Putting Passenger Rail Back on Track: A Multiple Streams Framework Analysis of High-Frequency Rail Policy in Canada

Abstract

After decades of policy stagnation, change is on the horizon for passenger rail in Canada, with the recent federal government’s approval of VIA Rail’s High-Frequency Rail (HFR) proposal within the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. This study applies the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to analyze how HFR arrived on the federal government’s agenda. Drawing on semi-directive interviews, three expectations based on the MSF are confirmed: evidence of (a) activity in the framework’s three streams (problem, policy, politics); (b) a policy window opening because of changes in the politics stream; and (c) a policy entrepreneur who coupled the three streams within that policy window.