In last week’s Fast Track editorial, we made the case that Ontario can no longer afford to delay a high-speed rail network. Today, we go deeper. It’s time to look at the plan itself.
What makes GTA Weekly’s vision unique is that it isn’t a single rail line—it’s a provincial network. With five major corridors spanning the north, south, east, and west, the High-Speed Rail Ontario Network (HSRON) has the potential to revolutionize movement across the province. Here’s what you need to know.
Line 1: Windsor to Ottawa
The central spine of the HSRON system, Line 1 would link Southwestern Ontario to the national capital. The route includes:
- Windsor
- Chatham
- London
- Guelph
- Kitchener / Waterloo
- Pearson Airport
- Toronto
- Peterborough
- Ottawa
This line would unlock major housing and employment corridors while offering fast airport access and enabling intercity commutes between multiple urban hubs.
Line 2: Niagara Falls to Ottawa
As the southernmost route, Line 2 hugs the Lake Ontario shoreline and connects:
- Niagara Falls
- St. Catharines
- Hamilton
- Toronto
- Durham
- Belleville
- Kingston
- Ottawa
This line would boost tourism, bring Eastern and Western Ontario closer, and offer an alternative to Highway 401 congestion.
Line 3: Toronto to Sudbury
A critical central-northern link, Line 3 would provide a fast and efficient connection between the Greater Toronto Area and Ontario’s resource-rich north:
- Toronto
- Barrie
- Parry Sound
- Sudbury
This line would support the movement of people, goods, and talent between southern Ontario’s economic core and the northern gateway to mining, energy, and innovation sectors.
Line 4: Toronto to North Bay
A direct north-south spine, Line 4 would link:
- Toronto
- Barrie
- Huntsville
- North Bay
This line supports northern growth while offering new development opportunities along the Hwy 11 corridor.
Line 5: Ottawa to Sudbury
The most northern of the five lines, Line 5 creates a crucial east-west link across Northern Ontario:
- Ottawa
- Pembroke
- North Bay
- Sudbury
This route is designed to connect eastern and central northern communities, improving regional mobility, expanding economic access, and serving as a foundational step toward greater Northern infrastructure.
This is how Ontario finally connects its northeast and northwest—bringing economic opportunity to remote regions and ensuring the Ring of Fire is within reach of a world-class rail system.
A Network Worth Building
Each line carries its own economic logic, but together they form a complete ecosystem. Commuters, tourists, students, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs would all benefit. And the environment? Fewer emissions. Less highway pressure. More rail.
Next week, we look at how high-speed rail could transform life for residents in Ontario’s smaller cities—from Sudbury to Windsor.
🚃 Fast Track is GTA Weekly’s weekly call to action for building Ontario’s high-speed future—because bold infrastructure moves us all.
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The proposed high speed rail line from Toronto to Montreal and Ottawa started as an ice for for a much cheaper “hight frequency rail” line using and existing but mainly unused CP rail line that went through Peterborough but hardly any other community on the way to Ottawa and Montreal. Surprisingly the federal government decided to make the project “high speed”. and much more expensive.
Higher speed lines in other countries actually go through existing communities and some trains stop in the them.. I have travelled on the high speed line from Paris to Marseilles and Nice, but it also stopes in Lyon, Valence, Orange, Avignon, and even much smaller Monteiimar. Only a few trains stop at the smaller communities, but they are well used. In some cases the main line goes past the communities, but a few trains are diverted onto existing line to visit them. In Ontario existing VIA trains travel through Oshawa, Port Hope, Cobourg, Belleville, Trenton, Kingston, Brockville, Cornwall and other places. I t would be better if our new hight speed trains continue to serve real existing communities such as this. Southern Ontario. may be more highly densely populated than the rest of Canada. but in reality there is mainly just open spaces including agriculture. and forests between communities. If the cost of the high speed project has increased so much it would probably be possible to build the new hight speed line much nearer to Lake Ontario to actually serve existing communities.