Categories: Lifestyle

Toronto could get a high-speed train to Montreal & here’s what to know

Photo via aappp / Shutterstock

A faster way to travel between Toronto and Montreal could be coming our way. Two councillors are seeking federal support to build a Toronto-Montreal high-speed rail service (HSR).

The Montreal councillors, Craig Sauve and Serge Sasseville, officially tabled a motion at the next city council meeting which would ask Trudeau to opt into the HSR project.

The HSR would run through the Quebec-Toronto corridor and would shorten the travel time between Toronto and Montreal to three hours in total.

Travel time between Quebec City and Montreal would be reduced to 1 hour and 40 minutes, and 1 hour between Montreal and Ottawa.

The mayors of Quebec City and Laval have also declared their support for the HSR project.

Sasseville says has called the Toronto-Montreal high-speed rail “the most significant transport infrastructure in Canada.”

It will serve the public by “providing productivity gains, improving quality of life, and protecting the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Councillor Sauve added that they have been studying the HSR network for decades and that it is high time that Canada invest in “passenger rail infrastructure that is truly competitive with domestic flights.”

“We are the only G7 country without a High Speed Rail network,” he said. “It would be a huge legacy for quality of life and the environment.”

The federal government is already making big investments in faster, more efficient train service between Ontario and Quebec.’

The federal government advanced the procurement process for a new High Frequency Rail (HFR) service, bringing it a step closer to reality.

The rail service will create new trains on dedicated tracks between major centres along the Québec City-Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto corridor.

This will allow VIA Rail to significantly increase its train frequencies while reducing trip times by 25% and improving on-time performance to over 95%.

Between both of these new train services, trips to our neighbouring province will be so much more accessible.