April 5, 2006
Screw The York U Subway, Howsabout a Monorail?
We were intrigued by an idea brought up by David Ross on the Reading Toronto site of a high speed train to Montreal. Shanghai has one that takes people from a suburban airport to downtown Shanghai in five minutes. Torontoist has taken this ride in a cab and trust us, it's LOOONG and congested. It currently takes about five hours by train to get to Montreal, a high speed train could do this in one.
Think about it. In the same time it took you to go to York U you could be sipping beers on St. Laurent. This would pretty much kill all flights from Montreal to Toronto and we think that's a good thing. Going to Pearson is always a pain in the butt. And think of the improvements in air quality if we reduce airplane traffic. Ross points out that a lot of places in the states are looking into it and if VIA operated this it would drastically increase their ridership.
|
Sounds good... but don't forget about those literally hundreds of rail derailments we had in Canada last year. Imagine if those were high speed trains... yikes.
The corridor high-speed link has been gnashed over for years and years. It makes good people-moving sense but it costs ridiculous money that could never ever ever be recovered through ticket sales unless you pushed it like transit (60 trains a day, commute to work in Montreal! etc.). Only feasible if you can convince the feds to sink several unrecoverable billion into it.
For the meantime, maybe we can just strap a few Air Canada jets to the tracks...
I think it's also good to look at the exact reverse: make everything very local. Make cars financially completely out of reach to most people, and also make travelling on public transit exhorborant. This would increase the incentive for people to work in their neighbourhoods - only places they could reach by bike or walking. This would build stronger communities, use less resources, increase the amount of free time in peoples' lives, and reduce pollution. But on the other hand, until we evolve to this stage, let's change the TTC fare to a dime a ride.
Great idea. But why stop there? Lets also make people get jobs that they are well suited for. This way everyone is happy and fulfilled. Lets also ensure people buy only what they need. This will cut down on waste. I think this can be achieved with a comprehensive 5 year plan.
Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine,
Bona fide, Electrified, Six-car Monorail!
Wait! What about free trips to the moon?
I enjoy rail travel quite a bit, and I love the idea of making the world smaller. Western Europe's got us beat: in the time it takes us to get from Toronto to Montréal, you can go from London to Paris! Being truly "international" in Europe is so much easier, and that sounds like adventure to me.
I'm not suggesting that people use it EVERYDAY. But think about it, 18-year old kid goes to school at McGill misses mom and dad, well they can go home much easier with a one hour monorail vs. a 5 hour train or heck a car ride.
Business travellers can get downtown to downtown instead of schlepping all the way out to the respective airports. I'm sure it'll be expensive but so is bailing out Air Canada, don't forget about the two billion dollars that went to highway construction in the provincial budget this year. Moving people great distances is ALWAYS expensive.
A highspeed train between Toronto and Montreal would be fantastic for so many reasons. Personally, as someone who does freelance work I think this would open up many opportunities to me. Even though most of my work I can do virtually, there is nothing like being able to meet people face to face to land a job.
Plus the impact this would have on local cultural attractions would be great. Want to go see some art show, or DJ, or local band, or whatever... no problem, hop on the train, see the show and come home all in the same day.
Personally, I'd like to see this detour through Ottawa as well, but that's just because I like Ottawa.
O' wow! This would be a brilliant idea!! I'm always saying "if only we had a car, we could make weekend trips to Montreal every few months!"
I think we should petition for it!
The Ontario and Quebec gov'ts put together a study at the end of the 80s (!) on high speed rail in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, with 3 different scenarios - 250, 300, or 400 kph trains. If there was the will for it, it could be started tomorrow.
The train makes great sense if you use logic as your guide, but the canadian aviation industry is not known for operating on logical terms, and considering the mountains of money put into the new pearson terminal, it looks like the money's going to be sunk into air travel's shaky foundations. They won't offer a service that shows the emperor has no clothes on.
I was in Osaka last week, and when it comes to inter-city rail service, JR West has VIA seriously whipped. I didn't get a chance/need to ride the Shinkansen (bullet train) but even the local service was fast. Osaka to Kyoto, about 40 minutes, for around $10.
A highspeed train between the two cultural capitals of Canada would be brilliant, particularly as a way to repair Canada/Quebec tension. First, though, we need a rail link to Pearson. I had to pay $40 for a taxi when my plane came in 3 hours late, after the subway had closed (at least our subway stays open over an hour later than Osaka's), which I think is ridiculous.
Good luck getting Harper to care about the little people's need to move around though...
I am a Torontonian, living in Shanghai at the moment. First of all, the high speed train is not called the Monorail, but rather, the Maglev (for Magnetic Levitation). Since the proper name is way cooler than Monorail, why not use it? I have ridden the Maglev, and it's pretty much the best thing ever. However, it will never happen in Canada. They have recently announced a new Maglev project to Hangzhou, a city 175 km away (a bit less than half the distance from T.O. to Montreal). The cost of the project is $4.3 Billion US. And China can produce equipment cheaper and is not paying people at unions rates. So for Toronto-Montreal, you would be looking at minimum $10 billion. Considering how hard it is to get even $1.5 billion for a subway to York.....
We don't need Maglev technology, but even something approaching Germany's ICE or France's TGV would be nice.
Still, we'd be looking at $5 billion or so and the bus and airline lobby would try to scuttle it at every turn.
The Windsor-Q.C. corridor is the only part of Canada that such a service would make any degree of sense (as population densities along the corridor are something in line with much of Europe). You also have large the very large centres of Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Q.C.