Quote:
Originally Posted by wave46
Put me in the skeptical column. HSR works in Europe because of the density of highly populated cities in close proximity to one another.
To use France as an example, the metro areas of France connected to SNCF's HSR are much larger than their Canadian counterparts in Ontario.
Given the same funding, improvements in VIA rail service/infrastructure would yield the best per-dollar value for longer distance routes (ex. Montreal-Ottawa-Toronto and London-Toronto) and GO transit rail routes. Give any leftovers to the cities to improve local transit - more person-hours overall are lost commuting within a given city than between cities spaced far apart.
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Southern Ontario and Quebec are the only places in Canada that are approaching Euro levels of density and already have some sort of passenger rail network in place, it's a great place to start - you don't get to the point of many people using the railways by not building good rail. And the more you build, it get's exponentially better. Hypothetically, if an HSR network existed today connecting Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, KWC, Hamilton, London, Windsor etc do you think that would be well used? I do.
As for building slower routes, it sounds like the prudent thing to do, but places have often found that even though building faster is more expensive, it usually has a much better business case, because it becomes much more competitive than the car and plane.
Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada just need to get a move on with building out rail, as the next line will always be more justifiable than the first because of the network effects.