There is renewed discussion in Alberta about building a high-speed rail link between Calgary and Edmonton. The idea has been around in one form or another for more than 30 years, but experience elsewhere in the world suggests that a high-speed train on the Canadian...
Transportation
Dispatches From the American Midwest
Canadian cities face a myriad of challenges. Aging infrastructure and worsening traffic are undermining mobility, with immense costs. The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area alone loses $6 billion in productivity due to gridlock each year, which is expected to increase...
Who should pay for Toronto transit projects?
Financing infrastructure projects is typically a complex process, involving transfers between provinces, cities, and neighbourhoods. While it is possible (though not easy) to track transfers between provinces, it is difficult to track transfers between cities, and...
Look at options for STC, Frontier Centre says
Joe Couture, The StarPhoenix, December 12, 2013 The latest transfer of cash from provincial coffers to the Saskatchewan Transportation Company is for a needed capital project, not increasing operating costs, according to the minister responsible, Don McMorris....
Featured News
Promote Equity by Providing a Quality Education
Earlier this year, a group called Equity Matters asked the province to establish an education equity secretariat. They want this office to oversee equity officers working in Manitoba schools. Equity Matters wants to ensure that all Manitoba students are reflected in...
Why Frances Widdowson Matters
Frances Widdowson probably isn't someone most Canadians recognize. I'm here to tell you why they should. In terms of Canada's intellectual culture, Frances Widdowson matters because she is a classic and prolific academic. In a time when demagoguery easily flourishes,...
Rail Competition
The issue of rail competition is getting some attention by shippers. I notice that the Keystone Ag Producers are encouraging members to express their views.
A while back, Laura Rance had an article on the subject in the Winnipeg Free Press where she made a couple of good points.
We’ve all heard tales of the inefficiencies that have plagued centrally planned economies in far-off places. The compounding effects — sluggish supply chains, lower productivity, missed delivery targets and people who could be working standing around with nothing to do — eventually drag the economy so deeply into an abyss it takes a revolution to get things rolling again. It turns out, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a tinpot dictatorship or railway executives running the show; if there isn’t enough competition in the system, or regulation that compensates for that lack of competition, efficiency falls off the tracks.
To the Scrap Heap: Manitoba’s insurance monopoly destroys cheap cars and hurts the poor
Manitoba’s Public Insurance’s arbitrary policy to destroy cheap used cars made before 1995 has dire unintended consequences for unemployed poor looking for jobs, and for the environment that the policy claims to protect.
Nav Canada as Beacon
Canada needed a dramatic reinvestment in its navigation infrastructure and technology to more efficiently link this country to the new hub of world economic growth. Enter Nav Canada.
Landing Rights Dispute With UAE May Force ‘Open Skies’ Debate
“Canada’s dispute with the United Arab Emirates over airline landing rights lifts a curtain on a dispute between Ottawa and Western premiers over Canadian airline policy.”
High Fashion versus the Private Car: Alternative lifestyles will always be trendy, but the car is mainstream for good reasons
It’s so trendy to deride the private car today that it often features in urban planning only as a necessary evil to be tolerated at best. Public policy should be more enthusiastic about what private motorised transport has done for people, and in particular how driverless cars, electric cars, and road pricing can alleviate the concerns that some people have about them.
Taxi Industry Reports Tired and One Sided: Ignores past seventeen years of evidence.
The people of Regina and Saskatoon have been sold short by taxi industry studies that don’t look at all the available evidence, in fact ignoring all evidence published since 1993.
Milked By Taxis: Taxi permits now cost over $200,000 in Montreal; gouging customers while discouraging taxi use
“What is especially bizarre about the supply-management mentality is the idea that the onus always lies on the would-be new entrant to an industry to prove why he or she should be allowed in.”
Look What’s Coming Down The Road
Noting that traffic congestion is costing the Canadian economy billions, the report asserts that building more road capacity is not the answer, as it often promotes more traffic: “Accurate transport pricing aims to ensure that people face the true costs of their travel decisions.”
As traffic congestion grows, are peak-hour fees the only answer?: Teleworking and public transit may be an easier pill to swallow for Canadian taxpayers
Donovan’s report details the Swedish experience. Stockholm first experimented with accurate transport pricing in 2006, after which it held a referendum on implementation: 53 per cent approved. Peak traffic volumes in Stockholm declined by about 25 per cent.