TGV: Liaison Windsor - Québec

[Grumpy]

I live in a part of Europe where TGV's have become a daily commuter service.

For thousands of people this kind of train bring them where they want to be but...

 

In my opinion a TGV is a waste of money in a car oriented country like Québec.

 

The QC gouvernment would be better of in creating a decent TEC with interlodal stations + numerous métro extensions

[mtl_yul]

what's a TEC

the point is to stop being a car oriented society... have you looked outside the window? Mother Earth is mad and she's carrying a weapon...

[jesseps]

I live in a part of Europe where TGV's have become a daily commuter service.

For thousands of people this kind of train bring them where they want to be but...

 

In my opinion a TGV is a waste of money in a car oriented country like Québec.

 

The QC gouvernment would be better of in creating a decent TEC with interlodal stations + numerous métro extensions

 

Metro extensions would be great.

 

I just hope people in Laval will use the metro when it opens.

 

Less cars on the road, the happier I would be.

 

Public transit can go a longway if we have a proper structure and shit and massive amount of people using it daily.

[WestAust]

what's a TEC

the point is to stop being a car oriented society... have you looked outside the window? Mother Earth is mad and she's carrying a weapon...

 

TEC = Transport en Commun or public transit in english

[mtl_yul]

Bad habits are costing us dearly

The keys to Quebec's economic and environmental salvation are cheap electricity and rail transport

RICHARD BERGERON, Freelance

Published: Monday, March 19, 2007

In December, 1998, the world petroleum price fell below $10 U.S. a barrel. A litre of gasoline at the pump cost just 50 cents. Times were good.

In the following years, annual sales of new vehicles bounded beyond the 400,000 mark. Quebec's automobile fleet grew at almost twice the rate of its population. In 1998, there were 500 cars for every 1,000 Quebecers; today there are 575.

Fuel consumption saw a similar growth, from 10.5 to 11.4 billion litres. More than ever, building highways was the sure route to electoral popularity. Anticipating the current election, the Charest government announced $7.9 billion for highways between now and 2011, including $1.7 in firm commitments for 2007.

It's obvious that Quebecers are still driving resolutely along the path chosen around 1950, that of the most complete possible motorization of the population, of massive consumption of fossil fuel, of unbridled investment in highway infrastructure, in urban sprawl, in the American Way of Life.

These days we're used to hearing this model pilloried for the environmental havoc it wreaks, but we seldom hear the economic arguments against it. Indeed, for many, an automobile in every driveway, petroleum flowing in torrents, billions invested in highways and the methodical ravaging of the land remain pillars of a modern economy.

Yet the good times are no longer with us. Despite some spectacular short-term fluctuations, gasoline prices are clearly rising, from an average of 73 cents a litre in 2002 to $1.03 last year.

For a part of the country like Quebec, which produces neither oil nor automobiles, this is a recipe for disaster. The adjacent graph shows that, in this context, the increase in the automobile and oil bill is translated inevitably into a worsening of the external trade balance.

In 2006, Quebecers paid foreign suppliers $9.2 billion more for their oil and $1.9 billion more for their vehicles than they did in 2001. That's an extra $11.2 billion.

Our main export strengths are forest and aeronautic products and metals. However, the first two aren't doing well. Between 2001 and 2006, our trade balance worsened by $1.4 billion for forest products and $800 million in aeronautics. Fortunately, metals and alloys are doing well, with $3.2 billion additional trade surplus. Still, Quebec went from an overall trade surplus of $6.6 billion to a $7.4 billion deficit.

With a trade deficit approaching $25 billion, growing by $11.2 billion over the past five years, our dependence on the automobile has clearly become the primary economic liability of today's Quebec.

There are two ways to improve a trade balance: Export more or import less. We're already doing everything we can to export more, and with some success. But to get out of our present mess, we'll have to figure out a way to import less. The classic solution is import substitution, a strategy that replaces imports with local production wherever possible.

Bombardier and Hydro-Quebec are our two proudest industrial assets. Bombardier is an expert in rail transportation, building everything from city trams to high-speed trains, which could replace, in part, our automobile imports.

As for Hydro-Quebec, it produces clean energy that could just as advantageously replace part of our oil imports. In both cases, this would mean investing here to create high-quality jobs.

Money certainly isn't lacking. In 2006, we paid outsiders $11.2 billion more for our cars and our oil than we did in 2001. This amount, added to $9.3 billion in 2005, $3.7 billion in 2004, $2.9 billion in 2003 and $800 million in 2002, makes a total of $27.9 billion extra spent over the past five years.

This money would have been enough to pay cash on the barrelhead, leaving behind not the slightest debt, for complete New Tramway systems for Montreal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Trois Rivieres and Gatineau, as well as a TGV (high speed train, 350 km/h) between Quebec and Montreal and a rail network joining all the regions of Quebec (200 km/h). In passing, we would have created at least 100,000 high-quality jobs in Quebec. Here is an import-substitution strategy which would have given us $27.9 billion to use.

The tens of billions of dollars corresponding to our oil and automobile bill for the last five years are lost for good. Through thoughtlessness, we chose to pay this money as increased profits to the automobile and oil multinationals. Let's not do the same thing with tens of billions more over the next five or 10 years.

In fact, we won't be able to. The economy contains several structural adjustment mechanisms that prevent a situation of chronic trade deficit from going on indefinitely. Either we choose to get out of our current trade deficit by ourselves and on our conditions or we'll be forced to do so, on terms certainly more disagreeable.

In the final analysis, this subject, more than any other, brings us to a choice between Quebec's economic development and its decline. Should we not take advantage of the current election campaign to ask our politicians what they think?

Richard Bergeron was Projet Montreal's mayorality candidate in Montreal's last municipal election and is the party's sole member on city council.

[Andrew Dawson]

A TGV line between Montreal and Quebec City would be maybe about $6 billion.

 

In transit, Andrew

[loulou123]

Le Journal de Québec

18/05/2007 Le moment est venu, selon la Chambre de Commerce de Québec, de remettre sur les rails le projet de train rapide entre Québec et Montréal.

 

Ce projet permettrait de relier les deux centre-villes en deux heures en utilisant la rive-nord suggère la Chambre de Commerce. Ce sont les propos du ministre fédéral des Transports, Lawrence Cannon, qui permettent à la Chambre de réanimer le projet qui avait fait consensus lors du Forum économique en 2005. M. Cannon a laissé savoir en effet que Via Rail pourrait investir dans l'amélioration du réseau actuel qui transite par la rive-sud. Sur ce tracé, les convois de marchandises ont priorité, ce qui allonge le parcours entre Québec et Montréal.

 

Pierre Dolbec, président du conseil d'administration de la Chambre, estime que le gouvernement fédéral devrait en profiter pour investir les 700 millions $ nécessaires à une liaison rapide. «Nous nous sommes battus pour un TGV, mais il faut arrêter de rêver en couleurs. Un chemin de fer rapide enlèverait de la circulation automobile sur les routes, améliorerait la circulation de passagers et désengorgerait le transport cargo sur la rive-sud. C'est un deuxième choix mais il faut être réaliste» de mentionner celui-ci en entrevue.

 

M. Dolbec rappelle que le projet avait été bien reçu à l'époque par le gouvernement libéral et que le nouveau gouvernement donne des signes d'ouverture. «Le train rapide était sur la tablette mais là on vient de souffler sur les braises» dit-il.

[Habsfan]

Ce projet permettrait de relier les deux centre-villes en deux heures en utilisant la rive-nord suggère la Chambre de Commerce.

 

Quel gaspillage d'Argent. Pourquoi prendre le train quand on peux faire le même voyage ne auto et ça prend le même temps??

 

Si le train prenait genre 1 heure pour faire le trajet, et bien là, je dirai que ça vaut la peine...mais pas deux heures!

[Grumpy]

Quel gaspillage d'Argent. Pourquoi prendre le train quand on peux faire le même voyage ne auto et ça prend le même temps??

 

+ there is no market for this at all.There is no enough population in QC for a TGV-line.

 

In France the works have begun for a new line from Montbard to Mulhouse connecting 2 existing TGV-lines (Sud-Est : Paris - Lyon/PACA & LGV-Est : Paris/Allemagne) : projet Rhin/Rhône

 

The Rhine-Rhone high-speed line consists of three branches: the Eastern branch, the Western branch and the Southern branch.

 

The whole Rhine-Rhone high-speed project may be likened to a three-pronged star:

 

 

- the Eastern branch, between the Dijon (Genlis) and Mulhouse (Lutterbach) urban areas, with 190 km of new line.

- the Western branch, from the Western end of the Eastern branch towards Paris via Dijon.

- the Southern branch, from the junction of the two other branches towards Lyon.

 

A view of the track:

http://www.lgvrhinrhone.com/medias/pdf/medias79.pdf

 

http://www.rff.fr/biblio_pdf/lgv_RR_BE.pdf

 

A project with a difference : Journey times

 

With the very first tranche of the Eastern branch, journey times for a large number of origin-destination pairs will be substantially reduced.

 

 

A project with a difference : Key figures

 

A few figures illustrating the scale of France’s biggest civil engineering project

 

- 140 km of line, including 40 % through forests

- 85 municipalities

- 6,000 site-related jobs

- 160 bridges

- 12 viaducts

- 12-km long tunnel

- 400 km of fencing

- 500,000 sleepers

- 2 new stations

- 24 million m³ of excavations

- 18 million m³ of embankment

 

A project with a difference: timelines

 

The line will be built in two stages: earthworks and civil engineering structures between 2006 and 2009, and railway equipment (rails and overhead lines, signalling systems and fencing) between 2009 and 2011.

 

 

More info : http://www.lgvrhinrhone.com/english.php & http://www.rff.fr/pages/projets/fiche_projet.asp?lg=fr&code=147&codeRegion=9

 

A small impression of the Savoureuse viaduct south of Belfort:

 

 

more maps:

 

 

 

TGV lines in the Paris region:

 

 

TGV lines in France:

 

[mtl_yul]

Quel gaspillage d'Argent. Pourquoi prendre le train quand on peux faire le même voyage ne auto et ça prend le même temps??

 

Si le train prenait genre 1 heure pour faire le trajet, et bien là, je dirai que ça vaut la peine...mais pas deux heures!

 

Je pense que tu opterai pour le train si le gouv. met en place un systeme de payage d'autoroute a 20$ l'aller pour faire Montreal-Quebec.