Tag: business case

  • Reading the Answer

    Reading the Answer

    What the government tells Parliament about ALTO’s cost, ridership and subsidies — and what two independent academic studies show.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Cost & Ridership Brief · Published May 2026
    ⚠ Document Under Analysis

    On April 22, 2026, the Minister of Transport tabled the answer to Order Paper Question Q-923, asked by Philip Lawrence (MP for Northumberland–Clarke). Three numerical claims sit at the heart of that answer.

    Two independent academic analyses of the same corridor have been published by Canadian universities — one in 2025, one in 2021. Both reach quantitatively different conclusions. This brief sets them side by side.

    Critical Finding

    None of the three claims in Q-923 is factually inaccurate. Each is constructed using the most favourable available definition, range, or horizon. The result is a headline picture meaningfully different from the academic record on the same project.

    The brief looks at each claim in turn, sets the government’s wording next to the academic finding, and asks the simple question: is the government’s framing realistic?

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    Reading the Answer — Full Brief (PDF)
    The three numerical claims in Q-923 (cost, ridership, subsidies), set side by side with the published academic record from McGill and the Munk School Global Economic Policy Lab
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    The Three Claims

    What Q-923 says

    On March 5, 2026, MP Philip Lawrence submitted Order Paper Question Q-923, asking the government about the financial viability of the ALTO project. The Minister of Transport’s answer, tabled in the House of Commons on April 22, 2026, contained three specific numerical statements.

    On subsidies
    “Self-sustaining”
    operations expected to cover their own costs — “no need for ongoing operating subsidies”
    On cost
    $60–90 B
    stated range for total project cost — classified by ALTO as AACE Class 5 (−50%/+100% accuracy band)
    On ridership
    43 M / year
    forecast for 2084 — year 55 of operations, if construction begins in 2029 as planned

    Each of these three propositions is the subject of this brief. Each is technically defensible. Neither is, on the academic record now publicly available, the only available framing of what is being described.

    The Academic Record

    Two independent studies of the same corridor

    Two academic analyses of the ALTO corridor are publicly available. They differ in age, scope, methodology and authority. They reach quantitatively similar conclusions on the questions both address.

    McGill University — Transportation Research at McGill (2025)

    The primary academic comparator. Zhang, Negm and El-Geneidy, High-Speed Rail in Canada: Insights from a corridorwide survey and a financial analysis. Combines a 6,738-respondent travel-demand survey across six Census Metropolitan Areas with a 50-year financial model that uses ALTO’s own published cost assumptions as its inputs. Funded by Queen’s University and NSERC. Describes high-speed rail throughout in favourable terms — the study is not advocacy against the project.

    Munk School (Toronto) — Global Economic Policy Lab (2021)

    An earlier independent reference point. Bien, Iqbal, Li and Stecher, under Lab Director Professor Mark Manger. High-Speed Rail: Toronto – Montreal Economic Analysis. Prepared by graduate-level “Clean Energy Analysts” within the Lab. Not a peer-reviewed publication. Covers the Toronto–Montreal segment only (540 km), not the full corridor; figures in 2021 dollars. Written four years before the formal ALTO process began. Its value here is as an early, independent reference point reaching conclusions consistent with the more recent McGill work.

    The brief below treats McGill as the primary academic comparator. Munk is cited where it provides confirming or complementary evidence on the questions both studies address.

    Claim by Claim

    The government’s framing, beside the academic finding

    For each of the three claims in Q-923, the wording of the parliamentary answer is set beside what the McGill and Munk studies show. The pattern at all three points is the same.

    Claim 01 On subsidies
    The government says

    “Operations are expected to be financially self-sustaining, with revenues covering operations and maintenance costs and eliminating the need for ongoing operating subsidies.”

    Minister of Transport, response to Q-923 (April 22, 2026)

    The academic record shows

    McGill (2025): Operations cover their own costs at full ridership. Capital must be repaid by public funds at ~C$1.23 billion per year for 47 years, totalling approximately C$61.62 billion before full cost recovery in year 48.

    Munk (2021): Operations cover their costs at a breakeven ticket of C$109. At a more affordable C$75 ticket, the Toronto–Montreal segment alone requires C$5.08 billion in subsidy. The construction phase is publicly financed in both models.

    Why this matters The government defines “subsidy” narrowly — the operating cash transfer required to keep trains running once they are running. The academic studies extend the analysis to capital servicing, which is the much larger lifetime public obligation. A useful way to think about it: a homeowner who rents out a basement suite can truthfully say the rental income covers their utilities and property tax. But the mortgage is still being paid every month, from a different account, on a different schedule. “The suite pays for itself” is technically accurate; it is also not a complete description of the cost of owning the house. ALTO operations being “self-sustaining” is the same kind of statement. The mortgage — roughly C$1.23 billion per year, for 47 years — is still being paid by the public. A reader who treats “self-sustaining” as a description of the project’s lifetime public cost is reading it against the narrowest available technical definition.
    Claim 02 On cost
    The government says

    “Between $60 and $90 billion.”

    Q-923 (April 22, 2026). ALTO’s May 8, 2026 blog post classifies the same figure as an AACE Class 5 estimate — an accuracy range of −50% to +100%.

    The academic record shows

    McGill (2025): Total construction cost C$79.8 billion in 2025 dollars for the full corridor — sits in the upper portion of the government’s range.

    Munk (2021): C$11.94 billion in 2021 dollars for the Toronto–Montreal segment alone, with a 66% contingency already built in. Methodologies and scopes are not directly comparable; neither extrapolates straightforwardly to the other.

    Why this matters The government’s stated range is wide enough to encompass quite different methodological approaches. The accuracy band attached to the underlying Class 5 classification — addressed in the Initiative’s companion brief Reading the Footnote — extends the realistic outturn substantially beyond the stated upper bound. “$60 to $90 billion” is doing the work of multiple very different underlying assumptions. Access to Information documents published by The Canadian Press on May 28, 2025 also show that the corporation now answering for the $60–90 billion figure was, beginning in September 2023, paying a marketing firm to rebrand the project from HFR to HSR — eighteen months before any HSR-specific cost analysis had been tabled to Parliament. The companion brief The Report That Vanished sets out that record in detail.
    Claim 03 On ridership
    The government says

    “43 million annual riders by 2084.”

    Q-923 (April 22, 2026). With construction beginning in 2029, this corresponds to approximately year 55 of operations.

    The academic record shows

    McGill (2025): 20.8 million annual riders on the full corridor by year 50 of operations.

    Munk (2021): 10.45 million annual riders on the Toronto–Montreal segment by year 30. Using Munk’s own observation that this segment generates ~57% of full-corridor ridership, this implies ~18 million annual full-corridor riders by year 30. The two academic projections converge within 15%; both are approximately half the government figure.

    Why this matters The government’s 43 million figure is roughly twice the academic consensus and is attached to a horizon two to three decades later than the academic projections. By selecting the latest available year and roughly doubling the mature-corridor ridership the academic studies support, the answer constructs a number that is neither directly comparable to the published analyses nor easily falsifiable for several more decades.
    How the Project Changed

    A short chronology

    The three numerical claims in Q-923 are the most recent point in a project whose definition has shifted substantially over eight years. Understanding why the government’s figures differ from the academic record requires understanding how the thing being costed and forecast changed shape along the way. The sequence below is drawn from the public parliamentary record, principally the September 2024 committee report and the Government Response tabled in October 2025.

    2016–2021 — A VIA Rail proposal for higher frequency, not higher speed. The project began as a VIA Rail concept assessed under Budget 2018. Its defining objective was frequency and reliability on dedicated track, not top speed. A witness who had worked on the original proposal told the committee it was “decision-ready by summer of 2018” and could have been in service by 2025. The estimate publicly associated with that early concept was approximately $12 billion.

    2022–2023 — Procurement, with the scope deliberately left open. A federal Crown corporation was incorporated in late 2022 to manage the project, and a procurement phase launched. Three consortia were invited to bid. Crucially, bidders were asked to submit two options: one running at up to 200 km/h, and one with some high-speed segments to reduce overall travel time. The corporation’s own leadership repeatedly told the committee that the scope, technology, and route were not yet defined, and that it would be “imprudent to throw numbers out, because the scope is not defined.” The 2021 $12 billion figure was confirmed to the committee as “probably not adequate anymore,” but no replacement figure was offered.

    September 2024 — The committee reports, still on the frequency-first premise. The committee tabled its 18-recommendation report under the title Issues and Opportunities: High Frequency Rail in the Toronto to Quebec City Corridor. The report is framed throughout around high-frequency rail. Its recommendations asked the government to define cost and timetable (including an explicit analysis of the incremental cost between the higher-frequency and high-speed options), to release the unredacted Joint Project Office report, and to analyse the effect of a dedicated line on existing VIA Rail service. The premise of the report was that the speed question remained open and that the cost difference between the two options had not been established.

    February 2025 — The pivot to high-speed rail. The government announced on February 19, 2025 that the scope of the project would shift to delivering high-speed rail. This is the decision that resolves the speed question the committee had treated as open — and it resolves it toward the more expensive of the two procurement options, the one requiring a fully protected, fenced right-of-way without at-grade crossings. The decision was made before the committee’s requested incremental-cost analysis had been produced. Access to Information records indicate the rebranding toward this framing had been operationally under way since September 2023, some seventeen months before the public announcement.

    March–September 2025 — Partner selected, timeline halved. The procurement concluded with the selection of a private developer partner, and a Pre-Development Agreement was signed on March 19, 2025, launching a multi-year co-development phase. On September 11, 2025, the government announced that construction would now be accelerated to begin in four years rather than the original eight — even as the Government Response would shortly confirm that “all costing information remains subject to change” through co-development.

    October 2025–April 2026 — The Response, then the figures. The Government Response to the committee’s report was finally tabled on October 10, 2025, more than a year after the report itself. It agreed with the intent of all 18 recommendations but downgraded several of the most consequential — including the cost-and-timetable recommendation and the release of the unredacted Joint Project Office report — to support “in principle,” deferring substance to the co-development phase. The incremental HFR-versus-HSR cost analysis the committee had asked for was never produced as such. Q-923, answered on April 22, 2026, then placed firm-sounding figures — $60 to $90 billion, 43 million riders, no operating subsidy — on a project whose own governing documents still described its costs as undefined.

    The throughline is this: the project began as a frequency-first concept with a roughly $12 billion estimate, was procured with its scope deliberately undefined, was redirected to high-speed rail before the cost comparison the committee requested had been done, had its construction timeline halved while its costs were still officially “subject to change,” and only then acquired the specific $60–90 billion and 43-million-rider figures that Q-923 presents. The figures did not emerge from a defined scope; the scope was redefined around an ambition, and the figures followed. That is the context the academic comparison in this brief is read against.

    The Disclosure Context

    The parliamentary record Q-923 sits in

    Q-923 was answered on April 22, 2026. As the chronology above sets out, the parliamentary record on ALTO that surrounds it is materially thinner than it might otherwise have been. The committee’s 18-recommendation report asked specifically for an HFR-versus-HSR cost analysis (Recommendation 4), the release of the Joint Project Office’s full unredacted report (Recommendation 6), and an analysis of the impact of a dedicated rail line on existing VIA Rail service (Recommendation 8). The first of these was never produced as such; the second was downgraded to release “in principle” in redacted form. The $60–90 billion figure cited in Q-923 therefore sits within a disclosure context in which the central cost question the committee posed was redirected rather than answered.

    The Initiative’s companion brief The Report That Vanished sets out this parliamentary-process record in detail — the documentary evidence on the marketing-led pivot, the procedural mechanics of prorogation, and the parliamentary mechanisms by which the unanswered recommendations remain available to be revived. The two briefs are intended to be read together: Reading the Answer documents the headline framing of the three specific numerical claims in Q-923, and The Report That Vanished documents the parliamentary record into which those claims were placed.

    Side by Side

    Same project, three different pictures

    Read as one comparison, the three claim cards point in the same direction at every turn. The government’s number describes the largest, latest, or narrowest-defined version of each quantity. The academic record describes a more constrained or more comprehensively defined version.

    Subsidies

    Gov:No operating subsidies

    Acad:~C$61.6 B over 47 yrs (capital)

    Cost

    Gov:$60–90 B (Class 5)

    Acad:C$11.9 B (T–M) — C$79.8 B (full)

    Ridership

    Gov:43 M/yr by 2084 (yr 55)

    Acad:~18–21 M/yr (yr 30–50)

    No single divergence, taken alone, would carry the weight of an argument. Stacked together — cost, ridership, subsidies, all framed in the most favourable way each can be framed — they describe a pattern. The pattern is the brief’s subject.

    The honest answer

    Is the government’s framing realistic?

    The answer depends on what “realistic” is asked to mean.

    If realistic means technically defensible — yes. Each of the three figures in Q-923 can be constructed using some defensible technical methodology. The Minister’s answer is a carefully drafted parliamentary response that would survive most reasonable tests of literal accuracy.

    If realistic means consistent with the picture an informed reader would expect — the answer is more complicated. Two independent academic studies, written by different teams under different funding, with no involvement in the ALTO process, converge on a project that:

    • carries roughly half the ridership the government’s 2084 figure implies, at a horizon two to three decades earlier;
    • requires substantial sustained public capital subsidy over four to five decades, even when operations cover their own costs;
    • could plausibly cost as much as the upper end of the government’s range, or, depending on methodology, materially less.

    The framing in Q-923 is technically defensible. It is not the only available framing of the same underlying material. It is the framing that produces the most favourable headline impression at each of the three points where a choice could be made. Whether to characterise it as “realistic” is finally a judgment for the reader. What this brief documents is that the framing is a choice, and that the academic record provides the basis for reading what each statement leaves out.

    For the next federal statement

    Three questions to ask

    Where the next federal statement on ALTO is concerned — whether in a future Order Paper answer, a ministerial statement, a corporate plan summary, or a public communication from ALTO itself — three questions follow naturally.

    1. On subsidies: What definition is being applied? Does the figure cover operations only, or operations and capital servicing? If capital servicing is excluded, what is its size and duration, and over what time horizon is the public obligation expected to extend?
    2. On cost: What is the basis of the figure? Bottom-up engineering estimate, reference-class-adjusted estimate, or some other methodology? What accuracy band does it carry? Where does the figure sit relative to comparable international HSR projects, adjusted for distance, geography, and construction context?
    3. On ridership: At what horizon is the figure cited? How does it compare to the academic projections at the same horizon? If the comparison is unfavourable, on what basis is the higher figure defended? What sensitivity analysis has been conducted, and what does it show?

    None of these questions presupposes opposition to the project. Each is the kind of question a reasonable reader would ask before forming a view. Each is also the kind of question the parliamentary record has so far not been pressed to answer.

    Download Full Brief
    Reading the Answer (PDF)
    Reference document for federal decision-makers, parliamentarians, journalists, and constituents tracking the file
    Download PDF
    Sources

    Primary documents and references

    1.
    Order Paper Question Q-923, 45th Parliament, 1st session. Asked by Philip Lawrence (MP for Northumberland–Clarke), March 5, 2026; answered by the Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, April 22, 2026. ourcommons.ca
    2.
    The Canadian Press, “Via Rail subsidiary paid Quebec marketing firm $330K as it pivoted to high-speed rail,” May 28, 2025. The Globe and Mail published a parallel report on the same Access to Information disclosures the same day. theglobeandmail.com
    3.
    Zhang, B., Negm, H., & El-Geneidy, A. (2025). High-Speed Rail in Canada: Insights from a corridorwide survey and a financial analysis. Transportation Research at McGill, McGill University. Funded by Queen’s University and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
    4.
    Bien, P., Iqbal, S., Li, A., & Stecher, I. (2021). High-Speed Rail: Toronto – Montreal Economic Analysis. Global Economic Policy Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. Lab Director: Professor Mark Manger.
    5.
    ALTO, “How Much Will Alto’s High-Speed Rail Cost Canadians and how is it Funded?”, blog post published May 8, 2026 — source of the AACE Class 5 classification of the $60–90 billion figure. altotrain.ca
    6.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, Reading the Footnote (Cost Estimation Brief), May 2026 — the companion brief analysing the AACE Class 5 footnote in detail.
    7.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative, The Report That Vanished (Parliamentary Process Brief), May 2026 — the companion brief setting out the TRAN Report 18 record, the documented marketing-led HFR-to-HSR pivot, and the procedural mechanisms by which the committee’s recommendations remain unanswered.
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Cost & Ridership Brief  ·  May 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Reading the footnote

    Reading the Footnote

    What ALTO’s $60–90 billion cost estimate actually means — and what the AACE Class 5 label in the footnote tells the public that the headline figure does not.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Cost Estimation Brief · Published May 13, 2026
    ⚠ Document Under Analysis

    On May 8, 2026, ALTO published a blog post titled How Much Will Alto’s High-Speed Rail Cost Canadians and how is it Funded?. The headline figure is $60 to $90 billion. A footnote attributes the estimate to “the Class 5 guidelines set by the Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering International.”

    That footnote is doing the analytical work in the disclosure. This brief explains what it means and how to read it.

    Critical Finding

    The AACE Class 5 designation in the footnote is the lowest-accuracy cost estimate class in the global standard, intended for concept screening before engineering, geotechnical investigation, station design, or construction contracting have been completed. The accuracy range associated with Class 5 estimates is −50% to +100%.

    Applied honestly to ALTO’s stated $60–90 billion range, that means the realistic outturn range is approximately $30 billion to $180 billion — three to four times wider than the headline range suggests, and skewed toward the upper end.

    This is not a critique of ALTO for being uncertain about cost at the concept stage. Substantial uncertainty is appropriate at this stage. The question is whether the disclosure communicates that uncertainty in a form the public can act on.

    What “Class 5” means

    The AACE classification system

    The AACE International Cost Estimate Classification System is the global standard for describing the maturity and reliability of capital project cost estimates. It defines five classes, numbered from 5 (the least mature) to 1 (the most mature). Each class is tied to a specific stage of project definition and carries a characteristic accuracy range.

    Class 5
    the lowest-accuracy class in the system; intended for concept screening
    AACE RP 18R‑97
    0–2%
    project definition complete at Class 5
    no alignment, design, or contracts
    −50% / +100%
    typical accuracy range at Class 5
    asymmetric: upside risk twice downside
    ClassPurposeProject definitionTypical accuracy
    Class 5Concept screening0% – 2%−20% to −50% / +30% to +100%
    Class 4Feasibility study1% – 15%−15% to −30% / +20% to +50%
    Class 3Budget authorization10% – 40%−10% to −20% / +10% to +30%
    Class 2Control or bid30% – 75%−5% to −15% / +5% to +20%
    Class 1Check estimate65% – 100%−3% to −10% / +3% to +15%

    Class 5 is intended for what AACE calls “screening of viable alternatives” — deciding whether to advance a concept to further study, not committing public funds. At 0–2% project definition, there is no detailed alignment, no completed geotechnical investigation, no station design, no electrical engineering, and no signed construction contract. The estimate is built from per-kilometre parametric assumptions drawn from comparable projects, scaled for length, and adjusted judgmentally for context.

    The accuracy range is wide for a reason: the engineers preparing the estimate genuinely do not know what they will eventually be building. And the range is asymmetric. The upside risk (+30% to +100%) is roughly twice the downside risk (−20% to −50%) — reflecting more than fifty years of empirical experience that infrastructure cost estimates are more likely to be too low than too high.

    Applied to the midpoint of ALTO’s $60–90 billion range, the AACE accuracy band of −50% to +100% produces a realistic outturn range of approximately $37.5 billion to $150 billion. Applied to the upper bound of $90 billion, the upside-risk range extends to roughly $180 billion. The $60–90 billion figure is not a budget envelope; it is the centre of a much wider statistical distribution that current information cannot narrow.

    The empirical pattern

    Which side of the range to expect

    The asymmetry in the AACE accuracy ranges — more upside than downside — is not arbitrary. It reflects more than fifty years of empirical research on infrastructure megaproject cost outturns. The leading scholar in this field is Bent Flyvbjerg, professor at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, who has spent more than twenty-five years compiling the largest dataset of large-project cost outturns in the world. His findings — summarized in Megaprojects and Risk (Cambridge University Press, 2003), in How Big Things Get Done (Currency, 2023), and in several decades of peer-reviewed papers — are remarkably consistent.

    Nine in ten go over

    Of every ten large infrastructure megaprojects studied, nine exceed their original cost estimate in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. The pattern is not isolated to any one country, sector, or political system; it holds across the Flyvbjerg dataset spanning more than a hundred projects and seventy years.

    Rail averages roughly 45%

    For rail projects specifically, the average cost overrun is approximately 45% in real terms. The standard deviation is large, meaning many projects overrun by considerably more than the average; a smaller number come in close to estimate.

    High-speed rail tends higher

    High-speed rail tends to overrun more than conventional rail, for two converging reasons: greater engineering complexity (tighter alignment tolerances, electrification, signalling, grade separation), and the fact that the political case for HSR often rests on ridership forecasts that subsequently prove optimistic.

    Fat tails, not bell curves

    The distribution of cost outcomes is “fat-tailed”: extreme overruns are more common than a normal distribution would predict. A small but significant fraction of large infrastructure projects overrun their original estimate by more than 100%. The mean and the median therefore tell different stories.

    Flyvbjerg’s framework is now incorporated, in various forms, into the cost-estimation guidance of HM Treasury (the UK Government’s “Optimism Bias” supplementary guidance to the Green Book), the Australian Department of Infrastructure, and a growing number of comparable institutions. The technical name for the practice is reference-class forecasting: instead of building a project cost estimate from the inside out (this is what we think it will cost, based on our project), the estimate is calibrated against the actual outturn experience of comparable past projects.

    The reference class · International HSR

    What comparable projects have cost

    International high-speed rail provides the relevant reference class for any forecast of ALTO’s eventual cost. Three large representative HSR projects in democracies with mature engineering and procurement institutions illustrate the pattern:

    ProjectInitial estimateOutcome
    California High-Speed RailUS$33 billion
    2008    		Most recent California Legislative Analyst’s Office and Authority business plan estimate for full Phase 1: ~US$128 billion. The line is not yet operating.
    HS2, United Kingdom~£33 billion
    2010, for the full Y-shaped network    		Pre-cancellation full-network estimates reached ~£100 billion or more. The northern phases were cancelled in 2023; the truncated London–Birmingham line continues, at lower total but higher per-kilometre cost.
    Channel Tunnel~£4.65 billion
    1985    		Final cost: ~£9 billion. Real overrun of roughly 80%. Among the most extensively studied infrastructure cost outturns in the academic literature.

    These are not handpicked outliers. They are large representative HSR megaprojects in democracies with mature engineering and procurement institutions. The pattern they show is consistent with Flyvbjerg’s broader dataset, and is the empirical basis for the asymmetric accuracy band in the AACE classification.

    For ALTO at $60–90 billion Class 5, a reference-class-adjusted central estimate — using the historical outturn distribution of comparable HSR projects — would place the expected outturn meaningfully above the stated upper bound. The exact figure would depend on which reference class is chosen and which adjustment factor is applied; but a defensible central estimate is well into nine figures, and the upper tail of the distribution is materially higher still.

    What is not disclosed

    What ALTO’s post does not say

    ALTO’s May 8 blog post discloses a Class 5 cost range, a brief description of the funding model, the existence of risk-sharing with the Cadence consortium, and the federal investment commitments made to date. What it does not disclose — and what would be necessary to evaluate the project on the merits — falls into four categories.

    Reference-class adjustment

    The post does not say whether the $60–90 billion range is itself a reference-class-adjusted estimate or a bottom-up Class 5 estimate prior to such adjustment. The distinction matters: if the range is bottom-up, the empirical literature would place the expected outturn substantially above the stated upper bound.

    Sensitivity analysis

    The post does not show how the estimate moves in response to specific parameters — ridership, modal shift from car and air travel, construction cost intensity, financing cost, fare-revenue assumptions. A megaproject cost discussion without sensitivity analysis cannot support an informed public judgment.

    Benefit-cost framework

    A cost figure cannot, on its own, answer whether a project is a sound public investment. The standard framework — benefit-cost ratio and net present value — requires both quantified benefits and quantified costs, evaluated against alternative uses of the same capital. ALTO’s blog post discloses neither.

    Funding model in quantified terms

    “A blended model of private capital, fare revenues, and targeted public investment, with construction and operating risks shared with Cadence” describes a structure but does not quantify any of its components. The basic question — what share of the project’s lifetime cost is borne by the taxpayer versus the fare-paying passenger versus the private partner — cannot be answered from the post as written.

    None of these omissions are unique to ALTO. They are common features of project-promoter disclosures at the concept-screening stage of capital projects. But the public interest is in having them addressed, not in having them omitted from the only published cost statement.

    A parallel pattern

    What “self-sustaining” leaves out

    The definitional-line dynamic that runs through the AACE footnote also appears in the government’s parliamentary answers about whether public subsidies will be required.

    In response to Order Paper Question Q-923, answered April 22, 2026, the Minister of Transport stated that “operations are expected to be financially self-sustaining, with revenues covering operations and maintenance costs and eliminating the need for ongoing operating subsidies.” Independent academic analysis published by Transportation Research at McGill (Zhang, Negm, El-Geneidy, 2025) — a Queen’s- and NSERC-funded study that describes HSR throughout in favourable terms — reaches the same narrow conclusion about operations using ALTO’s own published cost figures, and then continues the calculation. The McGill model projects average annual public subsidies of approximately C$1.23 billion to cover capital-repayment obligations, totalling C$61.62 billion before the system reaches full cost recovery in Year 48. The “self-sustaining” framing is technically correct for operations narrowly defined; what it leaves out is the roughly C$3.66 billion in annual capital repayments the public pays separately.

    The structural pattern is identical to the AACE footnote: a technically accurate statement at the top, a definitional line drawn in language most readers will not unpack, and the substantive public obligation kept out of the headline. A reader who acts on the headlines alone — “$60–90 billion” and “self-sustaining operations” — arrives at a picture of the public commitment materially different from the picture the underlying technical material supports.

    A third gap

    What the procurement record shows that the public materials do not

    A third instance of the same definitional pattern surfaces in the Transport Canada Request for Proposal for Financial Advisory Services for the HSR Initiative (solicitation T8080-240075), published on 20 February 2026 and closed for bids on 25 March 2026 (extended to 10 April 2026). The 121-page RFP document — including the full Statement of Work in Annex form — specifies in detail the analytical work Transport Canada is procuring to support its own role during the Co-Development Phase.

    The RFP’s Purpose statement (section 2) identifies financial advisory services as the core scope and names three specific additional fields of expertise the contract will cover: human resources change management, land value capture and transit-oriented development, and independent oversight activities. These are not optional add-ons listed at the periphery. They are named on the second page of the Statement of Work as the project’s three named non-financial expertise streams.

    The Scope section (Part A) is more specific again. Under “Land Value Capture Advisory Services” and “Transit Oriented Development and Community Benefits Advisory Services,” the RFP enumerates five deliverables Transport Canada is procuring: analysis of the economic benefits of implementing transit-oriented developments along the HSR alignment; feasibility assessment of TOD and Community Benefits Agreement options; an integrated approach and implementation plan for TOD and CBAs; advice and assessment of the potential for land value capture in proximity to HSR stations; and a proposed funding model. A separate Housing Advisory Services stream commissions analysis of options for integrating affordable housing solutions as part of the HSR Initiative, including the implementation of CBAs and TOD.

    Neither land value capture nor transit-oriented development appears in ALTO’s May 8 cost-and-funding blog post. Neither concept is named in the public-facing materials on altotrain.ca describing how the project will be funded. The funding discussion in those materials is framed in terms of taxpayer contribution and operating revenue, with no reference to a funding model that would recover a share of project cost through the uplift in adjacent land values that high-speed stations are expected to generate — even though Transport Canada has now formally procured the advisory work to design exactly such a model.

    The point is not that LVC or TOD would necessarily be inappropriate. They are conventional financing tools for major rail infrastructure and have been deployed in comparable jurisdictions. The point is that the project sponsor is procuring the design of a funding model the public-facing materials do not mention exists. The Class 5 footnote leaves the cost methodology out of the headline; the “self-sustaining” framing leaves the capital-repayment obligation out of the headline; the public funding discussion leaves LVC, TOD, housing-linked advisory work, and the funding model they imply out of the headline. Three definitional gaps, one structural pattern.

    The same RFP also commissions independent oversight advisory services as a named stream — review of existing project management processes and governance, recommendations regarding process and governance improvements, recommendations regarding project controls and key performance indicators. The companion Technical Advisory Services contract for the same Co-Development Phase (solicitation T8080-240074) was awarded to Ramboll Canada Inc. on 19 January 2026 at C$4.5 million over 36 months. Read together, the two RFPs document Transport Canada building a dedicated independent advisory bench separate from Cadence and from ALTO HSR Inc. itself, which is the kind of sponsor-side challenge function the May 2026 UK Cabinet Office review of HS2 identifies as essential and as having failed in the British case. That Transport Canada is constructing this function is institutionally appropriate. What it advises on, what it produces, and how its findings flow into ministerial decisions all remain to be seen.

    For the next cost statement

    Three questions to ask

    Class 5 estimates are not, in principle, inadequate for public communication. They are part of how megaprojects are normally discussed at the concept stage. What is inadequate is presenting a Class 5 estimate as if it were a budget envelope, and burying the methodology in a footnote. The next time a federal infrastructure project releases a cost statement — from ALTO, or from any other proponent — three questions are worth asking.

    1. What is the AACE class of the estimate, and what accuracy range does that imply when applied to the stated figure? A Class 5 figure with a −50%/+100% band tells the public something very different from a Class 3 figure with a −20%/+30% band.
    2. What reference class of comparable past projects has been used to calibrate the estimate, and what does the historical outturn distribution for that reference class suggest about the realistic outturn range?
    3. What benefit-cost analysis accompanies the cost estimate, and what does it show about whether the project is a sound use of the same capital that could otherwise fund alternatives?

    ALTO’s May 8 post answers none of these questions clearly. Whether the answers, when disclosed, support proceeding with the project on the terms now contemplated is a separate question — but the public cannot evaluate that question from the information currently available.

    Sources

    Primary documents and references

    1.
    ALTO, “How Much Will Alto’s High-Speed Rail Cost Canadians and how is it Funded?”, blog post published May 8, 2026. altotrain.ca
    2.
    AACE International, Recommended Practice 18R-97, Cost Estimate Classification System — As Applied in Engineering, Procurement, and Construction for the Process Industries; and 56R-08, … for the Building and General Construction Industries. web.aacei.org
    3.
    Bent Flyvbjerg, Nils Bruzelius and Werner Rothengatter, Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
    4.
    Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, How Big Things Get Done, Currency, 2023.
    5.
    Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette K. Skamris Holm and Søren L. Buhl, “Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects: Error or Lie?”, Journal of the American Planning Association 68(3), 2002.
    6.
    HM Treasury, Optimism Bias, supplementary guidance to the Green Book. gov.uk
    7.
    California Legislative Analyst’s Office reports on the California High-Speed Rail Authority. lao.ca.gov
    8.
    UK National Audit Office, reports on HS2 including the post-cancellation update. nao.org.uk
    9.
    Order Paper Question Q-923, 45th Parliament, 1st session. Asked by Philip Lawrence (Northumberland–Clarke), March 5, 2026; answered by the Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, April 22, 2026. ourcommons.ca
    10.
    Zhang, B., Negm, H., & El-Geneidy, A. (2025). High-Speed Rail in Canada: Insights from a corridorwide survey and a financial analysis. Transportation Research at McGill, McGill University. Funded by Queen’s University and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
    11.
    Transport Canada, Request for Proposal T8080-240075, Financial Advisory Services to Transport Canada for the High-Speed Rail (HSR) Initiative, published 20 February 2026, bids closed 10 April 2026. The 121-page solicitation document, including the full Statement of Work, names land value capture / transit-oriented development, human resources change management, and independent oversight as three additional fields of expertise within the contract scope, and specifies five named LVC/TOD/Community Benefits deliverables including a proposed funding model. canadabuys.canada.ca
    12.
    Transport Canada, Contract Award Notice T8080-240074, Technical Advisory Services for the Co-Development Phase of the High-Speed Rail (HSR) Initiative. Awarded to Ramboll Canada Inc. on 19 January 2026 at C$4.5 million for a 36-month term ending 31 January 2029. Competitive open bidding, highest combined rating of technical merit and price. canadabuys.canada.ca
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Cost Estimation Brief  ·  Updated May 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.

  • Two targets

    Two Targets

    Ridership figures in ALTO’s 2025-26 Corporate Plan and current public materials, side by side.

    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative · Ridership Brief · Published May 6, 2026 · Public consultation closed April 24, 2026
    In current ALTO materials

    ALTO’s Corporate Plan Summary 2025-2026 to 2029-30 — the formal accountability document submitted to the Minister of Transport for Treasury Board approval, signed by the Chief Financial Officer in January 2025 — cites a Project Outcome of at least 17 million annual passenger trips by 2059, defined to include “both Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services.”

    ALTO’s consultation website, as of May 6, 2026, continues to host a CEO opinion piece projecting 24 million passengers annually by 2055, “fully consistent with international outcomes.” A Globe and Mail editorial citing the same source extended this to 43 million by the 2080s. altotrain.ca

    Summary

    Two ridership figures currently appear in ALTO documents. The figure listed as Project Outcome #1 in the Corporate Plan submitted for Treasury Board approval is 17 million by 2059, defined to include both Alto Passenger Rail Services and the continuation of VIA Rail’s conventional Local Services. The figure in current public-facing materials is 24 million by 2055, rising to 43 million by 2084, presented in reference to Alto.

    The 17 million figure is the same target set in the 2023 Request for Qualifications, when the project was specified as 177 km/h High Frequency Rail at an estimated capital cost of $27.7 billion. It carries forward into the current Corporate Plan, which describes the project as 300 km/h high-speed rail at a Class 4 capital cost estimate of $60–90 billion. The Corporate Plan does not record a formal revision of the figure when the specification changed.

    This brief sets out what each document says, when each figure was published, and what other publicly available evidence indicates about ridership at the corridor scale. It does not draw conclusions about which figure is the operative one. The purpose is to make the documentary record visible.

    Download
    Two Targets — Full Brief (PDF)
    Documentary record of ALTO ridership figures across 2021–2026 publications
    Download PDF
    The Setting

    Why ridership figures matter for accountability

    A megaproject’s ridership projection anchors several other figures: the revenue model, the benefit-cost ratio, the modal-shift carbon argument, and the agglomeration economic case. When a ridership projection moves, related figures move with it.

    For ALTO, two ridership figures are currently visible in the public record. They appear in different documents, communicated to different audiences. This brief sets the two figures alongside each other, with the document trail and the available comparator evidence, and identifies the questions that would resolve which figure is the operative one.

    The brief is not an assessment of either figure on the merits. It is an assemblage of what has been published, in chronological order, with the structural definitions of each figure made explicit. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions.

    A note on dating the Corporate Plan

    The Corporate Plan Summary 2025-26 to 2029-30 carries a CFO attestation dated January 7, 2025. Several elements of its content, however, post-date that signature: it describes the February 2025 HSR announcement and Cadence selection, the March 2025 PDA execution, Stage 1 of Co-Development as having “occurred from April 2025 to July 2025,” and workforce figures “as of May 2025.” Appendix 12’s chronology ends with August 2025. The document was therefore finalised in approximately mid-2025, with the CFO attestation date preserved as the formal accountability anchor. References in this brief to the Corporate Plan should be read with that timing in mind.

    Side by Side

    The two figures, in their own words

    Both figures appear in current ALTO materials. Both are being communicated to different audiences in May 2026.

    Public Materials · May 6, 2026Corporate Plan to Treasury Board · 2025-26
    24 million by 2055, rising to 43 million by 2084

    From the Imbleau opinion piece originally published in the Toronto Star and La Presse on April 17, 2026, reposted on the consultation site as of May 6, 2026:

    “Alto’s projected 24 million passengers annually by 2055 is fully consistent with international outcomes, based on the modelling used worldwide.”

    The Globe and Mail editorial citing the same source extended this to “43 million by the 2080s, up from three million today.”

    This figure is referenced in connection with the project’s benefit-cost claims, the 1.1% GDP uplift estimate, and the 50,000-job projection.    		 At least 17 million by 2059

    From the Corporate Plan Summary 2025-26 to 2029-30, Project Outcome #1, signed by the CFO January 7, 2025:

    “Significantly Increase Intercity Rail Passengers to at least 17 million by 2059 through both the new passenger rail services (NPRS Services) and Local Services through increased annual seat capacity.”

    The same figure appears in Appendix 9 (Long-term Outcomes) as: “up from 4.8 million in 2019, including both Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services.”

    This is the figure listed as a Project Outcome in the document submitted for Treasury Board approval.

    Three observations about the two figures, drawn from the documents themselves:

    The 17 million figure includes Local Services

    The Corporate Plan target counts “Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services” together. Local Services is the planning term, defined in the Corporate Plan’s glossary, for VIA Rail’s continuing conventional service in the Quebec City–Windsor corridor. The 24 million public figure, as presented, is referenced in connection with Alto. The two figures therefore measure across different scopes.

    The 17 million figure carries forward unchanged from the 2023 RFQ

    17 million by 2059 was the Project Outcome attached to the 2023 Request for Qualifications, when the project was specified as 177 km/h High Frequency Rail at an estimated capital cost of $27.7 billion. The same figure, with the same target year, appears in the Corporate Plan that describes the project as 300 km/h high-speed rail at a Class 4 cost estimate of $60–90 billion. Project Outcomes are formally established in procurement documents and are not trivially revised; the Corporate Plan does not record a revision to this figure on either the specification change or the cost-envelope change.

    The two figures use different baseline years

    The Corporate Plan cites a 4.8 million baseline from 2019 (pre-COVID). The Imbleau opinion piece cites “three million today.” VIA Rail’s 2024 Annual Report records 4.19 million corridor passengers, of which 3.34 million on Corridor East. The growth multiplier from each baseline to its corresponding target therefore differs.

    Document Trail

    When each figure was published

    The chronology below sets out the principal ALTO ridership figures in the public record, in order of publication.

    DateDocumentHeadline ridership figure
    December 2021 JPO Business Case Update v.002
    VIA / CIB internal (released via ATI, November 2025)    		 405M cumulative30-year cumulative trips 2030–2059 for HFR Electric scenario, an average of approximately 13.5 million per year. BCR ~ 0.4. NPV −$21.1 billion.
    February 2023 Request for Qualifications (HFR)
    PSPC, 126 pp.    		 17M by 2059The Project Outcome attached to the 177 km/h HFR specification at an approximate $27.7B capital cost. Zero operating subsidy was a parallel commitment.
    February 2025 HSR announcement
    Government of Canada    		 Specification changeProject rebranded from 177 km/h HFR to 300 km/h HSR. Cadence selected as Private Developer Partner. $3.9B Co-Development Phase funding announced.
    March 2025 Fast Forward: Shaping Canada’s Future
    ALTO public document    		 24M by 2055
    43M by 2084    Stated baseline of “3 million today.” Used in subsequent ALTO public materials and consultation graphics; cited in the Globe and Mail editorial.
    CFO signature
    Jan 7, 2025
    (finalised
    mid-2025)    		 Corporate Plan Summary 2025-26 to 2029-30
    Treasury Board submission    		 17M by 2059Listed as Project Outcome #1. Defined to include “both Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services.” 4.8M (2019) baseline. CFO attestation dated January 7, 2025; document content references events through summer 2025.
    April 17, 2026 Imbleau opinion piece
    Toronto Star · La Presse · ALTO website    		 24M by 2055Published one week before the consultation deadline. Described as “fully consistent with international outcomes, based on the modelling used worldwide.” Reposted on ALTO’s consultation site, where it remains as of May 6, 2026.

    The chronology has a feature worth surfacing on its own. The 24 million and 43 million figures first appear in the Fast Forward document of March 2025. The Corporate Plan, finalised in approximately mid-2025, references only the 17 million figure as a Project Outcome and does not mention, footnote, or otherwise acknowledge the higher Fast Forward figures. The April 2026 Imbleau opinion piece reverts to the 24 million figure for public-facing communications.

    In other words: since at least March 2025, the two figures have been running on parallel tracks. The lower figure has appeared in formal accountability documents (the Corporate Plan submitted for Treasury Board approval). The higher figure has appeared in public-facing communications (the Fast Forward document, the consultation website, the CEO’s opinion pieces, and external commentary citing them). Neither document has reconciled the two, and neither has stated which is the operative ridership target.

    Adjacent Disclosure

    The cost figure, in the same period

    The Imbleau opinion piece of April 17, 2026 contains the following statement on the project’s capital cost:

    “In order to finalize project cost, we need to know what is being built and where. We must choose the best alignment through consultation. Then comes detailed engineering for bridges, tunnels and the design; a 320 km/h train requires millimeter level precision.”

    The publicly cited Class 4 capital cost estimate is $60–90 billion. The Co-Development Phase funding of $3.9 billion has been approved and is being expended over fiscal years 2024-25 to 2029-30 per the Corporate Plan. The CEO’s statement above appears in the same publication on the same day as the 24 million ridership figure cited earlier in this brief.

    This brief makes no inference about the relationship between the cost statement and the ridership figures. They are presented here together because they appear in the same document and are part of the documentary record currently available to the public.

    Comparator Evidence

    Other publicly available ridership analyses for the corridor

    For context, three additional sources of corridor ridership analysis are part of the public record. Each uses a different methodology and a different scope.

    Munk School Global Economic Policy Lab (Toronto–Montréal segment only)

    The University of Toronto’s Global Economic Policy Lab published an analysis projecting 9.44 million annual passengers by year 20 and 10.45 million by year 30 on the Toronto–Montréal segment, which the GEPL identified as generating 57% of total corridor ridership. Scaled to the full corridor on the GEPL’s own segment-share assumption, this implies approximately 16–17 million by year 20. This is the only independent academic modelling exercise for the corridor that has been published with a disclosed methodology.

    JPO Business Case Update v.002 (December 2021, ATI release)

    The Joint Project Office Business Case Update released through Access to Information by the Canada Infrastructure Bank in November 2025 projects 405 million cumulative trips over 30 years (2030–2059) for the HFR Electric scenario, an average of approximately 13.5 million per year. The same document records a benefit-cost ratio of approximately 0.4 and a 30-year NPV of −$21.1 billion against a $27.7B capital cost baseline.

    VIA Rail Annual Report 2024 (current corridor baseline)

    The most recent published actual corridor ridership figure is 4,191,080 passengers in 2024, of which 3,336,057 on Corridor East (Quebec City–Toronto). The Montréal–Ottawa–Toronto segment alone carried 2,314,024 passengers. These figures were achieved with on-time performance averaging 51% for the year.

    No reconciliation between the ALTO 17 million Corporate Plan figure, the ALTO 24 million public figure, and these comparator analyses has been published.

    From the Documentary Record

    Five things visible in the public record

    Without drawing inferences about motive or intent, five observations can be made directly from the documents reviewed for this brief.

    1. The two figures have been running on parallel tracks since March 2025

    The 24 million figure was introduced in the Fast Forward document of March 2025. The Corporate Plan was finalised in approximately mid-2025; it references only the 17 million figure as a Project Outcome and does not mention or footnote the Fast Forward figures. Both figures remain in active circulation in May 2026: the 17 million figure in the Corporate Plan, the 24 million figure in the consultation website and the CEO’s April 2026 opinion piece.

    2. The two figures have different scopes

    The 17 million figure is defined as “Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services” combined. The 24 million figure, as presented in the Imbleau opinion piece, references Alto. The Corporate Plan does not break the 17 million figure into Alto-component and Local-Services-component shares.

    3. The 17 million figure was set under the previous specification

    17 million by 2059 was the Project Outcome attached to the 2023 RFQ for the 177 km/h HFR specification at $27.7B. The same figure carries forward into the Corporate Plan that describes the project as 300 km/h HSR at $60–90B, without a recorded revision to the target.

    4. The capital cost is also presented as a working figure

    The CEO has publicly stated that “in order to finalize project cost, we need to know what is being built and where.” The Class 4 estimate of $60–90 billion is, on this account, a working figure pending corridor selection and detailed engineering. The Co-Development Phase funding of $3.9 billion has been approved and is being expended.

    5. Independent ridership review remains unpublished

    The Parliamentary Budget Officer has not published a review of either the cost or the ridership figures. The only independent academic modelling exercise for the corridor with a disclosed methodology, the Munk School GEPL analysis, projects approximately 16–17 million for the full corridor by year 20 of operation.

    Where things stand · May 6, 2026

    Disclosure ledger

    The following items are, or are not, currently in the public record.

    Disclosed
    Corporate Plan ridership figure: 17 million by 2059, including Alto Passenger Rail Services and Local Services. Corporate Plan Summary 2025-26 to 2029-30, Project Outcome #1.
    Disclosed
    Public-facing ridership figure: 24 million by 2055, rising to 43 million by 2084. Fast Forward (March 2025); Imbleau opinion piece (April 2026); ALTO consultation website (current).
    Partial
    Definition of the 17M target. Disclosed in Appendix 9 of the Corporate Plan as including Local Services, but not surfaced in summary communications about the figure.
    Not disclosed
    Demand modelling methodology for either the 17 million or the 24 million figure. No model documentation, elasticity assumptions, modal-shift coefficients, or sensitivity analysis has been published for either figure.
    Not disclosed
    Reconciliation between the two figures. No public ALTO statement explaining the relationship between the Corporate Plan figure and the public-marketing figure, or stating which is intended to be the operative ridership target.
    Not disclosed
    The Alto-only share of the 17M target. The Corporate Plan does not break the 17 million into the share attributable to high-speed services and the share attributable to Local Services.
    Not disclosed
    Updated benefit-cost ratio for the current 300 km/h HSR specification at $60–90 billion capital cost against the 17M ridership target. The last published BCR (~0.4) was calculated against the $27.7B HFR specification.
    Not disclosed
    Door-to-door journey time projection from representative origin points, accounting for the now-likely suburban Toronto station and Tremblay Ottawa terminus. The 24M figure is presumed to assume downtown-to-downtown service that is no longer the operating reality.
    Not disclosed
    Independent demand audit results from the Parliamentary Budget Officer or comparable independent body, against either the 17M or the 24M figure.
    Download Full Brief
    Two Targets (PDF)
    Documentary record of ALTO ridership figures, with comparator analyses
    Download PDF
    Questions for the Minister and the PBO

    Six questions that would resolve the disclosure gaps

    The following questions, addressed to the Minister of Transport and to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, would surface the items currently undisclosed.

    Question 1 “Which is ALTO’s operative ridership target: the 17 million by 2059 figure in the Corporate Plan submitted for Treasury Board approval, or the 24 million by 2055 figure in the Corporation’s consultation materials and the CEO’s opinion pieces?”
    Question 2 “Will ALTO publish a breakdown of the 17 million Project Outcome figure into the share attributable to Alto Passenger Rail Services and the share attributable to Local Services?”
    Question 3 “Will ALTO publish the demand modelling methodology, elasticity assumptions, modal-shift coefficients, and sensitivity ranges underpinning both the 17 million and the 24 million figures?”
    Question 4 “What is the updated benefit-cost ratio for the current 300 km/h high-speed rail specification at the Class 4 capital cost estimate of $60–90 billion, calculated against the 17 million Treasury Board ridership target?”
    Question 5 “Has the Parliamentary Budget Officer been asked to review the ridership and cost figures underpinning ALTO’s benefit-cost case, and if so, what is the expected timeline for publication of that review?”
    Question 6 “Given the Corporation’s acknowledgment that ‘in order to finalize project cost, we need to know what is being built and where,’ what is the formal status of the $60–90 billion capital cost figure relative to the $3.9 billion in Co-Development Phase funding already committed?”
    Sources

    Primary documents

    1.
    VIA HFR–VIA TGF Inc. (Alto), “Corporate Plan Summary 2025-2026 to 2029-30,” submitted to the Minister of Transport for Treasury Board approval, signed by the Chief Financial Officer January 7, 2025. Project Outcome #1 (Executive Summary, Appendix 2, Appendix 9, Appendix 13).
    2.
    Martin Imbleau, “High-speed rail is not a leap of faith: Why it matters for Canada’s growth,” opinion piece published Toronto Star and La Presse, April 17, 2026; reposted on ALTO consultation website. altotrain.ca (retrieved May 6, 2026)
    3.
    ALTO, “Fast Forward: Shaping Canada’s Future with a High-Speed Rail Network,” explanatory document, March 2025.
    4.
    Public Services and Procurement Canada, “Request for Qualifications — High Frequency Rail Project (RFQ No. T8128-210188/C),” February 17, 2023. Project Outcomes including 17M ridership by 2059 and zero operating subsidy. 126 pages.
    5.
    VIA Rail Canada / Canada Infrastructure Bank, “JPO Business Case Update v.002,” December 2021. Released through Access to Information by CIB, November 2025. Source for 405M cumulative trips, BCR ~0.4, and 30-year NPV of −$21.1B for HFR Electric option.
    6.
    VIA Rail Canada, “Annual Report 2024,” published 2025. 2024 actual corridor ridership: 4,191,080 passengers; Corridor East subtotal: 3,336,057; Montréal–Ottawa–Toronto segment: 2,314,024.
    7.
    The Globe and Mail, editorial referencing ALTO ridership projections: “projected ridership numbers – 24 million trips annually, in the 2050s, rising to 43 million by the 2080s, up from three million today.”
    8.
    Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto, Global Economic Policy Lab analysis of Toronto–Montréal HSR ridership: 9.44 million by year 20; 10.45 million by year 30 on Toronto–Montréal segment (57% of corridor).
    ALTO HSR Citizen Research Initiative  ·  citizenresearch.ca  ·  Ridership Brief  ·  May 6, 2026
    Independent, non-partisan research on the proposed Toronto–Quebec City high-speed rail corridor.