In 2009, EKOS found out that 88% of Canadians support high speed rail coming to Canada. That is because the benefits are clear. Besides providing more jobs and enriching the economy, high speed rail is ridiculously safe and punctual, with many countries offering a refund if a train is more than five minutes late. It provides a rival to polluting cars and airplanes, reducing transportaiton emissions. Investing in high speed rail would be a good thing for Canada. The studies are done, the benefits are clear. It's time to start building.
Dedicated high-speed rail lines are ridiculously efficient -- at least in Japan. Officials there point out that trains are punctual down-to-the-minute, even with 300 million riders a year.Read more at CTV.
They're safe. There has not been a single fatality in either the Japanese or French system. An average of seven Canadians die in road accidents every day.
Environmentally, there is no better way to move a large amount of people, unless someone builds a really, big bike.
High speed train service is O.K in a country with a population to support it. In Japan and Europe more people use a train in a day than we have people in our whole country. If it was a viable idea business would build it and run it for profit. When we have a population of 10 billion in our country then it would be feasible.
ReplyDeleteLet Ontario and Quebec pay for it then, I live nowhere near Toronto or Montreal.
ReplyDeleteIgnorant children.
DavidA we can have a high speed train that connects to a new plan for High speed trains in the U.S like a train that goes from vacouver to seatle or vacouver to LA. I think are first high speed rail should be Montreal to Toronto then expand it to the west with the U.S and continue trying to link are High speed trains to the U.S to increase tourism this is how High speed trains will be profitable for all Canadians.
ReplyDeleteHigh Speed Trains for tourism? That's beyond crazy! The cost estimates range from $40 to more than $80 million PER MILE. Tourism is a nice niche market but it can not justify the infrastructure costs on that kind of scale. The reason Japanese rail is efficient is simply because the large Japanese population is efficiently packed into several large cities, relatively close together, on rather small islands. They have the benefit of coastal plains and nice straight lines between cities. Canada is whole different story. We are a lightly populated, greatly dispersed country with few areas of density. Sure, Tor-Win-Mon might work but let the provinces do it, that is NOT a national project.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great idea, I wish they would implement it sooner, you could remove so many cars off the roads if this was available.
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