ALTO Outreach Underway, but Not Yet in Frontenac County
(Editors Note - The Frontenac News received communications from ALTO on Wendesday, November 5, that the ALTO has now reached out to Frontenac County and Lennox and Addington to make presentations to their councils)
While it is anything but a done deal, the ALTO train project is proceeding as if it is.
ALTO is a Crown corporation which was formed into to turn what had been a high frequency rail (HFR) project into a high speed rail project.
The original HFR project designed to move people back and forth between the Quebec City – Montreal – Ottawa – Toronto corridor, with stops along the way to provide access to and from smaller communities along the way.
Alexis Doyle, the community relations manager for ALTO in Ontario, made a presentation to Hastings County Council last week, and there was a presentation at Peterbough City Council last week as well. This marks the beginning of a consultation and information process in communities along the route, although as Doyle pointed out, indigenous communities have been informed and involved for some time.
In her presentation, Doyle made it clear to anyone who was not yet convinced, the ALTO is designed solely to connect the major cities in the corridor, with up to 30 trains a day, with fully electric, passenger only trains that can travel up to 300 kilometres an hour.
And the travel times being promised, even at this early stage, are a major reason while ALTO and its supporters in government and the private sector, feel that the train will be a success and will have a positive impact on the economy in a region where 60% of Canadians make their home.
The estimated travel time from Peterborough to Toronto is 40 minutes, from Toronto to Ottawa is 2h 17m, from Ottawa to Montreal is 3h 7m, and from Ottawa to Montreal 1h 1m.
“Obviously, these times will incent people moving away from vehicle travel and air travel to using the high speed train, a more efficient, emission free mode of transportation, and that will also give quality of life, because you will get your time back when you are on the train,” she said.
The project would also make this travel safe, according to Doyle, who said “I know that the Highway 7 corridor is a hazardous road to travel, in all seasons.”
In terms of timeframes, she said the project is now early into the second of three phases, the development phase, having completed the procurement phase with federal announcment in February. She said that because the project is included in the second list of nation biulding projects that was released by the Carney government in the early summer, the development phase is now projected to be a 4 year process, instead of a 6-8 year process as it had been previously.
The ultimate end to the development phase is to advance and develop a project that “Will be shovel ready, and the government can decide at that point whether to go ahead with the project.
She said ALTO does not have a timeline for the construction phase at this point, because that will depend on the final design, and the final route. ALTO is working with a consortium of large transportation corporations, Cadence, to develop the project.
Finalising the corridor that the train will travel along is one of the components of the development phase. Doyle said that previous plans, attached to the HFR project, to potentially make use of former rail lines, which are now the major trail network in Easter Ontario, are off the table.
“I often offe up the insight from out technical team, which is that the turn radius is 7 kilometre, so this train cannot weave through the countryside the way previous trains did, it has to be pretty straight.
ALTO is not unaware that rural communities along the train's route, will not share in the benefits it will bring to city dwellers who are the target market for the service.
The Eastern Ontario Warden's Caucus, which includes the wardens from Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Lanark and Hastings Counties, recent addressed this in a letter to ALTO.
“While the EOWC supports transportation expansion across rural and small-urban communities as a long-standing priority, if built, this project will cut through our region’s communities without bringing benefits to local businesses, trail systems, tourist destinations, or our 800,000+ residents,” the letter says.
Doyle acknowleged this in her presentation.
“Recognising this, ALTO is in the early stages of developing a community benefits plan, that will create sustained, measureable benefits for impacted communities.”
She said ALTO will be launching an extensive community engagement program in the new year.
This engagement will include round tables with community leaders as well as public meetings.
“All the while, we have been engaging with elected officials, to help you understand the scope of this project before we step into the public sphere.”
As to when ALTO plans to engage with Frontenac County, which will be traversed by the rail corrifor if and when the project is constructed, that is still not clear.
North Frontenac Mayor, and current Frontenac County warden, Gerry Lichty, said that he has not been contacted by ALTO.
Central Frontenac Mayor Frances Smith, said last month that the township has not been contacted in a number of years about the project.
ALTO made a presentation to a meeting of the Snimikobe First Nation in Plevna about a month ago, and has been in regular contact with both the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, and the Algonquins of Ontario, which is the corporate arm of the communities negotiating the Algonquin Land Claim, which includes both the Snimikobe and Shabot Obaadjiwan as well as Pikwakanagan, the only reserve community that is party to the negotiations.
Bob Mullin, the Warden of Hastings County, pointed out at the end of Doyle's presentation that one thing that he appreciates is that the train is being designed to have no level crossings, to traffic along the north south roadways in Eastern Ontario will not be impacted.
As for the width of the corridor through the countryside, Benoit Bourdeau (manager, media relations and spokesperson for ALTO, told the Frontenac News in an email back in September that “Railways typically have a 30m wide right-of-way, however we’re too early in the process to determine how wide our right-of-way will need to be.”
