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EllisDon to Lead Prairie Link High-Speed Rail Partners - Edm-RD-Cal

ChazYEG said:
Vancouver is something I can't possibly imagine ever happening, due to the ridiculous costs and lengthy travel times. Even the fastest HSR would take at least twice as long, and probably cost more, than flying from either Calgary of Edmonton.
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500km tunnel under the Rockies with a Maglev train, easy.
 

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Platinum107 said:
As for this project, it's really a shame that oil industry will try its best to quash any attempts at getting this built (which is why I believe the province keeps not finding a "business case" for it, in the face of billion-dollar highway expansions). But I do believe it will happen in either this form or another, and that eventually we'll have a somewhat integrated rail network with a high-speed spine and regional services from large hubs. It's just shitty that it doesn't already exist I guess.
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If the Oil Industry were smart, they would want it to get built. Transferring workers from city to city would be much more efficient. Especially if separate commuter rail extensions to Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Fort McMurray were built.
 
Well what can I say. Us North Americans are sooo smart. Why have a good network of trains to effectively move people around when each and everyone should have their own car or truck. We have convinced ourselves that only ones own vehicle is the only way to travel around.
I love the fact that the X statement against trains quotes California, one of the places in the world that traffic actually sucks.
 
^Not to be contrarian but there are a hell of a lot of cars in Europe. I lived there for five years and it remains the main way of commuting in, around, and about. The large auto companies based in Europe are not suffering.
 
archited said:
^Not to be contrarian but there are a hell of a lot of cars in Europe. I lived there for five years and it remains the main way of commuting in, around, and about. The large auto companies based in Europe are not suffering.
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Not one disputes that, but it is undeniable that there is a significantly higher percentage of people that commute by transit and bike than North America. About 35% in Germany, about 30% in France, over 50% in the Netherlands and Denmark have transit or bike as their main way of commuting. Other countries, like Spain, Italy, Portugal and the UK have a lower percentage, but it's still higher than the average in North America.

To @Edmcowboy11 point, I think the biggest difference between Europe and North America is the car culture, in general. Here almost everything is made with car ownership, and nothing more, in mind, which forces every kind of movement within the city to be done by car, whereas in Europe there's more of a concern regarding accessibility by other means of transportation, because even people who'll make their daily commute to work by car, for example, will still use transit or bikes to run errands in their immediate areas (or people will do it because they can... kind of chicken and egg here).
 
Lots of stuff in the background happening. AB transportation is building up a rail unit now. Hired the director in late fall and slowly filling positions. Been told there are regular meetings between the Province and Prairie Link. So far though it’s just more studies. But with $14B in potential private investment you would think Alberta would want to show it to the feds on how high speed rail can be done. Compare that to Alberta’s 2024 transportation budget overall of $2.8B. Gawd this would be such a boon. Just need the political leadership to show some well, leadership.
 
YEG imagineer said:
Lots of stuff in the background happening. AB transportation is building up a rail unit now. Hired the director in late fall and slowly filling positions. Been told there are regular meetings between the Province and Prairie Link. So far though it’s just more studies. But with $14B in potential private investment you would think Alberta would want to show it to the feds on how high speed rail can be done. Compare that to Alberta’s 2024 transportation budget overall of $2.8B. Gawd this would be such a boon. Just need the political leadership to show some well, leadership.
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I feel this immense sense of excitement at the prospect of this even potentially becoming a reality. It would be incredible if I could take a high speed train to visit my family in Calgary over the weekends.
 
This project just makes sense. Two cities ~ 300km apart (golden distance for HSR to be competitive with flying), no major water bodies or difficult terrain to pass, existing rail corridor, relatively cheap land.

I just hope it isn't watered down to an Amtrak Acela version of high-speed rail. This project should be using Shinkansen standards: 300-330 km/h outside of urban centres.
 
goodcitywhenfinished said:
This project just makes sense. Two cities ~ 300km apart (golden distance for HSR to be competitive with flying), no major water bodies or difficult terrain to pass, existing rail corridor, relatively cheap land.

I just hope it isn't watered down to an Amtrak Acela version of high-speed rail. This project should be using Shinkansen standards: 300-330 km/h outside of urban centres.
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Yes, for HSR it is relatively straightforward. However, there is still a significant cost - even so for a relatively well off province like Alberta it is a lot, and that may be a big part of the problem.

Now, if the Feds were onboard to partly fund and support this, it would help a lot, but the party more favourable to HSR may not be as keen on spending a lot in Alberta and the other main Federal party vice versa.
 
What corridor is this project planning on using? Is it to use the existing rail corridor? I don't suppose it would use the Highway 2 median like Brightline West is going to do with Interstate 15. In any event, I hope they are using an existing corridor to avoid negotiating a significant number of land deals.
 
I don't think the median would work for corners for HSR, but I suppose corners could be at their appropriate radius with bridges over or under the highway. The highway could be re-aligned at the corners that pose problems, which might make more sense anyway.
 
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