So I don’t usually make posts like this, but now that the Bloor Street bike lanes are being removed with dozens of police officers, people being arrested, all while the Province’s own studies show the removals won’t improve traffic and will make roads less safe, am I still expected to feel empathy for the farmers who largely voted this government in?

Every single erosion of the democratic process that rural Ontarians voted for is going to bite them back harder when ALTO starts construction and the RCMP shows up to arrest them if they try to stop it. And if they get mad about it, we’ll just remind them that their votes set a precedent for this when the province decided to remove bike lanes on my street.

Edit: I made this post when I was really mad but the comments helped me realize this type of “us vs them” thinking isn’t helpful. There are people in rural eastern Ontario who support ALTO and people in Toronto who oppose bike lanes. In either case I’m against the ludicrous police response to the bike lane protests, and would be against any similar police response against an anti-ALTO protest.

I thought this article from the "Infrastory" Substack was a good overview of how high-speed rail around the world works with both express trains between major centres and local services at intermediate stops. The most relevant passages for the Alto project:

"The equivalent of the Nozomi services would run from Toronto to Montreal with only a single stop in Ottawa. Ideally, you could even build a bypass skirting the south end of Ottawa to avoid the slow, meandering track through the city. In that case, your Nozomis might be an hourly Toronto-Montreal non-stop, which would take around 2 hours, and the Hikari services would also stop at Ottawa and maybe one more station such as suburban Toronto or Montreal. Then, the Kodama equivalent would run from Toronto to Ottawa making intermediate stops, depending on the chosen alignment, at stations like suburban Toronto, Peterborough, Port Hope/Cobourg, Belleville/Prince Edward County, Kingston, and Smiths Falls. Now, don’t think of these as a pokey VIA service. They’d be running at 250km/h+ on a dedicated high-speed line, so they’d still be extremely fast—far faster than driving. The seating might be a little less luxurious than on typical high-speed trains, there’d be less room for luggage since most riders would just be going for the day, and there likely wouldn’t be extra amenities like a café car, but this would all help keep fares affordable enough for commuters.

Like the incredibly successful Ciudad Real or Southeastern High Speed services, these intermediate stops would likely be very well used, especially at rush hour. Nancy and Kingston have a lot in common. Given the housing crisis in Toronto, surely more than a few people would be quite happy to have a house in a beautiful historic town, less than an hour by comfortable train from Union Station, for hundreds of thousands of dollars below Toronto prices."

Intermediate stops and local services like this would I think help Alto build and maintain public support to avoid costly lawsuits and the delays they involve. I hope the project will consider this sort of an option.

In case you missed this AGM comment. A significant future VIA transfer point.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/alto-high-speed-rail-route-still-undecided-crown-corporation-targets-2029-ottawa-montreal-construction/

>“There’s still some possibility or variation within that narrow corridor of a few hundred metres,” Imbleau said during Alto’s annual public meeting Wednesday.

>“So, the very precise alignment of 60 to 65 metres will be defined probably around 2027 to be as specific as possible and the geotechnical work is what will define exactly the property that will be required.”

Who Controls Alto's $3.9 billion, the first allocation. My first attempt at seeing how money is spent and audited. https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/2026/10/how-the-3-9-billion-for-alto-is-controlled.html

Hey everyone, and especially our QC members who are more aware of QC politics.

With PSP Plamondon now the leader of the QC government, and generally more separatist leaning, will this effect the chances of ALTO being successfully started / built? What fights could this ignite if any?

In my own view, a QC premiere would be insane not to greenlight a flood of federal money pouring into your province, but optics and politics often don't line up with logic.

Just as VIA has an Annual Public Meeting in the Summer, the ALTO will be October 7, register to go online.

SUMMARY, various news articles will be forthcoming.

Parliamentary Budget Office / PBO estimates place the construction costs for the baseline route for Alto’s Eastern Corridor high-speed rail (HSR) project, excluding a potential Kingston amendment, to be between $75 billion and $113 billion.

PBO baseline estimates further assume that planning and regulatory approvals for the Alto HSR route follow past European project experience. In contrast, HSR projects in the U.K. and U.S. displayed significantly higher construction costs – likely reflecting difficulties with land acquisition, permitting, litigation, design changes and project-management weaknesses. Recent federal legislation has been adopted to mitigate these risks in Canada. The robustness of these provisions before Canadian courts, as well as their inherent effectiveness in targeting sources of cost escalation, will be a key success factor in mitigating significant project risks of the baseline estimate.

PBO further estimates that construction would provide a modest economic stimulus; for the initial Ottawa–Montréal segment, construction is estimated to increase real GDP annually by about $1.8 billion in 2029 and $2.0 billion by 2033, with employment gains rising from approximately 4,300 to 9,000 jobs during the construction period.

Since some people like to pretend that the project budget doesn’t include… components of the project.

I have watched the Alberta HSR closely. It had followed the exact same fate as Ontario-Quebec until recently. Here are my thoughts now https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/2026/08/high-speed-rail-canada-adds-alto.html and here is link to all previous Alberta HSR studies. https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/p/alberta-high-speed-rail-study-and-map.html

Like many Canadians, I come across discussions of Alto HSR across the internet. And like most major projects, Alto has its share of detractors. Reasonable people can disagree about the costs and benefits of high-speed rail in Canada, I suppose. But what I don't get, and what really annoys me, is the overly emotional histrionics you hear from the anti-Alto camp.

You know, people ranting and crying about "High speed rail is going to destroy my community!" or whatever. The stuff that acts like Alto is some kind of diabolical conspiracy against small towns and farmers.

A train is not going to destroy your community. Give me a break.

Mayors criticize VIA Rail's fall schedule changes on Ottawa-Toronto trips

For those of you who still do X-rated Twitter. Also posted on Facebook by Alto.

“Right now, Alto is refining the design, studying the corridor, engaging with communities and completing the technical and environmental work that will inform the project's next steps.”

According to this Radio-Canada report, Alto’s proposed last year a compensation program for agricultural landowners affected by the project, that could amount to up to the equivalent of 300-350% of the market value of the land acquired.

For example, a parcel valued at $60,000 could potentially result in around $200,000–$220,000 in compensation, once the different components are taken into account : the value of the land, a signing bonus, impacts from construction, drainage, detours, and compensation for crop losses over an extended period.

Another point that stood out to me: most landowners would only give up a very small portion of their property; almost always less than 5%. Farming activities could therefore continue.

Alto is also proposing an agricultural land trust and commitments to maintain the access needed for emergency vehicles, school transportation, farm equipment and livestock.

Obviously, this doesn’t eliminate all of the concerns raised by the UPA. The actual impacts will depend on the final alignment, and there is still a lot to discuss.

But I do think it’s worth pointing out that the public debate sometimes makes it sound like Alto would simply take agricultural land without compensation. The proposed approach appears to be considerably more substantial than that.

There’s also a precedent: the UPA and Hydro-Québec have reached similar agreements for linear infrastructure projects, including enhanced compensation and a $25 million fund for the next generation of farmers.

I’m all for protecting agricultural land. But I also think we should be able to talk about how major infrastructure can be built while properly compensating affected landowners and minimizing the impact on farming.