“Unnecessary at any speed”…Andrew Coyne, Maclean’s July 20th issue.

Aside from a clever paraphrasing of Ralph Nader’s 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, Andrew Coyne has made me reassess some of my cherished assumptions about high-speed rail travel.

The Calgary-Edmonton link does not make sense – at 300 km through a relatively thinly populated area, it will never garner the passengers needed to break even. People will use their cars, especially since they will need them to get around Calgary and Edmonton, with its limited public transport. Renting a car at either end will negate the advantage both economically and environmentally. For those who cannot drive, there is the bus; just a three hour ride.

I do still think, however, that the Toronto-Montreal (not Windsor-Quebec) corridor does make sense for the following reasons:
1. Both Toronto and Montreal have good public transit and a large population. There are a few fair size cities en route (Oshawa, Belleville, Kingston and Cornwall), and a secondary Cornwall – Ottawa spur could also be viable.
2. A modern, electrified, dedicated train is fast, efficient, high-capacity, low environmental impact and more comfortable (and faster) than a bus.
3. While needing some subsidy, so does our highways –the 401 is in need of upgrading. Another alternative is air travel, with the concomitant drawbacks of crowded airports, high cost of getting downtown from the airports, and of course, higher negative environmental impact. Airports are also, to a degree, subsidised.

Running high-speed passenger trains over the present freight lines do not make sense. Substantial upgrading at crossings will be needed, as well as fencing along the line. Even so, the potential speed of the train on the present rails is quite low, thus limiting the advantage and attraction of train travel. A dedicated, limited access rail is required for a proper high-speed train, even if not a super-train like a maglev. An efficient inter-city passenger train will attract both business travellers who fly, and the general public who now drive or take the bus.

The degree of diversion from air, car and bus will depend on the cost of the ticket compared to other modes of transport. That, of course, will depend upon the subsidies available, and is in that way a bit of a catch-22.

The real punch line here is Mr. Coyne’s last paragraph: … “take the subsidy out of driving –charge a toll….” Right on, Andrew!

There is another argument made in favour of efficient, high-speed ground transportation, including good highways, and it is an economic one: The trans-Canada railways and highways all contributed to more and better interchange of people and goods, thus benefiting the overall economy. There was, of course, a political imperative to this transportation nexus –had we not the transcontinental railway we might be even more economically dependent on our southern neighbour.

However, there is a counter argument also for this –one is put forward by Fared Zakaria in his book The Post-American World (Norton 2008). He points out that France has the fastest and most efficient rail network in Europe –one “that gleam compared to America’s creaky system –yet it is the US economy that has edged ahead of France for the last three decades. A vibrant private sector can deliver extraordinary growth even when traveling on bad roads.”

Wouldn’t it be nice –if we could have both a vibrant private sector and efficient transportation? At this point, we are trailing in both.