Announced high speed rail line from Toronto to Quebec City leaves London off the map - for now

Prime Minister Trudeau made a rail announcement Wednesday morning in Montreal - but for the time being, London will have to wait. CTV's Gerry Dewan reports.

It appears the promise of high-speed rail in Ontario is being realized, but not everyone will be able to get on board right away.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Transportation Minister Anita Anand made the rail service announcement Wednesday morning in Montreal, with Trudeau telling those gathered, “Today I’m announcing the launch of Alto, the largest infrastructure project in Canadian history.”

Trudeau said Alto will cost more the $4 billion to build, but will give the rail corridor east of Toronto the kind of performance currently seen in places like Europe and Asia, “A high speed rail network between Quebec City and Toronto with stops in Laval, Montreal, Ottawa and Peterborough.”

He added, “It will span 1000 km with 100 per cent electric trains that will reach speeds of 300 kilometers an hour.”

What’s missing from the ALTO map is a high-speed rail service between Toronto and Windsor.

That line has seemed tantalizingly close on a number of occasions in recent years, and never closer than when the provincial Liberal government made a commitment of $15M towards an environment assessment in the Spring of 2017. During the announcement in London, then provincial Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca made the pronouncement that, “The goal is to complete phase one and have it in service by 2025.”

That project did not happen and London North Centre Liberal MP Peter Fragiskatos says it’s simply a numbers game – with the most important number being ridership.

However, Fragiskatos told CTV News that the Montreal announcement is encouraging for supporters of high-speed rail in this region, “I think this is a very big positive. I mean, having a line of high speed rail that connects Toronto to give a city that would get folks from Toronto to Montreal in three hours or less. That’s really, really important. This is the busiest line in the country. And so, I’m not surprised that the government has decided to focus on this particular route.”

Fragiskatos said there are a number of improvements being made to passenger rail service in this region. He said that should translate into higher ridership numbers and that could translate into high-speed rail, “You have the government that’s investing in higher frequency services and higher speed services. Now, that’s not high speed, but it is higher speed. So, once we put that in place, I think it will invite people, so to speak, to use the train more.”

The London area has been the fastest growing region in Canada in recent years and Fragiskatos says new manufacturing, spurred on by the new Volkswagen PowerCo EV battery plant, could also bolster the prospects for phase two of the highspeed rail project.