News

Madrid, population 3.5 million, and Greater Seville, population 1.5 million, are connected by a high-speed train.

The Spanish AVE (Alta Velocidad Espanola) train, essentially the French-designed TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse), does the 540 kilometres between the cities in 2^1/2 hours, better than half the driving time.

The AVE system, now extended to Malaga and Barcelona (with future lines planned to Lisbon and the Basque country in the north), offers clean, comfortable and reliable service. And wait for it: If an AVE train is more than five minutes late, passengers get their money back. Imagine that, Via Rail!

The AVE, unlike Via, runs on its own track specially built for a train that can go as fast as 300 kilometres an hour. It does not share a track with freight trains, as does poor Via. It's also operating in a country and on a continent where governments have made major financial commitments to fast trains - unlike Canada, where Ottawa keeps patching and filling the Via system.

Would an AVE/TGV-type system work operationally and financially in Canada in the Quebec City/Toronto corridor? What about from Edmonton to Calgary?

The Alberta government was curious to know, and commissioned a consultants' report to provide at least a few answers. The response, writ large: a tentative yes. Or, to put matters another way, it depends.

The financial viability of such a train depends on what kind of fast train (four systems are on offer), what value is placed on slightly improved air pollution and traffic congestion, how to factor in greater development that will occur around stations and, critically, how much public subsidy.

The report didn't estimate the subsidy but, without one, there will be no train. That's the way it is in Europe and Japan. If a fast train ever started in Canada, there would have to be a subsidy. The question, of course, is how much.

If, as an Alberta minister said, the government wants the private sector to build and operate the train without public money, then don't waste time with these reports. If a fast train is not seen, as in Europe, as a “public good” requiring some public money, then forget it.

Calgary and Edmonton together have a population of two million. Add a midway stop in Red Deer for another 90,000. So we're talking about a population about half that of Madrid/Seville, although Alberta's population growth is expected to be strong for a long time.

An AVE/TGV-type train would cut the three-hour Edmonton-Calgary drive in half, save gasoline and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for those who took the train instead of the car.

But how many people would actually switch? At today's gas prices, apparently not that many. The consultants estimate that only 3 per cent of drivers would switch, compared with almost half the air passengers and a third of the bus travellers. Of course, the switch from cars would be greater if gas prices soared, as they are quite likely to do over the long haul.

About four million trips would be made each year between Calgary and Edmonton on an AVE/TGV train, but that would be only about 5 per cent of the 80 million made each year.

Fewer trips would be made on slower versions of a fast train. These versions would travel on existing rail lines. The cost of expropriating land and upgrading stations would be much smaller than an AVE/TGV-type train.

The most expensive option would be the magnetic levitation train that can go 500 kilometres an hour. A Maglev in Shanghai zooms passengers downtown from the international airport in eight minutes.

The new city plan for Calgary - Plan It - provides for a fast-speed train station in Calgary and a dedicated line northbound. Generally speaking, Calgary is somewhat more interested in at least exploring the high-speed option than Edmonton, which worries about its faraway airport and anything that just might, somehow, favour Calgary.

The Stelmach government's political base is in rural Alberta, and more in Edmonton than in Calgary. Selling an expensive high-speed train to rural Albertans might be hard. On the other hand, it would be gold star in North America for an energy-producing province caught in the eye of environmental storms.