High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto

[diminutive]

I'm truly amazed that as soon as something comes up on this forum for outside of Toronto it immediately gets shot down. Highway expansion is bad, we should build rail. But then when rail is proposed to a point where it could actually have a significant impact, it's disregarded as waste.

The issue isn't that the route is outside Toronto, it's that it's more or less a zinger. Metrolinx has existed for nearly a decade now, there have been several major transit studies, and all of a sudden we get the Minister announcing a 320km/hr train to London? I would be just as surprised and frustrated if, tomorrow, Murray announced a Kipling subway from Lakeshore to Steeles.

Hasn't this Province learned the perils of jumping from one politically sexy megaproject to the next? There's absolutely no way you could build this project for under 8-10 billion, judging from costs in California & London, so 1/3rd of the entire funding package recently announced.

Anyone should be highly suspicious if a politician facing the threat of an election proposes upgrading a middling rail route, like London-KW-Toronto, to full on high-high speed rail.

Steve Munro was absolutely right to call this HSR the "'subway' of intercity rail."

 

[MrsNesbitt]

Wow well it's kinda hard to describe how I feel about something of this scale.

Basically this is overkill plain and simple. I like the ambitious nature of the project but the plan seems to be set up to fail so that it'll fall apart, and we'll end up with something lesser and maybe a little more appropriate in the short term like electrified GO service.

As an announcement it's also very well timed. The budget's coming tomorrow after all

 

[mpd618]

I think 10 - 15% is a good number...achievable....so what is it 10 - 15% of?

My guess based on the AADT figures is there's maybe 30-50K trips a day London - KW - Toronto.

and can you put a guestimate on that "latent demand"....if I understand you right, there are a significant number of people wanting to travel between those cities and when faced with the current bus/rail/private vehicle options elect to forego the trip? Really?

Yes, I think there is a significant number of people who do not make that trip because it is a ridiculous trip to make by any mode during much of the week. I won't attempt a number - that would require some really good surveys to figure out. Moreover, it would depend on the amount of transit-oriented development around it, i.e. the answer would be different if land use changes further around the station areas, and if/when people change where they live/work based on new transit access.

There's absolutely no way you could build this project for under 8-10 billion, judging from costs in California & London, so 1/3rd of the entire funding package recently announced.

The figures Murray cites are based on, and include an operating profit. It is very likely an all-in P3 arrangement. The costs for California's HSR are, as far as I understand, only for capital costs - which, needless to say, are inflated due to the ridiculous legal and government climate in which that project is being implemented.

 

[diminutive]

Does that figure include the London-Brussels leg, or just the Paris leg?

The entire Eurostar; London, Brussels and Paris.

That's not a commuter corridor, and is both a long and expensive trip. Even the cheap seats are in the $150 CAD range with first class hitting $450/500 CAD.

If we really can build this thing for $500M, and really can sell tickets for $40 for London to Toronto (very affordable alternative for students) this thing will have decent ridership.

The $500M pricetag is about 1/4th of what I would have expected so I'm looking forward to seeing the details.

Where did you see $500M? The info I got was "while it could cost over $2 billion to build, Murray adds that the revenue stream generated could be about $500 million annually." Not that makes much sense either (you'd need 12m riders @ 40$/ticket... to get 500M in revenue).

2 billion is incredibly optimistic. In fact, it seems more like an outright fabrication, for a mythical 320km/hr route. Look at how expensive these routes have become in England and California.

None of these numbers on this project stack up with anything previously done.

In the last HSR study, the Toronto-Windsor segment was expected to generate 2.3M riders and half the revenue Murray is talking about. There's no way on earth that the addition of KW, over and above the "GTA West" station on the other route, makes up for the differences here.

 

[mpd618]

Where did you see $500M? The info I got was "while it could cost over $2 billion to build, Murray adds that the revenue stream generated could be about $500 million annually." Not that makes much sense either (you'd need 12m riders @ 40$/ticket... to get 500M in revenue).

I was listening to the announcement today. Murray said it was $500m net cost.

 

[innsertnamehere]

$40 would be for a base fare, you would earn additional revenue from business class passengers.

Those huge sticker prices include 40km tunnels, large bridges, etc. They run through complicated hilly terrain unlike Toronto - London which is generally flat and the urban section (georgetown south) would presumably have little construction involved. lets take a look at the report before critiquing it, see what the EA says about it.

net cost means "cost to taxpayer", not the total capital cost. capital costs would obviously be much higher.

 

[diminutive]

The figures Murray cites are based on, and include an operating profit. It is very likely an all-in P3 arrangement. The costs for California's HSR are, as far as I understand, only for capital costs - which, needless to say, are inflated due to the ridiculous legal and government climate in which that project is being implemented.

NIMBYs are just as strong here. Good luck ramming through a 300km/h HSR corridor between Georgetown/KW and KW/London.

It's not like we build subways or LRTs cheaper than in California, no reason to think we'd build HSRs cheaper.

 

[rbt]

Where did you see $500M? The info I got was "while it could cost over $2 billion to build, Murray adds that the revenue stream generated could be about $500 million annually." Not that makes much sense either (you'd need 12m riders @ 40$/ticket... to get 500M in revenue).

2 billion is incredibly optimistic. In fact, it seems more like an outright fabrication, for a mythical 320km/hr route. Look at how expensive these routes have become in England and California.

Ahh. I guess I got confused by the tweets. I could swear Murry said it would be in the $500M range. I assumed they found a straight mostly grade-separated corridor they could buy cheaply. Most of the costs with HSR is expropriating the corridor then grade separating it.

Laying the tracks, doing electrical, buying train sets, and installing fencing is actually relatively cheap.

 

[innsertnamehere]

the legal structure in Canada is very expropriation friendly, and the public (unlike the US) usually has very little sympathy towards those being expropriated. (see that article a year or so ago about the old couple that refused to move for the 407 extension, there was very little public support for their cause). Expropriation moves quickly and swiftly.

Land in rural Ontario is really cheap as well, plus flat. there would be no multi billion dollar tunnels (look at what they are doing in SF for the California rail, a huge tunnel into a $3 billion dollar station), no expensive wine country to expropriate, no HUGE multi billion dollar stations to build, etc. Kitchener would use Its $200 million Mobility hub, London would probably use something similar. then there are no mountain ranges to cut through, valleys to bridge over, etc. Its flat land all the way through.

 

[diminutive]

$40 would be for a base fare, you would earn additional revenue from business class passengers.

Those huge sticker prices include 40km tunnels, large bridges, etc. They run through complicated hilly terrain unlike Toronto - London which is generally flat and the urban section (georgetown south) would presumably have little construction involved. lets take a look at the report before critiquing it, see what the EA says about it.

net cost means "cost to taxpayer", not the total capital cost. capital costs would obviously be much higher.

The last HSR study, for the 300km/hr from toronto-windsor, was 5.5b in 2009$. Prorate that to a shorter Toronto-London route and you're already 50% over what Murray is suggesting. Add in nearly a decade of construction inflation for whenever this thing gets built and the costs Murray is suggesting are quite clearly not very reasonable.

I'm sorry, I appreciate that we have to wait for the EA to know more details, but people should be a lot harsher on politicians who purposely dangle major announcements JUST BEFORE CONFIDENCE VOTES. When high cost, marginal projects get dangled right before confidence votes, people should be far more critical in reading the situation.

 

[TOareaFan]

$40 would be for a base fare, you would earn additional revenue from business class passengers.

The reports are that $40 would be an average fare...so some of the 6 million projected passengers would pay less and, yes, the business class fares would be more but average is average and if the average fare for 6 million passengers is $40 then the revenue from 6 million of them is $240 million.

Yes there will be additional revenue but the gap between $240 million and $500 million requires a whole lot of egg salad sandwiches and wifi services to be sold!

 

[rbt]

The last HSR study, for the 300km/hr from toronto-windsor, was 5.5b in 2009$. Prorate that to a shorter Toronto-London route and you're already 50% over what Murray is suggesting. Add in nearly a decade of construction inflation for whenever this thing gets built and the costs Murray is suggesting are quite clearly not very reasonable.

Hmm. The EcoTrain report released in 2010 put 300km/h HSR between London and Toronto at $1.65B and includes intermediate stops at Kitchener and Pearson. See page 7; I can't tell if it's an all-in cost or not (yards, trains, ...). Note that the MTO report assumes it would be a new ROW for higher ridership. If you can use large chunks of a pre-existing corridor then it is bound to eliminate a chunk of the cost.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pu... Review of representative routing options.pdf


There is a giant directory of documents dated November 2011 on HSR in Ontario here: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pubs/high-speed-rail/


Edit: Found the Final Report http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pubs/high-speed-rail/final-report/P020563-1300-001-EN-01.pdf

Quote from the Final Report: "Based on a streamlined EA process, EcoTrain estimates that the EA would be completed within 5 to 8 years." They have a 2024 opening date (Windsor to Quebec City). Obviously the Quebec and Federal government would need to get onboard with funding to do more but this short segment should lay the groundwork.

 

[TOareaFan]

the legal structure in Canada is very expropriation friendly, and the public (unlike the US) usually has very little sympathy towards those being expropriated. (see that article a year or so ago about the old couple that refused to move for the 407 extension, there was very little public support for their cause). Expropriation moves quickly and swiftly.

Ministry took ownership by expropriation in March 2011 (after a process that itself took over a year) and they were removed from the house in July 2013. Over two years from first eviction notice to them actually being evicted. Including the point to get to March 2011...it took between 3.5 to 4 years to get physical possession.

As far as a I know, no settlement yet on the actual amount of money owing to them.

If, at the end of the 3 - 4 year EA, there are any Kapostins families losing their property....the timeline (and likely the costs) get stretched.

Land in rural Ontario is really cheap as well, plus flat. there would be no multi billion dollar tunnels (look at what they are doing in SF for the California rail, a huge tunnel into a $3 billion dollar station), no expensive wine country to expropriate, no HUGE multi billion dollar stations to build, etc. Kitchener would use Its $200 million Mobility hub, London would probably use something similar. then there are no mountain ranges to cut through, valleys to bridge over, etc. Its flat land all the way through.

Why are we comparing to California? As others have pointed out, one of the advantages of living in the HSR Planning capital of the world is that the concept has been studied to death. If it was $5.5B in 2009 and all we have done is lop of Windsor and delayed construction by a decade or so....is it not pretty easy to figure out what portion of $5.5B is needed to build the London-KW-Pearson-Toronto HSR?

 

[TOareaFan]

Hmm. The EcoTrain report released in 2010 put 300km/h HSR between London and Toronto at $1.65B and includes intermediate stops at Kitchener and Pearson. See page 7.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pu... Review of representative routing options.pdf

The same study that concluded that the corridor could not support all of a UPX/Expanded GO/HSR?

Based on the foregoing and the expected addition of 400 trains per day on the Weston Subdivision to support
the new rail service between Union Station and Pearson airport, the Lakeshore Corridor is selected as the
preferred representative route for the current study. As a result, the representative route between Toronto and
London does not include a station in Kitchener-Waterloo. However should HSR proceed to a stage beyond
the current study, the use of the 407 corridor for HSR should be re-visited in light of continuing development in
the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. In addition, a convenient link between Kitchener-Waterloo commuter
services and HSR will need to be considered in any future studies.

 

[muller877]

Update from an announcement in London today: HSR EA will begin in the fall.

http://www.lfpress.com/2014/04/30/e...between-london-and-toronto-to-start-this-year

Tweets

@Glen4ONT says the high speed trains will travel at 320kms/hr , w 28 trains running from #ldnont to TO everyday. @CTVLondon #onpoli

Preliminary numbers show ride from London to Toronto would cost an avg of $40. There would be business and economy class. #lm #ldnont

With trains every 30 mins. Holy crap. RT @zb_armstrong: 1 hour 10mins from #LDNOnt to Toronto.

"We have to build and imagine and dream things we never dreamt before. Even buffalo has a high speed rail coming soon" - @Glen4ONT

So we now can confirm that Glen Murray / Liberals do transit planning by drawing cool looking lines on Google maps.

If you look at how the 403 was built between Woodstock and Brantford it was very carefully placed in the middle of concession roads (which is often the back of a farmers field). This is to avoid having to expropriate excessive lands and/or build bridges to let farmers get to their other fields. The land that they drew a line in is some of the most productive farmland in Canada and sells for about $20,000 an acre. I guess the Liberals have already given up courting the farming vote. But this will cost them dearly to expropriate.

But, they will not go across farmers fields. They will have to go parallel with roads. Or else it'll be tied up in courts for years with expropriation battles (imagine if they told someone in Toronto that they are expropriating a strip in a backyard. You'll have to go around the block and get approval from your neigbours to reach your hammock that is just across the strip of land that they took)

Oh wait...they decided that expropriating land in Toronto for transit is a bad thing and instead they will keep streets closed for years on end and inconvenience hundreds upon thousands of people.