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Alto has started public consultations and invitation-only roundtables with stakeholders. Transport Action is involved in both, and this will be the first in a series of posts about specific items arising from these engagements.
To participate in the online consultation, which is open until March 29, 2026, and to find public meeting dates and locations go to: Shaping the Canada of tomorrow with high-speed rail – Alto Project
The announcement of public consultation locations on the north shore of the Ottawa River hinted at the major changes to potential routing that appeared in the documents released by Alto at the beginning of January.
The need to acquire land for a completely new alignment along most of the route is one of the downsides of the government’s choice of high speed rail rather than the cheaper option of dedicated tracks at conventional speeds using existing rights of way first proposed by VIA Rail in 2015. The broad corridors, up to 10 km wide, identified for these public consultations reflect the difficulties of choosing a final alignment that minimizes impact on communities, residents and the environment along the route while keeping to a curve radius of 7 km or more, for safe operation at higher speeds.
While high speed electric trains operating on fully fenced and grade separated tracks will be much quieter than the freight trains many people are used to, and the constructed alignment will relatively narrow, additional land will be required for equipment access during construction. Disruption and noise over a period of several years is a legitimate source of concern, and the project must take steps to mitigate this in consultation residents affected by the finalized route.
It is crucial that community assets that are not included in heritage registers or other official records are identified early so that the Alto engineering team can take them into account, avoiding costly changes later. Information including—but not limited to—school bus routes, historic burial sites, heritage buildings, lands and waters inhabited by protected species, wildlife migration routes, agricultural drainage networks, or farmland certified organic should all be brought forward at this stage. The project has created an online interactive map where anyone can place a marker and description.
Transport Action encourages everyone along the route to engage with the project and to share as much information as possible, and at the same time to learn about the project to dispel any misunderstandings that may circulate through social media.
The proposed corridor no longer serves Dorval at all, despite connecting to the airport having been considered one of the major elements in the plan to date, instead crossing the river from the north and passing in the vicinity of Mirabel before entering Montreal from the north. A tunnel of up to 10 km may be considered, reaching a yet to be determined downtown station location. Trains would then reverse, and head back northwards before taking the future branch to Quebec City.
Transport Action will be seeking more information from the project to understand the thinking behind this choice of corridor, including additional tunneling under the Riviere des Prairies that is likely to contribute significantly to increasing project budget and add to construction time.
Between Ottawa and Peterborough, a second route option has been proposed, avoiding the more rugged terrain around the former Ontario and Quebec Railway route by taking a sweeping curve to the south, passing closer to but not serving the city of Kingston.
This led to calls from elected officials in Kingston for a stop on the high speed line. However, it remains to be seen whether a stop so far outside the city that it takes an extra half hour to reach it would provide a significantly better door to door journey times than conventional VIA Rail. The proposal could also undermine the long-promised “Kingston Hub” enhancement of services to other cities along the lakeshore.
This new southern route would also cut through the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Region, internationally recognized as an ecologically sensitive area. The residents of this region are understandably concerned that the project is suddenly considering this route, and threading a feasible alignment between the lakes and designated nature reserves could be challenging.
Transport Action encourages everyone along the proposed route to bring forward their hopes and their concerns about the project through the public consultation process, and to remember that the engineers tasked with delivering the project have the challenging task of finding a route that minimizes disruption to the communities it passes through.
Bill C-15, part of the fall federal budget, accords the project enhanced powers to expropriate property and to place development holds along its proposed route, and together with last year’s Bill C-5, allows the Minister of Transport to exempt the project from some environmental projections. While these powers could help to prevent costly delays and litigation, we hope they will be used with considerable discretion. The project would not be immune to political fallout from over-use of such powers.
We also urge the government and Alto to continue to clearly communicate the “Kingston Hub” strategy for improved service to communities along the lakeshore, and to ensure the provision of intercommunity bus services so that communities which don’t directly benefit from high-speed rail being built nearby also receive improved access to sustainable public transport.