GT: Federal Election

[Coach]

One could even say it's a joke...

[Locke]

Originally Posted by MattyC

One could even say it's a joke...

You never know, thats what I'd have said after initially reading the Leap Manifesto and yet here we are.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

A bridge from Vancouver to Vancouver Island!!? That's like 115 km. Isn't Confederation Bridge like 12 km?

66 km from Vancouver to Nanaimo. If it's good enough for Louisiana and Beijing, it's good enough for me.

http://www.livescience.com/34448-wor...st-bridge.html

[Fuzz]

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is only in shallow water, under 20 feet. Not sure that compares. You would definitely need to upscale something like the Confederation Bridge.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway is only in shallow water, under 20 feet. Not sure that compares. You would definitely need to upscale something like the Confederation Bridge.

I know. I'm mostly joking. They've talked about the possibility of a floating bridge, but the general sentiment on the island is not the logistics of building the bridge. They just don't want it because "outsiders" will show up.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Giant bridge near a major fault line. What could go wrong?

Not to mention the depths and how crazy the wind and waves can get

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Remember when Tesla's idea of wireless communication and an interconnected planet was a crazy idea?


Good times.

How much of that was developed and put into place by evil Mega Corporations? You know the ones that would probably tell the government to Eat Poop and die if something even close to the Leap Manifesto was bought into play in this country, yeah you can bid on the contract but because of the taxation we're going to charge you you'll lose money.



Having the government itself actually build the kind of infrastructure right now would mean that it would be a 10 trillion dollar railway that never works properly, and the workers are always on strike, meanwhile it never gets done because they have to study everything.

Plus the NDP would only allow it to be built by government union labor so the job would require 10x the number of workers required to build it.

[Handsome B. Wonderful]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Pinning all our hopes of teleportation seems a tad optimistic.

I'd like an explanation as to how teleportation would save the species.

[CaptainCrunch]

I have the ultimate low carbon high employment solution to all of our problems.

Rickshaws pulled by poor people instead of cars

and using poor people as pack animals instead of using semi's to haul cargo.

We are the 1% and this is our low carbon manifesto.

[CaptainCrunch]

Looks like there's a serious break in the NDP we are family moment as the leaders of the BC and Alberta and New Brunswick NDP have come out with a solid statement of What da %%%

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...rgan-1.3485585

And New Brunswick NDP leader Dominic Cardy calls the Leap Manifesto 'something dreamed up in a downtown Toronto coffee shop.'

"In total collectively it doesn't reflect the values of British Columbians. Our past and our future will be dependent on the development of natural resources," said Horgan.

[Resolute 14]

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.

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.

[puckedoff]

^ Those fancy numbers that you are throwing around only serve to systematically entrench racial and gender inequality, extinguishing my dreams before they have a chance to be born. Capitalist swine.

[Coach]

Thanks for the response Resolute. $20 billion actually doesn't seem that bad to me, but again, I'd need to look at some comparables. Hopefully have time soon because I still believe this could be a viable project. There just has to be a way to make travel between the major cities easier.

Plus, while the mountains are obviously a big hurdle, IMO that would be one of the reasons to undertake it. It would be a pretty incredible feat of engineering and would probably be international news. That train ride through the Rockies on an HSR would be be pretty amazing. Anyways, it's a pipe dream, but something I think would end up being worth it.

Originally Posted by puckedoff

^ Those fancy numbers that you are throwing around only serve to systematically entrench racial and gender inequality, extinguishing my dreams before they have a chance to be born. Capitalist swine.

This was my favorite line from the whole thing. Just came out of nowhere and makes absolutely zero sense lol.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

How much of that was developed and put into place by evil Mega Corporations?

How much of that development lagged far behind the actual idea because of those same people? Tesla really got boned by funders for no other reason than he was eccentric. It's the same thing with solar energy, we could have had it a long time ago if the same amount of R&D that went into oil went into solar when they were both in their infancy. But oil barons have been fighting any type of renewable progress for decades. Its pretty sad IMO. Anyways, we're pretty far OT now.

[CaptainCrunch]

I totally think that 20 million is on the really really low side, this isn't like the 18 hundreds when your press ganging tracks with hammers.

A High Speed Railway is a whole other level, and especially going through the mountains. There would also be a pretty large environmental impacts to this.

I honestly don't feel that building infrastructure just to say its cool, or on the chance that it will garner international news is necessarily the best reason to build it when it comes to cost benefit.

If we're doing that then we might as well build an escalator to no where.

I also tend to think that you might get an initial surge or passengers due to its uniqueness, the airlines would view it as competition, and squash their calgary to vancouver rates and people would pick flying over trains. After the first, ohhh look at the views, it would come down to 2 hours on a plane, to what a day on a train.

Projects like this, like wireless are things that to me have to be spearheaded by the private and not public sector, 20 or 40 billion dollars worth of government funds could be spent elsewhere more effectively.

[Maccalus]

High speed rail requires very straight track with little elevation change compared to slower rail. That is the reason the swiss built the Gotthard Base Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel. This 57km tunnel alone cost $10 Billion US. Any high speed rail to Vancouver from Calgary would most likely require a few tunnels similar to this. I think a $20-40 Billion construction estimate would be very low.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Maccalus

High speed rail requires very straight track with little elevation change compared to slower rail. That is the reason the swiss built the Gotthard Base Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel. This 57km tunnel alone cost $10 Billion US. Any high speed rail to Vancouver from Calgary would most likely require a few tunnels similar to this. I think a $20-40 Billion construction estimate would be very low.

Thanks for this, I guess I was too lazy to research, but yeah 20 billion would be low. Unless we could elevate it over the mountains.

I think its a project with no roi to be honest.

[Maccalus]

Saying that, there are corridors in Canada where high speed rail do make a ton of sense. Specifically, the Greater golden horseshoe to Montreal and maybe Ottawa and Quebec City do make a ton of sense right now. Calgary-Edmonton Corridor could make sense in the near future. However, a National network, as awesome as it would be, just doesn't make economic sense to me at this time.

[Kavvy]

Originally Posted by Maccalus

Saying that, there are corridors in Canada where high speed rail do make a ton of sense. Specifically, the Greater golden horseshoe to Montreal and maybe Ottawa and Quebec City do make a ton of sense right now. Calgary-Edmonton Corridor could make sense in the near future. However, a National network, as awesome as it would be, just doesn't make economic sense to me at this time.

I would like them to ensure the land for the rail and stations between/in Calgary and Edmonton is acquired now for future use.

The Cities are expending, get some "outer city" land now before we plop houses on it.

[Resolute 14]

The problem with the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is that once you account for issues like being held to the train's schedules, and being trapped downtown without a vehicle, it isn't faster than simply driving, and it probably wouldn't be cheaper either.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I totally think that 20 million is on the really really low side, this isn't like the 18 hundreds when your press ganging tracks with hammers.

There is that. We could save a ton of money by using Chinese slave labour, in fine railway building tradition.

[Maccalus]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The problem with the Calgary-Edmonton corridor is that once you account for issues like being held to the train's schedules, and being trapped downtown without a vehicle, it isn't faster than simply driving, and it probably wouldn't be cheaper either.

Cars aren't your main mode-share competition. Airplanes and buses are. They already suffer from the same problem as the train would with respect to being trapped in your destination, flying is worse even for most people due to the airport's location.

If they get the Speed/Price/Convenience ratio correct it will attract riders who would fly or take the bus as well as some who would drive.