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

[itom987]

You can poo poo it all you want but at the end of the day it is a safer way to spend money because I WILL TEAR THE HSR IDEA TO SHREDS if it fails and we loose billions in the process.

While GO transit isn't great, it is still used by many. It is a cost effective way to test demand for passenger rail between Calgary and Edmonton. We already have the tracks, just need the rail cars.

 

[itom987]

Stevey G. economic development happens when you build transportation networks to places that have none. We are already served by transportation networks so your excuse for 'economic development' does not stand.

 

[Stevey_G]

Stevey G. economic development happens when you build transportation networks to places that have none. We are already served by transportation networks so your excuse for 'economic development' does not stand.

You don’t believe expanding and modernizing infrastructure doesn’t lead to economic development? By that logic, would you say the construction of the interstate system in the United States had no benefits to that country?

 

[itom987]

^ Only an tiny fraction of economic development happened with the interstate compared to what the railroad did 140 years ago where entire cities and towns sprung up along the railroad lines.

What economic development do you expect to come out of HSR in Alberta besides tourism? How many rail cars full of passengers do you expect to fill? How may trips will there be per day? How will HSR compete against other technology such as self driving cars? Why bother travelling when we can attend meetings virtually.

 

[The_Cat]

The Interstate system hurt a lot of small towns because they were bypassed by the interstate highways.

 

[Stevey_G]

^ Only an tiny fraction of economic development happened with the interstate compared to what the railroad did 140 years ago where entire cities and towns sprung up along the railroad lines.

What economic development do you expect to come out of HSR in Alberta besides tourism? How many rail cars full of passengers do you expect to fill? How may trips will there be per day? How will HSR compete against other technology such as self driving cars? Why bother travelling when we can attend meetings virtually.

The development of the Interstate did have a dramatic and significant impact on an already developed America which is precisely the point I was trying to make. Was it all good? Not necessarily, there was a dramatic decline in rail transit as an example which then impacted those towns you spoke of as they became bypassed. Not to mention the segregation of communities and many other things. You are definitely correct there.

That said, it had immediate and lasting repercussions on the economy of America and had the war not broke out, probably would have pulled the country out of depression on it's own given enough time. It's also a defensive piece of infrastructure and made the country far more accessible by trucking, transport, and travel - all of which have major impacts on a country's GDP.
We can agree to disagree, I just think it's an excellent idea to expand transportation choices in the country, create jobs, create an environmentally friendly alternative to domestic air travel, and to follow the statistics which can be found on google scholar. Lots of good reading on High Speed Rail and I strongly recommend it.

Fun Fact: It's estimated that every dollar spend on HSR creates four dollars of economic growth for a country.

 

[Edmonchuk]

The local Albertan mentality is so backward. Leave everything as is, don’t spend money, cancel taxes.

 

[itom987]

^ I do not have a 'backwards mentality', I am just struggling to see how this project can work. Since you brought up the subject of taxes, how much taxes will the Alberta taxpayer have to pay for HSR? How much are YOU willing to pay?
Stevey_G, you admit that 'expanding transportation choices' is the main reason for building HSR. Are you all personally going to use HSR everyday to travel to work in Calgary and back home in Edmonton? How is that environmentally friendly?

Most of you guys don't want to admit this but HSR is a vanity project, a toy to play with and make non-Albertans jealous. You want this built because Alberta can afford it.
- OR -
We could focus on making Alberta the first region in the world to have a functioning automated car network. Wouldn't it be nice to take a nap in your car while it drives to Jasper, go skiing and sleep in the car on the way home all by yourself? Every day, no matter where you go. Alberta can afford this option as well. Economic benefits and outside envy will be much greater than HSR will ever be.

 

[thommyjo]

^ I do not have a 'backwards mentality', I am just struggling to see how this project can work. Since you brought up the subject of taxes, how much taxes will the Alberta taxpayer have to pay for HSR? How much are YOU willing to pay?
Stevey_G, you admit that 'expanding transportation choices' is the main reason for building HSR. Are you all personally going to use HSR everyday to travel to work in Calgary and back home in Edmonton? How is that environmentally friendly?

Most of you guys don't want to admit this but HSR is a vanity project, a toy to play with and make non-Albertans jealous. You want this built because Alberta can afford it.
- OR -
We could focus on making Alberta the first region in the world to have a functioning automated car network. Wouldn't it be nice to take a nap in your car while it drives to Jasper, go skiing and sleep in the car on the way home all by yourself? Every day, no matter where you go. Alberta can afford this option as well. Economic benefits and outside envy will be much greater than HSR will ever be.

Oof. You’re worried about the environmental impacts of HSR, think it’s a vanity project, and are asking how much individuals are willing to pay to help make it happen…

But you want the future to be cars, the least efficient, least environmentally friendly, and most costly form of transportation…

Don’t you see the irony in this?

Also, musk and his vision around Tesla and the boring company are failing. The future is not automated personal cars and it’s especially not “one more lane” built at an enormous cost underground with some Amazon LED strips to look like every 14 year olds bedroom.

HSR Edmonton to Calgary makes sense. Let’s see it built.

 

[quit]

^ I do not have a 'backwards mentality', I am just struggling to see how this project can work. Since you brought up the subject of taxes, how much taxes will the Alberta taxpayer have to pay for HSR? How much are YOU willing to pay?
Stevey_G, you admit that 'expanding transportation choices' is the main reason for building HSR. Are you all personally going to use HSR everyday to travel to work in Calgary and back home in Edmonton? How is that environmentally friendly?

Most of you guys don't want to admit this but HSR is a vanity project, a toy to play with and make non-Albertans jealous. You want this built because Alberta can afford it.
- OR -
We could focus on making Alberta the first region in the world to have a functioning automated car network. Wouldn't it be nice to take a nap in your car while it drives to Jasper, go skiing and sleep in the car on the way home all by yourself? Every day, no matter where you go. Alberta can afford this option as well. Economic benefits and outside envy will be much greater than HSR will ever be.

Little to nothing - this is a private venture, hence the title of the thread. Like the recent Gondola proposal, there will be clauses in the agreement that cover public interests if the project were to fail.

Given the fact it is a private venture, you will have to pay accordingly to ride since it won't be a heavily subsidized project.

Tell me how close the auto industry is to having automated vehicles drive in snowy conditions? The most cutting edge companies admit that it will be the most difficult problem to solve if it can be solved at all. We are still pretty far away from fully automated vehicle networks, let alone one that has to operate in difficult conditions. How much taxpayer money would it cost to build heated roads to mitigate and reduce the problem that automated vehicles would face in the winter? One of the other main challenges with an automated vehicle network, especially in a place like Alberta, is vehicle ownership. If you want it to be truly efficient, a vehicle would need to take you on your trip and proceed to pick up the next person. That will be a tough sell here for a while.. HSR already exists in many places in the world - it is proven technology that works yesterday and could be built and operating well before automated vehicles reach widespread adoption. This doesn't need to be a false dilemma fallacy (only two mutually exclusive outcomes).

You can poke holes in any proposal or solution pretty easily - a better way to think about things is how can one mitigate or overcome the said challenges.

 

[soupcrate]

- OR -
We could focus on making Alberta the first region in the world to have a functioning automated car network. Wouldn't it be nice to take a nap in your car while it drives to Jasper, go skiing and sleep in the car on the way home all by yourself? Every day, no matter where you go. Alberta can afford this option as well. Economic benefits and outside envy will be much greater than HSR will ever be.

Why would we have to focus on this? The point of automated cars are that they are plug and play - they work on existing infrastructure without much effort required on our part. The correct course of action is to just wait until the tech is fully developed.

 

[whatchyyc]

Why would we have to focus on this? The point of automated cars are that they are plug and play - they work on existing infrastructure without much effort required on our part. The correct course of action is to just wait until the tech is fully developed.

Exactly, let the self driving cars improve until they can function like normal human drivers and use the existing infrastructure, as soon as you start spending money on self driving specific infrastructure it completely defeats the point. We already have an "automated car network" lol

 

[The_Cat]

I guess the question is the time frame that the new car technology will be online. It seems that Canadian transportation technology and infrastructure follows American initiatives (e. g., trains, automobiles, air flight).

 

[TAS]

If Edmonton's population is going to be doubling sooner than we think (according to another thread) and Alberta's as well, what are all these self driving cars going to solve in terms of reduced congestion? If everybody is taking self driving cars or EVs to the mountains can you imagine the backlog of cars. I don't think more cars on the road, whether self driving or not, is really the answer at least from the point of view of reducing the need and huge costs to build and maintain more roads and how inefficient cars are due to the law of geometry. The only winner from that is the car industry. I think EVs and self driving cars are an important step forward, but hopefully there will be a need for fewer of them overall.

 

[Seamusmuldrew]

^ I do not have a 'backwards mentality', I am just struggling to see how this project can work. Since you brought up the subject of taxes, how much taxes will the Alberta taxpayer have to pay for HSR? How much are YOU willing to pay?

I’ll tell you how much I’m willing to pay to add 2 lanes to the QEII between Edmonton and Calgary: $0. I’d far rather pay for HSR than highway widening, local-express lane upgrades and new interchanges.