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...

Worst case you would take the approach of the German walk-though (high floor) LRVs, splitting them into mechanically independent vehicles that just happen to have an open gangway on one end.

For North Toronto Station reopening is a nice idea, but yeah, if this is the option and it's serving as a Union reliever Dupont makes a lot more sense.

Add to that that EVEN IF there are severe issues from the capacity of the surface section, a Lawrence East branch also operating on the surface is preferable in every way to the issues that would come with grade separating the eastern section after the fact.

has anyone objected to Ontario Line like tech? it’s losing grade separation that I hear regular people not thinking is palatable… though conversion to some other tech seems really hard politically frankly right sizing it could absolutely look like full automation of mostly subway compatible...

agreed; waiting on what CPKC actuall demands, but I tend to think that the realistic options are CPKC demanding largely triple track and still shared with CPKC ownership, and a vague possibility a single track parallel Metrolinx owned corridor might be allowed…

I’d add that one of the attractive pieces of the corridor is that for downtown bound passengers this is an alignment that doesn’t nicely parallel a direct highway route. Even off peak this would be very competitive with road based services.

I suppose I do see the appeal of Alliston, but I’m inclined to think a more likely extension beyond Bolton would be a greenfield line to Orangeville.

On that wish list note, my big one is airline style lie flat pods. I really see it as more marketable here than the alternative budget sleeper options.

Honestly? Now that we've committed to the form that the SSE has, and and least expressed an explicit attempt for a Sheppard Subway that stays on Sheppard.... I don't know if the corridor DOES have a lot of value left.

I'll say that since I was involved in that Ryerson look at Collingwood passenger rail the emergence of ride sharing, especially if linked to the Innisfil model has done a lot to make the last mile seem less of a hurdle on the tourist side of things.

My understanding is that these things are closely related - the idea of recommending Milton had a lot to do with avoiding a new escarpment crossing. I don't like this project, or want it to go ahead... but between the current version and a direct Guelph one ploughing straight through the most...

Methinks this has a horrifyingly high likelihood of being prophetic on the level of grumbling about a "Newmarket stub" when Sheppard opened predicting Viva Yellow... Which would be consistent with the lot of them being heavily invested in real estate.

For my part this may not be a wholly terrible thing. My suggestion is really that this corridor is almost uniquely suitable to Tram-Train operation assuming Hespeler Road light rail is built... No, that Galt link won't be fast, but it will have far better connectivity than rebuilding Fergus...