Up to 25 trains per day planned for Toronto to Quebec high-speed rail

“Every 30 minutes rain or shine, flexibility to choose between early meetings or evening visits with families,” he said.

VIA currently operates five round trips per day between the two cities. Imbleau said the new rail line has to be consistent and high quality to succeed.

“The offer creates the demand. People drop their car when it’s convenient, it’s fast and it’s reliable,” he said. “Each train will be built with comfort and efficiency. We think the journey itself should be part of the experience.”

Montreal, Laval and Ottawa will be the first three cities connected on the line that will ultimately also connect Toronto, Peterborough, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City. To make the service attractive there will be express trains between the largest cities so people choose the line over flying or travelling by car, Imbleau said. 

Project officials are pledging to cut travel times in half with electrified trains travelling at speeds in excess of 300 kilometres an hour. That would mean reducing travel time between Ottawa and Toronto to two hours and Montreal to Toronto to three hours.  

Imbleau, who is based in Montreal, said he flies to Toronto for meetings today and drives to Ottawa. 

Currently, 96 per cent of VIA’s traffic is on the Quebec City to Windsor corridor. But even with more than four million trips on those routes, the government subsidizes every passenger at a cost of about $45, according to VIA’s latest annual report. 

Imbleau said the project won’t cover the $60 billion to $90 billion in estimated capital costs, but he is confident that with enough ridership the operating costs could be covered without a government subsidy. Alto’s plan is to have 24 million trips taken on the new rail line by 2055. 

Imbleau points to a Spanish high-speed rail project that linked Barcelona and Madrid as an example of a success story. He said 30 per cent of the trips on that route come from people who didn’t travel at all before the high-speed line was in place. 

Last year, the rail project was referred to the Major Projects Office for possible designation as a nation-building project. It has the funding to complete all of the necessary design work and the Ottawa- Montreal segment was announced as the first part to move ahead in December. 

Imbleau told the business crowd Tuesday he expects 2026 to be a year focused on consultations, but the full alignment will be finalized this year. He said the project would then require two more years of construction, before contracts could be issued in 2029 and full construction could begin in 2030. The first segment is expected to take seven years to complete. 

He said the project would be a boost to Canada’s GDP, calling it a “weapon of mass construction.”

“In its first segment alone, we’re talking thousands of tons of steel and concrete and significant quantities of copper and aluminum,” he said. 

The government gave Alto expropriation powers to assemble the necessary land, but Imbleau said they hope to reach mutually beneficial agreements with any landowners impacted by the route.