RC111 MarApr 2024 - Magazine - Page 31
Quebec City
HFR Toronto-Quebec
City Corridor
Jean Lesage Airport
Trois-Rivières
Gare de la Concorde
Ottawa
Fallowfields
Smith Falls
Alexanderia
Drummondville
St-Hyacinthe
Montreal
Dorval
Cornwall
Brockville
Peterborough
Oshawa
Kingston
Belleville
HFR
VIA’s existing services
Toronto
With over 1,000 km of new passenger rail service planned between major citycentres including Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, and Québec City, the HFR project is
one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canada’s history.
Also convinced the P3 model could signi昀椀cantly increase the 昀椀nal
cost of the HFR, Johnson poses the question “why not just give VIA
the tools and resources to deliver? The backing of their home governments—cash and regulatory—is what makes European railways like
Renfe or Deutsche Bahn successful [so]we could just choose to make
VIA successful rather than paying some other country’s railway a
premium.”
Proactively responding to the perception that public expenditures
for a major project such as this could get out of hand, the FAQ’s page
of HFR’s website shares that “the Government of Canada is implementing a robust, cost-management strategy for High Frequency
Rail… to manage costs and scope changes as well as speci昀椀c measures
at every phase of the project.”
Commenting on how the proscribed model will impact on VIA’s
future, Hampshire says “the overall ownership of the project,
the ownership of the infrastructure, the trains… will be with
HRF. So, at a high level it’s still in public hands.” And as for the
logic behind transferring management of corridor operations to
a private partner, he says it comes down to deciding on a shared
revenue risk model.
“There’s no right answer,” when it comes down to deciding whether public transport is best provided by the public or private sector
Hampshire observes. And in the case of Canada’s HFR “we’re going
to do it by… involving a private sector partner to help design the
product, take the relevant revenue risk and therefore take some of the
operation risk as well.”
To make all this work from a 昀椀nancial standpoint once the HFR
is up and running he says, “one of the project objectives is not to
increase revenue… but to increase ridership.” Which takes us back to
arguably the biggest opportunity and obstacle that lies ahead for the
VIA HFR initiative… whether the timing is such that Canadians are
ready to drive and 昀氀y less and in Hampshire’s ideal world “embrace
a culture of using public transport.”
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MARCH/APRIL 2024 – RENEW CANADA 31
