Pierre Poilievre’s latest nation-building idea is a doozie: cancel Alto, the high speed rail link under development for the Quebec City-Toronto corridor. It is not clear why the Conservatives are so intent on keeping us in the dark ages of public infrastructure, but it is clear that if Poilievre sees any form of opposition to a government initiative anywhere, on any subject, for any reason, he’ll jump on it.
I agree with your thoughts on Hairyrabbit but would like to see numbers from studies that indicate enough Canadians would use Alto. All of your comparison projects are in more densely populated areas. Japan has that integrated system you talk about. I used it and it blew me away! Nothing was a minute late! But remember that the 75 sq. miles of Greater Tokyo almost contains the entire population of Canada!
I don’t buy the density argument for Canada. We spend somewhere around $100 billion per year on our road network to support our low density, and we prop up the oil and auto industries to unfathomable scales with public funds. Surely we could find it within ourselves to invest in active infrastructure — some of which would reduce our costs in those other sectors? No doubt that we are a long way from interconnecting every small town, but Canada’s total lack of ambition even in large urban centres is self-perpetuating. We can’t build infrastructure because of sprawl. We have sprawl because we have no infrastructure.
Totally agree on Big Oil!! I'm down in Mexico, where Pemex is gov't owned. Gas prices haven't gone up a cent. Canada and US allow the oil companies to gouge us, paying otrageous prices 6 days after the war started. The inventory at pre-war prices is around 6-8 months. We are paying for what they think they might be paying 8 months from now. Any other industry, the CEOs are all in jail. That gouged money going to the US could be working on better mass transit here.
If it does get built, the reformistas will sell it off to foreigners, just as Harper did to major industrial corporations and Harris did with the 407.
I agree with your thoughts on Hairyrabbit but would like to see numbers from studies that indicate enough Canadians would use Alto. All of your comparison projects are in more densely populated areas. Japan has that integrated system you talk about. I used it and it blew me away! Nothing was a minute late! But remember that the 75 sq. miles of Greater Tokyo almost contains the entire population of Canada!
I don’t buy the density argument for Canada. We spend somewhere around $100 billion per year on our road network to support our low density, and we prop up the oil and auto industries to unfathomable scales with public funds. Surely we could find it within ourselves to invest in active infrastructure — some of which would reduce our costs in those other sectors? No doubt that we are a long way from interconnecting every small town, but Canada’s total lack of ambition even in large urban centres is self-perpetuating. We can’t build infrastructure because of sprawl. We have sprawl because we have no infrastructure.
Totally agree on Big Oil!! I'm down in Mexico, where Pemex is gov't owned. Gas prices haven't gone up a cent. Canada and US allow the oil companies to gouge us, paying otrageous prices 6 days after the war started. The inventory at pre-war prices is around 6-8 months. We are paying for what they think they might be paying 8 months from now. Any other industry, the CEOs are all in jail. That gouged money going to the US could be working on better mass transit here.