05-14-2021, 09:40 AM
(05-14-2021, 07:54 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(05-14-2021, 01:06 AM)nms Wrote: Reaching back a century, between 1917 and 1923 the federal government created Canadian National Railway out of the ashes of various failing railways which were nonetheless important to the lifeblood of Canada. Just tossing this one out there, but what would it take for the federal government to create a Crown Corporation to handle all intercity bus traffic in the country? There would be some negotiations to avoid overlap from provincial agencies (eg GO Transit and Ontario Northland). Are there other countries that have national bus system?
Who knows, maybe bus routes could become the precursor to relaunching passenger rail routes if the traffic warranted it?
Interesting. If this happens I think it should be a single organization with Via. We wouldn’t want the train and bus divisions working at cross-purposes.
Although on the other hand I wouldn’t want a hypothetical Via bus/train organization deciding that it’s easier and cheaper to just run buses instead of trains on some routes.
VIA Rail partners with a few bus operators across the country (such as Maritime Bus, Réseau de transport de la Capitale etc) so they do have some familiarity of overlapping rail and bus services from train stations, ensuring they're equally timed.