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VIA Rail

Unlike Ontario Northland, VIA Rail does not operate any buses. What routes VIA serves (i.e., by rail) is soley derived from its mandate and there is absolutely no link between how many buses happen to operate along a given corridor and whether or not VIA will start running trains along that same corridor…

If I may now volunteer a suggestion for a more appropriate place to continue this fascinating discussion: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threa...ide-the-quebec-windsor-corridor.32058/page-10
 
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Urban Sky said:
Unlike Ontario Northland, VIA Rail does not operate any buses. What routes VIA serves (i.e., by rail) is soley derived from its mandate and there is absolutely no link between how many buses happen to operate along a given corridor and whether or not VIA will start running trains along that same corridor…
Click to expand...
Restoring some of the VIA buses may help fill in some transit gaps.
1699143441337.png
 
nfitz said:
Restoring some of the VIA buses may help fill in some transit gaps.
View attachment 517911
Click to expand...
Not stepping in when Greyhound finally left the scene to cease the opportunity to replace them with a nationwide franchise system which would be supplemented by provincial funding supporting regional routes is the single-biggest transportation policy failure of the Justin-Trudeau premiership (if that‘s the correct term).

However, that does not (and should not) have anything to do with VIA (and thus this thread)…
 
Urban Sky said:
Unlike Ontario Northland, VIA Rail does not operate any buses. What routes VIA serves (i.e., by rail) is soley derived from its mandate and there is absolutely no link between how many buses happen to operate along a given corridor and whether or not VIA will start running trains along that same corridor…

If I may now volunteer a suggestion for a more appropriate place to continue this fascinating discussion: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threa...ide-the-quebec-windsor-corridor.32058/page-10
Click to expand...
I forgot that existed.

I will continue over there.
 
Urban Sky said:
Not stepping in when Greyhound finally left the scene to cease the opportunity to replace them with a nationwide franchise system which would be supplemented by provincial funding supporting regional routes is the single-biggest transportation policy failure of the Justin-Trudeau premiership (if that‘s the correct term).

However, that does not (and should not) have anything to do with VIA (and thus this thread)…
Click to expand...

What metric does Via use to decide to expand if they ever expand?
 
Urban Sky said:
In theory, VIA could add as many new routes as they want. In practice, Transport Canada will veto everything which risks increasing VIA‘s subsidy need, even if it would be just in the short term…
Click to expand...
Unless the government gives them a higher subsidy to expand. But that still does not explain how they would choose where to go next. I am guessing that since the 1990s, expansion is like a bad word in Via.
 
micheal_can said:
I am guessing that since the 1990s, expansion is like a bad word in Via.
Click to expand...
I have no clue about the internal machinations of most government agencies, but I'm not sure I would would agree with the last two words. I highly doubt their Board (or ONTC's for that matter) are anti-passenger rail and sits around tossing route enhancement ideas in the trash bin. The very nature of a publicly-funded agency would be to happily expand its area of control. More things to do means more bureaucrats and a bigger empire. For all we know they might write weekly letters to their Minister whining for this or that new route, but I suspect not since they know that it is pointless; they don't have the funding and know they won't get it. Even in governments and their agencies, 'busy work' has its limits.

Why doesn't GO run trains to all sorts of places they do go now? Same reason. The one exception is GO *might* have a business case in a drawer saying they would like to - some day, if they get the authority and money to do it. Maybe VIA has a pile of businesses cases in a drawer too just waiting for the golden egg to be laid. I somehow doubt it.

Any of these agencies will get the approvals and requisite funding when their respective governments see the political advantage to give it to them.

The most likely outcome of the mythical ONTC '4-busses-per-day' threshold, if it exists at all, would be to have a 3 busses per day corridor never expanded.

There's a lot of asks for public money these days.
 
nfitz said:
Restoring some of the VIA buses may help fill in some transit gaps.
View attachment 517911
Click to expand...

That bus - painted with VIA’s colours with another company contracted to run the route - filled the gaps of what used to be a lousy Toronto-Ottawa rail schedule in the 1980s. The buses would meet Toronto-Montreal trains at Kingston. The Toronto-Ottawa route has many more trains these days.

The other VIA-branded bus was between Moncton and Charlottetown.
 
Urban Sky said:
Meanwhile, an actual 1990 timetable:
Click to expand...

Well played. VIA has certainly not been prevented from building business T-O-M. And if you added a GO or Exo timetable from that era, Ontario and Quebec have certainly not been prevented from growing commuter train networks on their own dime. I do wonder if the cuts to the services feeding T-O-M could have been worth the cost to continue, and I do see the need for better service in Southwestern Ontario.

To be fair, there was an earlier era when (for instance) then-CEO Pierre Franche got his knuckles rapped for running with a plan to add a further Montreal-Quebec train, on the premise that a more frequent service which was more marketable could incrementally break even within the same overall subsidy. He was told, your mandate is to run x trains, not x+1. So some of us have justifiable grudges against the bureaucracy. But I'm quite certain that that historical antipathy is not what is preventing expansion..... rather, any funding proposal has to compete with other political priorities, and adding new VIA routes is only so sellable in an era where education, health care, reconciliation, climate change, and a pile of equity issues all are on the budget table.

Unfortunately, we at UT do not represent a significant voter bloc - and even if we did, I think I would personally choose access to a family physician before I would choose a train to Sudbury.

- Paul
 
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Since 1990, VIA has added:
  • A 5th frequency on QBEC-MTRL
  • A 6th frequency on MTRL-OTTW
  • A 6th frequency (then only operating on Fridays and Sundays) on MTRL-TRTO
  • 7 (!) additional frequencies on OTTW-TRTO
  • A commuter run KGON-TRTO
  • A commuter run TRTO-BRTF-LNDN
  • A weekly tourist run HLFX-Sydney (which would still be running today, if it wasn’t for the collapsing rail infrastructure on Capre Breton Island)
The federal government thankfully no longer dictates VIA what frequencies it may or may not run, but given that every new route usually needs at least some federal capital funding (e.g., to renovate station buildings or platforms), it is much easier to just increase existing frequencies - and that‘s what VIA has been doing for the last 30 years…
 
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lenaitch said:
I highly doubt their Board (or ONTC's for that matter) are anti-passenger rail and sits around tossing route enhancement ideas in the trash bin.
Click to expand...

To people who don't understand how corporate governance and mandates work, everything is a conspiracy. I've never once met a VIA employee who wasn't enthusiastic about public transport and rail itself. But they have no more control over services and resources than an employee of GO or TTC does over their transit services.
 
Urban Sky said:
Since 1990, VIA has added:
  • A 5th frequency on QBEC-MTRL
  • A 6th frequency on MTRL-OTTW
  • A 6th frequency (then only operating on Fridays and Sundays) on MTRL-TRTO
  • 7 (!) additional frequencies on OTTW-TRTO
  • A commuter run KGON-TRTO
  • A commuter run TRTO-BRTF-LNDN
  • A weekly tourist run HLFX-Sydney (which would still be running today, if it wasn’t for the collapsing rail infrastructure on Capre Breton Island)
The federal government thankfully no longer dictates VIA what frequencies it may or may not run, but given that every new route usually needs at least some federal capital funding (e.g., to renovate station buildings or platforms), it is much easier to just increase existing frequencies - and that‘s what VIA has been doing for the last 30 years…
Click to expand...
Indeed. I was more thinking of additional routes as opposed to frequencies on existing routes. I forgot about the 'Bras d'Or' service.
 
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