[lenaitch]

Yes.



Feel free, but I'm confident in that assertion. The court case discussed above clearly labelled the land as perpetual easements. Development land was separately allocated from railway easement.



Here's a report from last year on railways and other easement/row levy payable to the City:

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2024/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-247286.pdf

From the above, the actual levy amounts:

View attachment 630578

Note that the $714,000 in payments is certainly not in line with market value ownership.

Quick math, if the land were zoned industrial and paid industrial class property tax rates, CP would owe the City at least 21.6M per year. (assumed land value 3.5M per acre)

I maintain my position but really can't take the argument any further. Besides, it's a tad off topic. My only comments in closing are:

It is my interpretation that the SCOC case is discussing perpetual leases, not easements, and those leases involved corporations, not the government.

The table cited appears to be for property and educational taxes. Under the Constitution Act:

125. No Lands or Property belonging to Canada or any Province shall be liable to Taxation.

However, under federal and provincial statutes, they do make 'payments in lieu of taxes' to municipal governments, as noted in the notes attached to that table. I have not researched how they are calculated or whether they mirror a given municipal tax levy. As you are aware, different land uses attract different rates. I don't know the rate railways, utility corridors, etc. are assessed at. When we had the farm, most of our 60 acres was taxed at the agricultural rate which was 25% of the standard rural residential rate.

 

[afransen]

This is what you are quoted as saying. You are suggesting the subway to Square One as an alternative to buying out the Milton corridor from CP. So, no, the Milton line wouldn't cease to exist, but the status quo would remain west of Dixie (/Cooksville). And as I have been trying to explain all along in this discussion, that status quo is horrendous, slow transit - GO bus connections that take 1.5 - almost 2 hours if you happen to catch the infrequent pulses, and all manner of convoluted transfers culminating in an even longer journey if you happen not to catch said GO buses. These are connections that would take much longer than the LRT ride down from Square One to an upgraded Cooksville, so the subway proposal screws over more people, even if it would bring a (very slow) subway ride directly to the "heart" of Mississauga.

I don't know why everyone is talking as if CP needs to be bought out to provide 2WAD service on the Milton Line. It's not the case. The ROW is wide enough. The expensive part is new bridges and overpasses.

 

[crs1026]

I don't know why everyone is talking as if CP needs to be bought out to provide 2WAD service on the Milton Line. It's not the case. The ROW is wide enough. The expensive part is new bridges and overpasses.

Hey, Doug started it - it's his announcement, not us UTers ;-)

But thank you for the sanity check. The most likely reason that the bypass is back on the table is likely sticker shock arising from the projected cost of modifying the Galt Sub to be shared by CPKC and 2WAD GO. Personally, I can't see the bypass as being the cheaper option, but the comparison may be surprising.

Certainly, the shared option would be faster to complete. Studying the bypass further, and getting CPKC to buy in, will take a lot of time.

I'm still waiting for the pushback from communities along the bypass route. Putting all the GTA's freight in that one corridor will not please residents north of Steeles Ave. And it puts all our eggs in one basket - if that corridor is blocked, there would not be any alternative. Those ridings have not voted Conservative lately, and Doug must consider them unattainable. If I lived up there, I would be raising heck.

- Paul

 

[T3G]

I don’t know what you expect. Mississauga does not have the same service as Toronto and Milton shouldn’t expect to have the same service as Mississauga.

I expect that, if the discussion is about how to use billions of dollars, then we use those billions of dollars in a somewhat equitable way rather than trying to deliver (terrible) service to a small part of Mississauga and nowhere else. If the funds become available, the only logical course is to see the line modernized in its entirety - though as I said upthread, it is naive to expect any movement on that file and it would be much easier to skip town all together.

"Milton shouldn’t expect to have the same service as Mississauga" is a strange take, by the way, when the similarly sized Burlington, Whitby, Ajax, Oshawa, and the less populous Pickering, all have extensive GO service, the likes of which Milton can only dream of. Should we cut back their service, too, to meet expectations? Maybe that money could even be diverted to pay for the Square One subway. There is certainly no population related argument for why Milton should be shafted.

And as I said before, the subway would be so agonizingly slow that the advocacy for the extension itself can only be thought of as an own goal. Please bury this horrible project and may it never see the light of day.

 

[Bojaxs]

I'm still waiting for the pushback from communities along the bypass route. Putting all the GTA's freight in that one corridor will not please residents north of Steeles Ave. And it puts all our eggs in one basket - if that corridor is blocked, there would not be any alternative.

CN & CPKC have running rights on all Metrolinx owned tracks. If there were a derail on the Halton or York sub, CN is within their right to run trains along Lakeshore, including through Union station. I'm fairly certain it's in the agreement with the province when they bought the Lakeshore line from CN. Or it could be a federal law that mandates all passenger tracks be open to freight in the case of a block or derail.

 

[Bojaxs]

I don't know why everyone is talking as if CP needs to be bought out to provide 2WAD service on the Milton Line. It's not the case. The ROW is wide enough. The expensive part is new bridges and overpasses.

Here's what I don't get. All the Milton line station are built North of the line, but GO trains have to head south at the junction while CPKC trains have to head either North at the junction or straight through. If we wanted 2WAD service on the Milton line while sharing the line with CPKC, then wouldn't we either have to shift all the stations South of the line? Or build a flyover somewhere between Kipling station and the junction?

 

[sixrings]

Clearly you live in Milton. I am sorry.

I expect that, if the discussion is about how to use billions of dollars, then we use those billions of dollars in a somewhat equitable way rather than trying to deliver (terrible) service to a small part of Mississauga and nowhere else. If the funds become available, the only logical course is to see the line modernized in its entirety - though as I said upthread, it is naive to expect any movement on that file and it would be much easier to skip town all together.

"Milton shouldn’t expect to have the same service as Mississauga" is a strange take, by the way, when the similarly sized Burlington, Whitby, Ajax, Oshawa, and the less populous Pickering, all have extensive GO service, the likes of which Milton can only dream of. Should we cut back their service, too, to meet expectations? Maybe that money could even be diverted to pay for the Square One subway. There is certainly no population related argument for why Milton should be shafted.

And as I said before, the subway would be so agonizingly slow that the advocacy for the extension itself can only be thought of as an own goal. Please bury this horrible project and may it never see the light of day.

 

[dowlingm]

Here's what I don't get. All the Milton line station are built North of the line, but GO trains have to head south at the junction while CPKC trains have to head either North at the junction or straight through. If we wanted 2WAD service on the Milton line while sharing the line with CPKC, then wouldn't we either have to shift all the stations South of the line? Or build a flyover somewhere between Kipling station and the junction?

That has been extensively discussed here in the past, the most likely location being within Lambton Yard.

 

[bpbpbpbp]

CN & CPKC have running rights on all Metrolinx owned tracks. If there were a derail on the Halton or York sub, CN is within their right to run trains along Lakeshore, including through Union station. I'm fairly certain it's in the agreement with the province when they bought the Lakeshore line from CN. Or it could be a federal law that mandates all passenger tracks be open to freight in the case of a block or derail.

Wasn’t the freight bypass at Union being severed as part of the Union Station revitilization project? In that case, wouldn’t that make it impossible for CN to get from the Oakville to the Kingston?

 

[crs1026]

Wasn’t the freight bypass at Union being severed as part of the Union Station revitilization project? In that case, wouldn’t that make it impossible for CN to get from the Oakville to the Kingston?

There are still continuous tracks of 4' 8 1/2" gauge running thru the USRC that would allow freight trains to pass, certainly.... but that does not mean that it would be practical or desirable to count on ML lines as the backup for a major freight diversion.
No railway has enough people to manage more than a token number of detours, as every train needs a qualified pilot.
The issue is not a "simple" derailment scenario where a train piles up and it takes a few days to drive a clear path thru the wreckage. The railways can manage those. Consider a scenario where a major bridge or other works is damaged and the repairs will take months (as almost happened on the CPR out west a few years ago, and has come close more recently during mudslides fires etc).
Putting all of the GTA's eggs in one basket is not appropriate risk mitigation on a network risk level.

- Paul

 

[bpbpbpbp]

I

There are still continuous tracks of 4' 8 1/2" gauge running thru the USRC that would allow freight trains to pass, certainly.... but that does not mean that it would be practical or desirable to count on ML lines as the backup for a major freight diversion.
No railway has enough people to manage more than a token number of detours, as every train needs a qualified pilot.
The issue is not a "simple" derailment scenario where a train piles up and it takes a few days to drive a clear path thru the wreckage. The railways can manage those. Consider a scenario where a major bridge or other works is damaged and the repairs will take months (as almost happened on the CPR out west a few years ago, and has come close more recently during mudslides fires etc).
Putting all of the GTA's eggs in one basket is not appropriate risk mitigation on a network risk level.

- Paul

I see. Under my previous understanding, I thought freights were limited to bypass tracks in thr USRC that were being worked on as part of the new platform and concourse project. I had just assumed that freights couldn’t pass under the trainshed due to height restrictions (double stack intermodal and autoracks), and weight limits exceeding with heavy trains passing above the concourse.

 

[sixrings]

I don't know why everyone is talking as if CP needs to be bought out to provide 2WAD service on the Milton Line. It's not the case. The ROW is wide enough. The expensive part is new bridges and overpasses.

I suggested that years ago and people kept saying there had to be a by pass which would cost billions. So I don’t know how suddenly everything has changed.

On a side note if widening and building bridges was as easy as we’re making it out to be then smart track should have been built and even a hit by now. Yet here we are.

 

[crs1026]

I

I see. Under my previous understanding, I thought freights were limited to bypass tracks in thr USRC that were being worked on as part of the new platform and concourse project. I had just assumed that freights couldn’t pass under the trainshed due to height restrictions (double stack intermodal and autoracks), and weight limits exceeding with heavy trains passing above the concourse.

All that may be relevant at this moment, but the issue is more what would be possible in a decade if a bypass were built. By then USRC and ML lines may be electrified.

- Paul

 

[Sauga89]

Consider a scenario where a major bridge or other works is damaged and the repairs will take months (as almost happened on the CPR out west a few years ago, and has come close more recently during mudslides fires etc).

I'm not an expert, but didn't they manage a similar situation in Philadelphia when a highway bridge collapsed on the I-95? I believe they closed the road below, filled the area with dirt, and opened a temporary bridge in just 12 days. I suppose that wouldn't work for a bridge over the 400 or 404, but maybe it would work for a smaller road?

Also, how far apart would the CPKC and CN tracks have to be to prevent them both being taken out in the same incident? Could you offset the bridges for CPKC by say, a minimum of 10 metres from CN's bridges?

 

[smallspy]

I

I see. Under my previous understanding, I thought freights were limited to bypass tracks in thr USRC that were being worked on as part of the new platform and concourse project. I had just assumed that freights couldn’t pass under the trainshed due to height restrictions (double stack intermodal and autoracks), and weight limits exceeding with heavy trains passing above the concourse.

At this current moment, the only restrictions are with height under the trainshed. So long as the freight cars don't exceed the Plate E regulations, they will fit on any track in the trainshed. But this prevents taller equipment, such as autoracks and double-stacked well cars from operating under there.

Going forward while the catenary will absorb some of the left over overhead space below the trainshed, there will still be the potential to allow freight cars - it just might be to one of the more restrictive Plates.

Dan