Quote:
Originally Posted by FireFly
And that would be different from an airport how? Not to mention that you're already downtown in Edmonton and can probably walk to where you need to go, if it is indeed a business meeting. But I'll reiterate anyways, how is that different from the airport?
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It's the routine business user 2x a week that will either make or break this train. Not Joe public that uses it 3x a year.
Few of the oilpatch crowd that make the EDM-CGY run have any need to go to Edmonton's downtown. Typically they're going to facilities or vendors located in one of Edmonton's many business parks, or destinations beyond Edmonton. A train to Edmonton's "downtown" has
zero appeal to them. They'd have to rent a car or truck once they got there, and since many of them have company vehicles anyways, time and cost savings are irrelevant for them.
Red's already brought up the dislike of public transit here - your key user of this train has zero interest or reason to take this train. It's just more of a hassle than it's worth. I work at a company with field operations all over Western Canada and I know our "road warrior" area managers would rather jump in their F350 Super Duty than ride the train. Cost, minimal time savings and convienience just doen't work for the average business user of that train.
I'm not disputing the train would have some have some environmental benefits. And it's not a matter of change but the the economics that'll drive the sucess of this thing. It's easy to fall in love with the notion of a high speed train to Edmonton, but the economics just don't make sense.