Premier in Calgary to announce "major passenger rail initiative for Alberta"

[Monahammer]

All of this hoopla just to announce the decadal refreshment of the passenger rail feasibility study?

yawn. They are running out of ideas fast eh. What are they using this to cover for today?

[MoneyGuy]

This is a pipe dream. No chance that happens.

[Calgary14]

All that hype for.....this?

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by Flames0910

TBH it kinda seemed like Smith was more interested in the commuter lines (which give her something to offer rural voters in 3 years) but I agree with you and think that might be her public offering to make the Waterous deal happen.

She kept saying "well we have to wait on the feasibility report but if you ask me we need something like the Go train in Toronto" which kind of biases the report before it's even written. Knowing the UCP, the report will just be written to provide confirmation of what they already wanted it to say.

Also kind of a strange announcement to make with none of the city mayors present. Will be interesting to hear what they have to say. Instead, they had the president of the Calgary Airport Authority?

[chedder]

Why do people here keep saying this is to appease rural voters? Airdrie and okotoks aren't rural. They're suburbs or bedroom communities. It's not like a farmer from Vulcan is going to think, man, what I've always been missing is a train to get to the city.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

There are plenty of reasons to hate on Chu but I don't understand this comment? Chu has been a strong advocate and proponent for the green line in the north as far as I can remember. Are you suggesting that Chu is holding back a viable north green line?

Originally Posted by Fuzz

You are kidding, right?

https://www.projectcalgary.org/chu_is_mia_greenlineyyc
https://web.archive.org/web/20171018...the_green_line

Chu did #### all to advocate for the north to get the green line over the south, despite it being identified before the west line as the priority. We may be looking at an entirely different plan of Chu had actually done one ####ing thing in his life to actually earn his pay. Instead the south had strong advocacy and pushed through the project while we had a useless tit doing nothing.


Man, no wonder we have such ####ty politicians. Facts don't actually matter.

Chu ACTIVELY was against the Green Line extending North when he first ran (2013). As others have already touched on, Chu is likely 50% of the reason why the Green line is going South first, and not North.

Keating fought hard for the Green line coming to his riding - Chu actively worked against the green line coming to his riding. That made it near certain that the green line was heading south first - to where it had councillor support.

Had Chu been in favour - the first direction for the green line likely goes to a evaluation of which way is better, and the North side may have won that (no doubt the north direction serves more ridership, whereas the SE allows for more ridership growth).

[Huntingwhale]

Pipedreams perhaps, but if ever this province is going to get out of this nasty rut of us relying on cars and bigass trucks to get us around, a first step has to be taken. First steps are hard, uncomfortable even, but they still have to be done. Has there ever been an announcement for a rail plan like this in Alberta's history? I'm not sure. I know that in my lifetime I'd like to see some kind of rail network in Alberta. If Europeans can do it, why can't we?

Could be a disaster in the making, or it could work out, who knows. If it fails, we still have our cars and bigass trucks to fall back on

[MoneyGuy]

It is a disaster in the making if they do all of this. Which they won’t.

[blankall]

Alberta's population grew by over 200k last year. High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton would transform the province for the better in a lot of ways.

[D as in David]

Originally Posted by blankall

Alberta's population grew by over 200k last year. High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton would transform the province for the better in a lot of ways.

They could solve the housing crisis by including sleeper coaches on the trains.

[MrSector9]

my only regret in life was not getting into politics, as long as your cool with people telling you off sometimes and the internet hating you.... it seems pretty simple.

How much money was spent on preparing to make a plan to announce making a plan for things that have been already "planned" and then planning the event to announce the planned plans.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by MrSector9

my only regret in life was not getting into politics, as long as your cool with people telling you off sometimes and the internet hating you.... it seems pretty simple.

How much money was spent on preparing to make a plan to announce making a plan for things that have been already "planned" and then planning the event to announce the planned plans.

Bureaucracy is a crazy slow grinding wheel.

[Monahammer]

I know most of you don't actually watch the press conference videos, but why comment on it without watching? They didn't announce that they were going to do basically anything. They did not announce that they prefered a rail route. They did not announce that they will fund more rail development, anywhere. They did not even say that they think future rail development would be beneficial for the province.

They only said that they were going to do a master plan, a "historic decision" that their own predecessors only performed 8 other times. Though I suppose the historic here is that they are including weird commuter rail routes- almost definitely those will be highlighted as superior to developing the Edmonton-Calgary HSR route. Here is a list of other times they have done this work already:

1. 1985-HSR Prospects-in-the-Calgary-Edmonton-Corridor-1985-03 AB Government

2. 1986 - The Alberta High-Speed Rail Review Committee Report to Minister of Economic Development and Trade

3. 1995-Alberta-high-speed-rail-concept-findings-economic development trade-1981-1985

4. 2004 - Calgary/ Edmonton HSR - The Van Horne Institute

5. 2008 Economic Benefits and Market Assessment for Development of HSR Service Calgary/Edmonton Corridor (3 documents)

6. 2010 Study of High-Speed Rail Impacts on Rural Alberta - CPCS

7. 2013 - Updated Cost & Ridership/Revenue for Calgary Edmonton High-Speed Rail, Vanhorne Institute

8. 2014 The Feasibility of Establishing a HSR Transit System in Alberta
- Standing Committee on Alberta's Economic Future

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by MrSector9

my only regret in life was not getting into politics, as long as your cool with people telling you off sometimes and the internet hating you.... it seems pretty simple.

How much money was spent on preparing to make a plan to announce making a plan for things that have been already "planned" and then planning the event to announce the planned plans.

2 years ago i went to an announcement given by an interim minister about a pilot project being announced that had already been worked on for almost a full year prior to the announcement. It was baffling. The best part was this minister was implicated same day in that strange story where they awarded an essay that basically said women are not exactly equal to men... not a single reporter asked a question about the announcement.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by blankall

Alberta's population grew by over 200k last year. High speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton would transform the province for the better in a lot of ways.

That MAY BE the only part of this stupid notion that may make any sense. BIG MAY.

[Monahammer]

This is how this government works. It's like a catch and kill type of scenario. They have interest groups who are presenting reasonable points about something they either don't care about or actively dislike ideologically. So, they run a long term study on it, so that every time someone asks about it they can all point at the study. The findings of the study don't matter, that's a problem for next cycle, but will likely come out as too expensive so other priorities need to be put first, like tax cuts.

Rinse wash repeat every 10 years, and you will never see passenger rail developed while spinning it as if it will be.

[AFireInside]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

A line from Airdie, that stops in Balzac, the airport and then the zoo would be very welcome. It might even make your 20 minute car commute into a 15 minute car commute.

The city is only growing. By the time any rail line is built ( 10 years from now) the Greater Calgary Area will be on its way to 3 Million. If not on its way to 4.

A line from Airdrie is fine with me, but it doesn't improve my commute or my wife's commute in any way.



I live just off a major road, and work just off a major road, it's 12km from my house to my office in basically a straight line. There is no world where it should be a 3 hour round trip. Saying public transportation in this city is bad is an understatement.

[puffnstuff]

Its not like they can actually announce funding anything, theyve cried poverty and wont fund the things the province actually needs, like drs, nurses and teachers. I mean they could I suppose, they are tremendous hypocrites.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

This is a pipe dream. No chance that happens.

We've got a master plan at the golf club I'm at...25yrs. Kingston Heath in Melbourne had one that saw them climb to a top club in the country, as they ticked the boxes for the last 22yrs, and are developing their 2nd plan at the moment.

Its a good document to keep future leadership teams on track.

Also...there were a few naysayers at our meeting too, all of them were a little old to be scoffing at a 25yr plan.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

Its not like they can actually announce funding anything, theyve cried poverty and wont fund the things the province actually needs, like drs, nurses and teachers. I mean they could I suppose, they are tremendous hypocrites.

This would not stop them at all. There's plenty of new spending for things they want in the budget. Look at the Carbon Capture Incentive for example.