The Canadian government is considering spending $6 billion to $12 billion to introduce what it calls “high-frequency trains” between Toronto and Quebec City. Though some media reports have described these as high-speed trains (which generally means trains capable of...
Transportation
Leaders on the Frontier – Why are Buses Better than Rail Transit? – With Randal O’Toole
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Building a 21st Century Transit System for Calgary
Calgary Transit is mired in the past, building an obsolete transit system designed for an archaic view of a city. Before the pandemic, transit carried 45 percent of downtown Calgary employees to work, but less than 10 percent of workers in the rest of the Calgary...
Invest in Roads Not Transit
The jury is still out in Winnipeg: should governments be spending money on roads or more public transit? Well, a new policy brief from the Frontier Centre show that the sooner governments abandon their bias against cars the better. A recent University of Toronto paper...
Featured News
Canadian Property Rights Index 2023
A Snapshot of Property Rights Protection in Canada After 10 years
Alberta Politics and Empty Promises of Health-care Solutions
The writ has been dropped and Albertans are off to the polls on May 29. That leaves just four weeks for political leaders and voters to sort out what is arguably the most divisive, yet significant, issue for this election - health care. On Day 2, NDP leader Rachel...
Multiple More Jobs Accessible by Automobile than By Transit
• A recent University of Toronto paper by Jeff Allen and Steven Farber examines work access as measured in travel time to get to work. The “30-minute job access” is a rounded-up average in all heavily populated regions in Canada. • The 2021 census revealed that...
The 15-Minute City: An Extraordinarily Bad Idea
The latest urban planning fad to sweep across Canada is the 15-minute city, which proposes to redesign cities so that all urban residents live within an easy, 15-minute walk of schools, retailers, restaurants, entertainment, and other essentials of modern life. This...
Frontier Live on X – Is Our Transit System Really Serving You? – With Randal O’Toole
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Reinventing Transit for the 21st Century
Canada’s first subway line, which opened in Toronto in 1954, was 7.4 kilometers long and cost $6.8 million per kilometer—$76 million per kilometer in today’s money. That seems a bargain compared to a subway line Toronto is now constructing at a projected cost of well...
Building 21st Century Transit Systems For Canadian Cities
Policy Series 241
Revival of Rail Transit in Canada Questioned by Latest Policy Report
WINNIPEG, [March 12 2024] Canada's transit landscape is experiencing a profound transformation as eight major cities embark on the ambitious journey of developing rail transit systems. This marks a significant departure from the conventional wisdom of the 1950s when...
MB/SK/AB NeeStaNan Utilities Corridor: First Nations-Led Utility Corridor is a 21st-Century Nation-Building Initiative
“The trading of goods has been in our DNA as Indigenous People for centuries, but somewhere along the way this was lost. It’s time to regain our prosperity, for the betterment of our communities and for our country.” – NeeStaNan website
Move Forward on an All-Season Road to Northern First Nations
Manitobans – including First Nations in some of our most remote communities – deserve much improved access to public infrastructure and opportunity. First Nation leaders in Northern Manitoba have a point about expanding all-season road access to some of the most...
Etam: Automobiles, Human Nature, and the Challenge of Building Cars that People Actually Want
Some people out there have an inner itch to do things different. Maybe it’s art, or music, or some other glorious pastime that we as the rest of humanity benefit from, far, far more than we pay. What sort of car these types drive is fascinating; usually something...