Canada

That's how it was in Italy. The train can go slow on the snail-trail within the city, then go pedal to the metal on the new track outside. That said I suspect Alto might be able to buy dedicated track to downtown MTL. The Lakeshore corridor in the GTA which goes through Union has gov't owned track for GO.

Or a new hub forms around the train station where it ends up.

This is just pessimism. A project like high speed rail makes Montreal closer to Toronto than Ottawa was. People will build around it just like the build around every huge transportation project.

There are a number of ideas of how to go through Montreal, one alternative is making like a Y shaped pattern through Lucien-L'Allier (a commuter rail end station). Still would require a big detour.

Good point, though it feels like there’s already uncertainty being stoked in the media questioning how much longer this government will last in power. I don’t think that was even the case under Trudeau when he got his last minority government with much fewer seats than Carney.

Suffice to say, I really want to see some ground breaking on the project but I won’t hold high hopes until we get to that point.

We are already decades behind on rail. Given Canada's track record on this, we will probably debate and delay the project until it is significantly outdated by the time it is completed.

As someone trying to live without a car, this is very disappointing to see, if not expected. Alto looks like any other new shiny highway announcement. I understand very well that this is badly needed, but beyond that, there's apparently no federal (nor provincial in my case) plan to have any kind of coherent transit system/network.

I could live with the delays and late trains but Via Rail's pricing scheme is literally discouraging people from taking the train. And that's if there are still trains (or even coaches). It's impossible to go in lots of cities without a car now, when it wasn't before. The town where I grew up was founded mainly by the Grand Trunk, had passenger trains for more than a century, but they were discontinued in the mid 90ies, by Paul Martin and the Liberals.

Meanwhile I'm watching videos about "rail route reactivation" and renewal in Germany. From the perspective of someone without a car, this is bad. It seems like the federal government wants people like me to abandon trains/buses/bikes and drive a car everywhere.

I wish Alto wasn't the new shiny thing where they'd dump all the money while forgetting about what's left of the current crumbling infrastructure. I've lived more than two decades without a car but by the time Alto is finished, I'll probably own one because every other coach, train, and transit service will have been cut.