Transport Committee on May 14th, 2009

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But it wouldn't have made any significant difference to any capital expansions?

[Cliff Mackay]

That I don't know. I really don't know the thresholds on the highway--

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Is there any understanding of what it would cost to change the 401 or to improve the 401 to reduce the congestion, to prepare the 401 for...? Is there any understanding of that cost? I want to get you--

[Cliff Mackay]

The answer, sir, is yes. I don't have those numbers off the top of my head, but it costs billions of dollars to go from twin to three lanes on the 401, which is exactly what's going on today.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Yes, those are the types of costs we have to put in comparison to high-speed rail.

[Cliff Mackay]

We could easily get those numbers for you. The Ontario government would have them readily available.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

I think that's something we have to look at, because of course we have to plan in conjunction with other systems.

[Cliff Mackay]

Yes, I agree.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Do you have anything?

[Paul Langan]

I just wanted to add--and maybe we haven't mentioned it--that you would get your two high-speed rail corridors, but it also means you have a regional transportation system with passenger rail that still exists. VIA would still exist, and not only would you connect with your light rail and your buses inner-city, but inter-city you wouldn't.... Over in Europe and Asia they don't have high speed and nothing; they still have their regional train system. So I don't want communities, for instance Winnipeg and all that, that are not on the high-speed agenda not to think that they could be on the higher-speed agenda.

I've taken that train from Winnipeg and Saskatoon through the dead of night, and I keep thinking, why don't we have some kind of corridor here to move people from Winnipeg to Saskatoon? Why is it something we do in the middle of the night, hush-hush? Why is VIA a tourist train in western Canada?

So I just wanted to let you know it's not just high speed; there are definitely going to be the regional trains that will exist, and we can improve on them too.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in.

I'm a member for one of the GTA ridings. I use the train between Toronto and Ottawa as often as I possibly can. I think it's a good stewardship of government money.

I want to carry on with this discussion about the linkages. I think it's really important, particularly for my riding.

Our government has invested significant money in public transit and continues to do so. Toronto and York region particularly have seen a tremendous increase in bus service and GO train service. In my riding we're investing in the bridge that carries the GO train. It's going to make a significant impact on Newmarket—Aurora.

But I would like to carry on this discussion about linkages. I would anticipate that most of the rail going through Union Station right now is at capacity. You're saying that those trains would still exist, we would still have use of those trains, and we're talking about a new corridor. Is there any possibility that a new corridor might include GTA areas rather than the downtown area? I would expect Montreal would have to consider this also, as Toronto does; that is, building a hub in areas where land acquisition may be a little less expensive at this point in time where we could design transit systems that would go into our downtown areas. Has that been part of the discussion?

[Cliff Mackay]

The operating assumption at the moment has been that you need to connect into the major hubs--for example, Union Station, or Central Station in Montreal, or the station here. On whether you could do it otherwise, the short answer is of course you could, if the numbers made sense. They do it otherwise in some places. For example, if you take high-speed rail into Paris, there's not one terminal; there are three, depending on where you're coming from and where you're going. It's not dissimilar in other major cities in Europe, or for that matter in Shanghai. That is not an unrealistic thought.

I can't tell you whether it's being studied in the existing study because I don't know, but if it made good sense and you had very efficient linkages from that node down into the centre of the city, then there's no reason why you couldn't do it.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I have a couple more questions I would like to ask.

In Canada we consider that the cost of building a railbed and a roadway are approximately the same. We have to go down six feet, take out whatever is under the ground that is not compatible, put in gravel, and ensure that we are below frost so that either a rail or roadbed is not going to shift in the winter. We have that to consider.

With the economics equal, can we say at this point that the cost of a railway ticket between Toronto and Montreal is going to be lower than the cost of an airline ticket, for instance? Do we have any information on that? Can you comment on that?

[Cliff Mackay]

All I can tell you is that in most jurisdictions around the world that is precisely what has happened. Where there is high-speed rail for a relatively short period of time--and I'm talking about three- to four-hour trips, not twelve hour trips--the passengers have shifted to train rather than air for two reasons: one, the convenience; and, two, generally speaking, the rail systems have been able to offer more competitive pricing because they have much higher volumes in the same unit.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

I have one other question that won't take very long, Mr. Chair.

We have copies of the 1995 study. We've seen that the study was done and we know the dollars were there in the past. Can you comment on why there was no political will to undertake this in the past?

[Cliff Mackay]

For my sins I was a senior official in the 1980s and early 1990s. All I can tell you is that in the 1990s there was an absolute and complete fixation on slaying the deficit and getting the fiscal house of the country in order. There was just no appetite for any other thing at that point in time. That would be my personal observation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Jean.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you.

You must be talking about the Liberals' $25 billion cut to social transfers to the provinces, Mr. Mackay.

Thank you for coming here today. I appreciate that.

I'm interested in a couple of things. First of all, can we see a real economy in supply basically in essence as a result of doing a large portion of construction at once? Is there a large benefit in savings if indeed private industry and government went together and did these major investments at one time?

[Cliff Mackay]

The answer is yes, if you do it in a multi-year way. It very much depends on how you contract it. If you offer to private contractors a relatively secure contracting environment over a significant period of time, you should be able to exercise significant price leverage.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Is there also equipment available for technology that would leverage this and help avoid some of these thousands of railway crossings that, quite frankly, most people in my constituency absolutely hate, because there are frequent deaths? I think we have talked about this before. There were some 85 deaths last year. Are there ways to avoid that through technology or through other kinds of methods?

[Cliff Mackay]

To some degree, yes, there are. But if you go to high-speed rail, the speeds you're talking about are simply beyond the capability of any technology to provide that kind of warning system. You absolutely must separate the traffic from the general public. You have to have overpasses or some means of securing the rail right of way so that people can't get into it.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That's my question. Is there such a thing as underground or over the ground technology—that's the technology I'm interested in—to avoid that problem? Quite frankly, I don't see how in any part of Canada you can, as a result of our transportation corridors, avoid these crossings without having investments.

Each one of these overpasses cost $40 million to $80 million. Given those kinds of numbers, there has to be some other technology that would make it cost-effective to do, such as underground or over and above. I'm not sure of that technology.

[Cliff Mackay]

There is no technology that would allow you to have a level-grade crossing on a high-speed rail track and be safe. It doesn't exist. No one in the world has come up with that yet.

There are lots of ways, and it's quite routine, that you can bury the rail line somewhat, so that the fencing and other things you need are not as intrusive, and make it cheaper to do the overpasses because you don't have to go up as high. There are lots of those sorts of things that you can do.

On a high-speed rail corridor, it's light rail that you use, and depending what motive structure you use, it doesn't necessarily have to be as wide as a heavy train dual system. You can run the trains closer together, so that you don't have to use as much space.

So there are ways of mitigating some of the costs, but there's no technology that we're aware of that would allow you to maintain level crossings. It just doesn't exist.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Chair, Mr. Langan kept putting his hand up and has never had a chance to answer that question. Is it possible?