Aug 03

Brutal Treatment by CN damaging VIA’s Canadian train

By Transport Action Ontario | Intercity Rail and Bus , Latest News , Northern Ontario

Transport Action Ontario and our affiliate, the Northern and Eastern Ontario Rail Network (NEORN) have jointly issued a media release decrying the extremely poor on-time performance of the Canadian.  Data shows that the Canadian from Vancouver to Toronto was on schedule only once between March 2 and June 22, 2017.  The blame is placed on CN, which is disregarding its contractual agreement to efficiently handle all VIA passenger trains on its lines.

The groups are calling on Transport Minister Marc Garneau to resolve the situation.

The media release can be viewed here:  TAO-NEORN 2017-08-03

 

Jul 21

TAO questions Ontario’s high-speed rail proposal, calls for replacement by a high-performance rail plan

By Transport Action Ontario | Intercity Rail and Bus , Latest News

Will the Government of Ontario’s wildly optimistic predictions about the benefits of high-speed rail (HSR) actually materialize? The odds are they will not – and here is why.         [Click  title  above  to  continue  reading  analysis  of  Ontario’s  HSR  proposal]

“High-speed rail’s problems stem mainly from implausibly rosy economic predictions followed by deeply disappointing financial results.”¹

HSR is too often a vanity project on which politicians fixate, believing their ridings must have the service to be part of the 21st century. In this, HSR has often been similar to other politically-motivated mega-projects, such as Toronto’s controversial Union Pearson Express.

According to the Economist, California’s HSR project was to:

“…cost no more than $33 billion, with the federal government stumping up $3.2 billion and private investors chipping in the balance. So far, such private investors have been conspicuous by their absence…. Meanwhile, the overall cost of the project had soared to $98 billion. And instead of going into service by the end of the decade, the high-speed railway would not be ready until 2033.”² 

Even in countries where HSR is applicable and has proved successful, there have been problems.

“Others estimate that Japan’s equally illustrious HSR system has added more than 10 percent to the national debt, while cost overruns in Korea have surged into the 300 percent range.”¹

Is this what we want to happen in Ontario in order to satisfy the cravings of politicians seeking re-election? What of the legitimate transportation needs of the voters who pay for these projects?

The major problems with Ontario’s HSR plan include:

  • It would not run at true high speeds until it got west of Kitchener. Between there and Toronto, it would run on the existing GO line at speeds of no more than 160 km/hour.
  • The proposed HSR trains require high platforms, which will make expensive station duplication necessary to handle both the high-level HSR and low-level GO trains.
  • The service would not be part of a well-planned network, lacking the necessary traffic from feeder rail, bus and transit services.
  • Unless properly integrated and funded, HSR will help to destroy the remnants of the VIA Rail and Greyhound services in Southwestern Ontario, siphoning off the traffic to and from the major centres served by HSR.
  • HSR would bypass communities on the two existing Toronto-London passenger lines, including Brampton, which will have a population of about 700,000 when it will supposedly start. HSR would also bypass Stratford, St. Marys, Oakville, Burlington, Brantford, Woodstock and Ingersoll.

Has the province done any real surveys and studies of the benefits and costs of the proposed system? In most other jurisdictions where HSR has been built, the costs escalated drastically, while the benefits did not meet the optimistic predictions.

The much quicker, equally effective and more affordable solution to Southwestern Ontario’s growing transportation problem is high-performance rail (HPR), which is in daily operation on comparable rail corridors around the world, including the U.S.

HPR includes major improvements to the existing infrastructure, new trains and revisions to the fare structure to provide a fast, frequent and affordable service that can be running in less than half the time of HSR and at much lower cost. It is implemented incrementally, providing improvements the public can use every step of the way before it reaches its final build-out.

HPR’s multiple benefits are outlined in Transport Action Ontario’s This is High-Performance Rail

This is the course of urgent action Transport Action Ontario advocates. Pursuing HSR after several failed attempts stretching back nearly 40 years will only lead to further deterioration of our public transportation system, the competitiveness of our economy and our quality of life. We cannot afford to waste more time and money on another “gee-whiz” scheme that is, at best, a pre-election vote chaser.

Robert Wightman

President

Transport Action Ontario

July 19, 2017

1   http://www.aei.org/publication/the-real-problem-with-high-speed-rail/

2   https://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21695237-taxpayers-could-pay-dearly-californias- high-speed-dreams-biting-bullet

A related press release is to be found in the Publications/Press Releases section of this website.

To download this document click here.

Jul 21

Transport Action Ontario rejects high-speed political vanity project, calls for high-performance rail plan

By Transport Action Ontario | Press Releases and Open Letters

TORONTO – In a hard-hitting policy statement, the transportation advocacy group, Transport Action Ontario (TAO), calls for the rejection of the provincial government’s high-speed rail (HSR) proposal and its replacement with a more [click on title to continue] practical, high-performance rail (HPR) alternative.

“Will the Government of Ontario’s rosy predictions about the benefits of HSR actually materialize?” asks TAO president Robert Wightman. “The odds are they will not. Even in countries where HSR is deemed to be a success, there are problems.”

The HSR proposal endorsed by the current Government of Ontario is estimated to cost as much as $30 billion and can’t be fully built to Windsor until at least 2031. Among the points TAO finds deadly to the Ontario HSR scheme are:

  • An inability to operate at true high speed between Toronto and Kitchener, where the trains must share GO’s lower-speed tracks;
  • The need for high station platforms, which will boost construction costs by requiring both high- and low-level platforms for HSR and GO trains;
  • The lack of a well-developed network of rail, bus and transit services to feed passengers to the HSR trains and make truly car-free travel possible; and
  • The bypassing of major centres on the two existing Toronto-London passenger lines, including Brampton, Stratford, St. Marys, Oakville, Burlington, Brantford, Woodstock and Ingersoll.

TAO describes the government’s Toronto-London-Windsor HSR proposal as “a vanity project on which politicians fixate, similar to other politically-motivated mega-projects, such as Toronto’s controversial Union Pearson Express.”

The public advocacy group recommends its replacement with a better and more affordable high-performance rail (HPR), which has been proven on many comparable rail corridors around the world, including the U.S.

HPR includes major improvements to the existing infrastructure to boost speed and frequency, new trains and revisions to the fare structure to provide a fast, frequent and affordable service that can be running in less than half the time of HSR at a much lower cost. Because HPR is implemented incrementally, it provides improvements the public can use every step of the way.

HPR’s multiple benefits are outlined in the TAO booklet, This is High-Performance Rail

Says Wightman, “This is the course of urgent action TAO is advocating. Pursuing HSR after so many failed attempts over nearly 40 years will only lead to further deterioration of our public transportation system, the competitiveness of our economy and our quality of life. We cannot afford to waste years on another gee-whiz scheme that is, at best, a pre-election vote chaser.”

-30-

For further information, please contact:

Robert Wightman

President

Transport Action Ontario

Cell: (416) 540-5764

r.wightman@sympatico.ca

(Double-click on link below to download press release)

Why HSR Press Release Final 170718

Jun 14

A clear admission passenger rail needed in southwestern Ontario

By Transport Action Ontario | Intercity Rail and Bus , Latest News

This article by TAO board member Ken Westcar and resident of Woodstock ON appeared in the London Free Press in somewhat edited form on June 9, 2017 under the title “Westcar: Upgrading passenger rail makes most sense.”    

Although there are many critics of the province’s Toronto to Windsor high-speed rail plan it has finally delivered a message that the Wynne government is no longer in denial on public transportation in southwestern Ontario. They are now on the hook to do something about it rather than pushing expanded 400-series highways and futuristic automotive technologies as catch-all solutions. Meanwhile federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau sits uncomfortably on the VIA Rail file in Ottawa hoping either that it will go away entirely or be picked up partially or wholly by the private sector. Not a chance!

The last five years have produced calls from many municipalities and regions for transportation alternatives. Niagara, Peterborough, communities in Northern Ontario and now Orangeville are calling for the reinstatement of passenger trains to sustain their local economies, bypass congested and unreliable roads and help mitigate climate change. Niagara improvements are underway but there’s local frustration in the mixed messages coming from Metrolinx on completion dates primarily due to a plan to build the entire system in one go rather than taking a progressive approach and getting at least some commuter trains on the tracks now to replace VIA services cancelled in 2012.

Vote-buying tactics or not, the province habitually kicks the can down the road by insisting every announced public transportation investment must be gold-plated. Such are their current high-speed rail intentions and those of GO train services to Niagara. But the stark reality is that the average traveller neither wants to pay for gold nor wait another decade for a viable alternative to congested highways.

What would better satisfy most travellers outside the GTHA is better equipment and greater frequency on existing train services and the reinstatement of those lost over the past fifteen years or so. Upgrading existing rail infrastructure and more frequent, modern trains would speed-up journey times and satisfy the majority of travellers who just want a decent and affordable ride. What they don’t need are expensive palatial stations and bullet-style trains that drive up ticket prices, cut large swaths through communities, take decades to deliver and eliminate existing rail service to some town and cities.

While municipal leaders have made many constructive suggestions to the provincial government they have usually been dismissed, not because they don’t make sense, but often because they fail to align with party political objectives. And, despite claims to contrary, there seems to be no seriously constructive dialogue between the province and Ottawa on passenger rail. This puts existing passenger train services through southwestern Ontario at risk and is extremely irresponsible given VIA Rail’s announcement that their clapped-out fleet will not meet current service schedules beyond 2020. If this is true we are now past the point of no return on train services west of Aldershot and Kitchener.

Canada has the internal expertise to upgrade existing rail infrastructure and benefit from the high-paying jobs it would create over the longer term. But we have no experience in designing and building true high-speed lines and would need to rely on foreigners to do this. Perhaps we could dig the trenches and pour concrete but billions of dollar’s worth of high value-added work would need to be imported, possibly from Europe or, more likely, China.

A policy of passenger rail upgrading could see significant results in five years or less assuming existing services doesn’t collapse entirely in the meantime. Under the purview of provincial Premier John Robarts and then CN president Donald Gordon it took just two years to make GO trains a reality from scratch in the late 1960’s and, for the past 50 years, they have since delivered immeasurable value to travellers, the GTHA economy and taxpayers alike. This is the strategy needed now for southwestern Ontario. Let’s sideline the stalling tactics of glitzy political dreams and get on with improving what we already have.

Ken Westcar, Woodstock ON, June 1, 2017

https://ontario.transportaction.ca/a-clear-admission-passenger-rail-needed-in-southwestern-ontario/

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