Is there opposition to high-speed rail in #Canada?
Yes. The media, loving a conflict narrative, amplifies the voices of the few property-owners who are protesting Alto.
But guess what? A new Abacus poll shows broad, cross-party support for the project.
62% for, only 18% against...
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The study was commissioned by AltNo, a protest group, who can't be happy with the results. The project is especially popular with young people, who are hungry for transport alternatives.
Here's a link to the full report:
https://www.altno.ca/_files/ugd/f1a60d_f91a3f0ada144cb981f03a0da603e347.pdf
Failing Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has urged cancellation of the projectβin spite of the fact that high-speed rail was CPC policy, and only 25% of Conservatives polled oppose it.
I dig into what's behind the attempts to make modern, sustainable transport (high-speed trains now run in 28 countries) into a Canadian culture-war issue in this High Speed dispatch:
@straphanger
Canada lacks gun-control and abortion as stand-ins for substantive debates on things like wealth inequality and land-reform
So we get bike paths
@straphanger The campaign works well, unfortunately: one of my friends has gone either reactionary or NIMBY.
She is very active on their facebook page. Facebook facepalm.
If an American company wanted to do it, he'd be all in favour and bend over backwards to change laws and expropriate the land ASAP.
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AccordionBruce
Andrea Bianchi
Hamish Buchanan