To build or not to build? Competing narratives of high-speed rail development in Canada

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, there has been a resurgence of interest in high-speed rail (HSR). Those nations contemplating whether to invest in the technology typically encounter debate about the ‘true’ benefits and impacts of development. This article demonstrates the considerable degree of nuance within the great HSR debate. Using discussions of Canadian HSR as a case study, this article identifies three core narratives surrounding HSR development (herein named ‘Turbotrain’, ‘Ecotrain’, and ‘Zerotrain’) and seven distinct discourse coalitions which support various dimensions of these narratives. The article explains how various stakeholders’ views about how and whether HSR projects ‘ought’ to be carried out are shaped by their socio-ecological and politico-economic presuppositions. The categorization of HSR development narratives and the unveiling of their attendant presuppositions offer a novel way of examining the politics of mobility as it pertains to the HSR investment debates being held in many industrialized and industrializing countries today.