The wish of the federal government to build segments of TGV is only window dressing since it would allow time savings of just a few minutes over hundreds of kilometers, warn experts.
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“There are places where maybe you’ll be able to get a little more high speed, but if you look at the alignment everywhere, it’s hard to see where,” summarizes Pierre Le Fèvre, former senior strategy and planning at VIA Rail.
The federal government announced this morning during a technical grafting to be open to private partners proposing that certain segments of its Quebec and Toronto high-frequency train project be at high speed.
Several mayors as well as the government of Quebec have gone out in recent weeks to demand that Ottawa turn to a TGV.
While advising VIA Rail, Mr. Le Fèvre recounts that the government corporation commissioned two studies, each of which concluded that there was no section between these two cities where the ratio of costs and benefits justified the establishment of a TGV.
“In principle, I think they will get the same thing back from the private sector as we had,” he predicts.
“Four minutes maximum”
Pierre Barrieau, transportation planning expert at the University of Montreal, draws a similar portrait.
“If we look at Quebec-Toronto, there are very few segments where we will be able to exceed 200 km/h realistically without embarking on massive investments.”
He estimates that about 10% of the whole journey will be able to be at high speed and that for a distance between the capitals of Ontario and Quebec, this represents minimal time savings.
“We are only talking about only a few minutes, a maximum of 4 minutes saved,” says Mr. Barrieau.
The expert calls on the public to temper their expectations of this project which, under current conditions, will be a long way from the TGVs which save hours in Europe and Asia.
“That’s what people believe when they listen to the public debate right now. But for the moment, it is a complete refusal of the government to carry out a project of this magnitude. […] However, the need is there in terms of societal analyzes of climate change, motorway decongestion.”
The hurdle of profitability
What prevents us from dreaming about that, according to Mr. Barrieau, is in the premise of the federal government that the project must absolutely be profitable, that is to say that its revenues must repay the construction and operating costs. .
“This is the problem that skews the government’s analysis. When you build other infrastructure, such as highways, you don’t expect there to be project funding to reimburse the expenses.”