[denfromoakvillemilton]

Just a question, which routes do you think they will twin together, like the do with Lakeshore east and west? On Munro's site someone Stouffville and Richmond Hill.


I have this

Milton and Stouffville
Richmond Hill and Barrie (East Gwillimubury)
Brampton will be back and forth.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I think Kitchener and Stouffville are better twins, along with Milton and Richmond hill. Leave Barrie untwinned.

 

[drum118]

Stouffville is to be double track as well part of the Barrie starting in 2015/16 if we don't go to the polls in June.

Milton will be 4 track starting in 15 and completed by 21.

All 3 lines will see all day service after completion.

You only need a single track west of Georgetown for hourly service with a passing track.

If and when Metrolinx can buy this corridor, that will be the time the line is upgraded to twin track. Then why stop at KW and not go to London??

RH line is unknown at this time, but it needs to be twin and heavily upgraded to offer 20 minute service from RHC.

 

[ShonTron]

Stouffville is to be double track as well part of the Barrie starting in 2015/16 if we don't go to the polls in June.

Milton will be 4 track starting in 15 and completed by 21..

What? Tell me, please where you are finding out that Metrolinx has been in negotiations with CP and budgeting to double the capacity of the Galt Sub. I seriously doubt what you're saying right there.

 

[TOareaFan]

True, it's from their Investment panel. Metrolinx keeps it's cards far too close to it's chest for us to get such a timeframe out of them. But Metrolinx has briefed the panel in more detail than they've ever briefed the media.

If you can point to better information though, I'd love to see it.

The only thing I can add to this is that when the panel first declared that they were going to have a voice in not just how the Big Move was to be funded but also what was built and when I asked the Minister of Transportation if that was true (via twitter) and his response to me was that they were not going to have a say in that.

So, in that context, their opinion as to timing of those things can only be taken as an opinion and not a fact.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The whole report is one of opinion, in the end the politicians will have control.

We should be seeing news about the tax plan they are going to go with soon, I'm starting to get excited after so many years of just talk, the funding will finally go to a vote.

 

[TOareaFan]

The whole report is one of opinion, in the end the politicians will have control.

We should be seeing news about the tax plan they are going to go with soon, I'm starting to get excited after so many years of just talk, the funding will finally go to a vote.

I think, to me, there is a difference between the recommendations on funding sources and plans for what gets built and when.

In the case of the funding the panel was given, publicly, a mandate to investigate, report and recomend prefered alternatives. They fulfilled that mandate.

In the case of what and when gets built, they were never given that mandate, they simply extended their roll to that and when asked (by me and others) the government of the day actually denied that they had any say in those matters.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I can see why they expanded it, as the need for the two to be tied together became apparent. Now of course you are right that isn't really what they set out to do directly, but that doesn't mean that the reasoning they had behind those decisions didn't have direct ties to their actual mandate.

 

[smallspy]

thats bus service... Even places like Port Perry have all day bus service. I (or at least I though i did) clearly mean all day train service. in the very schedule you linked to the trains end at aldershot except for 4 daily trips as I previously mentioned. Hamilton currently gets the same quality of mid day service that Bowmanville gets.

So why is bus service any less important than train service?

Also, to call the 2 different half-hourly and better bus services to Hamilton "the same quality....of service" is a huge lie and grossly undermines your argument. Try again.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[innsertnamehere]

you are honestly asking me why trains are better than buses?

relax, it was just an off hand comment I made about the new GO station, I didn't mean to get into a huge argument over whether Hamilton gets good bus service or not.

 

[Dan416]

Trains are better than buses for sure. Trains don't get caught in traffic messes on the Gardiner, which Milton buses frequently do depending on the time of day and if there's any events at the ACC/Skydome.

If you're lucky enough to catch an express bus straight from your station to Union they can be fast. But my station (Erindale or Square One) don't get many buses express to Union. They either stop at Cooksville and Dixie (weekdays) or Cooksville (weekends).

For the life of me I can't understand what the point of Dixie is. It should be treated like a Toronto stop and only get train service.

 

[Jonny5]

If you're lucky enough to catch an express bus straight from your station to Union they can be fast.

I've done the old Hamilton - Toronto run too many times in life, probably thousands at this point. The express bus blows past the off-peak milk-run trains. The bus will be at the other terminal while the train is still farting around in Oakville. They even run every 20 minutes on Sundays now. You also get the convenience of the local stops at the Hamilton end. I remember when they use to have the locals downtown Toronto too, it was great, but obviously not practical anymore.

These days I would always take the bus, but inevitably I wind up stuck sitting near some disgusting slob (the seat beside you is not a plate on which to spread out your smelly Taco Bell meal while screaming in your phone about your plans for the night), so unless it's really early morning and the bus is mostly empty, I will take the train to have the ability to get up and move to another car and maintain sanity, despite the slow speed.

 

[xtremesniper]

From the Yonge Street Subway Extension thread (replying here to keep threads on topic):

Its slow. When a train ends at Unionville you have to take a bus through Marhkam, and it its very very slow. If the trains ended at Mount Joy instead it would probably take 10-15 minutes off of travel time to Stouffville. I knew the study only went to Unionville but the plan was always to double track it to unionville as trains could get to Mount Joy and back before the next train comes with hourly service.

I think this is just a confusion, The PDF they had showed all day service running to Mount Joy, its just that the upgrades needed for all day service are only Unionville and south.


Are there any grade separations needed? are they planning parking garages, or just bigger parking lots?


again, feel free to post a response in the GO thread, this isn't the right place.

I don't believe that enough details have been shared to know if they are planning grade separations, though I think they did mention that they are still being considered. Honestly, the presentation wasn't particularly detail-heavy, and the poster boards should be posted soon so that will help with clearing a few things up.

When I asked about parking garages, they again said that nothing specific has been planned but that the entire station is being considered for a redesign. Currently, I only saw redesign considerations for the platform itself (it looks really nice, and hopefully they do it smartly by making northbound trains stop on the parking lot side and not the west side where everyone would have to funnel through tunnels) but a parking lot redesign is not out of the question.

My main concerns were that parking is already a nightmare in that lot as it is currently, so I made sure to make it clear that any redesign should enable more exits and shouldn't just tack on a garage to add capacity. They noted down everything and seemed to be in agreement.

 

[innsertnamehere]

They should also make it so that VIVA Purple can easily stop at Unionville, it would make connections so much easier.

Agreed that Unionville is a bit of a problem. The second exit doesn't help as it just leads to the same place. they should stick an exit to Enterprise drive or a direct access point to Kennedy. For parking I have a feeling they will just expand the Unionville surface lot further back to Kennedy, there is still a ton of space to use there. If they could figure out how to build a small garage like at Centennial at Markham that would be useful as well. I don't think Millikens lot currently fills up, but when it does there appears to be an abandoned industrial site to the south that they can use to expand as a surface lot. Agincourt is probably the tightest station in terms of parking, but a garage is probably possible if they bought that run down hotel and used it's space. Kennedy has such good TTC connections it probably doesn't really matter, as well as the fact that it is actually negative peak ridership. (more people get off in the mornings than get on) Stouffville, while not in the study, is going to be tight in a few years. Its use is growing really fast and doesn't really have anywhere to expand. it may be best to try and encourage active transportation to it, biking shouldn't be too difficult given the size of the town.

 

[TOareaFan]

Interesting (to me) question for our resident train experts.

I remember a discussion about trains that change directions needing a brake test.

The train I am currently on overshot Etobicoke North and had to back up. Then proceeded to Malton....wherein there was a (short) delay for a brake test. any reason the test did not take place at EN or is it just a case of them saying "oops we forgot to do the brake test"?