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The train costs a bit more, but depending on the value you put on time and comfort, and on environmental efficiency, it's an important option. Eurostar runs a high-speed train between London and Paris, and the company estimates that a business-class traveller using its train is responsible for less than one-tenth the CO2 of one who takes a plane (8.2 versus 140.6 kilograms). Eurostar is powered in large part by electricity from French nuclear powerplants,which, while non-CO2 intensive, a renot exactly an ecological coup.Still, electric trains dangle the possibility of cleaner travel on a greener grid. (And to get really eco-technical, Eurostar'sown estimates don't include emerging research on "radiativeforcing," which shows that plane emissions at altitude are2.7 times more harmful to the atmosphere than emissions on the ground, which gives train travel an extra shade of green.)
Canada is the only country in the G8 that does not have high-speed rail, and the only country in the G20 in the past decade that has not committed to building a high-speed rail line. "Canada has reason to be embarrassed," says HSRC's Langan. "I mean, how far behind the rest of the world do you want to get?" He recalls a recent transportation conference he attended along with delegates from Spain, Germany and China, and having nothing to show in his presentation on high-speed rail in Canada except for some early-'70s film of the now-defunct CN TurboTrain (pictured above). Built by an aircraft manufacturer, the gas-turbine TurboTrain ran between 1968 and 1984, and holds the Canadian train speed record of 226 km/h. "That was the last time we had high-speed rail in this country, and now we're 30 years behind what we used to have."
According to Langan and other proponents,however,Albertans have the chance to turn that around. "Thereissuchapositiveopportunity in Alberta to do high-speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton," he says. "I rarely run into someone who doesn't want to see rail service restored there."
The Calgary-Edmonton "Greenfield Electric" line
Bill Cruickshanks is president and CEO of Alberta High-Speed Rail (AHSR), a group of investors and transportation planners that since 1999 has been angling to build and run the oft-discussed bullet train from Calgary to Edmonton. He'sbeen a rail enthusiast since he was a boy in Edinburgh, and a publisher of Canadian railway books-historical esoterica like Canadian Pacific's Mighty No. 8000 and The Railways of Winnipeg, Vol 1: The Formative Years-for over 30 years. A former bank manager for CIBC, he's 72 years old, and speaks with a rolling Scottish accent.
"I don't hear any comments saying this is not a good idea, not from government and not from people who live in the corridor," says Cruickshanks. "Thereare 2.7 million people who live here, and more than enough traffic to make it run successfully." He envisions the entire project being built out within six years of breaking ground, which he hopes will be soon. The project has been discussed by governments and rail enthusiasts since the early '80s, but so far remains in limbo.The idea is simple but ambitious: an electric express train between Calgary and Edmonton (with a stop in Red Deer), known as the Greenfield Electric line, that could run at speeds of up to 300 km/h and get you from core to core in around 90 minutes. The twin tracks would parallel Highway 2-via a strip of land that would vary from 30 to 150 metres- and give travellers an alternative toflying or seasonally dangerous highway commutes. "Acommon complaint about the highwayisthatit'stremendously busy," Cruickshanks says. "I'm amazed coming back from Edmonton at night to see the strings of traffic coming in the opposite direction. Safety-wise it's certainly not a quiet road anymore, and winter doesn't help."
The recent tragic crash of a high-speed-rail passenger train run by Shanghai Railways in China raises fears about the safety of HSR, but it's historically far less dangerous than travel by car, particularly when there are no"level crossings" where train tracks cross roads. (The Greenfield Electric line, as planned, would have no level crossings.) Like Langan, Cruickshanks is a bit surprised that the project hasn't already begun, since just about everyone-the Alberta government, transportation-policy experts,and the general public-appearstobeinfavour of it. A 2007 poll in the Calgary Herald showed that 70 percent of respondents in Calgary and Edmonton would ride a "reasonably priced" high-speed train between the two cities, and 67 percent supported using public dollars to build it. A report issued last May by the Premier's Council for Economic Strategy stated that Edmonton-Calgary high-speed rail would "serve as a practical backbone to create a thriving economic region" and "send a strong signal of Alberta's commitment to environmental protection." The Van Horne Institute (VHI), a transportation-policy and education centre at the University of Calgary, issued a report on the proposed HSR line in 2004, and even at that time the report concluded the rewereenough interested riders to support the Greenfield train.
Alex Metcalf, president of Ontario-based Transportation Economics and Management Systems (TEMS), has done "50 or 60" cost-benefit studies on proposed high-speed rail projects around the world. In 2008 he analyzed the Calgary-Edmonton HSR line for Alberta's Ministry of Transportation, and calculated that revenues, resource and emissions savings and consumer surplus would amount to $19.5 billion over 30 years for a 300 km/h TGV-style electric train. Metcalf thinks the project is feasible- finally. "I remember looking into this project in the '80s for proponents in Alberta, and at the time I said, 'You just don't have a case here, guys, call me in 25 years,'" he says with a laugh. "And, sure enough, after I moved to Canada in about 2006 they gave me a call, around 25 years later, and now I do think theyhaveacase.The population has doubled, and the opportunity for a successful line is there."
Cruickshanks believes the Greenfield project could be built by the private corporations AHSR has spoken with-including rail-car manufacturers like Bombardier, Siemens and Hitachi-for about $3 billion, without any public funding. Others believe the cost to be much higher, and that federal or provincial funding to kick-start the project is essential. "Forhigher-speed rail to happen, someone has to exercise leadership, assume some risk, and get the balls rolling," said Richard Gilbert, a transportation consultant and co-author of the book Transport Revolutions,ina2009 presentation to the House of Commons. "That has to be the federal government." Gilbert says that the price for building HSR generally ranges between $17 million and $53 million per kilometre, and recommends $40 million per kilometre a sthe best guideline, currently being used by proponents of the potential HSR system in California. If Gilbert is accurate, at a rough length of 295 kilometres, this would give the project a pricetag of about $12 billion. But a relatively flat and unobstructed prairie, with very little need for elevated sections or tunnels, may be the most forgiving geography for this sort of project, and bring it in well below average. The Van Horne Institute's 2004 estimates, converted to today's dollars, predict the project would cost $13.5 million per kilometre-about $4 billion. "We brought in a quantity surveyor, a man with pretty eminent credentials, to check our numbers," says VHI president and CEO Peter Wallis. "We haven't revisited our calculations, but we stand by those numbers."
So what's holding the up the Greenfield Electric line? Partly delays resulting from the 2008 economic crisis, says Wallis. "No one had the appetite to think about supporting a railway for the past couple of years. Now I think there'sgoing to be a lot more interest and activity." Also,while the remay not be organized opposition, some rural communities and landowners are concerned about high-speed rail running through their backyard.The Greenfield tracks would cut off roads and lands along the route, making it more difficult for ranchers, farmers and emergency vehicles to get where they need to go-and possibly endangering wild animals that currently roam the area, including cougars, moose and elk. A 2009 study for the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties concluded there were ways to mitigate, if not eliminate, most of the concerns, but more city mice will benefit from an HSR line than countrymice,and buying up private land forsuchprojects,saysWallis,is"always a touchy thing in any jurisdiction."
How the project will be financed is the $4-billion-to-$12-billion question. Wallis believes, as does Paul Langan, that Alberta could learn a lot from countries in Asia and Europe about how to fund such projects with a mix of private and public money. Using tax dollars becomes a sticking point formanyfiscal conservatives,Langan says,but it shouldn't. "Right-of-centre types try to stop rail projects here and in the U.S. by saying that taxpayer money shouldn't be used for this sort of thing. But we subsidize cars to an incredible degree a staxpayers. People don't know the cost of having a carbased society,and how much is coming out of their pocketbook."
This point is often dodged-or repressed-byopponents of new transit projects.Between 2006 and 2010, provincial and local governments in Canada spent almost $89 billion on road and highway construction and maintenance, a naverage of over $22 billion per year. This works out to about $650 annually for every man, woman and child in the country, whether they drive a car or not. Regional decisions about transport infrastructure seem a bit dull and abstract until you do the math for your own household. Opting out is not easy, but the question is: do you want to be part-owner of a highways-only system, or would you like to add railways to your portfolio?
The REal price of a ticket
If you ask people what they're really willing to pay for a 90-minute train trip from Calgary to Edmonton-what "reasonably priced" actually means- the usage numbers drop significantly from the 70 percent predicted by the Herald poll. The Van Horne Institute study in 2004 found that 41 percent of the corridor population would use high-speed rail if around-trip ticket cost $115 or less-about $133 in today'sdollars. But if and when the project is built, the price is unlikely to be quite that affordable. If it were in operation today, around-trip on the Greenfield line would cost about $190, according to Bill Cruickshanks: more expensive than a Red Arrow bus ticket, cheaper than a WestJet flight. With this sort of price tag, the VHI study predicts that 13 percent of the corridor population would use it. If that sounds skimpy, consider that it comes to about 350,000 people and millions of corridor trips, which is nothing to sneeze at, in economic or ecological terms. "All you have to do is ask yourself as a Calgarian, when was the last time you were in Edmonton?" says VHI's Peter Wallis. "Then the penny begins to drop."
Alex Metcalf of TEMS predicts that if a 300 km/h electric train were in place after 2016, it would absorb 74 percent of personal trips via airplane in the corridor (930,000 trips), 42 percent of personal bus trips (just over 1 million) and three percent of auto trips (2.4 million). By 2021, says Metcalf, an Alberta HSR would handle over four million one-waypassenger trips annually.This would add up to 1.4 billion passenger-kilometres of train travel, which would roughly double Canada'suse of passenger rail, bumping us up as a nation from 27 kilometres per capita to about 55 kilometres.
Upping our rail-travelstats might make us feel more like the big kids in Europe and Asia, but-setting convenience, economic benefits and pure railway-based pleasure aside-does high-speed rail make environmental sense? Cruickshanks estimates that a high-speed train would reduce overall emissions by the equivalent of 4.5 million metric tonnes of CO2 over 30 years, with emissions from electricity production factored in. This is, as Cruickshanks and his colleagues admit, a "modest" ecological benefit, especially over such along time frame: right now Alberta produces the equivalent of about 250 million tonnes of CO2 per year. High-speed rail appears to be an eco-coup in terms of reducing tailpipe emissions by absorbing plane,bus and auto traffic, but the reality is less inspiring.Seventyfour percent of Alberta's power is generated from burning coal, and until the provincial grid is "greened" by switching to renewable energy like wind and solar, producing electricity for high-speed rail here will still mean significant point-source pollution.
What has yet to be done for the Greenfield line is a life-cycle assessment of the emissions produced by building it. Making a tonne of cement, for example,generates .83 tonnes of CO2; global concrete use alone accounts for five percent of the world's annual output of greenhouse gas (GHG). (This is why California is considering low-carbon cement for major infrastructureprojects,including high-speed rail.) This sort of emissions analysis is the next generation of ecological number-crunching, pioneered in the HSR realm by civil-engineering researcher Mikhail Chester. In 2010 Chester co-authored a symphonic assessment of the proposed California HSR line linking Sacramento, San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego-from the concrete and steel used in building the stations and railway tracks to the production of the line'selectricity.When they compared the emissions produced in the building and operation of the Sacramento-San Diego line with GHGs produced in the manufacture and operation of cars and airplanes (including road and airport construction) in the same corridor, the results showed that high-speed rail has the edge, but is not an ecological slam-dunk. Trains can definitely beat cars and planes on emissions, but only if enough people ride them.
"The takeaway from our work is that there are intelligent ways to design such a system, and the reare poor ways," Chester says.Hewarns that the California study shouldn't be generalized to other corridors, noting that among other things it was based on 1,200-seat trains, and not the 400-to 600-seaters that would likely be used here. When asked about the relevance of the California system, Cruickshanks notes that the California line uses cement-intensive, earthquake-proof bridges and tunnels on 21 percent of its route, which would not be the case between Calgary and Edmonton. "I would be very cautious about projecting our results onto any Canadian system," Chester says. "But if we spend money on highspeed rail, in most projects in general the intelligent ways to do it are to make sure it pulls into airports and downtown centres, and is integrated with existing transit."
Put an Alberta HSR station outside of Calgary, Chester says, and you force an airport-style commute to the station, which will deal a deathblow to ridership. Ensuring it is "core to core" by linking city centres is key. The train could be made even more efficient by varying the number of coaches-to fit the time of day and expected ridership-and even by backing off on the accelerator. As transportation expert Richard Gilbert reported to the House of Commons, the 320 km/h trains typical in most of Europe use twice as much energy per kilometre as trains (such as those in Scandinavia) that travel at 225 km/h. "HSR is not a silver bullet in reducing CO2 emissions. I think it could, Idefinitely think it could. But it has to be done well," Chester says. "This means having conversations now that acknowledge the potential pitfalls,and making decisions that get HSR built most sustainably for the next century."
a Future that's Up to Speed
A 90-minute TGV-style trip betwen Calgary and Edmonton is no slowtravel journey on the Rocky Mountaineer,and the future of rail in Alberta is not necessarily one that Cornelius Van Horne would recognize-although you could still pour yourself a dram of single-malt on the Greenfield line while you watched the prairie zip by. Still, a sleeker and faster future may not just be sleeker and faster, but more fun and, critically, less ecologically damaging. Given that traffic in the Edmonton-Calgary corridor is expected to increase by nearly 70 percent in the next decade, a well-designed HSR line running core-to-core will be a net benefit in environmental terms, and a better investment of public money than sinking it all into highway expansion.
As Alberta gradually shifts its grid to greater reliance on wind power and solar, aGreenfield electric train will become greener yet. And if things go here as they have in Asia and Europe, once citizens get a taste of high-speed rail, they'll want more of it, and moreaffordably,with frequent trains and variable-class tickets. Ultimately fast trains should become less of a business-class option, as they are on the Acela line between Washington D.C. and New York, and more of a populist alternative, as they are in France,wherepolicies of "TGVpour tous" boost ridership by offering discounts to students, seniors, families and people with medical conditions.Inregional corridors like this one,Canada could make up for lost time and offer us more of the pleasure of rail, and less time spent in high-altitude airlocks or on white-knuckle highway commutes. To that possibility, Calgarians can raise a glass. S
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