The federal government is lauding its request for expressions of interest (RFEOI) step in the long road to eventually seeing Via Rail’s high-frequency (HFR) corridor come to fruition.
According to an update from the HFR project team, there were 54 interested parties that came forward during the RFEOI phase, that provided written responses with a desire to participate in the project.
“Canada is very pleased with the market’s interest and response to the RFEOI,” the report states.
READ MORE: Ottawa seeking proposals for high-frequency rail project between Quebec City, Toronto
“These firms are Canadian, North American and international. The Government of Canada is looking forward to the future with optimism and openness.”
“This is great. It’s a long project,” Joel Wiebe, government relations coordinator with Peterborough and the Kawarthas Chamber of Commerce.
“Federal government has been looking for private sector partners, who are interested and able to help with this project. That takes awhile to evaluate what is all involved with this. This is a massive project, that’s probably about a decade out and spans two provinces with about 12 million people in that catchment area.
“It’s encouraging to see this still on-track and the federal government seems to be looking to the private sector to help make this work.”
The request for qualifications (RFQ) target launch has now been moved to January 2023 to provide interested parties adequate time to consider the additional information in the RFEOI update, the report stated.
The RFEOI update provides the new information related to the following topics:
- Roles and responsibilities of the private developer partner (the PDP)
- Key features and objectives of the deal structure
- Expected payment regime for construction and operations
- Revenue responsibilities transferred to and managed by the private partner (PP)
- Additional details on the transfer of existing Via services in the corridor
- RFQ technical and financial evaluation criteria
- RFP deliverables and evaluation criteria
- The status of the incorporation process for the Via Rail subsidiary
- The role of Via Rail in the procurement phase and co-development phase
- The anticipated CIB investment products
- Security requirements, the Investment Canada Act and the Integrity Regime
The project will see a high-frequency rail corridor installed along some of the existing rail line from Toronto to Quebec City through cities including Peterborough, Ottawa and Montreal.
“There’s so many ways it would benefit us. As our parents age, we want to see them more and be able to help out. It allow us to visit more frequently and allow us to visit on a dependable schedule as well,” Chris Drew, a Toronto resident with family ties to the Peterborough-area.
“Having frequent, reliable, dedicated track-service, means we can plan to be there to take our parents to appointments, to help out around the house or outside. It would be a huge help because traffic on the 401 and 35/115 is terrible.”
READ MORE: Feds set to begin procurement process for Toronto-Quebec City high-frequency rail corridor
Drew, who has family history involving rail in the Peterborough-Havelock area, said it would also help boost tourism and said he has friends that would want to come to the area to use the cycling trails and see the attractions.
“It would be great for my in-laws, they have family in Ottawa. So, if they want to go from Peterborough to Ottawa, Montreal or Quebec City, this isn’t just about Toronto to Peterborough. A lot of benefits, not only for our family, but many in the region,” Drew said.
“I hope local leaders in Peterborough continue to speak loudly and show a united force to all levels of government, particularly the federal government, to make this happen.
“It’s long overdue. It’s time to get Peterborough its passenger rail service back.”
According to Via Rail, the dedicated tracks, which run north of the existing corridor along Lake Ontario’s shoreline, would offer more frequencies while reducing trip times by 25 per cent and improving on-time performance to more than 95 per cent.
Via states trains could travel at speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour, reducing travel times from Ottawa to Toronto to as low as three hours and 15 minutes from the current travel times of approx. four hours and 30 minutes.
The project would also enhance capacity of the entire rail network and transform Drummondville, Que. and Kingston, Ont. into regional transportation hubs for trains serving the existing Montreal-Quebec City and Montreal-Toronto routes.
“At 100 per cent, the high-frequency rail will go through Peterborough,” federal transport minister Omar Alghabra said during a media event in the city in July 2021.
“The project would be one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canada in decades and will transform travel in this busy transportation corridor.”
Alghabra said at the time the reasonable estimate for shovels to get into ground was three to four and his hope was the project would be aggressively constructed and completed by 2030.
READ MORE: Report shows interest for return of Via Rail commuter link between Kingston and Toronto
However, in March, the government stated that the project likely won’t be up and running until the early 2030s.
In 2019, the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Transport Canada provided more than $71 million in funding for detailed planning work on the project.
Via has previously stated final cost of the project is expected to be somewhere between $6 billion and $12 billion.
“Transport Canada provided an update yesterday to the Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEOI) that was launched in March 2022, after receiving confirmation from 54 parties interested in participating in the HFR project,” VIA Rail stated to Global News.
“The many comments provided have allowed the government to finalize the requirements and adjust the process and timelines.
“As VIA Rail continues to focus on serving Canadians from coast to coast to coast, a subsidiary of VIA Rail is being established to act as a dedicated Project Development Office to deliver HFR.”
“On the tourism side, that really opens us up, is a lot of people fly into Toronto and don’t have a car or want to travel that way. This opens up an economic way in new areas,” Wiebe added.
“There are all sorts of areas in eastern Ontario that will be opened up to people who may not otherwise have considered these communities.”