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High-Speed Rail (HSR) - Toronto/Pearson/Kitchener/London
#46
Based on the outrageous prices the Union-Pearson express will cost per passenger, I am going to speculate the the ticket price to ride this train to Toronto will not be a viable alternative.
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I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#47
The study explicitly mentions a 1 month in advance $29 each way fare. The entire fee structure appears in the report.
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#48
You must be joking. I can ride a bullet train to Toronto for $29 or the UP for $27?!??
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#49
Report says $19 for HSR if you book 1+ month in advance actually. But all of these prices are just suggestions/examples, nothing concrete.

UP's pricing is in line with what it costs to take a taxi or the express bus. In other cities it's a similar fare; they get the tourists and business travelers who will fork out the coin for the 1 time they visit the city per year or every couple of years. It's not for daily commuters.
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#50
(12-10-2014, 08:54 PM)Canard Wrote: Report says $19 for HSR if you book 1+ month in advance actually.  But all of these prices are just suggestions/examples, nothing concrete.

UP's pricing is in line with what it costs to take a taxi or the express bus.  In other cities it's a similar fare; they get the tourists and business travelers who will fork out the coin for the 1 time they visit the city per year or every couple of years.  It's not for daily commuters.

Montreal has an interesting pricing model for the express bus to the airport (which allegedly seriously cut into taxi revenues): it is public transit, but you have to have a day pass ($10), a weekly pass, or a monthly pass to take it. Single-ride tickets (even purchased in a bunch) don't work on it. One could imagine something similar for the UP, although the will to do that doesn't seem to exist. It is cheaper than a taxi and 50% more expensive than the Airport Express used to cost.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/06/..._fall.html
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#51
Excellent post over at UrbanToronto re: HSR:

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread....post959442
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#52
Thank you for the link to that post; that makes me more than a little excited to read that. I've been very sceptical about HSR since it was "announced" during the election, but what he says makes a lot of sense, and he's not wrong to characterize HSR as an "increment" to what is already happening on the Kitchener-Toronto corridor. That's a useful way of framing it.

I guess it depends on progress of electrification, and whether/when Kitchener is given increased Go service to build and demonstrate demand.
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#53
http://www.lfpress.com/2014/12/10/high-s...akes-shape

In reading the report at the end of this article... I found it quite interesting on the Kitchener segment. It speaks to the King Street grade separation as a "mistake" which would eliminate the ability to grade separate the remainder of the streets in this area (not to mention the Weber underpass) it also references crossing the 401 after exiting Kitchener on the way to London which I believe should be the 7/8 to New Hamburg? Quite poorly written too I might add...
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#54
(12-11-2014, 03:38 PM)MidTowner Wrote: Thank you for the link to that post; that makes me more than a little excited to read that. I've been very sceptical about HSR since it was "announced" during the election, but what he says makes a lot of sense, and he's not wrong to characterize HSR as an "increment" to what is already happening on the Kitchener-Toronto corridor. That's a useful way of framing it.

I guess it depends on progress of electrification, and whether/when Kitchener is given increased Go service to build and demonstrate demand.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic here, but I always felt that the HSR had a somewhat higher ring of truth coefficient as compared to say, the numerous empty promises of highway 7 to Guelph.

Not to say it will happen very soon, just saying that it wasn't as much pie in the sky as the highway 7 promise was in the 1990 or 1995 elections.
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#55
If I am reading this report/memo or whatever this is correctly, is the author suggesting we re think the proposed King St underpass? Is he also suggesting that we have goofed by rebuilding the Weber St crossing and should have buried the rail line instead?

I am also noting this report is dated March 2014. There is a reference to 3 lines travelling under the Margaret St bridge. Hasn't our city already reviewed this and decided we are ok with a bridge that can accommodate 2 lines and squeeze in a third?

It will be interesting to see if our politicians acknowledge this report. I hope they do and provide some clarification as we need to get in on this project.
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#56
As has been mentioned, the report clearly was lacking a lot of on-the-ground details.

I suspect they did not know of the Weber St work at all, nor the closure of Aherns and Margaret, nor the anticipated closure of Waterloo for the Hub.
Effectively, we have already decided to do much of the severing that they propose a trench would serve to avoid.
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#57
(12-11-2014, 05:22 PM)Drake Wrote: Is he also suggesting that we have goofed by rebuilding the Weber St crossing and should have buried the rail line instead?

I am also noting this report is dated March 2014. There is a reference to 3 lines travelling under the Margaret St bridge. Hasn't our city already reviewed this and decided we are ok with a bridge that can accommodate 2 lines and squeeze in a third?

It will be interesting to see if our politicians acknowledge this report. I hope they do and provide some clarification as we need to get in on this project.

Maybe it would have been good to bury the rail line at Weber, but that also seems complicated and would have surely increased the cost of the Weber St reconstruction.

As I recall, what happened with the Margaret St bridge was that the city decided that the province wasn't returning its calls (and/or had no clue about what the plan would be) and so just decided to go ahead and rebuild at 2 lines; the cost of HSR would dwarf a bridge rebuild anyway.

I also thought I saw Ken Seiling and Sean Strickland speak in favour of the EA.
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#58
On the one hand that probably makes the costs in the "Kitchener city centre" portion at least $51million lower than the $200million listed; but on the other hand, if major, well publicized projects like the Weber underpass, the Margaret replacement, and the planned King underpass (and Waterloo St closure) were missed in the pre-feasibility study...what else was missed.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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#59
I think some good points are made here. I would comment however that this report is dated in March and presumably researched at least in January. What we commonly know now isn't necessarily what was known a year ago.
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#60
D'Amato: High-speed trains are just a shiny distraction

Quote:As someone who believes in public transit, this sounds great to me. But still, I'm suspicious.

First of all, I can't believe this rail system can be built for only $2.5 billion, as the consultant's initial report says...

Secondly, even if the price is correct, this government doesn't have $2.5 billion to spend...

Finally, a project like this has little credibility when the government drags its feet on promises it already made for more modest levels of service...  to distract voters from the government's slow implementation of two-way, all-day GO Train service.

As one commenter to the article points out, her second concern isn't valid because capital projects of this type are usually financed. Also it doesn't include the costs avoided in not expanding the 401 to accommodate the "estimated 20,000 trips... each day" that the HSR would divert.
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