Quote:
Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful
That's not high speed rail for Canada, that's high speed rail for one specific section of Canada.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drewboy12
Canada is way to large with to small of a population to ever have a high speed rail system connecting the entire country.
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Yeah. Although the title is a bit misleading in that regard, High Speed Rail has only ever made sense in 2 corridors in Canada: Quebec City to Windsor (or a portion thereof) and the Edmonton - Calgary corridor. If the lower mainland had more of the characteristics of a corridor, you could include that as well - but it doesn't.
Indeed, in North America in general, only disconnected corridors make sense.
Here's a map someone did up showing the various corridors in the USA that have had High Speed Rail proposed at some point - or would otherwise make sense. It includes a couple that go up into Canada.
There's been a series of these Quebec City-Windsor corridor High Speed Rail studies over the years. If I recall correctly they have mostly resulted in the corridor being deemed as conditionally viable.
It's only really a matter of time passing and a number of factors converging (critical population mass, technology vs. cost, cost of alternatives, etc.) before the Quebec-Windsor corridor is attractive for high speed rail.
What I think will happen is that the most central and populous segment, Toronto - Montreal, is built and then added onto over time. Toronto - Hamilton, Montreal - Quebec City, Hamilton - London, London - Windsor.
As for Calgary - Edmonton, Bigtime is correct on all points. Land for stations in both downtown Calgary and downtown Edmonton has been purchased by the Province of Alberta, as has some parts of the future right of way between the two cities.
Both of these corridors are long-term propositions though - something on the scale of decades. In the meantime, resources are much better spent on improving intra-city rail transit networks in the cities.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Hockeyguy15
We can't even figure out how to set the C-train up properly and you want a high speed train?
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Go on. Not implying you're wrong, but could you elaborate?