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Originally Posted by Huntingwhale
I think a far greater explanation is the addiction to vehicles in Alberta/NA heavily outweighs addiction to vehicles in France/EU. There simply isn't a will for people here to push the government to build something like that and when the topic comes up, there is massive pushback by the population. We cannot even build a "simple" rail connection between Calgary and Edmonton.
If we are ever going to phase ourselves off of fossil fuels for future generations, things like this must be done.
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This is a big issue. Both Calgary and Edmonton are challenging cities to navigate entirely on public transit. How many people would really be willing to take the train back and forth, knowing that at their destination they will be taking busses, ubers, and taxis for the duration of their stay?
Not to mention the long, long winters which make the prospect of waiting for the busses, ubers, and taxis much less appealing. Even with a high-speed rail, I think you're going to see the majority of people opt to drive simply because they will want to have their vehicle with them to facilitate their time in whichever city they are heading to.
Marseilles and Toulouse both have extremely dense central cores compared to Calgary and Edmonton, which makes walking and transit much more appealing modes of transit (not to mention the better weather).
Having a train run between the two cities would be nice, and would certainly get some use - depending on the location of the terminal stations. But I don't think it would seriously reduce the amount of traffic on the QE2 or even get enough traffic to justify the cost. This would change if - for some reason - Calgary and Edmonton massively disincentivized suburban sprawl and encouraged urban densification.