VIA Rail

[Mihairokov]

Received from a friend;

I have a friend who has been riding the new Venture trains & VIA has removed the bike rack & VIA is overwhelmed with a lack of checked baggage so they are using a spare car in the set for luggage on seats. Not building a baggage car in the set was a mistake.

I don't think i've ever seen someone take a bike with them on a Corridor train. Maybe once.

The rest of this I don't entirely understand. Overwhelmed with a lack of checked baggage? On a lot of trains i'm on I don't really see a lack of space for baggage, and typically when i'm storing my larger luggage at the end of the train there's room for it with room to spare, same as it was with the older trainsets. Don't believe i've seen any issues with overhead luggage as there would be on a plane.

 

[lenaitch]

NIMBYism is one of the worst thing that has ever come out of politics. Ask someone if they want a homeless shelter, and they are for it. Ask if they want it in their neighbourhood and they will fight tooth and nail to stop it.

It's not politics; it's human nature, somebody just put an acronym to it. What has changed is social media facilitating a wider net.

I'm not sure many would roll over to a scrap yard or slaughterhouse proposed next to their house. That's what land use planning is supposed to prevent.

 

[micheal_can]

It's not politics; it's human nature, somebody just put an acronym to it. What has changed is social media facilitating a wider net.

I'm not sure many would roll over to a scrap yard or slaughterhouse proposed next to their house. That's what land use planning is supposed to prevent.

It used to be you lived close to work. But,when the car came along, the move away from that happened. The fact politicians listen to that small group is the political angle of it.

 

[lenaitch]

It used to be you lived close to work. But,when the car came along, the move away from that happened. The fact politicians listen to that small group is the political angle of it.

They're not always small.

The concept of living close to you work was the main reason few complained about agriculture or industry next door - it was the smell of money. Although not exclusively, it is largely an urban concept borne of not living close to work and work itself becoming less industrial. It gets exported to smaller communities as urban dwellers move further out.

I'm not saying rural people simply roll over - they have their various issues near and dear to their hearts, but I'll bet you would be hard pressed to find a resident of Dryden or Espanola complaining about the smell from the mill, or Dundalk complaining about the smell of manure.

 

[micheal_can]

They're not always small.

The concept of living close to you work was the main reason few complained about agriculture or industry next door - it was the smell of money. Although not exclusively, it is largely an urban concept borne of not living close to work and work itself becoming less industrial. It gets exported to smaller communities as urban dwellers move further out.

I'm not saying rural people simply roll over - they have their various issues near and dear to their hearts, but I'll bet you would be hard pressed to find a resident of Dryden or Espanola complaining about the smell from the mill, or Dundalk complaining about the smell of manure.

There is a time to listen and a time to ignore. However, I bet if a new town were asked if they wanted a paper and pulp mill or a manure plant, you'd be hard pressed to find a location for one. Think of the former industries the city of Toronto had. Now imagine trying to bring those back. Most would be fought over. Many would lose.

The flip side is that building a brand new town in the middle of farmland would see the unintended consequences of the farms being told they smell and should close their operations. Hence why a NIMBY should be ignored. Bing real problems and lets fix those.

 

[Mihairokov]

Right, but the proposal isn't to build a pulp mill but to build a station for transit. These two things serve very different purposes. Being a NIMBY against an industrial mill isn't equivalent to being a NIMBY for a train station that may bring 1000+ new homes or residents or whatever.

As for the VIA stations between Ottawa and Montreal, Casselman is already seeing new suburb growth in the NW part of that town, although I doubt much of that commuting is being done by train and is probably being completed by car. Alexandria has not seen the same development growth because it doesn't make much sense for Ottawa (distance) and for Montreal.

Ottawa has enough suburban sprawl as it is and certainly doesn't need any more. Obviously it would be great if Tremblay could be use for the new HFR/HSR line but it would be typical Ottawa if they ended up with a new greenbelt station in Greenboro or wherever else.

 

[micheal_can]

Right, but the proposal isn't to build a pulp mill but to build a station for transit. These two things serve very different purposes. Being a NIMBY against an industrial mill isn't equivalent to being a NIMBY for a train station that may bring 1000+ new homes or residents or whatever.

As for the VIA stations between Ottawa and Montreal, Casselman is already seeing new suburb growth in the NW part of that town, although I doubt much of that commuting is being done by train and is probably being completed by car. Alexandria has not seen the same development growth because it doesn't make much sense for Ottawa (distance) and for Montreal.

Ottawa has enough suburban sprawl as it is and certainly doesn't need any more. Obviously it would be great if Tremblay could be use for the new HFR/HSR line but it would be typical Ottawa if they ended up with a new greenbelt station in Greenboro or wherever else.

The thing I have learned is that although on the surface they are quite different, to some people, they tend to be identical. They want nothing to change. Whether or not there is enough of them to stop a project like you suggest would remain to be seen.

The best option would be to add to the existing communities. Remember, every stop on a HSR line means a longer travel time end to end.

 

[Frank_Lee]

Right, but the proposal isn't to build a pulp mill but to build a station for transit. These two things serve very different purposes. Being a NIMBY against an industrial mill isn't equivalent to being a NIMBY for a train station that may bring 1000+ new homes or residents or whatever.

As for the VIA stations between Ottawa and Montreal, Casselman is already seeing new suburb growth in the NW part of that town, although I doubt much of that commuting is being done by train and is probably being completed by car. Alexandria has not seen the same development growth because it doesn't make much sense for Ottawa (distance) and for Montreal.

Ottawa has enough suburban sprawl as it is and certainly doesn't need any more. Obviously it would be great if Tremblay could be use for the new HFR/HSR line but it would be typical Ottawa if they ended up with a new greenbelt station in Greenboro or wherever else.

The point though, is obtaining private money for public works. If it's suburban Ottawa, I'm doubtful that they could put together a large enough land assembly for it to be worthwhile. Real estate lawyers are very expensive (I have some in my family).

Via has reasonably good customer service and operating practices. Not the best in the world perhaps, but certainly adequate. If the government wants to solicit private funds for improving intercity transit, it doesn't have to be in the form of a PPP for build & operate. Developers are often happy to contribute to transit projects around the world in return for station access. In London, the developers rebuilding Battersea power station paid 270 million pounds towards an underground extension serving their project. You might contend that eastern Ontario isn't London, but so long as the real estate project is big enough, that doesn't really matter.

Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here that I'm passionate about because I'm an economist, but I just don't see the existing tactics working. As urbansky points out, we get what we pay for, which is not much, and the only realistic path towards the world we all want (HSR in the corridor) is a succession of incremental improvements to infrastructure and service so that we don't deal with the cycle of proposal, scope creep, sticker shock, and cancellation. I was talking to a friend who worked in an Ottawa agency funding large projects, and it's made me pretty pessimistic about the civil service culture because of their enthusiasm for PPPs, especially in combination with uninterested government.

 

[crs1026]

I was talking to a friend who worked in an Ottawa agency funding large projects, and it's made me pretty pessimistic about the civil service culture because of their enthusiasm for PPPs, especially in combination with uninterested government.

P3's are the bureaucrat's fentanyl. And the politician's, also.

- Paul

 

[Canadian Chocho]

Received from a friend;

This was only really the case for a brief time a year ago over the holidays due to the baggage policy changing in mid-November but they were still honouring the old policy which allowed for more baggage. This stopped in the new year when volume died down and they began enforcing the new policy. This was all to deal with "carry-on" baggage. Not checked. Checked baggage is now exclusive to long-hauls.

 

[Urban Sky]

Obviously it would be great if Tremblay could be use for the new HFR/HSR line but it would be typical Ottawa if they ended up with a new greenbelt station in Greenboro or wherever else.

I believe (or sincerely hope!) that we can safely discount that possibility. The existing location next to Tremblay station (note that “Tremblay” is the name of the LRT station, not the VIA station it serves) means that it is less than 15 minutes in a direct and frequent ride to downtown Ottawa. No other plausible location offers a remotely comparable downtown connectivity…

 

[Urban Sky]

Received from a friend;

I’m not aware of any non-tourist trains in Europe and Japan which offer checked baggage service. Baggage cars have died out many decades ago and were also an anachronism on the Corridor until Covid brought that to an end…

 

[crs1026]

I’m not aware of any non-tourist trains in Europe and Japan which offer checked baggage service. Baggage cars have died out many decades ago and were also an anachronism on the Corridor until Covid brought that to an end…

And no one should have any illusions that intercity trains on other continents provide lavish amounts of luggage racking, either. VIA’s ventures are typical in amount of baggage space provided.

- Paul

 

[micheal_can]

I believe (or sincerely hope!) that we can safely discount that possibility. The existing location next to Tremblay station (note that “Tremblay” is the name of the LRT station, not the VIA station) means that it is less than 15 minutes in a direct and frequent ride to downtown Ottawa. No other plausible location offers a remotely comparable downtown connectivity…

The only thing they could look at would be a tunnel to downtown/ I highly doubt that will happen though as it is an added expense with unknown ROI.Lets first get an HSR before thinking of a new Ottawa station.

 

[Urban Sky]

And no one should have any illusions that intercity trains on other continents provide lavish amounts of luggage racking, either. VIA’s ventures are typical in amount of baggage space provided.

- Paul

Actually, the luggage facilities are still generous compared to double-decker intercity trains like those operated by SBB (Twindexx), SNCF (TGV Duplex), Deutsche Bahn (InterCity 2) and other European railways (Netherlands, Finland, etc.)…