Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
@chu this is also the British model and it is very frustrating
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
@chu And I suspect you're on the side of the country where commuter rail even exists. Over in the west, I think the daily train stops here at midnight - not exactly conducive to starting or ending vacation.
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@chu And I suspect you're on the side of the country where commuter rail even exists. Over in the west, I think the daily train stops here at midnight - not exactly conducive to starting or ending vacation.
I'm in Toronto. Smack dab in the middle of the most populous windor to Montreal corridor. Forget high speed trains, we are lucky if they even run at horse wagon speed most days.
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
@chu Every time our family of four travels from Canada's largest to its second largest city, we consider the train. And every time we're forced to deal with the fact that renting a car and driving costs half the price (sometimes even less). On top of it, the train is almost always slower than driving. Meanwhile, no one demands that the roads we drive on break even or turn a profit.
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
@chu When I was younger living in the Skeena Valley 1950's through 70's we took the train all the time. They ran every second day. East one day West the next. It was convenient and inexpensive. We even took the train to Montreal and back for Expo 67. This was in the days when the train had to compete with Greyhound. It is incomprehensible to me that these services that were reasonably priced in previous decades are so expensive now. It is not as if they have been replaced by anything better.
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@chu Every time our family of four travels from Canada's largest to its second largest city, we consider the train. And every time we're forced to deal with the fact that renting a car and driving costs half the price (sometimes even less). On top of it, the train is almost always slower than driving. Meanwhile, no one demands that the roads we drive on break even or turn a profit.
It would have been cheaper to rent a car but both of us hate driving so much now that we've been living car free so long. I still gave via my money. I am paying premium for slower travel and our politicians are fine with this as long as Suncor makes it Q2 profits.
We live in such an openly corrupt society it hurts.
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
@chu
with a diesel locomotive, I'm not sure that Via can beat a gasoline-fueled car. Their own data shows 55 kg CO2e one-way from Toronto to Montreal, compared to 104 kg for a typical car with one passenger. With four people in a typical rental car, it should be half the emissions of the train.
Train vs plane and car carbon footprint | VIA Rail
Discover how travelling by train helps reduce your carbon footprint while offering comfort and convenience for your trips across Canada.
VIA Rail (www.viarail.ca)
Canada needs to electrify our existing rail system. I'll be dead before Alto opens, and my kids probably won't live long enough to see passenger rail out west.
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Canada's private monopoly owned train system is an absolute policy failure.
People don't take the train because it is expensive and dynamic pricing makes that cost unpredictable.
Other countries treat their trains like the necessary transit backbone that it is. The price is the price and this is the schedule. As long as you get there and get a ticket, you can get on.
This is so stressful trying to time booking train tickets in Canada.
Public infrastructure should not be private hands.
It's so tiring trying to live a low carbon lifestyle in this country. It would have been cheaper to rent a car.
Running VIA like a commercial airline rather than a public transportation service has been a terrible mistake, and it goes back to its very founding in the jet set era.
Politicians and the lobbying class all fly everywhere so they never see ordinary people's travel needs or wishes.
IIRC, VIA is officially a crown corporation, but it is subservient to the cargo rail companies because the government will not invest in it. Giving CN and CP ownership of all that land was such a terrible mistake.
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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@chu
with a diesel locomotive, I'm not sure that Via can beat a gasoline-fueled car. Their own data shows 55 kg CO2e one-way from Toronto to Montreal, compared to 104 kg for a typical car with one passenger. With four people in a typical rental car, it should be half the emissions of the train.
Train vs plane and car carbon footprint | VIA Rail
Discover how travelling by train helps reduce your carbon footprint while offering comfort and convenience for your trips across Canada.
VIA Rail (www.viarail.ca)
Canada needs to electrify our existing rail system. I'll be dead before Alto opens, and my kids probably won't live long enough to see passenger rail out west.
You have to take these numbers with a grain of salt. They are averages. Whether I get on that train or not, it runs. My weight contribution is negligible.
However, if I rent a car and drive it, it definitely ads to emissions that doesn't need to be added.
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You have to take these numbers with a grain of salt. They are averages. Whether I get on that train or not, it runs. My weight contribution is negligible.
However, if I rent a car and drive it, it definitely ads to emissions that doesn't need to be added.
@chu
The same argument could be used for extremely inefficient modes per passenger-mile such as air travel or ubers. The plane was scheduled to fly anyways, after all.Even though the bus is always running, it is still better to bike when I can.
