It is a story that repeats itself every five years or so; proposals for a high-speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton. The pattern is always the same. An idea for a high-speed train is pitched with great fanfare, a feasibility study is conducted which concludes that a massive taxpayer investment is involved and the project gets put on the shelf. The latest proposal from Toronto-based Transpod to build a pie-in-the-sky hyperloop is no exception..The concept sounds exciting indeed. A low-pressure tube would be constructed which will move pods containing passengers and freight at speeds of up to 1000 kilometers per hour. The models and drawings look cool and futuristic and many people are getting excited at the prospect of commuting to work in a vacuum tube as George Jetson in the futuristic 1960s. I hate to rain on folk’s parade, but this concept is simply not viable..Let’s look at the cost to begin with. Transpod is giving an estimate of $6 billion to $8 billion simply to construct the line. Companies making pitches always low-ball estimates and the costs required to expropriate 300 kilometers of land for a line will be huge, not to mention the delays which will surely come as some intransigent landowners refuse to cooperate. With this not having been formally studied yet and with the long timelines, $10 billion will likely end up as a more realistic estimate and that is still modest..For the sake of simplicity, let’s set a ticket price at $100 per passenger. At that price, the line would have to transport one hundred million passengers simply to recover the cost of construction for the line. The new line would have to carry 27,000 passengers per day for 10 years in order to reach that number. Again, this is simply to regain the capital costs on the project. Ongoing expenses such as electricity, staffing, maintenance have not been taken into consideration, let alone profit..Now how will we capture the interest of 27,000 people per day in order to get them to ride this thing. How viable and practical does this sound?.Well let’s compare it to a typical family trip on the weekend from Calgary to see Aunt Ethel. The family will have to be packed up and taken to the station either in a personal vehicle or through some form of public transportation. They will have to check in and eventually be boarded onto the pod. Upon arrival in Edmonton, they will then have to take a cab or public transit to get to Aunt Ethel’s, where they will spend the weekend without the convenience of a personal vehicle. They will then have to repeat the process in order to get home..With a $10 billion price tags, we can expect security times to be similar to airports. With half an hour on the pod – coupled with the other time delays due to check in and local transport – the trip will take about one and a half hours each way at the low cost of $800 in total. All this to save about the difference of 1 and a half hours in the family car at a fuel cost of perhaps $80. Would you do it?.This company will also be moving freight, but let’s face it, the freight will face all the same challenges that passenger services have. It would be a niche market at best for products which are small, in a rush and have somebody at each end to deal with drop off and pick up. It won’t compete well with conventional freight transport..If anything does dramatically change, how we move people and freight between Edmonton and Calgary in the future, it will be driverless vehicles which are proving to be quite effective in many environments already. In anticipation of that trend, we should be perhaps examining a new, dedicated lane for these kinds of vehicles on the highway to complement the existing lanes. It would cost a fraction of the Transpod proposal and is much more likely to ever actually come into being..Transpod and Jason Kenney are very clearly pointing out that this project is not costing a single tax dollar at this point. Let’s not pretend that it will stay that way. Once true viability studies are done, proponents for the hyperloop will surely come cap in hand and begging for tax dollars in order to get this thing running. There is no way they can or will get this going with purely private investment. It simply isn’t realistic..By all means, let them test this thing out. Let them set up between Olds and Didsbury in order to build a test portion of the tube if indeed they can manage to get enough investors to get that far. There is no better time than the present to make it absolutely clear though that taxpayers will not pay for an inch of this project. We have enough boondoggles to pay for as it is and don’t need to sink ourselves billions further into debt for something which is somebody’s romantic pipe dream..Cory Morgan is a columnist and the Podcast Editor of the Western Standard
It is a story that repeats itself every five years or so; proposals for a high-speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton. The pattern is always the same. An idea for a high-speed train is pitched with great fanfare, a feasibility study is conducted which concludes that a massive taxpayer investment is involved and the project gets put on the shelf. The latest proposal from Toronto-based Transpod to build a pie-in-the-sky hyperloop is no exception..The concept sounds exciting indeed. A low-pressure tube would be constructed which will move pods containing passengers and freight at speeds of up to 1000 kilometers per hour. The models and drawings look cool and futuristic and many people are getting excited at the prospect of commuting to work in a vacuum tube as George Jetson in the futuristic 1960s. I hate to rain on folk’s parade, but this concept is simply not viable..Let’s look at the cost to begin with. Transpod is giving an estimate of $6 billion to $8 billion simply to construct the line. Companies making pitches always low-ball estimates and the costs required to expropriate 300 kilometers of land for a line will be huge, not to mention the delays which will surely come as some intransigent landowners refuse to cooperate. With this not having been formally studied yet and with the long timelines, $10 billion will likely end up as a more realistic estimate and that is still modest..For the sake of simplicity, let’s set a ticket price at $100 per passenger. At that price, the line would have to transport one hundred million passengers simply to recover the cost of construction for the line. The new line would have to carry 27,000 passengers per day for 10 years in order to reach that number. Again, this is simply to regain the capital costs on the project. Ongoing expenses such as electricity, staffing, maintenance have not been taken into consideration, let alone profit..Now how will we capture the interest of 27,000 people per day in order to get them to ride this thing. How viable and practical does this sound?.Well let’s compare it to a typical family trip on the weekend from Calgary to see Aunt Ethel. The family will have to be packed up and taken to the station either in a personal vehicle or through some form of public transportation. They will have to check in and eventually be boarded onto the pod. Upon arrival in Edmonton, they will then have to take a cab or public transit to get to Aunt Ethel’s, where they will spend the weekend without the convenience of a personal vehicle. They will then have to repeat the process in order to get home..With a $10 billion price tags, we can expect security times to be similar to airports. With half an hour on the pod – coupled with the other time delays due to check in and local transport – the trip will take about one and a half hours each way at the low cost of $800 in total. All this to save about the difference of 1 and a half hours in the family car at a fuel cost of perhaps $80. Would you do it?.This company will also be moving freight, but let’s face it, the freight will face all the same challenges that passenger services have. It would be a niche market at best for products which are small, in a rush and have somebody at each end to deal with drop off and pick up. It won’t compete well with conventional freight transport..If anything does dramatically change, how we move people and freight between Edmonton and Calgary in the future, it will be driverless vehicles which are proving to be quite effective in many environments already. In anticipation of that trend, we should be perhaps examining a new, dedicated lane for these kinds of vehicles on the highway to complement the existing lanes. It would cost a fraction of the Transpod proposal and is much more likely to ever actually come into being..Transpod and Jason Kenney are very clearly pointing out that this project is not costing a single tax dollar at this point. Let’s not pretend that it will stay that way. Once true viability studies are done, proponents for the hyperloop will surely come cap in hand and begging for tax dollars in order to get this thing running. There is no way they can or will get this going with purely private investment. It simply isn’t realistic..By all means, let them test this thing out. Let them set up between Olds and Didsbury in order to build a test portion of the tube if indeed they can manage to get enough investors to get that far. There is no better time than the present to make it absolutely clear though that taxpayers will not pay for an inch of this project. We have enough boondoggles to pay for as it is and don’t need to sink ourselves billions further into debt for something which is somebody’s romantic pipe dream..Cory Morgan is a columnist and the Podcast Editor of the Western Standard
