To reiterate my take on many of these points, going light and moving toward tram trains seems far more attractive on a cost basis to me. Frankly, as much as people will moan about the transfer in Guelph i think it’s the Cambridge side of things that will be more of a barrier to ridership...

Aside from a Milton extension to Guelph having never had any serious attention, getting the GJR up to the Guelph Central platforms would be... a larger project than the rest of what we've discussed here combined. Milton trains in Guelph would only ever be feasible with a new platform. If you're...

As far as Renforth vs Pearson for the OL, my thinking is that Pearson is better served by the 407 corridor given that this isn’t meant to be a primary downtown / airport connector.

Taken as a whole I really have to think that the best feasible approach probably is Halton / Burlington remaining independent of HSR but operating a significant amount of service into Hamilton. What I do wonder is whether that suggests that Waterdown service ought to be contracted to Halton (it...

The question to me is whether they are still aiming for it or things have slipped again since then... I think it's looking safe to say that they absolutely are (or at least were until recently) targeting the end of this year. As annoying as this situation is I don't think I can fault the...

There are also so many better, not necessarily significantly more costly, ways to greatly improve the Downtown / Subway / MCC connection, starting with a 427 transitway extension and going all the up to Transitway rail conversions and 403/401 corridors that don't shut the transitway down...

My major concern with this bi-level EMU conversation is that it really does seem like the most likely configuration would be set of one power car with two trailers... At which point I question whether there would actually be any meaningful performance gain over a locomotive left.

On that note, I have become rather fond of extending the Milton line to Guelph via the GJR to a low level platform on the river front. And while I do like the concept of some express direct to Toronto, I'd suggest anyone focusing on those one seat rides take a look at early Metrolinx work on...

I've gotta admit that the partially tongue in cheek LRT loop that popped up on twitter actually has an appeal to me. Keep the ferries only to Centre Island, build the Airport bridge more or less as in the Lastman era plans and the eastern as purely streetcar/pedestrian. It could honestly even...

They really aren't though. Compare the likes of a Copenhagen or Vancouver to Calgary or Frankfurt. These are the upper end of light metro (of the sort derived from actual metros), not the of tram derived things... which is in no way a slight to somewhere like Frankfurt that makes the lineage...

Honestly I'm torn; this take really seems the most accurate, but it leaves the lack of a full time bus on Bloor / Danforth the major oddity. I really have to wonder if the best approach might not be to seriously de-emphasize the actual duplicative routes but beef up and in some cases create...

Even taken at face value, this isn’t actually identifying genuine incompatibility in any sense but the fleets not being interchangeable with zero modification. Frankly it reads as being FUD on the level of the regular proclamations we saw over the years that TTC gauge made anything approaching a...

That’s almost exactly in alignment with my thoughts on Waterloo, though I’d cut the Elmira service back to downtown Kitchener (theres a nicely placed crossover just south of Market) and add a local mainline service from Guelph to at least Ira Needles and possibly as far as New Hamburg.

The thing about GVR, be it on the old ROW or not, is hitting Brantford and Paris rather than the straight shot into Hamilton that goes through 30 km of nothing. Frankly I suspect that the amount of demand for a Hamilton - Waterloo and Brantford - Waterloo service would be fairly comparable today...

Yes, but no, but yes in my mind ;) The Fergus sub Guelph shuttle operation is an obviously good choice is ION is in place. Anything more than that has some things going for it, some significant issues with alignment and routing and will require a lot of new track. I am absolutely in favor of...

I've gotta say that I really hate that service pattern. The exact opposite, with it being VIA extended to Detroit makes so much more sense in every way...

It's genuinely one of the stupidities of the North American transit conversation that we are so wedded to talking in terms of headway. Vehicles per hour is a vastly better framing...

In short, I mostly agree. I've actually further simplified this and like the results better than what I ended up with earlier. Basically if you build a proper interchange station at Agincourt I'd cut GO from the northeastern line entirely unless a Pickering airport link happens (relatedly I'm...

I'd like to point out that this isn't even 'abundance of caution' type stuff... I can't be the only person to remember just how badly the first run of the JFK Airtrain ended can I?

With how persistently crosstown has been coming up lately I've been playing with possible service patterns, and this is the one I'm happiest with at the moment. I do note that there is a lot of room for deferring or outright cancelling eastern branches... I'm particularly thinking that the...