VIA Rail - Discussion générale ​

[Né entre les rapides]

il y a 45 minutes, SameGuy a dit :

I’d call it a minor win, but I also feel that $12 billion could fix any number of other things in this country with much greater impacts than adding just 10,000 passengers a day to an intercity train. Heck, I’m wary of the $10 billion dollar budget being floated for REM-B because the line is projected to serve just 133,000 passengers a day, and these are people that need local transit.

"A minor win" -- You mean winning 10$ at the lottery after spending 500$ on tickets!

Let me be generous, just for fun.  Someone (but not you or me) won 10$ + the immeasurable value of the pleasure derived from dreaming of winning a million  -- until the big winning ticket is drawn, unfortunately not in favour of our dear someone.  The additional value would be called an externality (and hopefully, the disappointment from not having won the big prize will not totally erase the joyful excitement felt previously).

Seriously, I think that the sum total of benefits derived from this tentative project would somewhat extend beyond those accruing to the passengers, eg. the environmental benefits.  However, I am afraid that the cost/benefit ratio would still be grossly inadequate.  It is not a sufficient condition that benefits (including externalities) exceed costs.  In order to get the green light to proceed, a project should offer the best ratio among all available alternatives, or at least be among the best.  But we know that there are intangible considerations, eg. political, that are capable of tilting the balance.  

Having said that, this project, like many others currently on the plates of all governments,  are at a fairly long distance from being approved.  Let's wait and see, but be not silent meanwhile.    

[SameGuy]

37 minutes ago, Né entre les rapides said:

However, I am afraid that the cost/benefit ratio would still be grossly inadequate.

Distilled down to my overall opinion on this proposal.

[p_xavier]

Le but de ce projet est pour VIA Rail de devenir autonome financièrement donc le business case peut être valide à long terme.  Faut pas toujours voir tous les coûts en infrastructure.

[SameGuy]

How often do you hear me say “transit is a social service”?

But there are good investments and poor investments, and IMO this one is poor.

[SameGuy]

I like the French idea of banning or restricting flights under two hours, but I think that’s anti-capitalist and too far left. Instead, I’d change the airport and landing fee structures for the airlines — which are now only based on aircraft size.

The farther an aircraft flies, the more efficient it is overall (the whole commercial aviation paradigm is incredibly inefficient, but that’s not germane to this idea); somehow, airports charge the same fees for an aircraft type flying an hour as they do for the same type flying five hours. I think airlines should be charged fixed facilities fees depending on aircraft size, but the federal government should add a matrix of federal taxes levied that are inversely proportional to flight duration. These extra taxes would force airlines to reconsider offering sub-hourly service to cities that really ought to be well joined by railways and bus lines. The taxes could go directly towards green transport and electrification initiatives.

But taking $12 billion out of the general fund to (likely) give to a PPP for the sake of providing somewhat more reliable service to just 15,000 passengers a day — passengers who have multiple other options to get between our two economic capitals — is wasteful and dumb. Again, mass transit within cities is a necessity, especially in denser areas where it might be residents’ only viable means of transport for work or family needs; improving intercity rail service is laudable, but the investment should be proportional to the need it fulfills, and as long as cheap flights, cheap buses and cheap gas exist, I just can’t see a reasonable justification for spending a Pink Line’s worth of federal money on so-called HFR.

[Decel]

il y a 11 minutes, SameGuy a dit :

I like the French idea of banning or restricting flights under two hours, but I think that’s anti-capitalist and too far left. Instead, I’d change the airport and landing fee structures for the airlines — which are now only based on aircraft size.

The farther an aircraft flies, the more efficient it is overall (the whole commercial aviation paradigm is incredibly inefficient, but that’s not germane to this idea); somehow, airports charge the same fees for an aircraft type flying an hour as they do for the same type flying five hours. I think airlines should be charged fixed facilities fees depending on aircraft size, but the federal government should add a matrix of federal taxes levied that are inversely proportional to flight duration. These extra taxes would force airlines to reconsider offering sub-hourly service to cities that really ought to be well joined by railways and bus lines. The taxes could go directly towards green transport and electrification initiatives.

But taking $12 billion out of the general fund to (likely) give to a PPP for the sake of providing somewhat more reliable service to just 15,000 passengers a day — passengers who have multiple other options to get between our two economic capitals — is wasteful and dumb. Again, mass transit within cities is a necessity, especially in denser areas where it might be residents’ only viable means of transport for work or family needs; improving intercity rail service is laudable, but the investment should be proportional to the need it fulfills, and as long as cheap flights, cheap buses and cheap gas exist, I just can’t see a reasonable justification for spending a Pink Line’s worth of federal money on so-called HFR.

I think the solution could be simpler: Implement the Carbon tax to flights.

As you say, if longer (and bigger and more crowded) flights are more efficient, then the per-passenger tax would naturally be higher for shorter hauls.

Then again, the mean version of myself would apply it to cars and *gasp* train rides. Would maybe make VIA (and indirectly the government) think twice before upgrading to empty diesel trains....

[Spiter_01]

48 minutes ago, SameGuy said:

I like the French idea of banning or restricting flights under two hours, but I think that’s anti-capitalist and too far left. Instead, I’d change the airport and landing fee structures for the airlines — which are now only based on aircraft size.

The farther an aircraft flies, the more efficient it is overall (the whole commercial aviation paradigm is incredibly inefficient, but that’s not germane to this idea); somehow, airports charge the same fees for an aircraft type flying an hour as they do for the same type flying five hours. I think airlines should be charged fixed facilities fees depending on aircraft size, but the federal government should add a matrix of federal taxes levied that are inversely proportional to flight duration. These extra taxes would force airlines to reconsider offering sub-hourly service to cities that really ought to be well joined by railways and bus lines. The taxes could go directly towards green transport and electrification initiatives.

But taking $12 billion out of the general fund to (likely) give to a PPP for the sake of providing somewhat more reliable service to just 15,000 passengers a day — passengers who have multiple other options to get between our two economic capitals — is wasteful and dumb. Again, mass transit within cities is a necessity, especially in denser areas where it might be residents’ only viable means of transport for work or family needs; improving intercity rail service is laudable, but the investment should be proportional to the need it fulfills, and as long as cheap flights, cheap buses and cheap gas exist, I just can’t see a reasonable justification for spending a Pink Line’s worth of federal money on so-called HFR.

It's an understandable perspective if you're looking at HFR solely from competitiveness aspect, per $ spent it probably doesn't justify the investment. But if you take a larger macro view, adding a viable alternative to driving only makes owning a personal car less worthwhile and not owning a car is the best way to ensure people don't use one. 

I think if we've learned anything over the course of the last 10-20 years of trying to reduce car ownership/usage is that people are mostly unwilling to change their habits and lifestyles for the sake of tackling climate change or saving money. Just look at how highway 15 is bumper to bumper traffic for hours on Saturday morning heading north and Sunday afternoon coming back. Communauto are impossible to get on weekends and car ownership keeps going up on the island year over year. No amount of investment in urban transit tackles that part of the c02 emission problem. 

My point is that until we can offer a viable alternative to almost every situation where someone would use or own a car, we won't see meaningful progress on reducing c02 emissions. Multiple times through the year I've chosen to drive or fly to Toronto simply because I couldn't risk being delayed.

[SameGuy]

$12B & 10 years to sort-of electrify one line and add 10,000 pax a day isn’t any kind of “low-hanging fruit” in the fight against climate change.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people in First Nations communities don’t have clean drinking water on a daily basis, but addressing that doesn’t generate votes like a flashy-sounding project.

[TER200]

Le 2021-07-09 à 18:56, Spiter_01 a dit :

C'est plutôt l'arrêt a T-R qui fait toute la différence, passé de 200km/h à 0 faire l'embarquement et remonté à 200km/h. C'est la ta grosse perte de temps, probablement une trentaine de minute

Un arrêt bref (2 ou 3 minutes) coûte environ 5 minutes par rapport à traverser la gare à 200 km/h, d'après ce que je constate de ce côté-ci de l'océan.

Même un TGV qui s'arrête (sur ligne à grande vitesse) au lieu de passer à 300 ne perd que 8 minutes environ ! (bien qu'il faille une quinzaine de kilomètres pour retrouver la vitesse maximale)

Modifié 12 juillet 2021 par TER200

[Spiter_01]

1 hour ago, TER200 said:

Un arrêt bref (2 ou 3 minutes) coûte environ 5 minutes par rapport à traverser la gare à 200 km/h, d'après ce que je constate de ce côté-ci de l'océan.

Même un TGV qui s'arrête (sur ligne à grande vitesse) au lieu de passer à 300 ne perd que 8 minutes environ ! (bien qu'il faille une quinzaine de kilomètres pour retrouver la vitesse maximale)

Je parle plutôt d'une situation ou est-ce qu'on contourne TR entièrement. TR à plusieurs passage à niveau en ville un gros tournant en S. L'option de passer à 200km dans la gare n'existe pas. Je le compare aussi au service VIA existant, de mémoire je me souviens d'avoir passer 10 min (voir même 15) à certaine station entre Montréal et Toronto.

Mais j'imagine que ça reste possible de construire une gare en périphérie de la ville.