News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
 8.4K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 39K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 4.7K     0 

Forcing this announcement into the budget forces Horwath between a rock and a hard place. She could reject it, force an election and, if the Liberals lose, the Liberals will also go down as transit martyrs. They didn't have to do anything, but people will talk for a generation about how the Liberals under Wynne had this terrific plan and the NDP blew it. When you think about it, it's sort of Network 2011 under Peterson redux.

Exactly, there's no down side to promising anything and everything. They may as well have promoted high speed rail to Thunderbay.

1.) If you win, these projects are all so long term and contingent that there are a hundred different ways they could get cancelled or fundamentally altered. Odds are preliminary design wouldn't even be over before the next election cycle.

2.) If you loose, who cares. Like you say, it's Network 2011 all over again.

It's a bit more ridiculous since there's already been MoveOntario 2020 & The Big Move. Why not just run on the achievements there? It's totally ridiculous to release yet another MEGAPLANTOENDCONGESTIONFORALLTIME which just recycles the previous plan so as to avoid having to actually defend or endorse your own governance record.
 
Except there will be one thing that they had to do - they will have to move the provincial portion of the gas tax and then raise income tax (highest bracket? corporate?) to compensate for it. That would in effect be a good chunk of our new revenue tools without having the endless (and toxic) debate over what they will be. The NDP of course will lap it all up because that's what they wanted all along.

AoD
 
Last edited:
I'll apologize in advance for re-hashing arugments from another thread but....

Well, that's an opinion but I think stopping it at Steeles is worse than silly. As I pointed out, that density is directly contingent on stopping the subway THERE. If you stop it short of the designated growth centre you are purposefully mis-aligning the province's growth and transit plans. You're entitled to believe the GO service is adequate but all the plans are based on the assumption they will have GO and the subway. If either doesn't materialize, neither does the plan. Unlike other GO corridors, here we are talking about Yonge Street, and a GO line that dives off into a valley. You can't have a regional network when you fail to make obviously natural connections, like a major growth centre, on Yonge Street, amidst contiguous existing development, just north of the 416/905 border.

There is actually no logic whatsoever to stopping at Steeles except that someone drew a line there 40 years ago on a map. This is what it looks like today and there is very clearly no difference in built form or anything else between the north and south sides of the municipal border.

View attachment 25036

With all due respect, the only people who advocate it stopping at Steeles are people who live in Toronto who never go up beyond it.




I think this was already addressed but the point is really quite straightforward: what we have now, for the first time, is a growth plan for the larger region and it advocates curbing sprawl by requiring transit-oriented infill. You can't legislatively require municipalities to provide infill and then not provide the infrastructure or it won't work and you will get more sprawl. Or you could be really spiteful and legislatively demand they intensify at a specific location and decide to build the transit 2 kilometres away, I suppose. I don't know why you would, but you could.


With all due respect I do commute to Finch all the time, from north of steeles. I absolutely know what the area is like. To simply disregard me as not knowledgeable of the area despite making the trip down the entire route of the proposed extension at least once a week is disingenuous, and you should never make assumptions like that.

That said, the previous plans had both the GO and the subway going to RHC, yes. But they also had the GO line running once an hour, I.E. at a frequency that is not really useful. The new announcement that it will be every 15 minutes changes things, as suddenly bus connections are much easier. As Gweed mentioned, it wouldn't be that much lower off peak than the subway.

Then you get to the point of the built form not changing north of Steeles. Sure, but it sure as hell changes north of Clark. North of Clark it changes to run through a valley and then through low density housing before reaching Langstaff. The subway would go 2.8km without a stop, only to reach a location (RHC / Langstaff) which is already well served by 15 Minute GO service. Thus I determined that as Clark would be a low use station and not worthy of extending simply to reach that location (it only really makes sense if the subway is going by it anyway), and any stops past Clark would be well served by GO, that the line should terminate at Steeles. Not because of some arbitrary municipal border, not because of some silly notion that nothing exists north of Steeles, but because that is where it logically makes sense to stop. Extending it any further would only serve an area that is well served by 15 minute GO service, and would be a stupidly huge waste of $2 billion. Never mind the fact that it would only create more issues down the line with capacity.
 
Last edited:
With all due respect I do commute to Finch all the time, from north of steeles. I absolutely know what the area is like. To simply disregard me as not knowledgeable of the area despite making the trip down the entire route of the proposed extension at least once a week is disingenuous, and you should never make assumptions like that.

That said, the previous plans had both the GO and the subway going to RHC, yes. But they also had the GO line running once an hour, I.E. at a frequency that is not really useful. The new announcement that it will be every 15 minutes changes things, as suddenly bus connections are much easier. As Gweed mentioned, it wouldn't be that much lower off peak than the subway.

Then you get to the point of the built form not changing north of Steeles. Sure, but it sure as hell changes north of Clark. North of Clark it changes to run through a valley and then through low density housing before reaching Langstaff. The subway would go 2.8km without a stop, only to reach a location (RHC / Langstaff) which is already well served by 15 Minute GO service. Thus I determined that as Clark would be a low use station and not worthy of extending simply to reach that location (it only really makes sense if the subway is going by it anyway), and any stops past Clark would be well served by GO, that the line should terminate at Steeles. Not because of some arbitrary municipal border, not because of some silly notion that nothing exists north of Steeles, but because that is where it logically makes sense to stop. Extending it any further would only serve an area that is well served by 15 minute GO service, and would be a stupidly huge waste of $2 billion. Never mind the fact that it would only create more issues down the line with capacity.

Bang on. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but look at the peak hour ridership projections of the Yonge Subway from RHC to Steeles, and of the Richmond Hill line (Big Move version), and add them together. Then look at the theoretical capacity of an electrified GO line running ~5 mins during peak + a BRT (which is really just the continuation of the BRT on Yonge from north of Highway 7) to Finch.

I'd imagine you'd find that the projected ridership could be handled by the combination of the latter (GO REX + BRT). If that is indeed the case (again, I haven't run the numbers, but I'm just ballparking in my head), then you have the bulk of the ridership being handled by GO REX, and you're still serving the "need to be on Yonge" trips with the BRT. And all this for probably a billion less than the subway option.
 
The subway would go 2.8km without a stop, only to reach a location (RHC / Langstaff) which is already well served by 15 Minute GO service. Thus I determined that as Clark would be a low use station and not worthy of extending simply to reach that location (it only really makes sense if the subway is going by it anyway), and any stops past Clark would be well served by GO, that the line should terminate at Steeles. Not because of some arbitrary municipal border, not because of some silly notion that nothing exists north of Steeles, but because that is where it logically makes sense to stop. Extending it any further would only serve an area that is well served by 15 minute GO service, and would be a stupidly huge waste of $2 billion. Never mind the fact that it would only create more issues down the line with capacity.

The problem with GO is that it's only useful for going to Union, and that it's more expensive. I live not far west of Yonge and Sheppard, and the GO is not useful at all for getting to Richmond Hill. This is also true for pretty much anyone living north of Bloor.
 
Bang on. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but look at the peak hour ridership projections of the Yonge Subway from RHC to Steeles, and of the Richmond Hill line (Big Move version), and add them together. Then look at the theoretical capacity of an electrified GO line running ~5 mins during peak + a BRT (which is really just the continuation of the BRT on Yonge from north of Highway 7) to Finch.

I'd imagine you'd find that the projected ridership could be handled by the combination of the latter (GO REX + BRT). If that is indeed the case (again, I haven't run the numbers, but I'm just ballparking in my head), then you have the bulk of the ridership being handled by GO REX, and you're still serving the "need to be on Yonge" trips with the BRT. And all this for probably a billion less than the subway option.

Who said any of the GO lines that are being expanded will get to 5 minutes in peak? I bet it is more likely that they move to a consistant every 15 minutes all day schedule on the lines rather than different frequencies during peak and off peak.
 
Who said any of the GO lines that are being expanded will get to 5 minutes in peak? I bet it is more likely that they move to a consistant every 15 minutes all day schedule on the lines rather than different frequencies during peak and off peak.

Why wouldn't they? Lakeshore during peak runs less than 15 min frequencies right now.
 
Why wouldn't they? Lakeshore during peak runs less than 15 min frequencies right now.

Yeah it does.....but I don't see anything in this announcement that would indicate what is happening is movement in that direction on the other lines...just movement towards 15 minute frequencies all day on all of them.....which I am ok with.....I bet that will make a huge difference in a lot of lives/commutes.
 
especially since they will likely not be using the large bilevel haulers off peak, I suspect you will see a shift with single level EMUs as the fleet with frequencies increased at peak hours. I wouldn't be surprised if you see the death of the Bi-Haulers. Maybe some longer haul peak routes like the Niagara peninsula or Bowmanville will use the "old" haulers, but in general I think you will all but see them disappear.

GOs plans always included increased peak service along with their all day off peak, their (now old) plans for the Stouffville corridor for example had them shift from a 30-40 minute peak schedule (6 trains over 3 hours) to 20 minute peak service and hourly off peak. (10 peak trains) A lot of the AD2W costs were for increased peak service, not making the trains run all day.
 
Last edited:
Yeah it does.....but I don't see anything in this announcement that would indicate what is happening is movement in that direction on the other lines...just movement towards 15 minute frequencies all day on all of them.....which I am ok with.....I bet that will make a huge difference in a lot of lives/commutes.

Actual AD2W service would be a really remarkable thing for the GTA, as it would open up vast swaths of it to transit-based commutes on which GO was too infrequent or inconvenient for use.
 
especially since they will likely not be using the large bilevel haulers off peak, I suspect you will see a shift with single level EMUs as the fleet with frequencies increased at peak hours. I wouldn't be surprised if you see the death of the Bi-Haulers. Maybe some longer haul peak routes like the Niagara peninsula or Bowmanville will use the "old" haulers, but in general I think you will all but see them disappear.

Single level EMUs would be really cool, I hope that happens!
 
Single level EMUs would be really cool, I hope that happens!

I doubt it. I really don't see GO hiring 400 train engineers over the next decade and Lake Shore would need to hit 60 second rush-hour frequencies for necessary capacity (5 minute frequencies at Union Station now, double the ridership, and halve the size of the train for roughly 1 minute frequencies).

I will be very surprised if they aren't dual-level EMUs similar to RER-A or Sydney cars. They work fine in underground portions of routes too. The trick for passenger flow seems to be making them high-floor with large entrances on the mid-deck with separate wide up/down stairways from there.

The super-thin stairways on GO cars for a full flight really slows things up.
 
Last edited:

Back
Top