Greens Pipe Dreams of Passenger Rail Service
At Huffb1's place and at Saskboy's place, there is a debate going on about the passenger rail. Frankly, it's history, as far as I'm concerned. All of the alternatives are better for a host of reasons, but still, the Greens persist that we need to return to the 1950s.
Here's a good study about the issue that might shine some light on why naivete's perpetual lock on Saskboy's brain is so sad.
Here's a good study about the issue that might shine some light on why naivete's perpetual lock on Saskboy's brain is so sad.
Canada's passenger rail services represent a thin shadow of the network that prevailed into the 1950s. Although rail used to be the choice of the cost-conscious longer-distance traveller, it has been unable to match transcontinental air fares for two decades. Now, VIA has great difficulty trying to match air fares on its moderate-distance service between central Canada and the Maritimes. This is a market that rail is bound to lose.[---]
With air's greater speed and lower labour cost per passenger-kilometre, it is difficult to envisage this trend being reversed. For example, the Montreal-Halifax service might be successfully recast as a tourist experience or as local services competing with bus for travellers within the Maritimes and within Quebec, but it is unlikely that it will again become a force in the Montreal-Maritimes intercity market. Similar conclusions could be drawn for the western transcontinental service."
Rationale for VIA Rail SubsidiesApparently, Saskboy, like all good greenies, thinks we have a bottomless pit of money and believes passenger rail service is greener simply on faith. A lack of evidence to support his case is immaterial.
The question of why intercity passenger rail that competes with commercial alternatives (air and bus) should be subsidized has not been addressed explicitly in government documentation of VIA funding decisions. Among the arguments advanced to support continued subsidy are environmental benefits relative to alternative modes, infrastructure cost subsidies received by private vehicles and intercity buses, and service to travellers with lower incomes. Available evidence does not support such claims.
The Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation (set up mainly to resolve the future of passenger rail) concluded in 1992 that rail's system-wide cost per passenger-kilometre is three times that for private cars and more than four times the total social cost of intercity bus — even when estimates of the social cost of accidents and environmental damage, along with infrastructure costs, are included. Even for Montreal-Toronto, the rail cost was more than 50% greater than the car cost and more than triple the bus cost. While the exact valuations of social costs are open to debate, the conclusion is inescapable: subsidies cannot be justified by social cost differences among modes.
posted by Louise at 7:33 pm
17 Comments:
I just want to reiterate here Louise my position. As you are well aware I was more ticked off about a News release saying something that got my hopes up then a debate about better rail. I was more pissed off about the release being half wrong.
If a passenger rail system is not feasible because there is not a demand, so be it.
I'm a Conservative/Libertarian. If theirs not a demand then government should not waste money on it.
I was just disappointed for gettting my hopes up. O well.
I like Saskboy's Idea, but I don't like the way him and the Greens would go about it. It would be a money losing venture that way. If only we had the demand we could have High speed rail funded buy the company's involved.
Its only a dream at this time I guess.
Just a reminder I'm on the Right Side of the aisle :)
Also, I don't follow the argument about it being greener. I'm not sure what Saskboy means by that. Trains don't run on air.
This is from the Green Party's website:
"Too often, we don’t pursue projects because we focus on what it costs,” said Conference Board president and CEO Anne Golden. “The question we need to ask instead: what are the costs of not having high-speed rail transport between urban centers?"
Wrong. The question we need to ask is: Will people use it?
Ive driven the Edmonton/Calgary corridor many, many times. There are times and places along that road where it's bumper to bumper traffic on a three lane road. How many of those travellers would prefer to use the train? That question needs to be answered, but I have yet to see that sort of analysis from any Green. As far as Saskatchewan is concerned, there isn't anything remotely close to the kind of bumper to bumper traffic on an intercity road. The only road that might be comparable to the Edmonton/Calgary run would be highway 11 between Saskatoon and Regina. I've never seen anything remotely close to the same kind of traffic on that highway, and I've travelled on it many, many times, too.
The Greens have this deluded notion that all they need to do is build it and people will come. Not until there is a long and persistent hue and cry from the travelling public for such a service, will it make any sense to even entertain such a project.
But I doubt that will ever happen. It makes as much sense as building livery stations every 30 or so miles to accommodate horse and buggy traffic as a non-fossil fuel consuming mode of no evidence to suggest we'd all run out to purchase a team of horses and an old fashioned buggy as a way to get from Regina to Calgary. But that's the way the Green's think.
If you can put in a decent network you can get a demand in ontario people use the rail to hop from city to city. But one of the reason reimers trucking exists is because it had to, as no rail went near the colony.
Would running a train to every tiny town be green really? It's like a bus running with one passenger the last thing they are is green. When pulled by a 60 ton engine I would think less green still.
but hey someone put it in a blog post so it must be true.
How old is that study, it looked to be from about 2000?
You may think we want the 1950s, but I want the 2010s. I want high speed passenger rail, like other developed countries have, and I want cleaner air for Canadians.
Well, Saskboy, when the population density and distribution in Canada begins to approach the values that "other countries" have and when that population begins to demand the service and is willing to pay for it, then you might get it. Until then, it remains a pipe dream.
By the way, how come you never actually address the arguments I've presented with facts based on solid economic research. Pretending to laugh doesn't do much to prove me wrong.
And do you really think diesel (the substance that fuels locomotive engines) is cleaner???
And the clean air thing. Show me the research that says Saskatchewan has an air quality problem, period, let alone one caused by burning fossil fuel. You must know how to make links. The only air problem issue I've ever experienced here is either from the smoke during forest fire season or or the dust kicked up during haying and harvest times.
Maybe we should shut down those industries, farming especially, since those dirty farmers use all that fossil fuel in their tractors and combines and what not.
Seriously, Saskboy, you really need to learn how to arm yourself with solid arguments rather than just cultish rhetoric.
I could see rail service between major cities that are within 2-3 hours driving distance being viable, say Saskatoon to Regina, Edmonton to Calgary (already in the works, albeit at a very early stage), Montreal to Quebec, etc...
But, only if the infrastructure is put in place by a prov/fed tag-team. If such a service could over a faster and a similarly priced ticket to commuters along these corridors than your talking. However, a grand coast-to-coast rail link just doesn't make sense in Canada.
"
And do you really think diesel (the substance that fuels locomotive engines) is cleaner??? "
Yes, burning less diesel, and converting travel to mass transit based on electricity is more efficient than busing or automobiles. Some places may not be able to support a high speed train, but could have train service otherwise since they still need it for moving freight too. You know, that stuff that farmers make... freight on trains.
Can you help me with the year of that study you're fond of? It was interesting, but likely out of date by a decade nearly.
You keep describing to me how trains were possible, and existed right here, and then give the conditions for when they would work (bumper to bumper 3 lane traffic) and still can't see that there will be a demand for them when people can't afford to run cars, and trucking isn't profitable? Rail is the most efficient means of transporting freight over land, and that bit of physics doesn't change based on politics.
And air quality may be pretty good in Saskatchewan, but it would undeniably be better with fewer fossil fuels burned world wide. Our smoke contributes to the worldwide problem, this is a closed system and that bit of physics also doesn't change based on politics.
Sean, the population in those two Alberta cities, if you include the surrounding bedroom communities, is well over a million each. In fact Calgary by itself without the bedroom communities is over a million. Have you ever driven on highway #2 between those two cities on a Friday evening of a long weekend? I have, and it is for a good distance outside each city heading towards the other literally bumper to bumper almost to Red Deer. In other words there is sufficient traffic to make a rapid rail service between Calgary and Edmonton feasible.
Saskatoon and Regina have a long way to go to get to that kind of population density. Hell, even Red Deer itself has over 80,000 people and in between those three centres there are dozens of major towns, all of them with growing populations.
Look at the population outside of the communities between Saskatoon and Regina, or between either of those two cities and the stretch of road along the Trans-Canada or the Yellow Head route. Except for the towns closer to the Alberta border, none of them are growing. Ironically, the ones that are growing have oil to thank.
The town of Davidson is roughly the halfway point between Saskatchewan's two major cities. Unlike Red Deer, it continues to lose population with each census. In the 2006 census it had only 968 people, a drop of over 7%.
Most of the towns outside of the two major centres in Saskatchewan have been slowing dying for decades (thanks to decades of NDP stewardship, I have to add, because I just can't help it).
I stand by my case. There needs to be a hefty population and major population density to make it feasible. Comparing Alberta to Saskatchewan is just plain silly.
Saskboy, according to the dates that appear in the document itself, it appears to be about eight years old. It was a study commissioned by then Transport Minister, David Collenette.
Saskboy, where does the electricity come from? Hydro? How much is needed to haul a major train with dozens of cars full of whatever. Make your case. Cite the facts.
"...and still can't see that there will be a demand for them when people can't afford to run cars, and trucking isn't profitable?"
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Precisely the opposite of the argument I am making. Read my comments a bit more carefully, Saskboy.
That demand isn't there in Saskatchewan, but it may be in Alberta. Albertans have been asking for it for some time, and I presume their numbers have reached that critical mass I'm talking about and the number crunching required to show whether or not it's feasible has been done. But not in Saskatchewan. Sean is right. Rapid rail between major cities for business travel is doable. Cross Canada travel though, fergit it (except for tourism).
Oh, and ten years from now, there will still be plenty of oil to pump out of the ground. You'll be an drooling, doddering old fool by the time we run out of oil and I'll be long gone, you'll be glad to know. You'll also be glad to know that I won't be able to laugh at you and say "I told you so" when your theories of AGW are ridiculed by your children's children.
I agree Louise, Saskatoon-Regina doesn't make sense yet and it may never make sense.
It was good to see McGuinty say he is going to push the rail link to the airport through (though saying and doing are two different things) after all these decades. Also the talk of rail development in South-Central Ontario and along the Toronto-Montreal corridor is heartening. Now there is traffic congestion that makes those who complain here in Saskatoon seem like chumps.
"However, a grand coast-to-coast rail link just doesn't make sense in Canada."
Sean, it does make sense, just as it did 130 years ago. Physics don't change, and our modern aircraft are contributing to climate change more than trains do.
Trains can be converted to use electricity from a variety of greener sources such as hydro like Louise mentioned.
Having driven on the road and traveled by train along the Windsor-Quebec City corridor, I know whereof you speak. The 401 is nuts, especially going though Toronto.
Mind you, that was nearly 20 years ago, and I'm sure a lot of transportation developments have taken place since then, but that just goes to show that demand has to be felt and it has to be persistent over a good long period of time before the politicians who hold the purse strings will take action and that is as it should be.
If Saskatchewan's population ever grows substantially to the point where rapid intercity rail may be feasible (ie, it doubles or triples), it will likely be because of oil revenue. I just love the irony. Not likely to happen overnight, though. Saskatchewan's population hovered around the 900,000 to 1,000,000 mark for more than half a century. It's not going to mushroom all of a sudden.
PS. I can't believe we agree on something. That's rather refreshing.
Sure, Saskboy, then the environuts will be wailing about the despoilation of our rivers and the destruction of spawning grounds, etc., etc., etc,...... Many, many years ago, when I was living in Saskatoon there was talk of damning some of Saskatchewan's northern rivers. If I remember correctly, the Churchill River was the main target of the debate. A great many people were opposed to it and the environment movement were among the loudest.
Bring out the idea of nuclear power. Same thing. Personally, I'm more in favour of hydro than I am of nuclear for the simple reason that the safety of nuclear cannot be guaranteed untold generations into the future and the current generation should not be making decisions that may endanger people, or other living things, that may be living here at a future time that is longer away than human habitation on this continent has been.
So, I would like you to answer my question with real data and real studies. Where will the power to propel long, multi-car trains carrying heavy cargo come from? And what sort of infrastructure will have to be built to deliver that power to ensure the trains can continue running?
Waiting.............
By the way, Sean, if you are still lurking tell me a bit more about this:
"It was good to see McGuinty say he is going to push the rail link to the airport through (though saying and doing are two different things) after all these decades."
What airport? Pearson? And what "link"? From Toronto only or from other cities too? I think passenger rail from the major cities to Pearson would be a good idea for reasons other than saving fossil fuel, mainly because of the cost of driving there and leaving your vehicle parked for a long time would be a pain in the butt. So would having someone else drive you there and then go home and have to do it all over again when you return. But that's a consumer demand thing based on a whole host of factors other than clean air, most especially convenience and cost to the user.
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