[EnviroTO]

Is anyone on here from the Guelph or Georgetown areas? I'm wondering how the Credit River bridge work is progressing and how the Guelph inter-modal terminal is coming along. With projects within the GTA, especially downtown, we get tons of people walking by and snapping photos that get posted online, but outside the GTA there isn't much in the way of updates. Does anyone know if there is a Guelph forum somewhere?

 

[nfitz]

T1: In the NYC area NJT has half-hourly service on weekdays on the Northeast Corridor Line to Trenton
and I believe the Morris and Essex Line E of Summit to Hoboken and Penn Station has that frequency also...

Oh, there's certainly some good service in New York City. The issue was the original poster said that Toronto was the ONLY city in North America not to run half-hour commuter rail service.

 

[RandomBusGuy]

Is anyone on here from the Guelph or Georgetown areas? I'm wondering how the Credit River bridge work is progressing and how the Guelph inter-modal terminal is coming along. With projects within the GTA, especially downtown, we get tons of people walking by and snapping photos that get posted online, but outside the GTA there isn't much in the way of updates. Does anyone know if there is a Guelph forum somewhere?

I live in Guelph. I went past the transit terminal a couple weeks ago and work was going well. They demolished the old bus station a couple months ago, and have since partially built a few new mechanical structures as well as poured the curbs for a bunch of the bus bays. According to the city, they should be done the majority of the work by November, but they're not opening the terminal until next spring because they are redesigning the canopies. I'll try to take some pictures next time I'm downtown. Also the city of Guelph has a great site here that has information on all the major road and transit projects going on.

 

[RedRocket191]

Is anyone on here from the Guelph or Georgetown areas? I'm wondering how the Credit River bridge work is progressing and how the Guelph inter-modal terminal is coming along. With projects within the GTA, especially downtown, we get tons of people walking by and snapping photos that get posted online, but outside the GTA there isn't much in the way of updates. Does anyone know if there is a Guelph forum somewhere?

I was cycling in Georgetown a few weeks ago and observed the bridge. It appears to be substantively complete but the second track had not yet been laid.

 

[Northern Light]

Flesh on the bone......

It would appear the Liberals are now expressly committing to 30min service on the Lakeshore line, with a definite and near-term timetable. Fall 2012.

See article below:

http://www.insidehalton.com/community/oakvilletoday/article/1083321

(relevant text below)

A re-elected Dalton McGuinty government will have more frequent GO train service in place along the Lakeshore West Line, which services Oakville, by the fall of 2012.

Oakville Liberal MPP Kevin Flynn and Halton Liberal candidate Indira Naidoo-Harris announced this proposed GO train service expansion, Monday, during a presentation at the Oakville GO Station.

“Quite often you hear people giving these reasons as to why they don’t use the GO train and often it has to do with scheduling. It didn’t run often enough,†said Flynn.

“So as part of our platform we are announcing that if we form the government on Oct. 6, beginning in 2012 we’ll be taking full-day service to 30 minute trains, right throughout the whole day, which is quite significant.â€

In addition to this Naidoo-Harris said all day, seven day a week service will be brought to the GO corridors of Milton, Georgetown, Barrie, Richmond Hill and Stouffville.

Vegeta shall duly comment!

 

[vegeta_skyline]

lol Well, its a campaign promise and personally I never put much weight into those.

Having said that, logistically I see no reason why they couldn't implement 30 minute mid day service (9am-3pm) on the Lakeshore one year from now. There will be more crew's available for the service at that time as that's when the summer-time Niagara service ends(add 3-4 crews) and more importantly when another class of engineers should be ready (add anywhere between 4-12).

All day, meaning evening 6pm-12pm might be a stretch though and in any case I think they should focus on implementing all-day(basically 2-way mid-day) service on the other lines before adding 1/2 hr evening service on the Lakeshore.

 

[canarob]

I think they should focus on implementing all-day(basically 2-way mid-day) service on the other lines before adding 1/2 hr evening service on the Lakeshore.

I could not agree more. On the Stouffville line our trains are jam packed, some of our buses (especially when there is a special event) are crammed with people standing in the aisles. If the Lakeshore starts running half-empty, half-hour service (especially at night) before we get hourly service, I would strongly object to this. I would love to see a breakdown of how much GO takes in per rider on each of the lines. Would the ridership growth on the other lines (especially Barrie and Stouffville) be in a way subsidizing increased lakeshore service?

 

[ShonTron]

I think midday and early evening half-hourly service on Lakeshore makes a load of sense. What about 9 to 3 and then after PM peak until 8:30 or so? Then hourly until last departures from Union sometime around 12:30 or 1?

I'm in agreement that Stouffville (to Mt. Joy) is the best candidate for the first all-day service route by virtue of its passing opportunities, full ownership by GO, decent ridership potential and no major construction except at Sheppard. I'm biased to Georgetown, and it has better ridership potential, but is a mess of construction. The outer section (though I'd only go to Mt. Pleasant.) is owned by CN but the third track and additional platforms at Mt Pleasant and Brampton mitigates this problem.

Milton has huge potential, but too many problems. I am a bit sceptical of Barrie's potential, but has similar other advantages that Stouffville has.

 

[gweed123]

I think midday and early evening half-hourly service on Lakeshore makes a load of sense. What about 9 to 3 and then after PM peak until 8:30 or so? Then hourly until last departures from Union sometime around 12:30 or 1?

I'm in agreement that Stouffville (to Mt. Joy) is the best candidate for the first all-day service route by virtue of its passing opportunities, full ownership by GO, decent ridership potential and no major construction except at Sheppard. I'm biased to Georgetown, and it has better ridership potential, but is a mess of construction. The outer section (though I'd only go to Mt. Pleasant.) is owned by CN but the third track and additional platforms at Mt Pleasant and Brampton mitigates this problem.

Milton has huge potential, but too many problems. I am a bit sceptical of Barrie's potential, but has similar other advantages that Stouffville has.

I agree with this. I think having 30 min service from 9-3 and then again from 6-9 on Lakeshore makes sense. After that, stick with the hourly. Although they may want to extend that that 30 minute service to 10:30 or so on some nights for Leafs or Blue Jays games. I know from experience that with Lakeshore West trains only leaving at 9:43 and 10:43, it either means leaving the Jays game early, or sitting around waiting for about 30 mins. A 10:13 Lakeshore West trains would do wonders for those people (the Lakeshore East train would also leave at around 10:08 I think, based on when the Lakeshore West trains get into Union). Also, even getting in to Union for games on a weekend or weeknight is a pain. The Lakeshore west trains get in at :05 after, which means for a 1:07 or 7:07 game time start you either need to miss the first few minutes of the game, or be there an hour early. Both of those options kinda suck.

Outside of commuters, I think that special events at the Rogers Centre, the ACC, and to a lesser extent the Ex are the biggest draws for GO Transit. If they can schedule trains that leave a few minutes after most events usually end, it would help a lot of people out.

On the topic of the Stouffville line, I think that all day 1hr service would be a step up from what it is now for sure (obviously with more frequent trains in peak hours though). I wonder if having those same Stouffville trains continue west on the Georgetown line as 1hr service on that line too would make sense (make Union a through-station, like it is with Lakeshore).

 

[EnviroTO]

I was cycling in Georgetown a few weeks ago and observed the bridge. It appears to be substantively complete but the second track had not yet been laid.

Someone just posted a picture on the RailPictures.net site. I thought they were building this for three tracks but only two initially but the picture suggests otherwise. Perhaps they built the abutments and pylons for three?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

T1: In the NYC area NJT has half-hourly service on weekdays on the Northeast Corridor Line to Trenton
and I believe the Morris and Essex Line E of Summit to Hoboken and Penn Station has that frequency also...

The LIRR runs half hourly service on both the Babylon Branch and the Main Line W of Hicksville (both Ronkonkoma
and Huntington/Port Jefferson Branch trains) which are two of its busiest routes...

Metro-North runs half hourly weekday service on its three lines-the electrified sections of the Hudson
and Harlem Lines S of Croton-Harmon and North White Plains respectively and the New Haven Line
main to New Haven sees half-hourly service at least to Stamford...

I feel that the GO Lakeshore line can warrant half-hourly service on much if not all the route from Hamilton
to Oshawa on weekdays-this will be a faster easier operation once this line becomes electrified with MU cars...

LI MIKE

Thank You!

 

[vegeta_skyline]

I agree with all of the above. I'd imagine that when all day service comes to those lines that it will probably be implemented simultaneously on both the Barrie and Stouffville lines and the trains would run from one line to the other during its run. One hr service would be preferable, but I'm not certain that that would initially be offered (see; previous Georgetown mid-day scheduling)

I think midday and early evening half-hourly service on Lakeshore makes a load of sense. What about 9 to 3 and then after PM peak until 8:30 or so?

That would also make sense but it runs into some logistical problems. About 2/3rds of the crews that operate peak service trains work split shifts. Due to industry regulations they are limited to a certain number of hours on the job and they must also have a certain number of hours 'off duty' in between shifts. Without more crews, in order to accommodate additional service you would have to extend the on duty time of several crews and that's where you would begin to run into those limitations. The crews coming on duty for the evening shifts take over 5 of the trains operation on the Lakeshore at Mimico GO station towards the end of the pm peak period. Hence you'd need new crews to run additional trains between 6-8:30pm. But there would be no equivalent extended morning shifts for them to run. So they couldn't just use a crew for just the short run. There may be ways to change some of the shifts but in effect that would spread out the number of trains used during the pm peak over a longer period of time.

 

[andrewpmk]

I agree with all of the above. I'd imagine that when all day service comes to those lines that it will probably be implemented simultaneously on both the Barrie and Stouffville lines and the trains would run from one line to the other during its run. One hr service would be preferable, but I'm not certain that that would initially be offered (see; previous Georgetown mid-day scheduling)

I don't think that there is any point of introducing service with less than 1 hour frequencies, because you would still need buses to fill in the gaps between trains and the trains would have low ridership. If there is only funding for something ridiculous like 2 or 3 hour train service than it would be best to keep the existing bus service.

 

[Komiksulo]

I don't think that there is any point of introducing service with less than 1 hour frequencies, because you would still need buses to fill in the gaps between trains and the trains would have low ridership. If there is only funding for something ridiculous like 2 or 3 hour train service than it would be best to keep the existing bus service.

A good beginning would be bidirectional service during the morning and evening rush...

 

[Jim12]

I kinda agree with mattbg on this (but perhaps from a different perspective) idea that extending further out is not the way to expand. I just think that the farther out you go, the less likely you are to be able to offer the kind of service at the kind of price that the commuting/travelling public is expecting....so the "capture rates" are likely going to be less. So you will be running a service that has a much lower expense recovery rate than you could achieve by deploying those resources within the existing network.