Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:42 on 2025-02-19 Permalink Reply  

• Joey 10:50 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  If we start actually doing things like high-speed (or high-frequency, or ideally high-speed and high-frequency) rail between Montreal and Toronto, we’ll run out of longstanding things to bitch and moan about. Anyway, this concluding paragraph from CBC is worth keeping in mind:

  “It’s expected to take four to five years to design the future high-speed line. Funds are to be allocated at the end of that time period, so it’s possible a future government could modify or cancel the project.”

• jeather 10:51 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  I have faith that we could find new things to bitch and moan about.

• Alex L 11:19 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Finally, this is happening. Or should I wait before rejoicing?

• Bert 11:23 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Trudeau initiating a project that will undoubtedly result in a bunch of expropriations, including in regional and farming reasons. Man, this year of 1969 is just wild!

• Ephraim 12:01 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Meanwhile, I’m looking at the partners… “the consortium Cadence — made up of CDPQ Infra, AtkinsRéalis, Keolis, SYSTRA, SNCF Voyageurs, and Air Canada”

  For those who don’t know:
  Keolis is 70% SNCF and 30% CDPQ.
  SNCF Voyageurs is the division of SNCF that actually runs the trains.
  AtkinsRéalis is the new name for SNC Lavalin
  SYSTRA is 20% SNCF and 20% RATP (The Paris region transit company)

  I’m particularly happy to see SYSTRA involved, they have been involved in the majority of tram development in France and a lot of the high speed rail as well. They bring in a lot of experience.

• Joey 12:42 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  I can’t imagine getting into the details on this unless, at the very least, Mark Carney is on board. Otherwise, it’s just a waste of energy.

• Anton 15:02 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  So, uh, how are they gonna get from gare centrale to North of the river.

• Taylor 15:25 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  @Anton

  I have an article in development on this issue, it’ll come out soon

  The answer: it likely won’t

  Not using Gare Centrale is an option apparently. Having the HSR station located ‘outside the downtown core’ is an option too.

  Also worth noting who isn’t involved in this project: VIA

  This is basically the REM of national passenger rail

• Tee Owe 15:43 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  I have done Que-Toronto and vice versa both by train and plane, I am not an expert, just a user. Overall, train works well, air travel is compromised by airport travel time and time spent in the airport. My gut feeling is that the connection in Montreal is going to compromise this whole plan. As Anton and Joey refer to, there will need to be a new station, and then connections to downtown – not optimal. To be competitive, this needs to whizz through Montreal to get to TO fast – wonderful for the Que-TO traveler, politically incorrect otherwise. I agree about high-frequency mattering as much as high-speed. I am not optimistic.

• Blork 15:47 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Maybe they will install a train station at Mirabel? 🙂

• Tee Owe 15:50 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Sorry, Anton and Taylor 🙁

• SMD 16:42 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Anybody know what Air Canada is doing on that list, instead of VIA Rail? I don’t get it.

• CE 16:45 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  I remember this being discussed in the media last summer. https://globalnews.ca/news/10675060/air-canada-tgv-train-company-bidder-electric-fast-rail-project/

• bob 20:56 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  ” jusqu’à 300 km / h ” – but not really. Three hours from Montreal to Toronto is about 170km/h. An hour and a half from Montreal to Quebec is about the same. That is not high speed rail – it is a little faster than the speed of Via Rail’s LRC that was in place in the 1980’s-90’s. Those Via trains could do Montreal to Toronto in 4 hours (and did so in the 80’s and 90’s) – so we will spend $100 billion so shave an hour off that?

  Assuming that $100 is a valid esitmate – “Dans le passé, Transports Canada avait initialement évalué le coût d’un TGV Toronto-Québec à plus de 100 milliards de dollars. ” — but that was then and this is now. Will it be $150 billion? $200 billion? “la phase de conception du projet s’élèvera à 3,9 milliards de dollars” – $4 billion to design the project, before they start actually designing the railroad – which is supposed to happen in six years, if you believe that. The Tokaido Shikansen took five years to build *sixty* years ago. The first TGV (Paris-Lyon) in France took four years to build – *fifty* years ago. French TGV rail costs about $20 million per km. Spanish TGV costs about $15 million per km. At the French rate $100 billion would buy high speed rail from Vancouver to Halifax. But we don’t get the French rate, we get the Canadian rate, which includes corruption that would make the dictator of a banana republic blush.

  Anand – “The existing transportation system has not kept pace.” Kept pace with what? The near complete absence of demand for train travel between Montreal and Toronto? Ridership has stagnated at 4 million for *thirty five* years, while the population has increased by 50%.

  This is pure pork – a multi-billion dollar parting gift from Trudeau to the usual suspects (like SNC whose prosecution for fraud he scuttled). It is not high speed rail, it is looting.

• Orr 21:53 on 2025-02-19 Permalink

  Looking at the map that traces the route through the Montreal region, it appears to follow existing commuter train lines (sort of) bypassing downtown, and appears to go past the parc metro station & nearby EXO commuter train station and where there happens to be a closed building that was at one time a very nice train station.

• GC 00:13 on 2025-02-20 Permalink

  Where do you see the map?

• Kevin 10:13 on 2025-02-20 Permalink

  @Taylor
  Via is involved.
  The Via subsidiary that was planning high-frequency rail has been renamed Alto, and is in charge of overseeing whatever Cadence plans.

• MarcG 09:39 on 2025-02-21 Permalink

  I don’t follow this stuff but I guess there’s a reason it can’t follow the existing VIA route through Montreal to Quebec City (Dorval->Bonaventure->Victoria Bridge->South Shore rail line)?

  Also interested in Orr’s map.

• carswell 10:02 on 2025-02-21 Permalink

  @MarcG The north shore route is considered preferable for several reasons. It doesn’t have to cross a major river twice. It includes a stop at the Jean Lesage Airport and in Quebec’s third and fourth largest cities (Laval and Trois-Rivières respectively), increasing the potential passenger pool; Drummondville, the only city on the south shore route outside the metropolitan areas, is about half the size of Trois-Rivières. It also provides train service to Trois-Rivières, which has had none since 1990.

  Those are the arguments I recall but there may well be others, such as the relative ease of expropriating land.

• carswell 10:11 on 2025-02-21 Permalink

  Also, with the south shore route, the HSR trains would have to cross the St. Lawrence on the existing bridges, the Pont de Québec and the Victoria Bridge, meaning it’d have to share rails with and be subject to delays imposed by freight rail operators on at least part of the line. But one of the big arguments in favour of a dedicated HSR line is precisely that it won’t be subject to such delays.

• MarcG 10:40 on 2025-02-21 Permalink

  That all makes sense, thanks carswell.