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Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)
- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
urbanclient
Active Member
They're being intentionally dense. You don't need to arrive at Union 30 minutes before the train leaves. You don't need the same buffer upon arrival at Union as you do the airport.
I live not that far from @picard102 , near North York Centre. Right now, Google Maps says it takes 22 minutes to get to Pearson Terminal 1 and 31 minutes to get to Union for driving/Uber.
The walking distance from the departures drop-off to boarding gate is much farther than Front St. to Via platform.
I would estimate between 10 to 40 minutes less buffer for the train. Flying to Ottawa if I ubered to and from airport on both sides would've been 30 minutes faster than Alto, but that's for people living near the 401 (and those who like to live on the edge arriving ≤ 30 minutes before takeoff).
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micheal_can
Senior Member
I was not going to point out the Union thing. Either they do not travel, or they are, as you are saying, are being intentionally dense.
However,when I took the Canadian home in the fall on a Sunday,I caught the first subway to Union, dropped my checked baggage off and had breakfast before boarding.
urbanclient
Active Member
There is nothing stopping the brave/foolhardy from arriving at Union's Front doors 10 minutes before the train leaves, 5 minutes before boarding ends. This would be impossible for a flight.
By that math, the minimum buffer difference is 10 minutes more for Billy Bishop, 15 minutes for Pearson. Assuming 10 minutes to get through security and walk to your gate compared to 5 minutes for Union.
Flight boarding ends 10 and 15 minutes before departure respectively.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I have heard stories of people I knew running through the station to catch their GO train home. Cannot do that for a flight.
zang
Senior Member
I don’t think comparing Spain and Canada is fair here. The culture in Spain is quite a bit different. Punctuality there takes a backseat to almost everything, especially work-life balance, and I could see people taking the train over a plane simply to get more rest and comfort over any feeling of obligation to work.
Whereas here we seem to want to pattern ourselves after the worst of the culture south of the border. The idea that the trip itself is shorter in time by plane triggers work obsessed brains to give them false agency in believing they’ll be able to get through security faster or beat the traffic, etc. When they’re a passenger, they’re trapped with zero control, but they can control their car, or what line they pick at the airport. We always believe that we have more control than we actually do.
micheal_can
Senior Member
What would be an interesting thing would be news outlets to do a 'race'. Car, ALTO, and Flying. Start and end at their respective offices. That would be a nice real world test.
urbanclient
Active Member
Here we go with projecting American perspectives on everything Canadian again... White collars, much less executives don't deign to take public transit right?
picard102
Senior Member
I've never had to be at pearson or billy bishop an hour early for a domestic flight. You can check in online and get through security in plenty of time.
nfitz
Superstar
You've heard "stories" of people running through a train station to catch GO???? Stories??
I'm not sure how that's different for VIA trains or planes. I've certainly run for enough VIA trains and planes over the years.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I have had a friend get me to an airport with less than a half hour to fly out.... Mind you, this was not during peak flying time.
StreetcarRider
Active Member
Happy last day of public consultations to those who celebrate.
In case you're interested, opposition groups have published maps and links showing the municipal and other group positions on Alto so far. These materials do not seem entirely up to date, so use at your own risk:
For good measure, recirculating the link to self-reported locations that have received Alto requests for access to collect environmental data on properties: https://www.altno.ca/accessmap As others in this forum have pointed out, comparing this map to former rail rights-of-way in both provinces might suggest an Ottawa-Laval route.
In case you're interested, opposition groups have published maps and links showing the municipal and other group positions on Alto so far. These materials do not seem entirely up to date, so use at your own risk:
- Ottawa to Montreal (you'll need to scroll down) - https://www.altno.ca/maps
- Peterborough to Ottawa - https://savesouthfrontenac.ca/opposition-maps/
For good measure, recirculating the link to self-reported locations that have received Alto requests for access to collect environmental data on properties: https://www.altno.ca/accessmap As others in this forum have pointed out, comparing this map to former rail rights-of-way in both provinces might suggest an Ottawa-Laval route.
Ward8
Active Member
Not sure where to start with this one. I'll ignore the generalizations and just say pick another country then. The same thing is true for London-Paris, Milan-Rome, Tokyo-Osaka, Paris-Bordeaux. Take your pick of places in Japan, Korea, China, Germany. The train dominates market share precisely because it's faster and more punctual. It also has the added bonus of being cheaper, more comfortable, and more frequent.
That's outlier timing. Boarding for most domestic flights starts 40 minutes before take off. Most people leave more than 20 minutes to get from drop-off to the gate. Plenty of people travel with luggage and luggage cutoff is often an hour before departure. You're outlining the shortest possible flight time and it still doesn't compete. When you apply it to the average person the contrast is even more stark.
In any case if the math were against me, trains wouldn't steal and then dominate market share everywhere around the world.
zang
Senior Member
I'm not arguing that; I'm saying that at least in the case of Spain there are other cultural factors at play that make the comparison much harder. Humanity isn't homogenous. Of all places (including those listed above) you chose to use a Spanish exemplar.
lenaitch
Senior Member
When I drove for the hourly airport shuttle, the schedulers/dispatchers would book passengers to arrive one hour before a domestic flight and two hours for international (back then). If a customer assisted on a later van, a note was made on the schedule. Some 'seasoned' regulars would do this and *most* of the time it worked for them, but not always. We could be delayed by traffic (seldom) and TSA could be having a bad day (not seldom). The note on the schedule was to be able to say 'we warned ya'.