CANADA: Project promoter Alto expects to make an announcement this autumn setting out more precise details of the high speed rail corridor planned to link Toronto, Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Laval, Trois-Rivières and Québec City.
This follows the completion on April 24 of what Alto says is one of the most extensive public consultation initiatives ever conducted in Canada. It expects to publish a report in June detailing its key findings and insights as it moves from corridor-level analysis to a more defined alignment.
‘We made a deliberate choice to engage early, and we used the past 100 days to listen to communities to better understand their realities’, Alto President & CEO Martin Imbleau said on April 27. ‘We value the significant number of people who took the time to share their views and suggestions with us, as well as their criticisms and concerns. All of this feedback will help us find the right balance to design a project that reduces impacts on communities while delivering lasting benefits across the entire corridor.’
The three-month consultation included 26 in-person open house events, 10 virtual sessions, 32 stakeholder roundtables and speaking to more than 10 000 people in rural and urban communities across Ontario and Quebec. The consultation portal recorded 324 026 unique visits, 24 142 questionnaires were completed and an interactive map collected 19 903 comments. Exit surveys from the open houses show that 70% of attendees were satisfied with the information they received.
Broader community engagement work with Indigenous communities, provinces, municipalities and special interest groups is ongoing.