I’ve looked into traveling by via rail many times and it’s just ridiculously expensive. I can’t afford it. I’d love to embrace slow travel but the plane is so much cheaper.
Same, I’ve wanted to do the rail stuff even though I know it’s not as nice as in Europe etc, but it’s prohibitively expensive to do the sleeper cars. I still want to save up for one eventually and I think VIA gives discounts sometimes
Bus… like Greyhound?
That hasn’t existed west of Ontario for… maybe a decade? I can’t remember, it’s been so long.
Or do you mean VIA rail, which has only 3 trains a week in this half of the country?
It’s hard to embrace something that barely exists (or that stopped existing a very long time ago).
If I was an independently wealthy aristocrat doing a grand tour by myself, then I would be all over this.
As a wage slave parent with limited time off, it is less attractive.
I remember being trapped on Canada’s slow trains and buses as a kid - it was incredibly boring. Staring out the window works for a while, but without other kids, regular breaks, or any kind of fun entertainment it felt like a punishment. When I get a chance to travel with my kids, I’d prefer that they don’t have that experience.
Having said that, a real transit network that got people around quickly, cheaply, and without producing too many GHGs would be vastly preferable to our shitty patchwork of trains and buses.
Slow travel — a movement which favours ferries, trains and buses over traditionally speedier modes of transportation and moments of pause over action-packed sightseeing — has been gaining steam as of late.
… *sigh
Slow travel is good, but we should have high speed trains also, like every other developed country.
Lets not try to paint our slow and outdated trains as something good
Sorry if my comment was vague (I didn’t find it vague when I commented).
I was merely lamenting the fact that the author states that trains, ferries, and buses as slower modes of transport as if it’s simply a fact and not just a lamentable general truth in Canada.
My comment wasnt directed at you. Just the text you quoted from the article
We are on the same page, :)
The Kingston, Ontario bus should honestly be the 2 bus to downtown (as of writing it goes from Train station through Queen’sU campus to downtown), it runs half-hourly and doesn’t require any walking to the road.
