[TOareaFan]

I may be a little less confident about a project that's at the beginning of the EA stage than you. GO will probably have plenty of buses heading to Union for the immediate future; and if they somehow dry up, then TTC (waterfront East service) and Greyhound can fill the spots.

GO's construction tenders thus far has been mostly suitable for McGuinty's hourly service promise; a huge amount of useful work.

Whether we get to 15 minutes on all lines or not is certainly up in the air....but does each incremental change/improvement in rail service not reduce bus service? How many bus runs were cancelled with the Stouffeville off peak service introduction?

 

[rbt]

What? RER is only notional? The provincial government has said repeatedly in the past it is fully funded and, recently, the Federal government gave them a big whack of cash to re-allocate some of those funds to other projects.....if we are to believe our two levels of government.......RER is, if anything, overfunded.

Numerous track-work programs are funded and tendered or coming up for tender.

Absolutely none of the electrification work, rolling stock purchases, additional yard space for said rolling stock, etc. has been funded (as in gone into a budget). Conservatives/NDP probably wouldn't follow through. Frankly, I'm not sure another Liberal leader (if Wynne stepped down) would hit her schedule either.

RER still needs a strong commitment by the next provincial government to finish all the not-yet done stuff. Wynne has set things up so funding can be made available but the next provincial government needs to choose RER over, say, a Hydro overhaul or tax cut or public housing rebuild program or ...

McGuinty's hourly service promise is in excellent shape for delivery on most lines (a few years late).

 

[rbt]

Whether we get to 15 minutes on all lines or not is certainly up in the air....but does each incremental change/improvement in rail service not reduce bus service?

That depends on how effective it is. We have 30 minute frequencies on Lake Shore and still run parallel buses to Hamilton every 20 minutes. In fact, Hamilton service has been increasing not decreasing since 30 minute freq's rolled out.

Inter-city routes (Greyhound mostly) also haven't moved their terminals to the edge of the GTA to avoid congestion which often happens where rail service is strong. GO allows for integrated ticketing with 3rd parties (VIA selling GO trips, airlines selling UPX trips).

Frequent stop trains are quite slow compared to an express bus.

 

[jje1000]

Del Duca covering his own ass:

Transportation minister gave ‘input’ on controversial GO station in his riding

Ontario’s transportation minister said he contributed “input” to the provincial transit agency’s decision to approve a new GO station that will be in his riding and which a secret internal report determined should not be built.

Minister Steven Del Duca also asserted that demand for the new station would be “off the charts.” But a government analysis found the stop would actually cause a net loss in transit ridership.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...n-controversial-go-station-in-his-riding.html

 

[salsa]

Del Duca covering his own ass:



https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...n-controversial-go-station-in-his-riding.html

Del Duca hits all the familiar notes of bad transit planning, and even throws Metrolinx under the bus.

 

[Amare]

"We have to build for what we know is coming in the near and long-term"

Umm, yes Del Duca let's build for the population that wont show up for another 20 years and completely ignore tens of thousands of people who have very poor access to transit.

 

[TOareaFan]

When I read the information about Kirby, I guess I processed it through my own eyes/perspective.....as many know, I am very angry about the failed "promise" to get evening and weekend train service to Bramalea by March 2017........seems they can't come to an agreement with CN on getting trains into Bramalea.....and then I read that $120MM is being spent on a station in the Minister of Transportation's riding that the experts not only said was not needed but would actually result in a net loss of riders on the line.....and I wonder how much of that $120MM would have been needed to resolve the issue with CN at the Bramalea station?

 

[salsa]

"We have to build for what we know is coming in the near and long-term"

So I presume he supports a new GO station at Humber Bay, am I right?

I'd have more respect for him if he would just admit that his re-election bid had at least something to do with this decision. What a PoS.

 

[dowlingm]

It will be interesting what happens with the Toronto Coach Terminal. It's owned by the TTC. Will the sale of this land give them enough money to re-build the streetcar loop?

That assumes that the loop has first dibs on the cash. I would doubt that very much.

 

[drum118]

Was surprised and had to laugh at the same time when I saw the Burlington GO Station today.

In 5 weeks after seeing the station, the roof is finally on the station. It wasn't on in May and the fastest I have seen a section of roof go on on since day one. A few spot still need work, but its done. Now to put the flashing around the station roof edge.

Only one of the 2 elevators is working and no idea why the other is not.

The new parking spot area in the north-east corner is open with bags on the signs that will display assign to when rented out. The new Kiss & ride area is open as well.

The station name has been added to the roof as well a GO sign at the east end.

I was asked over a dozen time where people could park since every spot was fill including the new parking area and told them to go to the north side. Some people were going over to Walmart to park with most having no idea of the north parking area. Cars were going up and down all the rows looking for that open spot that wasn't there. I guess they were going to Bono play tonight. Metrolinx needs to have signs posted tell riders where they can find more parking. I would say there was only about 100-150 empty spots in the parking structure and time to look at adding more levels to the existing garage.

Still a lot of work to be done before this station is finally completed with a Sept opening of the bus terminal.

 

[rbt]

It will be interesting what happens with the Toronto Coach Terminal. It's owned by the TTC. Will the sale of this land give them enough money to re-build the streetcar loop?

Don't expect much. That specific property has a large amount of debt against it; funds that mostly went into terminal upkeep which the bus companies weren't covering. TTC will be doing well if selling the property results in even 5 million net (~1% of the union loop expansion cost).

That said, even if it sold for $1B (all profit), this goes immediately against the city debt as per policy. TTC doesn't see a lick of it unless city council decides to send it back in the form of new borrowing versus any other priority they might have.

 

[Dan416]

Considering the third busiest line (after Lakeshore E and W) has no plans for RER, this terminal will get good usage as a bus terminal by GO for many, many years to come.

 

[TOareaFan]

Considering the third busiest line (after Lakeshore E and W) has no plans for RER, this terminal will get good usage as a bus terminal by GO for many, many years to come.

Yes it will, but does it need to be bigger or will the reduction in bus use on the other lines create a situation where this expanded bus terminal is under used even with the unfortunate need for buses long term on Milton?

 

[Dan416]

Yes it will, but does it need to be bigger or will the reduction in bus use on the other lines create a situation where this expanded bus terminal is under used even with the unfortunate need for buses long term on Milton?

I guess only time will tell.

 

[reaperexpress]

I know this is kind of old, but I wonder what it would take to get 60 min service to Barrie on the weekdays until 12:30am? Another siding? or double track?

Assuming there is already double track from Union to Aurora, hourly all-day service to Barrie would just take one more passing location. A good candidate may be Innisfil station. However, this is the bare minimum required for hourly service, so it would not support bi-directional service any more frequently than that (i.e. say goodbye to the current half-hourly peak direction service). So we'd actually want to design for half-hourly service, which would require additional sidings at/near Bradford and Barrie Allandale.

Barrie? Hourly to 12:30 AM?

Currently there's post-train bus departures at 7:30, 8:30, and 10:30. To change that to rail, and add 3 more departures, you'd need a significant increase in ridership. Also current travel time to Allendale is only 110 to 120 minutes on bus at those times compared to about 100 minutes on rail. So you'd also need a lot more traffic congestion.

Barrie only has population of 141,000 or so. And it's a long way from there to the next population centre. So another answer is, significant urban sprawl.

It depends what your loading standard is. If your warrant is a packed 10-car bilevel train, then sure, we'd never meet the warrant. But if we only expect a half-full six-car train, then I think that hourly all-day service to Barrie is conceivable in the context of a general increase in rail use for non-commuting purposes due to more widespread AD2W service. The last few departures would be lightly used, just like the existing late-night departures on the Lakeshore line, but they operate to provide a consistent service throughout the day. It's also worth noting that we already have late-evening train service to Barrie on weekends arriving as late as 12:30AM, with northbound departures at 21:50 and 22:50 (arriving Allandale at 23:25 and 00:25 respectively).

Train-operated trips later departing later than 23:00 might be hard to justify given how late they'd arrive in Barrie, but I think the intent of the question was simply to refer to all day service including the late evening. I don't think the point was to propose that 12:30AM be the exact time that northbound departures from Union switch from trains to buses.

What % of people in Barrie commute to downtown Toronto? Probably not many with 2-hours of travel. Another possibility is faster trains.

Given that we're not talking about peak period services, we're not really talking about commuting trips. For off-peak services, we're talking more about intercity trips, of which there are a fair number between Barrie and the GTA. Compared to some other nearby cities such as Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo, Barrie seems to be more interdependent with Toronto.

Besides, the travel time from Union to Barrie is not 2 hours. Current off-peak trains cover Union to Barrie in 1h35, and that's making every single station stop. With RER covering local service from Aurora to Toronto, the hourly trains to Barrie would make fewer stops through that segment, which already puts the travel time below 90 minutes before even considering potential electrification or track speed increases.