Premier Wynne expected to announce high-speed rail line
Province will spend $15 million on environmental assessment.

thestar.com
By SAMMY HUDES
May 18, 2017

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is expected to announce a high-speed rail project on Friday that would eventually connect Toronto to Windsor, according to media reports.

The province plans to spend $15 million on an environmental assessment of the project to examine the design and specifications needed for the high-speed rail line, according to CTV News.

Under the plan, the line would connect Toronto to southwestern neighbours Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo and London, as well as Chatham and Windsor.

Wynne will make the announcement in London on Friday, when a report examining the feasibility of the line is expected to be released.

The possibility of such a project has long been discussed.

In 2008, then premiers Dalton McGuinty of Ontario and Jean Charest of Quebec held a joint feasibility study of a fast train line from Quebec City to Windsor.

“This has been talked about for quite some time, but every once in a while there’s an idea whose time actually comes,” McGuinty said at the time.

Prior to the 2014 election, then transportation minister Glen Murray included a Toronto-Kitchener-London high-speed rail line in the government’s list of transportation promises for the next decade, detailed in its Moving Ontario Forward plan.

The report to be released Friday, commissioned by Wynne’s government and led by former federal transport minister David Collenette, estimates 10 million annual riders by 2041, according to CTV.

Collenette’s report proposes two scenarios, one in which trains run at a top speed of 300 kilometres per hour, costing $149 million per kilometre. In the other scenario, the maximum speed would reach 250 kilometres per hour, bringing the cost down to $55 million per kilometre.

CTV reports that the province, in working with Via and Metrolinx, would seek out private financing and partners.