The federal government’s plan to build a high-speed rail line from Toronto to Quebec City is rushing ahead.
asserted
plan → build → City
Alto, the Crown corporation quarterbacking the effort, is getting ready to present its proposed route for the first stage of the 1,000-kilometre line: between Ottawa and Montreal.
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Alto → quarterback → Ottawa
It has already started buying the land required to make it happen.
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it → start → land
The Prime Minister is fired up.
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Minister → fire → ?
He says the project will add $35-billion to the economy and create more than 50,000 jobs.
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project → say → jobs
“It’s more cost-effective, it’s more sustainable, it’s connecting our communities, it’s going to be faster,” Mark Carney said last spring.
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Carney → ’ → communities
After years – no, decades – of talk, this project finally has unmistakable momentum.
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project → have → momentum
But before we get too carried away, we might want to take a look across the pond at a similar effort in Britain.
uncertain
we → get → Britain
It’s a cautionary tale if there ever was one.
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It → ’ → ?
Like Canada, the United Kingdom is far behind other countries when it comes to fast trains.
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it → come → trains
Spain, France, Italy, Germany – all have good, efficient networks.
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Spain → have → networks
China has more than 50,000 kilometres of high-speed track, the biggest system in the world.
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China → have → world
Though the British invented the modern railway, they still have just one true high-speed line: the one that carries the Eurostar train from London to the coast en route to Paris.
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that → invent → Paris
Even that one took years to get up and running.
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one → take → years
So it seemed to make perfect sense for Britain to join the high-speed party and build a second line: HS2, a successor to the HS1 train that goes to Paris.
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that → seem → Paris
Approved in 2012, it was to link London with Birmingham and Manchester in the north, with an eastern leg reaching as far as Leeds.
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leg → approve → Leeds
Trains would start running in 2026, whipping along their tracks at 360 km an hour, faster than any other similar high-speed railway using conventional technology.
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Trains → start → technology
It wasn’t long, though, before cost estimates started rising and opening dates receding.
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dates → start → ?
In their zeal to get cracking, authorities underestimated how much it would cost to push such a line through England’s green and pleasant land.
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it → get → land
It meant building a giant rail bridge, the Colne Valley Viaduct, the biggest in the country, and a massive tunnel, 16 km long, under parts of the lovely Chiltern Hills.
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It → mean → Hills
Complaints from residents and activists about the impact on the English countryside led planners to make design changes, adding extra tunnels and, in one forested section, a special arched shield to prevent protected species of bats from being killed by the onrushing trains.
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Complaints → lead → trains
By the time construction started in 2020, the estimated cost had soared to 80 billion pounds and a parliamentary committee was warning that the project was “badly off course.”
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project → start → course
To get it back on track, the government axed first the leg to Leeds (in 2021) and then the one to Manchester (in 2023).
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government → get → 2023
The trains will now stop at Birmingham, which is only an hour and half from central London on the current train service.
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which → stop → service
To save more money, it reduced the planned top speed to 320 km an hour.
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it → save → km
Still, the cost has continued to grow, with estimates reaching more than 100 billion pounds.
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cost → continue → pounds
The opening has been pushed back yet again to somewhere between 2036 and 2039.
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opening → push → 2036
Britain’s Labour government naturally blames the previous Conservative one.
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government → blame → one
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander told the House of Commons in May that the government had inherited a “litany of failures.”
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government → tell → failures
Of course, other countries have managed to build high-speed rail lines without making such a hash of it.
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countries → manage → it
The Paris-Bordeaux line, for example, whisks you to the southwest of France in just over two hours.
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line → whisk → hours
Sadly, there are reasons to think we might repeat Britain’s high-speed mistakes.
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we → be → mistakes
Farmers and homeowners are already complaining the line would gobble up valuable agricultural land and shatter the peace and quiet in rural communities.
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line → complain → communities
Politicians are already mucking about with the plans.
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Politicians → muck → plans
Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said in June that the federal government would like the line to have a stop in Kingston, which would add billions to the cost and add to the length of the route.
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which → say → route
The projected cost is already rising.
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cost → project → ?
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said this week it could be $75-billion to $113-billion, considerably more than the government’s estimate of $60-billion to $90-billion.
uncertain
it → say → billion
One of the big challenges facing HS2 is getting the rail line into dense central London, which will require a tunnel and new station at Euston – immensely costly undertakings.
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which → face → Euston
When it first opens, the train will stop short of the city centre and passengers will have to transfer to subway or commuter rail to get into town.
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passengers → open → town
Similarly, one of the big challenges for Alto is getting high-speed rail into central Toronto and Montreal.
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one → get → Toronto
…and 8 more, not listed.
The Aporia
