Farmers’ study offers cheaper Quebec-Toronto rail option

MONTREAL – A new study says a rail link between Quebec City and Toronto could be built at a fraction of the cost of the Alto high-speed train by modernizing existing tracks, though the trip would be slower.

The study was prepared by the group Vision Transport and the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), Quebec’s farm union. Its authors are Vincent Duguay, a master’s student at the École nationale d’administration publique, and Pierre DuSablon, an expert with long experience in the rail industry.

It looks at two scenarios: a route serving the same 22 stations Via Rail serves today, and an express route stopping only in major cities. The authors say the first would cut the Quebec City-Toronto trip to six hours and 40 minutes and the express route to five hours and 50 minutes. The journey now takes eight hours and 40 minutes. Alto promises four hours and 30 minutes.

The plan’s costliest element is doubling tracks along 407 kilometres of the corridor, where 37 per cent has only a single track and passenger trains regularly pull aside for freight. It also calls for better signalling to raise top speeds from 153 km/h to 177 km/h, stronger Canadian Transportation Agency powers to give passenger trains priority, and tilting trains.

The authors put the modernization at $9 billion to $9.4 billion, or about $11 billion with a 20 per cent contingency. Eliminating a third of the 924 level crossings would add $8.2 billion, for about $21 billion in all. Electrifying the line would add $3 billion to $7 billion, for about $30 billion.

Alto estimates its project at $60 billion to $90 billion. The parliamentary budget officer’s range is $73 billion to $113 billion, and some independent industry sources say $150 billion. Alto says only high-speed rail can meet the corridor’s current and future needs, and that slower service would not persuade commuters to leave their cars or planes.

UPA president Martin Caron said farmers do not want their land expropriated “only to find out, in the end, that it doesn’t happen because it’s going to cost too much.” He pointed to the 1960s expropriations for Mirabel airport, whose terminal was demolished in 2014. The UPA opposes a north shore route that would take farmland. Caron raised concern about electrification given the winter troubles of Montreal’s light-rail system.

Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon has also opposed the Alto project and said it could become a financial fiasco, noting the Bloc Québécois has estimated its cost at $200 billion. Alto has also bought its first piece of land for the project.

This report draws on reporting by The Canadian Press.

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