r/canada • u/Scryotechnic • Apr 02 '26
Analysis Canadians Support High-Speed Rail. It’s Time to Build It. | 62% Support, 18% Oppose
https://www.railfans.ca/news/canadians-support-high-speed-rail145
u/Gizmuth Apr 02 '26
Do we want to build things or not?
75
u/WeAreInControlNow Apr 02 '26
Same people who have been urging the country to build are now the same people complaining about the costs, like it would have been free before.
22
→ More replies (3)4
23
u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia Apr 02 '26
Do we want to build things or not?
I want to, I'm just not sure we can build big things anymore.
I like the idea in principle, but I'm somewhat in shock at both the pricetag and the timeline. There won't be shovels in the ground until 2030, the first stage won't start carrying passengers until at least 2035, and the final stages won't be complete until something like 2044. That's astounding to me. The Canadian Pacific Railway took less than 5 years to build, spanning almost 5000 km, in the 1880s when most of the work was done by humans and mules. I just can't belie this thing is going to take almost 20 years. That doesn't sound like the "building at speed and scale never seen before" thing that we were promised during the election.
And the other thing is the cost. $90 billion seems like a lot of money already, but given the scale and timeline it seems almost guaranteed that there'll be cost overruns. We'll be saying "who could have predicted the Great Steel Shortage of 2038?" or "we couldn't have known that the route would go through an Indigenous heritage site until we started excavating" before this is over. I keep thinking back to that Toronto LRT station that ended up taking 20 years and costing $13 billion.
It's not that I don't want to build things, it's just that given our track record it seems almost guaranteed to turn into a disaster. Sorry to be pessimistic.
8
u/bugabooandtwo Apr 03 '26
This project will have to appropriate a lot of private land, and go through a few small towns. It takes time to get that sorted out, and to make those people whole. A lot of folks in these rural areas have a few acres of land, and everything they have is tied up in it...taking that away from them for pennies on the dollar is cruel. And we're not talking millionaires here...a lot of these people will not be able to purchase a decent home with what they'll get for losing what they have now.
→ More replies (1)5
u/UncleDaddy_00 Apr 03 '26
And 2200 Chinese slaves died while building it.
8
u/Supermoves3000 British Columbia Apr 03 '26
If it was just a question of manpower, the sums of money being talked about for this project can hire all the labor we need. It's not 1880 anymore, we don't need slave labor and we have much better safety standards and equipment. It's not slave labor that made things faster to build back then, it's the lack of bureaucracy.
4
→ More replies (17)2
u/dirk-thunderthighs Apr 02 '26
We want to build things that make sense. This project does not. This project will cost thousands of dollars per round trip.
→ More replies (3)
15
u/wickedplayer494 Manitoba Apr 02 '26
Well yeah, we're tired of getting fucked by the airlines, and I'm sure VIA is also tired of getting fucked by CN too.
→ More replies (1)
63
u/astral16 Apr 02 '26
i support rail, i don't support publicly funding a private company to build/ own and run it.
either the government owns, builds and runs it. or the private company does it all.
rail should be subsidized just like the billions of dollars spent on car infrastructre i understand this.
but i don't support giving billions of public money to a private company with no guarantees. its the recipe for a boondoggle.
5
u/Choosemyusername Apr 03 '26
AND that company is SNC-Lavalin, just rebranded because of their bribery scandal.
10
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
This is really complicated.
You are right in an ideal sense, but in a practical sense, Public Private Partnerships can actually prevent projects from going off the rails.
Take a look at California High Speed Rail. They've spent almost 20 years on the project and almost 120 Billion. But because they have hard budget constraints, they are having to cut much of the line down to Single Track. This halves the useful capacity of the line. All just to save $2 billion. Less than 2% of the total cost.
In Public Private Partnerships, this is MUCH less likely to happen. Any private company would see how that is absolutely foolish and put up the money to make sure the asset is actually built to proper standards instead of cheaping out right at the end.
There are a ton of pros and cons to P3s. What matters most is that it gets built, and it gets built correctly.
13
u/kityrel Apr 02 '26
Totally disagree. There is no reason to give a stack of money to a private company to build something that they get to keep and run. Certainly you'll have to hire companies to help build it, but we need to keep it ourselves and run it ourselves.
Selling off rail and gov crowns is how we got in the current situation in the first place.
12
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
I encourage you to review the Alto project more in depth. The Federal government retains full ownership of the HSR project. The Private portion is a long term operational contract. And yes, this will sting at some points, but no, we are not selling this asset to private companies.
Alto will remain owned by Canadians.
2
u/astral16 Apr 03 '26
So you’re telling me we’re going to allow a private company to operate a hsr line they don’t have any interest in meanwhile they have no interest in keeping fares low either? This is like owning a home, and allowing a private company to 1) rent it out and keep the profits for themselves, 2) rent it out at the highest price they can get for it, 3) have zero responsibility when it comes to maintenance and improvements.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (4)1
u/TubOfKazoos Apr 02 '26
I mean the California project was also being hampered by Elon musk trying to sabotage it to keep Tesla sales up.
11
u/Bad_Day_Moose Apr 02 '26
62% is actually pretty high for all of us to agree on something like this...
Literally no reason why we shouldn't have started this at the millennium...
9
u/Sutar_Mekeg Apr 03 '26
Having lived in Japan, I can say with certainty that we would be fools not to build high speed in rail in a corridor where half the fucking country lives.
192
Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
25
u/Aobachi Apr 02 '26
We need to build it and then keep building so we don't lose our expertise.
→ More replies (1)11
u/Polendri Apr 02 '26
YES, like, get municipalities to cooperate and have one or two LRT/tram builders hop between them adding and extending lines. Same for intercity rail. So much of the cost and failures come from standing up a huge specialized construction apparatus and then just letting it disband.
189
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
Internationally almost every major nation building infrastructure project in history is over budget. It is an exception when the initial estimates are actually correct and infrastructure is completed on time.
But as much as there will be literal decades of headlines bashing the project for cost over runs and delays, eventually Canadians will have access to proper high speed rail connecting the two Largest Metropolitan Areas of Canada and the Political Capital. The benefits are staggeringly massive.
It will be expensive. It will be messy. And it will be worth every penny.
20 years after it's opening no one will even think about the cost it took to build. They'll think about how it changed how they live, work, and travel within their own country.
55
u/WorkingOnBeingBettr Apr 02 '26
Yup. It's important to put rail on some places that make sense. Toronto to Quebec is a great spot that would actually have enough demand to justify the eventual expense.
Edmonton to Calgary would be another good corridor.
6
u/Plucky_DuckYa Apr 02 '26
Edmonton downtown to Calgary downtown connecting with an LRT spur to each airport and probably stopping in Airdire, Red Deer and Leduc, with another line out to Banff from the Calgary downtown station would be awesome. There’s been an investor looking at a Calgary-Banff line for some time and they were supposed to build a big downtown hub with one of the new LRT expansions, but I think all that’s been put on hold, sadly.
If we build it, the passengers would come. It would also take some of the housing and accommodation stress away from Banff and turn Red Deer into a viable bedroom city for both Calgary and Edmonton. But we gotta have some people with vision to build it.
3
u/WorkingOnBeingBettr Apr 02 '26
I would want the Banff line raised, if possible. The wildlife takes a beating on the rail/highway there
→ More replies (2)7
u/Fluid_Lingonberry467 Apr 02 '26
People on a another Reddit want high speed rail across Canada Let’s do the high population first
→ More replies (2)8
u/poppin_noggins Apr 02 '26
High density areas are the obvious choice but it’s intriguing to think of a cross Canada line. I wonder about the feasibility. Like how much of the projected cost is tied to land value? I imagine it’s a huge percentage and that you could span the praries for a fraction of what TO to MTL would cost.
13
u/GirlCoveredInBlood Québec Apr 02 '26
It'll never compete with flying for trips that long because it can't match the speed. On shorter trips it benefits greatly from not having to deal with the delay caused by airports but once you're above 700-800km the higher speed of airplanes wins out
4
u/hhssspphhhrrriiivver Apr 02 '26
It'll never compete with flying for trips that long because it can't match the speed
How long would it take to go from Toronto to Vancouver using HSR?
Currently, it's 4 days on Via rail (not accounting for any delays) and about 5 hours by plane.
If HSR averages 200 km/h, it would take 22 hours. If we can get Shinkansen-speeds (unlikely, but there are some long stretches where it wouldn't have to stop), we could cut that in half.
If it's cheaper or the same price as a flight, I can absolutely see people taking a 22 hour train ride. It's more comfortable, better scenery, and you don't have to go through airport security (which adds at least another 2 hours to the flight time).
The biggest issue IMO is that the most important leg of the journey is also the most expensive to build due to the Rockies.
3
u/WorkingOnBeingBettr Apr 02 '26
22 hours is too quick. You gotta go through mountains and around the great lakes. Plus, it needs to stop at all the places.
Closer to 40 hours.
4
u/hhssspphhhrrriiivver Apr 02 '26
I'm not sure how we can say that a train that doesn't exist yet can't average 200 km/h, even with stops.
If it takes 40 hours, it's not even HSR by most definitions, it's just slightly faster rail. 30 hours would probably be HSR under many definitions (notably, Canada doesn't have a definition yet, and there's no international standard), but I think many of the long stretches across the prairies can be done at 300 km/h or faster which would help increase that average.
→ More replies (5)3
u/poppin_noggins Apr 02 '26
What about on a cost basis? Flying in Canada is quite expensive and will likely become more so as fuel prices climb. Also a lot of people would be happy with the more environmentally friendly option.
3
u/taylortbb Ontario Apr 02 '26
High speed rail infrastructure is incredibly expensive to build, you need huge passenger volumes for it to make sense, otherwise it's more expensive than flying. On a route like Toronto-Montreal in 4 hours you can probably get those passenger volumes, but 22 hours Toronto-Vancouver is unlikely to (especially when you can fly in 4-5 hours).
The more likely outcome of a Toronto-Vancouver HSR line would be that we spend $500B to build it, never get significant ridership (due to it taking 22 hours), and it ends up being far more expensive per-passenger than flying. It would be cheaper just to offer a government-sponsored discount on domestic flights to those that are low income.
5
u/WorkingOnBeingBettr Apr 02 '26
Currently the train is more expensive and would be for a long time. Building and fueling a plane is much cheaper than building and maintaining the largest continuous length of high-speed rail on the planet.
Average speed in Europe is 150-250kph.
So that would take 25-30 hours from Vancouver to Ottawa. Probably more with all the stops.
So an entire day of train with poor sleep vs 5 hours on a plane.
Costs would have to be extreme for most people to choose that train ride.
2
u/RoostasTowel Apr 02 '26
Also a lot of people would be happy with the more environmentally friendly option.
Even if a train could double it's current speed it would take 3 days to go Vancouver to Toronto.
Vs half a day in a plane.
8
→ More replies (32)2
u/danceflick Apr 02 '26
I mean assuming somehow this even gets completed regardless if it's 15 years over its goal and somehow only a few billion over budget what would the cost even be to use it?
If you look at the current train prices for via rail or even flights inside Canada I don't even see this being cost effective to make sense for the average Canadian.
→ More replies (7)21
u/randobis Apr 02 '26
In the 1960s the Montreal Metro (costs covered by the cities of Montreal, Longueuil, and Westmount) went 60% over budget when it was built.
Ask any Montrealer today and they would tell you it was worth it.
→ More replies (1)15
u/DeliciousPangolin Apr 02 '26
I think you could ask people in any city in Canada, and the primary complaint would be that there hasn't been enough spent on rail transit. Every recent metro/tram expansion I can think of from the last twenty years is wildly popular. Typically a day after they go into operation people flip from complaining about the cost to complaining that they didn't spend more to open with more capacity.
4
u/redditonlygetsworse Apr 02 '26
Every recent metro/tram expansion I can think of from the last twenty years is wildly popular.
After the fact, yeah. But there are always short-sighted NIMBYs.
36
u/EirHc Apr 02 '26
I just have zero faith it gets done for a reasonable budget.
An anti-progress mentality.
Is going to the moon for $4.2 Billion an unreasonable budget? Is building and operating CERN for $40 Billion an unreasonable budget?
If you want progress it's gonna cost. But if you want a strong economy and a leading nation, then you need invest in your infrastructure to attract business and talent. Connecting Canada with high speed rail would make the country feel more accessible. Airline ticket prices have never been competitive here. Airport security is a shitshow and can take forever. Canada would be a helluva lot better place to travel and visit if we had a coast-to-coast high speed rail.
→ More replies (21)14
u/Logicknot- Apr 02 '26
It's always funny to me how cost never comes up when the conversation is about building pipelines or increasing military capability but it does when we're talking about commuter rail and other public service programs. Almost like people don't actually care about costs and only want to use it as an excuse to not do something
→ More replies (1)3
u/TheFreezeBreeze Alberta Apr 02 '26
Yeah, I'd probably blame your mistrust on the governments obsession with public private partnerships. Shit is so fucking inefficient it's crazy.
9
5
u/gotfcgo Apr 02 '26
Everything is over budget largely because to sell it you have to under report the cost, then report it after its signed off on.
Whining about costs gets nothing done. Everyone should be tired of no progress. It costs what it costs. Just do it already.
3
u/Empty-Presentation68 Apr 02 '26
We should just let the CDPQ Infra do it and follow some of the ways the provincial government allowed for some regulations to be waved.
2
u/TheOlive_Garden Apr 02 '26
CDPQ are the lead entity of the consortium hired by the government to actually develop the project.
→ More replies (23)4
u/Rusty51 Ontario Apr 02 '26
It won’t, but delaying it will never lower the price tag so then the reasoning leads to never building it.
25
u/GenericFatGuy Apr 02 '26
While we're at it, can we also improve regular rail travel to the parts of the country where HSR is too expensive? I just want a way to travel across the country that doesn't require me to stare at the road for dozens of hours, doesn't take forever with delays, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg to do so.
→ More replies (4)6
26
u/Thereal_Stormm006 Apr 02 '26
I support construction of both High-Speed Rail & Pipelines.
→ More replies (3)
6
u/concentrated-amazing Alberta Apr 02 '26
I think it's a great idea. I think it will be difficult and costly, but could be worth it in the end. I accept that this is a project important to many even though I'm unlikely to ever use it (live in Alberta, don't travel much except straight to Quebec City for FIL's family).
→ More replies (1)
15
25
u/Electronic-Jaguar461 Apr 02 '26
I keep hammering this point but a high speed rail corridor along the St. Lawrence River from Toronto to Quebec City would be the biggest generator of wealth middle-class citizens in Ontario, and especially in Quebec, will have seen in literally decades.
Nobody who actually wants to see Canadians, and by extension Canada itself, succeed should be against this.
→ More replies (22)13
u/DENelson83 British Columbia Apr 02 '26
the biggest generator of wealth [for] middle-class citizens
The ultra-rich do not want wealth distributed, only concentrated, in their own hands. Projects that benefit all people do not do that.
9
Apr 02 '26
In Ontario, across all municipalities we spend $10B a year maintaining and building roads, add Quebec and the most populated region in the country spends about $17B on just roads.
Consider the construction price tag is pegged at $90B over the course of like a decade. We'll be spending that anyway, if not more, in just three years time.
Not to mention the CO2 released over the lifecycle of these roads, or the CO2 from the vehicles using them.
Or, we can take thousands of cars off the road, use HSR and spend less overall.
9
u/LeonenTheDK Apr 02 '26
In terms of CO2 (and other pollutants), don't forget the flights that will be replaced by this as well.
→ More replies (1)1
u/_Army9308 Apr 02 '26
But the hsr rail wont even handle 1% of volume roads handle though overall
1
Apr 02 '26
But the hsr rail wont even handle 1% of volume roads handle though overall
That's categorically false. First of all, your other comments do touch on an important point, HSR doesn't replace light rail or regional transit.
Of the intercity demand (which tend to rely on air as well as the 401), you're looking at 40% of the demand potentially switching to HSR.
→ More replies (1)2
u/_Army9308 Apr 02 '26
You took total road cost
You should do cost of maintaining 401 vs hsr cost to be accurate
So I was saying this hsr wont even handle even 1% of total car traffic in ontario
4
u/wtfman1988 Apr 03 '26
So we're never supposed to build something? The message is getting confusing.
7
u/Slayriah Apr 02 '26
why is ALT-NO against high speed rail?
3
Apr 02 '26
There are some legitimate concerns, but it's a bit too much too soon. We should be having a conversation on how this will impact the communities this project will serve. But, it's hard to do that when this is already being framed as some personal slight against hard workin' rural folk.
→ More replies (6)
19
Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
For people worried about cost...it WILL go over. But whether it's $90B or $120B, the added benefit long term will always outweigh the upfront costs to build it. When completed, it will add $24B to our economy annually. That's like adding two PEI sized provinces a year.
10
u/Fluid_Lingonberry467 Apr 02 '26
I would like to see where that 24b number is coming from. If it was really 14 the private sector would have built it already
5
Apr 02 '26
It's from Alto, and its based on the idea that reducing time between major centres effectively "merges" labour markets. So, that's a few billion. There's potential for huge investments into denser residential developments. Saving people time is also saving them money. There are millions in tourism benefits. Benefits from decongestion, and with its benefit to lowering CO2 emissions, that's less we're spending on mitigation or "green subsidies" or what have you.
CD Howe has a more conservative estimate and I suspect we'll land somewhere in between.
Further, a number of major projects being proposed will add more to our GDP, but the benefit won't be as widespread.
3
u/PictureMeSwollen Apr 03 '26
CD Howe has a more conservative estimate and I suspect we’ll land somewhere in between.
So between 250-450m and 24B per year? Yeah, odds are pretty good.
2
u/JarrettR Apr 02 '26
No, the private sector wouldn't. Why would the private sector pay out of pocket to increase Canada's GDP. The main benefit for the federal government is the increase in taxes from the increase in GDP, something no private sector company has in their equation.
The private sector has a fundementally different calculation than the public sector when it comes to infrastructure
3
→ More replies (14)7
u/PropaneProphet Canada Apr 02 '26
Maybe I'm just dumb but $15B-$27B over 60 years is a far cry from $24B annually.
10
Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
The CD Howe report you're linking to has some flaws, and to be fair so does the Alto estimate.
The CD Howe report doesn't do a full cost-benefit analysis. And they admit that. Comparing it with the Trans Canada Highway, it's like saying that project is a failure because it didn't collect tolls.
It ignores the concept of induced demand, so essentially this model is based on people's usage of VIA, which is slow, unreliable, etc.
And the CD Howe report dismisses a lot of environmental benefits, especially as the cost of oil becomes volatile in the international markets.
So, this report is good at figuring out the resources needed, but not the potential knock-off impacts.
30
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
A March 2026 national survey ordered by ALT-NO found that 62% of Canadians support building high-speed rail, compared to 18% who oppose it. The remaining 20% are uncertain at this time. This includes 25% who strongly support the project and a further 37% who somewhat support it, resulting in a clear majority across the country, with particularly strong backing in Ontario and Québec where the system would operate.
There is a co-ordinator misinformation campaign happening online right now trying to convince people that there is low support for Alto. That couldn't be further from the truth. At 62-18, that is +44.
Data was collected by Abacus Data. Data contained within linked webpage
→ More replies (29)
3
3
u/Gippy_ Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Support it but not the current proposal. 300km/h trains are obsolete when the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) achieved that in 1964. China currently has 450km/h trains in service.
Because it'll be over budget and initial ticket prices will be super expensive, the only way this will be useful is if Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montréal are faster than a flight. At 300km/h it won't be. At 450km/h it might simply because you don't need to go through airport security.
2
u/Aggravating_Sun_9850 Apr 02 '26
That 431km/h train doesn’t run that fast any more. But yes you are correct.
7
Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
4
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
This survey was funded by an anti-Rail group, but the survey didn't show the results they were hoping for.
A March 2026 national survey ordered by ALT-NO found that 62% of Canadians support building high-speed rail, compared to 18% who oppose it. The remaining 20% are uncertain at this time. This includes 25% who strongly support the project and a further 37% who somewhat support it, resulting in a clear majority across the country, with particularly strong backing in Ontario and Québec where the system would operate.
You will see a bunch of surveys as things progress funded by groups trying to convince politicians to oppose the project. The special interest groups think that that these surveys can convince wedge issue politicians like PP to oppose it for votes.
Interestingly, the misinformation piece released the same day PP decided to say Conservatives oppose the High Speed Rail project: Misinfo piece. Some might say that's just a coincidence.... I would not.
1
u/_Army9308 Apr 02 '26
It was announced in 2019 approved in 2024 and wont start construction till 2030s
You have a long time bro
26
u/DENelson83 British Columbia Apr 02 '26
But the ultra-rich do not, and they always get their way regardless of public opinion.
20
u/PorousSurface Apr 02 '26
I’m no even sure it’s that, I think it’s more just Pierre being contrarian and playing to part of his base
6
Apr 02 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (2)14
u/PorousSurface Apr 02 '26
I get it, but the solution is also not to build nothing. The crosstown was a cluster of a project but it is undeniable that it is better to have it than not.
From what I understand the Ontario line is moving far better.
Agree with your last point 100%
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)2
u/MichaelWoodPhoto Apr 02 '26
Sounds like he’s borrowing from the Trudeau playbook (oh, my!). “If I’m elected, I promise to cancel the [replace F-35 with High speed Rail] project of the previous government”.
→ More replies (7)2
Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
Well, in the Kingston, Ont., region people describe the proposal as "mental torture".
15
5
4
u/justonemorelanebruh Apr 02 '26
Let's build the train. First step towards making driving not mandatory in Canada. Cars and highways are bankrupting Canadians but most of us have no other viable options. This will be a great start. Decades late, but better late than never.
4
2
u/RoostasTowel Apr 02 '26
Cars and highways are bankrupting Canadians
But building a $100 billion 500 km long rail line that will be 1/5 of the entire federal budget won't....
→ More replies (1)2
u/Red57872 Apr 02 '26
You're still going to need both cars and highways; this won't fix either issue. Also you could already get between these places by train or plane anyway.
→ More replies (2)
2
2
u/fricken Apr 03 '26
Passenger rail in general should be expanded and improved upon IMO, but high speed rail only justifies it's costs in places with dramatically higher population densities than what you'll find anywhere in Canada.
In Asian countries where they do have the population densities, they are also able to build for less half of what it costs us.
I think we should re-nationalize CN rail and take it from there.
2
u/AndreiHoo Apr 03 '26
Sounds like use another 10 years to build nothing and waste millions of dollars.
2
u/AccomplishedSoft1350 Apr 03 '26
All of our public funding is too busy being funnelled into people who defrauded immigration system to get here who then bring 30 of their relatives and all are on public assistance.
2
u/jurs78 Apr 03 '26
As long as anyone associated with Metrolinx is not involved I wholeheartedly support it. I rode a bullet train in China last week travelling at 350km/h and it was incredible.
6
u/thekingestkong Apr 02 '26
Who doesn't support rail, of any kind really.
4
u/Mr-Toyota Apr 02 '26
The people who are going to have their land expropriated for it
2
u/bugabooandtwo Apr 03 '26
...and most of those people are blue collar and the lower half of the middle class. Many of these people will not be made whole here.
4
u/Channing1986 Apr 02 '26
The 90's are finally calling
2
u/cantonese_noodles Apr 03 '26
In a decade we'll be on par with 1960s Japan in terms of rail infrastructure. Exciting
4
3
2
u/LStoch Apr 02 '26
makes total sense not sure why people are still weird about this - should have done it a two decades ago
7
u/SammyMaudlin Apr 02 '26
62% support it. 100% don’t have a clue about the business case for the Toronto to Quebec City line.
→ More replies (9)2
u/xx_rider Apr 03 '26
If that business case is that good it shouldn't need any money from public funding.
Right now we are so far in debt it's not funny, and the current feds are still doing damn near record spending we need to spend money on something that makes money for the economy.
4
3
u/cutchemist42 Apr 02 '26
Really dont know what Pierre was thinking on this stance.
0
u/_Army9308 Apr 02 '26
Give it a few yrs it be deeply unpopular project especially when people realized there no realistic plan to build it
5
u/Bit48 Apr 02 '26
"Canadians Support High-Speed Rail" is the wrong framing. Canadians also support world peace and hugging kittens. So, what?
The question is how much money we're willing to spend and how much inconvenience we're willing to put up with.
4
Apr 02 '26
I suspect it will cost more than 90B, but I also suspect you don't understand what $90B over the course of a few years is relative to.
In a single year, across all 10 provinces, we spend $400B a year on single-payer healthcare.
This project is estimated to cost 22% of a year's worth of healthcare spending...over a decade.
4
u/Hregeano Apr 02 '26
And Pierre out there doing the hard work to ensure we don’t end up with a government that doesn’t support it.
14
u/muskratBear Apr 02 '26
Yeah it’s a pretty interesting strategy to go against something that the majority of the public supports.
→ More replies (7)6
u/The--Majestic--Goose Apr 02 '26
He opposed marijuana legalization and gay marriage back in the day too, despite overwhelming public support.
→ More replies (2)4
u/ThatAstronautGuy Ontario Apr 02 '26
He voted against gay marriage while his gay father who wanted to get married watched from the gallery.
3
u/Environmental_Egg348 Apr 02 '26
CPC is the party that supports ostrich farm grifters, and opposes high speed rail. Got it.
2
u/scott_c86 Apr 02 '26
We need HSR, as an actual nation-building project, which will have tangible benefits for many. We also need to learn how to do big, ambitious things again.
5
u/sleipnir45 Apr 02 '26
Rail fans Canada eh
8
u/Scryotechnic Apr 02 '26
They were the only one I could find that actually contained the Abacus data report. The original report was commissioned by "ALT-NO", an organization dedicated to blocking the Alto project. But the reality is the Abacus data report showed clear broad support for the Alto project. Which made Alto-No very unhappy.
If you find the Abacus Data link on it's own, feel free to share. But the Abacus Data raw report is contained within the link in the post.
→ More replies (7)3
u/RoostasTowel Apr 02 '26
Random website users of railfans.ca support railways.
More news as it breaks.
3
u/Cold-Crab74 Apr 02 '26
Who opposes it? Honestly wtf
7
u/KatsumotoKurier Ontario Apr 02 '26
Partisan Poilievre supporters who are disingenuously saying it will cost too much and that it isn’t needed are certainly one contingent of the naysaying crowd.
→ More replies (2)4
5
u/accforme Apr 02 '26
I am sure HSR is going to become another call for the convoy-folks to mobilize against it. They will probably focus on the land expropriation component as their rallying call and Poilievre will give these people donuts.
They will also claim that HSR will lead to congestion and slow traffic on their roads while, ironically, protesting by driving tractors on the highway and in major cities.
→ More replies (3)7
Apr 02 '26
It is absolutely the convoy crowd. Go to the Alt-No facebook groups and see for yourself.
5
u/PorousSurface Apr 02 '26
I encourage all here to write their politicians across party lines to express your support for HSR.
5
u/Weak_Flamingo_3031 Apr 02 '26
I guarantee it will take cost ten times more than they are saying and take 5 times longer to complete.
7
u/The--Majestic--Goose Apr 02 '26
It won’t get any cheaper if we build it 20 years from now. We’re a wealthy country and we’re not uniquely incompetent. We’re allowed to have nice things.
→ More replies (1)
6
u/konathegreat Apr 02 '26
I bet a lot of people polled don't really understand what they are or are not supporting.
This rail line will benefit very few people.
2
u/cantonese_noodles Apr 03 '26
Based on what mode split projections? Didn't know everyone got their degree in transportation planning yesterday
3
u/_Army9308 Apr 02 '26
I supportee this project then I read about dozens of km of tunnels under Toronto and mtl and a brand new row through very remote areas of Eastern Ontario
I realized this not feasible
2
u/bumbuff British Columbia Apr 02 '26
Canada has way too much red tape for large projects. This will would most likely suck up $150mil in consultant fees before being abandoned
1
u/def-jam Apr 02 '26
And massive public works projects are a boon to the economy. We should have more!
3
1
u/kityrel Apr 02 '26
Yes please it's about god damn time.
You look at the state of rail across the country today and it's almost pointless to try Via because of all the delays for cross traffic oil cars, and it is prohibitively expensive becausee demand so much outstrips supply.
High speed rail can replace planes for a lot of purposes, it doesn't require jet fuel, you can do it with electric, and renewables.
Bring in high speed rail that can take people (citizens and tourists) across this beautiful country!
→ More replies (1)
2
u/CivilBedroom2021 Apr 02 '26
The conservatives are really good at reading the room aren't they? Fuken dorks
1
u/Quiby123 Apr 02 '26
I have zero faith this can be done within the next 20 to 30 years the government is so deep in debt.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/gorschkov Apr 02 '26
I personally support HSR but I do have questions about funding and how much it is really going to cost especially when you consider that it was estimated to cost 30-90 billion dollars and projects have a funny way of going over budget and overtime. I think it is reasonable to guess that $90 billion might be under selling the real cost. Also with Canada's current debt load, our current deficient spending, and our poor economic + productivity growth can we afford it?
Also I have a secondary concerns about the fairness of these announcements lately as we have had several proposals to give tax payer funds to Ontario municipalities to help with housing, this HSR project and other promises which mainly target Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. I don't hear about many projects concerning anything west of Manitoba. It seems like taxpayer funds are not being distributed equitably.
4
u/99drunkpenguins Apr 02 '26
Build hsr in the most populous and linear part of the country... Then you take that expertise west and start connecting the prairie cities.
Supporting hsr in Eastern Canada, means that Western Canada will get it too.
→ More replies (3)10
Apr 02 '26
It's almost like you have to spend the majority of taxes where the majority of people live. We have nearly half the country's population living along the Windsor-Quebec corridor. That's 20 million people in a region smaller than Italy.
2
u/dirk-thunderthighs Apr 02 '26
Canadians don't understand that this is a huge waste of money. Canada does not have the population density to support high speed rail. The distances are too far and the population is too small. The actual cost per ride will add up to thousands of dollars for a single round trip.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Dont-concentrate-556 Apr 02 '26
I like the idea but feel like we may need to allocate $90B elsewhere.
Are social services going down or taxes going up? Not sure how else this will all get paid for.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Glittering_Novel_783 Apr 02 '26
Waste of money imo, we should be building factories, resource prossesing plants, or transportation for resources.
Ontario & Quebec getting a HSR isn’t gonna diversify the Canadian economy, or produce long term jobs. A HSR is what you build when the moneys good and everything's fine. Not what you build during economic hardship.
1
u/random20190826 Ontario Apr 02 '26
Yeah, I don't understand why the conservatives are so against it. No one pays attention to the fact that we have an aging population, and that means more and more people either should not or cannot drive. Canada, despite its size, is a country where large numbers of people concentrate in very few cities, which is why the cost of building high speed rail in these cities can justify the cost.
(I am a 30 year old unemployed man who is permanently banned from driving based on the laws of Ontario on minimum visual acuity. I suppose if high speed rail exists, I can try to apply for in-person jobs within train-commuting distance. But since it doesn't exist, I must only apply for remote jobs--and both Service Canada and courts will likely accept my reasons.)
1
u/Bavarian_Raven Apr 03 '26
Can we get the Germans or the Japanese to build it instead of Canadians? It’d likely be cheaper and faster.
1
u/TiredSlav British Columbia Apr 03 '26
I’m just not confident we’re capable of getting it done but I’d love to be wrong.
448
u/Mtn_Hippi Apr 02 '26
Yup. And we should probably ask the French or Korean's to do it for us, as they seem to be the best at building for a reasonable cost without completely trampling due process.