robmausser
Senior Member
The low hanging fruit line (and you are not the first person to use it so not a shot at you) bugs me greatly.........we are constantly adding service where we can rather than where we should and it is because of the "low hanging fruit".
I just have no idea how you can believe, however, that Unionville and Barrie lines offer more opportunity for counterflow ridership than a line that goes right into and through the heart of Mississauga.......it just makes no sense....just as prioritzing 400 and 404 congestion relief over 401 congestion relief.
If GO had started with a clean slate and had available to them unlimitted access to the corridors it uses today....I have no doubt the first one to be up and running with full day service and frequent off peak service and 7 day a week service would have been Milton.....not because of the end point that is Milton.....but because it serves the heart of the largest and most economically diverse of our 905 municipalities.
If (and it is a big if) that line can get up to full service without the bypass by "simply" laying 2 more tracks in the existing corridor...that should be GO's number 1 priority over everything else they have going.....and I say this as someone who has only ridden a train in that corridor 1 time in my life (ie. it does not serve me)....it is just dripping with potential.
While I agree with adding 2 more tracks to Milton Line, remember that these are CP tracks and we already ran into this issue in the past
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/ontario...-rail-of-overcharging-transit-agency-1.620439
Another issue is that when you pay CN or CP to add more tracks, they can use them for their freight, and freight traffic then increases.
There has to be some very strict negotiations between CP and Metrolinx for the added trackage to the Milton Line not being a boondoggle.
It will not be a simple procedure like the Barrie and Stouffville double tracking, it will be wrought with red tape.
Not saying it shouldn't be done, but that it will take years just for the planning and negotiations.