As a native Montrealer, this is an incredibly exciting project. After 50+ years of studies, this is by far the furthest an actual project has come along.
A consortium, Cadence, has finally been selected to plan and build a High Speed Rail option, rather than just High Frequency Rail (which was a possibility).
The announcement has come with ~$4 billion CAD allocated for the planning and design of the route.
Politics is what will decide if this project ever sees construction though. This project was announced by the Liberal Party of Canada (under PM Trudeau) but Canada will soon be holding a federal election. The LPC has a new leader in Mark Carney who will be principally running against Pierre Poilievre of the Conservative Party of Canada. It is not clear what the CPC’s official position is regarding the project, but they have publicly expressed skepticism.
Interesting times ahead to say the least.
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CityMoose’s good video about Canada’s HSR project:
