To Ms. Mingarelli, MP,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my concerns about the Alto project.
There remains one aspect which the government seems to have overlooked in planning this high-speed train. That is the number of people who will use it. In other countries where this type of train exists, China, Japan, France, the population is much higher than here in Eastern Canada. In Europe these rails connect with other countries to maximize the number of users. The route from Québec to Toronto involves four large cities and several smaller cities totalling perhaps 13.5 million people compared to tens of millions in Europe. Since most of this population will not travel on the high-speed train, the project looks more like a white elephant to me. During high tourist season we can add more passengers but looking closely at the cost of the project and the number of projected passengers, it looks like someone has not done a serious study of the cost effectiveness of the proposed train. It looks more and more like a high frequency train service on regular rails would better serve the population for less money and far less disruption to the population.
An effective rail service need not involve high-speed trains which will cost far in excess of $90 billion and might not be reliable in our Canadian winters. What we need is to stand back and look at the needs of the population and the future use of such a train before deciding to spend such an astronomical amount of money on another white elephant Mirabel project.
I therefore ask you, Ms. Mingarelli, to share this additional concern with our government in Ottawa and propose that a committee be set up to study this particular aspect of the proposed high-speed train. How much do we really need a train that will serve only a select few from the four large cities connected to it. The option of high frequency trains should also be investigated as a viable option at less cost and more accessibility to the population at large.
Respectfully,
Leola Meagher
L’Orignal
