Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) released a cost analysis for Alto’s proposed high‑speed rail line on October 1 2026. The PBO’s central estimate is C$75 billion, with an upper bound of C$113 billion, a range that exceeds the government’s own C$60 billion to C$90 billion estimate. All figures are expressed in 2024 Canadian dollars and cover only the baseline route, excluding the southern Kingston option that the government asked Alto to assess on June 22 2026. The report is the first of two parts; a follow‑up will evaluate whether projected ridership can sustain operations.
The analysis draws on a Transit Cost Project database from New York University’s Marron Institute, covering 94 dedicated high‑speed lines. For 57 of those lines, detailed data allowed the PBO to assess how tunnels, elevated track, start year and region affect cost per kilometre. Alto is assumed to be no longer than 850 kilometres of new track, roughly the road distance between Toronto and Quebec City via Ottawa and Montreal. This yields a government range of about C$71 million to C$106 million per kilometre, while the PBO’s own figure is C$88 million to C$133 million, compared with an international median of C$82 million.
The PBO identified two cost‑intensive stretches: a 15‑kilometre tunnel under Mount Royal to link Laval and Montreal, and a 130‑kilometre section between Ottawa and Peterborough that would cross the Canadian Shield, requiring extensive rock cutting and filling. Each additional kilometre of tunnel adds roughly C$169 million (range C$142 million to C$196 million), and each kilometre of elevated track adds about C$153 million. The report notes that every year the construction start slips adds approximately C$1.5 billion in extra cost, reflecting rising international construction prices.
Institutional and project‑management risks are rated higher than engineering risks. After adjusting for tunnels, elevated track and start year, UK and US projects were about 4.5 times costlier than European ones, largely due to two expensive cases: California’s Merced–Bakersfield segment and High Speed 2 between London and Birmingham. Two federal laws—Bill C‑5 (One Canadian Economy Act, June 26 2025) and Bill C‑15 (High‑Speed Rail Network Act, March 26 2026)—aim to reduce legal, permitting and schedule risks, though court challenges remain possible. The PBO’s bootstrap test shows a one‑in‑40 chance that total costs could reach C$243 billion or more.
