FrodoMTL

Okay aside from venting, a more serious question: do you guys know how we can get engaged to voice our concerns? Like writing to MPs? Writing to city councillors? What’s the most direct way to get involved? I feel like this project got killed because of NIMBYs who are good at shouting. We should do the same.

I love how they think it’s “only” 6%. 6% of $36 billion is $2.2 billion. News flash for ARTM: Vancouver’s 20km Canada Line also cost $2.2 billion. That’s your 6% right there. Another fun figure ARTM created in the report: having underground stations will “only” cost $100 million “more” per station than elevated ones. Which sounds “reasonable” on paper but is a crazy figure when you realize that CDPQ’s elevated stations cost in average $40 million per station. So in essence, ARTM inflated the per station cost by 350%, from $40 million to $140 million per station. All of this makes ARTM seem like they are trying to fool the public and treat us like we don’t understand simple mathematics. I mean, who cares if the per station cost skyrockets by 350% from the previous version, or that 6% is roughly $2.2 billion in extra cost. Who cares cuz the QC government will pull cash out of the sky.

The $70 billion bill for Toronto is also absurdly high. Let’s admit it: both cities in Canada have highly inflated transit budgets that are out of this world compared to other OECD developed countries. I used to work as a consultant for Metrolinx in Toronto and have seen first hand the amount of waste that public agency gets by: e.g. nearly $50 million just to implement a procurement software system ; e.g. nearly 2/3 of its staff are consultants or contractors that charge exorbitant hourly fees With that said, even if it’s $70 billion, at least Toronto is getting a BUNCH of new and upgraded lines along with electrification of its GO RER system: - Hurontario LRT - Ontario Line Subway - Eglinton Cross town (opening this year, hopefully?) - Finch West LRT - GO RER electrification and over 1000 km in track upgrades and station upgrades turning it soon into a Paris RER-style system, with 10-15 min frequencies Is $70 billion expensive? Yes yes yes. But at least they are getting a ton of new and upgraded transit that will benefit the whole GTA region. WHEREAS for $36 billion, we get what in Montreal? A buried light metro that goes to the east island and Laval, two of the least dense neighborhoods in the region covered with suburban housing, warehouses, and big box malls. A simple BRT or LRT like the one in Mississauga or York Region in Toronto should easily serve Montreal east, at a FRACTION of the cost. For perspective, the 20 KM, 19 station Hurontario LRT in Mississauga only cost $4 billion to design, build and finance. Why should Montreal East or Laval be any different than a similar suburb like Mississauga (which arguably has much bigger population). Like for F sake, ARTM and Montreal politicians should be ashamed of this plan.

As an Air Canada frequent flyer, I love using airport lounges. However, I find it a bit ludicrous that some people choose to spend 2, 3, 4, or more hours at an airport lounge, when their actual flight to Montreal is 1 hr. Let's be honest, very few people work or do "productive activities" in these executive lounges - most people go for the open bar in order to prepare themselves for the misery on the plane. Also, VIA Rail's very reasonably priced Business Class also offers open bar onboard, a 3-course hot meal, WIFI, and a business class lounge in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. I remember the days pre-Covid when I would board a 3 pm train from TO Union station, order a glass of scotch onboard, enjoy my dinner at 5 pm while passing by country scenery and sunset, and finish off dinner with a glass of Cognac from the bar. It's a very relaxing way to travel.

The final design for the new Siemens fleet has been unveiled on May 26. Currently the first train set is sitting in Sacramento, California, and will be delivered to Montreal this summer to begin testing. Service on the new corridor fleet will commence in 2022.

3 points: 1. Australia has "modern EMUs" for intercity trains? Not that I'm aware of. In fact their intercity service is comparable in many ways to VIA Rail - underfunded, and in some cases even less frequency that VIA's corridor service. I believe you are referring to their intracity regional/commuter bilevels, which in this case is more comparable to GO Transit or EXO (and yes, far exceeds NA standards when it comes to commuter rail). 2. VIA's corridor service was already frequently sold out prior to the pandemic. In fact, demand already outstrips supply and seats available on Monday, Thurs, and Fridays. It's very comparable to NE Corridor with Amtrak. 3. Are TGV or German ICE fares "much" lower than driving? I'm not so sure. When I was working in Germany, I frequently rode the Berlin-Munchen route, which has a similar length as Montreal to Toronto (580 km). Berlin to Munich was 4hr02 min on the fastest ICE "Sprinter" service. The cheapest, deep-discounted 2nd class ticket is currently priced at 163 EUR. For a family of 4, that's 652 EUR or almost $1000 CAD. Under what circumstance would this be competitive for a "family" with driving given the similar distance as Montreal and Toronto? If I had a van or SUV, and I'm already paying gas and insurance and all the annual maintenance costs, I'd choose my van/SUV for my family and 2 kids any day because of the sunk costs of vehicle ownership. HOWEVER, if I were traveling as on my own for work, it's the ICE HSR hands down. I'm not saying no family would ever ride the HSR, but it's just not that competitive economically for a family with kids if they already own a car. Here's the fully priced ticket for the above route on Deutsche Bahn: https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en?ld=4322&protocol=https:&seqnr=7&ident=mk.03161522.1621619649&rt=1&rememberSortType=minDeparture&sTID=C2-0:C6-2.0@1&oCID=C2-0&rCID=C6-2&orderSOP=yes&showAvail=yes&completeFulfillment=1&hafasSessionExpires=2105212010&zielorth=Muenchen&zielorte=Muenchen&zielortb=muenchen&zielorta=DEU&xcoorda=11558339&ycoorda=48140229&distancea=504&services=heba&bcrvglpreis=27920&HWAI=SELCON!lastsel=C6-2!& Lastly, what prompted me to use DB's Berlin-Munich service via train (vs. driving or flying) wasn't so much the speed (it's at minimum 4 hrs on the fastest HSR Sprinter service, and mostly 4.5 - 5 hrs if you get delayed, so really not that fast for a distance of 580 km). It was the frequency and predictability service (every hour minimum, sometimes even every 30 min). I could just show up at Berlin Central HBF anytime and hop on train to Munich. Also, great connectivity with local transit such as S-Bahn and U-Bahn and the intercity rail stations, which is critical to the success of any intercity rail service.

The logic that HFR is not going to be competitive with automobiles is ridiculous. It's never meant to compete with cars. People will always drive, because it's much more economical for leisure travelers like a family with 3 kids who live in Brossard or Mississauga. Even in countries with sufficient HSR/TGV, you still have plenty of auto-traffic from leisure travelers. The primary competition for rail has always been air traffic between Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. Before Covid, YYZ/YTZ and YUL operated 50-70 flights per day between Air Transat, West Jet, Air Canada, and Porter - averaging $400-800 for a round trip ticket. That is a crazy amount of air traffic between just 3 cities at exorbitant fares. HFR's goal should ALWAYS be to target the air segment first - coupled with federal regulations that incentivize the move to intercity rail (e.g. additional taxes and airport fees on short haul flights between YYZ/YTZ and YUL).

The baseline cost for HFR is quoted at $4 billion. Electrification should bring that up to $6 billion. Of course, none of this is fully costed until the detailed design is completed by the Joint Projects Office and CIB. I think what VIA's strategy is to break down HFR into phases, with $4 billion as the baseline phase and add-ons like electrification and other track/grade separation/station enhancements as additional pieces that could be brought on for later phases once the main HFR project is signed off. It's typical project planning strategy in public sector, to break up a large project into multi-phases so they are more "digistable" to the accountants, politicians, and bean counters in Ottawa. From a project management stand point, it's also much easier/faster to process and approve change orders (e.g. add on electrification or add new stations or add new grade separations, etc.) once the main contract is signed and underway. I've been on several large scale projects with Toronto-based transit agencies - the change orders always tend to be larger than the original contract size.

I've even heard RL being compared to Park Avenue in NYC... or the "5th Avenue of Montreal"...🤣 Let's be honest, René Levesque as it currently stands can't even compare to University Avenue in Toronto, which is a pretty low standard for urban boulevards (which also happens to feature a 6-8 lane urban highway right in the middle of downtown Toronto): - City of Toronto, University Avenue

1. Fleet-Renewal project was approved in 2017-18 budget, hence well before the announcement of HFR 2. As part of the current Siemens order, VIA has the contractual option to order 22 additional dual-mode train sets based on the charger model (similar to Amtrak and NY Metro-North Rail Charger Dual-Mode orders). We'll likely end up with a mixed fleet in HFR, and that's okay for this transitional period. Anyway, super excited to see the new (more streamlined) Siemens fleet arriving in Montreal this summer!

Both VIA and Metrolinx in Toronto have recently completed their hydrogen rail studies (spent $7 million on the study). Metrolinx explicitly stated in Feb 2021 that they will not be considering hydrogen rolling stock because: 1) lack of large scale deployment at the moment, esp in North American market, therefore significantly increasing risk during deployment (and cost of ongoing maintenance when no other major North America rail agency has plans for Hydrail). 2) need for extensive infrastructure rebuild to support hydro trains This is actually good news for VIA, because it'll force VIA, Metrolinx, and (hopefully Exo) into a unified electrification approach. Metrolinx owns over 500 km+ of passengers in and around Toronto, and Metrolinx is on a very aggressive electrification program, which will be additional incentive for VIA to electrify HFR to some degree within the same timeline.

Several points: 1. HFR will deliver average speed of 177-200 kph (the new Siemens rolling stock coming later in the summer is capable of operational speeds of 200 kph). That is already comparable to most European intercity rail in the especially in the UK and Germany. And yes, HFR is capable of full electrification along the QC-TO corridor. 2. HFR will cut down travel between MTL and TO to 4 hr to 4:15 hr (currently it is 5:05 - 5:40 hrs and frequently delayed due to CN freight blocks), or time saving of 25% from current travel time and deliver 95% on-time performance 3. HFR will cut down travel between TO and OTT to 3:15 hr, putting it in direct competition with air travel. This is time reduction by over 30% from the current 4:45 hr TO-OTT service. I'm sorry, but that elusive "TGV" just won't happen for the foreseeable future. People on here need to stop screaming about something that just isn't happening and get a grip on the reality of the situation. The April Federal Budget 2021 was very, very clear about this point in terms of allocation of funding for the HFR project, and the Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra specifically stated during the post-budget interview on April 29, 2021: "Yes, so let me be very clear [on HFR] and say that the groundwork has been worked on for the last couple of years, our government has established a joint office between the CIB, Transport Canada and VIA Rail on studying this concept, and they've done a lot of excellent work on preparing the groundwork for this... We're going to start doing the engineering work, we're going to start doing the profile work, and it's going to roll out as quickly as possible...I'm looking forward to VIA's High Frequency Rail hitting the ground running as quickly as possible." https://www.bramptonbot.com/events/details/in-conversation-with-the-honourable-omar-alghabra-minister-of-transport-5844 New Siemens rolling stock coming this summer 2021:

I wonder where you got the impression that the Houston-Dallas HSR is "under construction" already. https://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/04-15-21-high-speed-train-lawsuit/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/17/houston-dallas-bullet-train-permits/ Currently, there are 20+ law suits pending from local counties and towns against the rail developer. At the heart of the issue: lack of EA, lack of permits to build, lack of connectivity with local transport and transit planning (a lot of the station locations and route are driven by real estate developers), and lack of compatibility between the Houston-Dallas HSR and the national Amtrak (public) rail network, and most importantly lack of local support. Texas HSR is already 9 years delayed (announced in 2012) and nowhere near funding, let alone construction. Nothing is simple when it comes to upgrading legacy infrastructure. The "everything in a kit" is just a marketing terminology. Wait till you announce the project and the law suits start coming in.

BUT, what if there is an earthquake one day and the whole structure collapses! Oh the horror!

Maybe missing something here, but I honestly fail to see how the Mexico crash has anything to do with REM and Montreal's situation. Maybe let's cut the fear mongering and sensationalism a bit?