ago

  Canada&apos;s model is like having cargo airlines owning the airport, prioritizing the landing rights of freight over passengers.

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