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ehlow said:
Exactly, once you have 15 min all day frequencies the areas around GO RER stations become much more valuable for development. I'm honestly extremely excited about the possibilities of GO RER, especially if it's treated as part of the overall transit system (TTC rapid transit). The idea of making long distance travel much easier by transit and a significant expansion of our transit system in less than 10 years is really exciting to me.

There is more and more development of both residential but also office space within walking distance of Union, so it's very plausible that people could live near a GO RER station and work downtown without having to transfer to the subway at all. Although even transferring to the subway is fine.

If there were bus lines from suburban GO RER stations to suburban office parks. You already have more and more people living downtown and working way out of the city in suburban office parks, they usually drive. Say they lived near Union in a condo and worked in Markham at 404/407. They could take GO RER from Union to Unionville (ha), transfer to the highway 7 busway to get to their office. The congestion on our highways makes the transit alternative very attractive for commuting.

If it's 15 min off peak, 5-10 min on peak, then it's not really inaccurate to call it a "subway". It's just a subway with lower frequencies, but higher speed & larger stop spacing.

Re the term "surface subway", we kind of already have that in Toronto: the subway is on the surface in many areas (Davisville, Rosedale, High Park)
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Bang on. Now, when you look at the layout particularly in Halton, the rail line is only a few hundred metres south of the QEW. If office development is clustered on the north side of the tracks around stations, and highrise residential just south of the tracks around stations, you could even remove the necessity for bus lines to suburban office parks all together, because they would be within walking distance of the GO station. But yes, obviously not everywhere has that geographic advantage, since most suburban office parks are built for easy access to the highway, not necessarily a GO line.

I know that a lot of young professionals would love to live in the suburbs, yet have easy access to downtown. Living in a condo right beside a suburban GO station IMO is the perfect balance of that. Right now that type of housing stock is in very limited supply though.
 
ehlow said:
If there were bus lines from suburban GO RER stations to suburban office parks. You already have more and more people living downtown and working way out of the city in suburban office parks, they usually drive. Say they lived near Union in a condo and worked in Markham at 404/407. They could take GO RER from Union to Unionville (ha), transfer to the highway 7 busway to get to their office. The congestion on our highways makes the transit alternative very attractive for commuting.
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One of the really exciting parts of the 15 minute RER (assuming it actually happens) is how the GO bus fleet is (re)deployed. Really, if all 7 GO rail lines have 15 minute service there is no need to be bringing GO buses into downtown toronto.....so it allows the bus terminal at Union to take on some sort of different role (or be abolished) but, also, with GO buses "spoking" out from GO stations all over the network, those buses can be re-deployed to give GO much greater coverage than it even has today...as you point out that could be connecting GO stations to business parks/areas in cities/towns/communities it could also be to simply expand realistic commute times to more people in more places.
 
TOareaFan said:
One of the really exciting parts of the 15 minute RER (assuming it actually happens) is how the GO bus fleet is (re)deployed. Really, if all 7 GO rail lines have 15 minute service there is no need to be bringing GO buses into downtown toronto.....so it allows the bus terminal at Union to take on some sort of different role (or be abolished) but, also, with GO buses "spoking" out from GO stations all over the network, those buses can be re-deployed to give GO much greater coverage than it even has today...as you point out that could be connecting GO stations to business parks/areas in cities/towns/communities it could also be to simply expand realistic commute times to more people in more places.
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I've been seeing a lot of new double decker GO buses around Ontario. They look great.
 
They operate on essentially any route that doesn't go downtown from my understanding, which is primarily the 407 route and it's branches.

Kitchener has a layover spot for 2 GO trains, which is being expanded to 4 for 2016. The double deckers run to square one.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
Double deckers can't go downtown because of clearance issues under the rail corridor.
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I've seen countless double decker Megabuses go under the rail corridor...are they shorter than GO's double decker buses? I've always wondered, if Megabus can send double deckers downtown, why not GO?
 
Its only the yonge street underpass that has clearance issues from my understanding. Other underpasses are fine. (Especially simcoe which is brand new)

The double decker megabuses probably use the York underpass right? I only one ever remember seeing regional buses on Gerrard and university.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Its only the yonge street underpass that has clearance issues from my understanding. Other underpasses are fine. (Especially simcoe which is brand new)

The double decker megabuses probably use the York underpass right? I only one ever remember seeing regional buses on Gerrard and university.
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I've seen it use the Bay underpass countless times (the buses just go down bay to the gardiner from the terminal), but never the Yonge underpass. Makes sense.
 
TOareaFan said:
Don't they operate mostly (entirely?) on the 407 route?
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The revised buses are a tad bit lower than the first bunch and I've seen them on the Pickering/Finch Station route and I can't remember if I've seen it for the Oshawa/Yorkdale route
 
epcjay said:
The revised buses are a tad bit lower than the first bunch and I've seen them on the Pickering/Finch Station route and I can't remember if I've seen it for the Oshawa/Yorkdale route
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Oshawa-Finch Express (96) has them on some trips. I've had one on my ride home from work since the beginning of July.

I don't think they get get into Yorkale though; certainly I've never seen one on Yonge Street on any of the routes that pass through Yorkdale nor on Oshawa-Yorkdale (92).
 
DavidH said:
I don't think they get get into Yorkale though; certainly I've never seen one on Yonge Street on any of the routes that pass through Yorkdale nor on Oshawa-Yorkdale (92).
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Even the latest units which are built to a lower profile are not allowed into Yorkdale or York Mills. Scarborough Town Centre was off-limits until they made some changes to the platform allocations.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
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