CANADA’S HIGH SPEED RAIL EMBARRASMENT

Uzbekistan vs Canada

Paul Langan, Founder High Speed Rail Canada, March 18th, 2015 1

It is hard to imagine what it would take to wake up the Harper government into understanding the need to bring Canada into the modern era of passenger rail. We would like to highlight examples to the Harper government of how absurd the situation is in Canada compared to the rest of the world. This short article will compare Uzbekistan high speed trains and the possibility of at least a Toronto to Montreal high speed rail concept.(still conceptual after 20 studies!) Now you might say where is Uzbekistan? Uzbekistan is bordered by five countries: Kazakhstan and the Aral Sea to the north; Tajikistan to the southeast; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Now you know! Wikipedia states fun facts like: 1. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country. It is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world(that is, a country completely surrounded by landlocked countries) 2. Less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert (Kyzyl Kum) and mountains. 3. Non-governmental human rights watchdogs, such as IHF, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, as well as United States Department of State and Council of the European Union define Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights" and express profound concern about "wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights". So it is a real fun place but they do have high speed trains. The Talgo 250 trains (Afrosiyab) run between Samarkand (pop. 708,000) and Tashkent (pop.- 2.137 million) for a distance of 344km. Toronto Metro Population 6 million (2.7 city) and Montreal Metro Population 4 million (1.6 city) is a distance of 504km. So we have more people at the end points then Uzbekistan but they still have the high speed trains. Hmmm.. It must be because the quality of life is better in Uzbekistan than Canada. Uzbekistan must have a higher standard of living for its citizens. That is why they have high speed rail and we do not. Unfortunately the data just does not support Uzbekistan being superior to Canada in anyway. (Okay they have deserts!) The World Bank GNI per capita (formerly GNP per capita) is the gross national income, converted to U.S. dollars using the World Bank Atlas method, divided by the midyear population. Okay that’s tricky to understand show me the graph!

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UZBEKISTAN

CANADA

How about some simple stuff we all can understand? Canadians live longer, 81 yrs. life expectancy compared to 68 yrs. for those born in Uzbekistan. The Gross Domestic Product,( GDP ) estimates are commonly used to measure the economic performance of a whole country. The GDP for Canada is $1.518 trillion. Per capita is $43,146 (9th in the world) The GDP for Uzbekistan is $123.577 billion, Per capita is $4,038 (135th in the world). So without a doubt Canada is an economic power house compared to Uzbekistan, Yet Uzbekistan had the vision to modernize their passenger rail system while Canada stagnates with 1970s train speeds. With the election coming up ask your candidate the simple question, "Why does Uzbekistan have faster and more modern trains than Canada?". Better yet email your federal member of parliament the same question now. Ask for a response. It should be fun. Take care,

Paul Langan, Founder High Speed Rail Canada http: //highspeedrail.ca

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