Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
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I dig into what's behind the attempts to make modern, sustainable transport (high-speed trains now run in 28 countries) into a Canadian culture-war issue in this High Speed dispatch:
@straphanger
Canada lacks gun-control and abortion as stand-ins for substantive debates on things like wealth inequality and land-reformSo we get bike paths
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I dig into what's behind the attempts to make modern, sustainable transport (high-speed trains now run in 28 countries) into a Canadian culture-war issue in this High Speed dispatch:
@straphanger The campaign works well, unfortunately: one of my friends has gone either reactionary or NIMBY.
She is very active on their facebook page. Facebook facepalm.
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Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
🧵
@straphanger A recent Reddit post that partially touches on that topic:
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I dig into what's behind the attempts to make modern, sustainable transport (high-speed trains now run in 28 countries) into a Canadian culture-war issue in this High Speed dispatch:
@straphanger the infection that are nimbys
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Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
🧵
@straphanger Glad to hear that! Opposition made no sense
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Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
🧵
I expect a lot of people outside the Windsor—Quebec corridor (yes, they exist!) to be unhappy because of persistent underinvestment in their communities, and because of a perception that funding for high-speed rail in the corridor competes with funding for housing and hospitals across the country.
Federal support for transit which would help densify and revitalize the urban cores of cities such as Winnipeg, in particular electric surface railways, might be one aspect of an overall package. Another could be electrification of the main rail lines, starting from the BC coast and moving eastward, increasing the freight-carrying capacity of the railways and getting the grain harvests moved faster, which is a serious issue for the Prairie Provinces. And at the same time, increasing conventional rail capacity makes 120 kph passenger trains between city pairs such as Regina and Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton, more workable, assuming there is transit at each end so you don't necessarily need a car when you get there. And those routes will also support a certain degree of demand for longer-distance services.
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Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
🧵
@straphanger Turkey, Morocco and Finland all have faster trains than Canada.
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@straphanger A recent Reddit post that partially touches on that topic:
@CAWguy Quite accurate...
@dyckron @chad @straphanger -
Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
🧵
@straphanger but what does the automotive industry think? -
Failing Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has urged cancellation of the project—in spite of the fact that high-speed rail was CPC policy, and only 25% of Conservatives polled oppose it.
If an American company wanted to do it, he'd be all in favour and bend over backwards to change laws and expropriate the land ASAP.
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J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
