Being a lifelong Albertan, the first passenger train I’d ever been on (aside from the one that does a loop of Heritage Park) was the high-speed rail line from Madrid to Barcelona. It only went about 200+ km/hour, but it got us to and from in about 4 hours. According to Googlemaps, the drive would have taken at least six. The train was a good choice.
I’m not alone in my virtually non-existent relationship with high-speed rail. There are high-speed rail lines all over the world, but not a single line in Canada according to “Off the Rails,” an excellent article on Canada’s turbulent relationship with the idea of high-speed rail. The article, by the Tyee’s Monte Paulsen, ended up in June’s issue of the Walrus. Canada, he argues, has gone from an innovative leader in the field of high-speed rail to virtually dead last among industrialized nations. In fact, Canada sits as the only G8 nation without it, and even sits behind those high-tech powerhouses Taiwan and Turkey while Saudi Arabia and Morocco have plans to lay high-speed in the next five years. High-speed rail has become a transportation given for people all over the globe, excluding Canada–the world’s second largest nation with a hell of a lot of space to move people between. Russia and China–the first and third largest nations, respectively–already have us beat, by the way.
This is actually a surprise, considering our early endeavours into high-speed, as well as the fact that Bombardier, a world leader in rail technology is headquartered here. In the late 1960’s, Canadian National (then a crown corporation) purchased five state of the art high-speed trains called the Turbo, which set a then-world record at 275km per hour on a test track in New Jersey. However, when finally put into action on track in Canada, the Turbo capped out at 160km, thanks to the (relatively) sharp turns on already existing track. It didn’t beat the time by car by much, so interest dwindled. Every few years there are studies done and discussions around putting lines between Windsor and Quebec, or Calgary and Edmonton, but nothing seems to pan out. So here we are–high-speed neanderthals in the second-largest country in the world and a country that has always–rightly or wrongly–prided itself on being an “advanced” country with tons of high-tech prowess.
In an age of climate change and entering a phase of peak-oil, the stats are on our side. CO2 emissions per passenger from high-speed rail is less than a tenth of that used while driving in an average car or flying in an airplane. The trains can’t exactly match planes as far as the time it takes to go from point A to point B, but factor in all of those annoying time-consuming factors like customs, testing for take-off and luggage retrieval from equation and high-speed stacks up very well. Paulsen’s article estimates a ride from Calgary to Edmonton taking around 2.5 hours, while the car ride takes 3.5 and the plane ride with all of the added irritants would take just over 3.
It’s certainly a competitive alternative time-wise and in terms of C02 emissions, but it’s also very economical. A 2004 study (a future article on this should come) by the Van Horne Institute at the University of Calgary estimates that a line between Calgary and Edmonton would pay itself off within 30 years and could return as much as $6.1 billion in further economic spin-offs. Ontario and Quebec have commissioned another study on the Windsor-Quebec corridor in February of this year, but the truth is already on the side of high-speed:
“What’s the point of another study?” asks [high-speed rail activist] Phil Langan. “It was viable in the 1980’s. It was viable in 1995. Like all the previous studies, this one will come back and say, ‘Yes, we have the population to support it. Yes, people will ride it. Yes, it will pay for itself.”
A while ago, I asked Alberta Tory MLA Doug Griffiths about it via Twitter. His response was very similar: we’ve got to look into the numbers, we’re looking into the numbers, looking to see if tax-payer dollars will be well-spent etc. It sounds very familiar. No outright dismissal, though no support. Yet, the study has been done and the numbers are there. It will just take some political will to get it done. I’m not counting on Stephen Harper to do it–Paulsen’s latest series, “Derailed,” on high-speed in B.C. in the Tyee makes that pretty clear. Yet, maybe if we make enough of a stir and educate our citizens on the benefits we might be able to pull it off. Hell, Obama is doing it–and as we know, Obama is the Messiah and his ways should be heeded without looking back.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Just a quick note.
A payback period of 30 years does not make a project “very economical” – no commercial project would go forward on that basis, especially given that project lifetimes (i.e. how long it will last without major renos) are typically assumed to be 25 years.
That being said, I don’t think we should be viewing a public transit service in profit-driven terms. It should be considered a service to the people, and you’ve listed many of the non-monetary benefits here.
I for one completely support a high-speed transit line between, say, Calgary and Edmonton – if we’re talking truly high-speed (300 km/h), a trip would take about an hour. And if high-speed transit has 1/10 the emissions of typical car rides, this seems like a much more viable alternative to reducing GHGs than, say, $2 billion spent on carbon capture and storage.
I am discouraged by talk of "high speed" rail, as it shouts to me that even the people who are getting it don't really get it.
We need more rail, yes, I absolutely believe this. But we also need to live more slowly, on a more human scale. I believe this: we must change our paradigm, and in order to do this, we must change our inner paradigm first. "Fast is best" is another version of "BIG is best" and we need to abandon these beliefs. Normal rail is plenty fast and requires no expensive additional infrastructure on the main lines at least (although it is an intense shame so many satellite lines are gone when we need them so much.)
Thirty years? My guess is we have maybe three years tops before the plunging anvil that is the U.S. takes us to the bottom of the drink, as it must. We don't have the resources for anymore expensive "the future is here!" 'solutions'.
By the way, am I the only one who envisions the destructive potential of something the size of a train travelling at 200 or 300 km/h? In my world, as a guy who considers working horses one of our better options, this is just another example of our unmitigated insanity.
Hey Jon,
I tend to agree with you. Personally, I don't care how fast the rail goes (it goes pretty fast anyway), but that it simply goes. That's why I'm a big fan of going back to trolley cars as a cheap alternative to extensive subway systems.
We have to learn to live without speed. However, people seem to be less receptive to ideas that they think will diminish their incredibly wasteful lifestyles. In that sense, I would put up with the moderate insanity of high-speed trains as an alternative to the constant, lethal insanity of highway #2.
Hey Ryan –
We have come through an era of extreme luxury. One of seemingly endless choices and the resultant psychology that we truly are in charge of everything to do with our destiny. All we have to do is decide what it is we want, and that will become the new reality. We have attributed this recent reality mostly to our own brilliance, but it is more truly the result of a massive excess of easy non-renewable resource energy being injected into the system.
In an era of dwindling resources, how "receptive" people are to an idea will matter less and less. Once we no longer have the means to sustain our unsustainable illusions, we will be back to a world of opportunities constrained by real resources, not paper ones. At that point, merely wanting certain options over others won't make them attainable. I expect that world is upon us now – we'll see. All the information out there suggests strongly that we have eaten through our wad of real wealth, and it won't be coming back. If so, we will soon be transitioning away from being a society of "free choice".
I doubt if we can afford high-speed rail simply on the grounds of economics. I know we can't afford the thinking behind it. Resources spent on extravagant techno-fixes like this are, in my mind, resources diverted from efforts that may actually give us a shot at dignified survival in the future. Like, say, small-farm incentive programs?