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Some southwestern Ontario mayors are pushing for passenger rail improvements as Ottawa moves forward with its high-speed rail project in eastern Ontario.
The federal government asked Alto, the Crown corporation in charge of the project, on Monday to consider a stop in Kingston, Ont., in addition to its planned stations in Québec City, Trois-Rivières, Laval, Montréal, Ottawa, Peterborough and Toronto.
There is much focus on delivering the project, but there is a growing need to address track improvements, station upgrades and current passenger rail, said London Mayor Josh Morgan.
Even though southwestern Ontario is left out of the high-speed rail plan, improvements would make it easier for residents to connect to Alto faster.
“There are easy, short-term things that are way less costly that can dramatically improve rail travel in southwestern Ontario all the way from Toronto to Windsor,” Morgan said. “That creates a connection from Chicago to Montreal, eventually.”
Those short-term improvements, which potentially include a customs facility in Windsor that would help connect U.S. Amtrak riders to the region by VIA Rail and eventually Alto, were discussed at a meeting with U.S. officials last week, Morgan said.
However, recently VIA Rail regulations are making passenger rail less enticing, he added.
VIA Rail must currently reduce its speed at public crossings in southwestern Ontario after a rule change in 2024 by CN Rail. But with the tracks owned by CN, it also means passenger trains are often sidelined.
“If there’s a freight train coming through, the passenger train has to move over to a side rail and then they have to wait for the freight train to come by and then they follow the slow freight train,” said Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis.
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Just 35 per cent of VIA Rail trains were on time in 2025, according to the Crown corporation, a drop from 51 per cent in 2024.
“I think eventually we in southwestern Ontario would want to see high-speed rail, but we’re trying to be realistic and look at what could be accomplished without spending tens of hundreds of millions in the next, you know, 10, 20 years,” said Davis.
The group urged commitments to be included in the next federal budget, as well as money for the customs facility in Windsor, Morgan said. Michigan has already committed money for the project, but Canada hasn’t.
Such changes would take time, said Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto.
“Any expansion of service requires detailed negotiations and often costly fixes in order to make them and make it viable to expand service in the existing corridor,” Siemiatycki said.
“It (also) becomes more than just adding additional trains — it’s having to expand and build new infrastructure and it’s hugely costly.”
Morgan said the mayors would like to see Ottawa legislate passenger rail prioritization, having freights move to the side to allow faster-speed VIA Rail trains to go first.
“Someone’s got to mediate better passenger rail priority with the major freight railways,” Morgan said.
Especially, he said, given the newest trains produced by the Crown corporation can reach speeds of 200 km/h. Freights, according to Transport Canada, can only hit a maximum of 96 km/h up to 128 km/h depending on the type of track it’s on.
The London mayor said that’s why track improvements are needed, as side rails along the corridor are only big enough for passenger trains to fit. It would need to be changed if freights were to move aside.
Legislating such a priority would also take work, given CN owns a large portion of the rails, Siemiatycki said.
Yet that doesn’t mean the government shouldn’t take more action, he added.
“I do think there’s a role for the federal government to start being more direct about the relationship with the freight rail and trying to carve out more benefit for the passenger side,” he said. “The federal government can play a more robust role in trying to level that playing field.”
Morgan told Global News that while the federal government itself hasn’t announced anything yet, he and his fellow mayors have heard from several government MPs and representatives in the Prime Minister’s Office.
“So it’s on the radar and I would say we have strong advocates in the governing party in southwestern Ontario who are advocates for better rail service,” Morgan said.
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