OK, I’m Just gonna spit it out
I think 5 billion for a downriver crossing would be better spent accelerating high speed rail between Windsor and Quebec City
According to the Globe and mail Opinion, Canadians are losing their social cohesion
We need a link between Quebec and Windsor more than we need a redundant bridge.
Does this make me a traitor to Windsor? Does this make me uncaring about Sandwich?
Like the quote from the movie The Devils’ Advocate: Are we negotiating? Always!
My price is $5 billion dedicated to accelerating the High speed Windsor Toronto Corridor since the Quebec Toronto Corridor is already prioritized for funding.
High Speed Rail in my Lifetime to Quebec would be wonderful.
The Great Lakes Urban Exchange asks people leaving Rust-Belt cities to reconsider their decision by completing the following sentence
I will stay in…. IF…..
Well my wife and I are already planning for our son to leave this city due to lack of opportunity. Of course we’re going to wait until he’s 1718 (14 years from now) and let him make this decision on his own.
I will stay in Windsor if there’s a high speed rail link between here and Quebec City under construction.
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An interesting turn…
J.H. Kunstler complains that in the U.S. since there is a dearth of regular passenger train service and so high-speed rail should be the next-step. The Quebec City-Windsor corridor is blessed with regular service and therefore why not advance to high-speed?
Had the Federal and Provincial gov’ts, rather than give all the cities along this route “stimulus” money for road-repairs and such, had said we will build you a new passenger rail service I think it would have been money better spent. But…
The population exists and a business case can probably be made to get investment. But…
Politically its a tough sell. Population wise it services a large number of Canadians. Geographically Canada is a big place and this rail line is a very small part of it. Western provinces - where the oil and potash and now the big driver of our GDP and home base of the Conservative gov’t would not benefit from its construction and would howl like banshees. A federal gov’t/party looking for votes in Quebec and Ontario could back it - Quebec votes bought with Bombardier contracts. However, at present Quebec and Ontario are economic drags and even Iggy knows he has to troll for votes out west to get cash to back a fall election.
The problem with something like this is that no one group can take the initiative and get on with it. There would have to be public consultations and environmental and financial assessments. There would need to be land acquisitions and expropriations. Then the engineering and design process. Years of no real progress subject to political manipulation and lobbying. It has taken 8 years and $60 million to get to where we are with a 12km road and a 2km bridge and not a shovel of dirt has been turned.
It’s a great idea and should be persued, no doubt about it. But, it may take so long to build that your son maybe able to ride the inaugural train out of town…
I will stay in Windsor.
Bridge or no bridge. Train or no train.
At some point the tide will turn and there will be a real chance to affect change. I hope to be around for it.
I think the real problem is that since the High speed rail link is a 20 year venture, no politician wants to vote for it if they’re not gonna be around for the ribbon cutting. Once they approve the first wads of cash, there will be no pretty shiny thing for them to hold in their hands to show us or for us to touch.
Its gonna look appear on the surface that billions were spent for some pretty artistic renderings and maybe a couple of cool lionel model train sets.
James, there is a real chance to affect change everyday, its the little things like Ward Boundary review that will add up to make a real difference
My wife and I made the decision to stay in Windsor for most of our lifetimes when we were married. However, I want my son to go where opportunity lies, my wife and I just may want to be near him, godwilling. My father took a boat across the atlantic to find opportunity for us, so I won’t begrudge my son. I volunteer to make Windsor better to set an example of what is expected of my son wherever he chooses to live.
I agree with you Mark on spending five billion dollars, I will also go a step farther and say for all the money over the last ten years that we in this province have thrown at the auto industry and road building, we could have been a long way down the road for High Speed and Light Rail in Ontario.
I’ve wanted high speed rail for almost thirty years!!! What a waste of time and creativity, sitting in a car for four hours just to get to Toronto!
How could high speed rail be worth the cost?
Are there enough Canadians moving from city to city on a daily basis? If so, are they doing so in accordance with some schedule that would make mass transit efficient?
Sure, I can see a 9-to-5 route with Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec as major destinations. But more and more people are working jobs without 9-to-5 hours, and that doesn’t seem to jive with mass transit.
I spend about 80 minutes a day commuting. I do consider it a terrible waste of time.
But there will never be a train that drops me off in the small down where I work. And even if there was, it would do me no good, because I live to and from work at a different time each day.
“How could high speed rail be worth the cost?”
Geez, I dunno, how could a 5 billion dollar bridge be worth the cost when traffic on the current one is down 38% since 2000
The link would not just go between canadian cities, it would continue on to Detroit and end in Chicago.
Taking a train to work could become productive time vs. taking a car/plane
Whats Airfare to Toronto cost these days? You spend 20 minutes checking in and going through security, 20 minutes boarding, 1 hour in the air, 20 minutes getting off the plane and 30 minutes getting your luggage unless you only have carry on. All to take a 30 minute drive downtown Toronto.
High Speed Rail would be far more efficient and allow more trips between. It would allow a connection to the Province of Quebec which would help unify Canada.
My biggest problem is the politics of the 5 billion trade off, if we say we’re willing to give up the new bridge for the high speed link. We’ll likely get neither.
How is Canada not unified? This seems a bit abstract to me.
Do we not have roads that go there? Is there not already rail linking the country? Airports? Do we not have the ability to communicate and connect like never before?
I don’t know if another bridge is needed. But high speed rail sounds awfully pie-in-the-sky.
As for the politics, I am fortunately ignorant on specifics. The devil is always in the politics.
I am really happy to see all these Windsor blogs, though. Keep up the great work.
Did you read the link above “Canadians are losing their social cohesion”
Thats what I was referring to.
Airfare will continue to get more expensive. as will gas. Remember that gas is far higher at this price per oil than the last time the barrel of oil was at this price. Next time we reach the same high on the price of a barrel of oil, gas prices will be even higher.
A lot of the high speed rail is hype, some of it is really just medium speed rail faster than the current. True high speed rail would be difficult as turning radius’ would have to be different. (I read this about the U.S. but I assume the same applies in Canada although I could be wrong)
Yes, I did read it.
The rural vs. urban split is even more pronounced in the United States. Part of the problem is that rural areas are often as poor as inner city areas, and many rural poor resent what they say as tons of programs for inner city poor. (There are people where I work, in a rural farm town, who actually believe people in Detroit, for example, have it good, with all their government money and welfare.) They see programs like affirmative action and, perhpas justifiably, get angry.
Also, people in rural areas have come to dislike non-rural people, perhaps justifiably, because educated urban and suburbanites can be pretty freakin’ elitist.
But I think that the Internet is perhaps the greatest force against cohesion. We used to all get our information from the same places. You wanted the national news, you watched The National.
Everyone read the newspaper, and even if you didn’t read the front page or Page 3, you saw the headlines on a daily basis and had at least a clue what the issues of the day were.
With the Internet, we’re all getting the information we want to get. And while there are several good things which come from that freedom, I think societal cohesion suffers.
maybe so but with the conservatives having a majority with no seats in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver is a pretty big statement
Yeah, the internet was supposed to encourage debate but instead people just use it to reinforce the opinions they already had.
If high speed rail was a fix for Canadian unity (or disunity), then you could bet Cretien would have been throwing millions at VIA Rail years ago. That may have worked in the 1860’s, but today you have to motivate people on another level.
I’ve taken the train on a number of occaisions. The main thing I find to be disadvantagous to the mode is getting around in the destination city. Toronto or Monteal, with their superb transit systems, are fine, if you have the extra time, however you could find the time saved in travelling wasted between the depot and where you need to go. But for a town like Windsor (and other such towns that may be on the route), it could find itself as simply a stopping off point while the traveller waits for a train to Chicago, or worse, being by-passed altogether.