Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
But where are you getting your "not enough demand" issue from?
The air travel between the cities IMO is not a good measurement, as part of the reason I think HSR should exist is that it's too expensive for a lot of people as it is.
The car travel can't be used either, as there is a whole section of people that won't drive because it's too far, or too dangerous (esp in the winter), costs too much (gas) etc...
I just think the demand for this type of system is unseen because the people that would use it may not be using either other method right now.
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We really need a mod to split this thread. The HSR discussion, the NDP/political discussion, and let the election thread die.
Anyway, I base my thoughts on demand on the lack of population. For something like this to be viable, you require a critical mass of population that Calgary (and Edmonton) at one million people doesn't reach. There is certainly a segment of the population that would use this that cant/wont drive or fly, but common sense tells us that this is a very small percentage of the populace. Business travellers are still more likely to fly, and a lot of people are still going to drive anyway.
Cost remains the dominating hinderence. The Van Horne Institute last
put out estimates in 2011 that ranged from $2.7 billion using the CPR line to up to $5 billion to build HSR between Calgary and Edmonton. That is for a line that is 1/4 the distance of Calgary to Vancouver, and doesn't have a major mountain range in the way. On distance alone, you are probably looking at 3-4x the cost of going to Edmonton, magnified by the engineering difficulty of going through the Rockies. I am just pulling this out of my behind, but I can't see how you can build such a system for anything less than 4-8x the high estimate for Calgary-Edmonton. We're talking like $20-40
billion. If we still assume $100 million a year for maintenance and operations on this line, you are looking at mammoth costs that simply cannot be recovered.
Lets say you want the construction costs to pay for themselves over 25 years. Using just that low construction estimate of $20 billion, plus $100 million annually in operating costs (we'll ignore inflation for simplicity), you would need to sell 18 million $50 tickets per year. Even at an average price of $100 (1/2 of a one-way flight), that's nine million passengers.
It just won't happen.