Towered
Senior Member
I have no sympathy for anyone who willingly gets caught in this crowding.
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- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
mdrejhon
Senior Member
FYI!
There is already a Centennial GO station elsewhere (not on Lakeshore), so that Centennial Street station is actually called Confederation GO Station.
Willybru21
Active Member
I know! However at the time of the proposal it was named Centennial GO
Northern Light
Superstar
A tender is out on Merx for bus bridging services for multi-track closures.
Seems like some large closures are in the offing.
Seems like some large closures are in the offing.
Richard White
Senior Member
A tender is out on Merx for bus bridging services for multi-track closures.
Seems like some large closures are in the offing.
Any inkling as to what work may be forthcoming?
swampymudkip
New Member
Looks like they updated the bus interface today at Union.
C_Johnson_1995
New Member
Region says Cambridge GO Train has 'good chance' of moving forward
'It's a little deja vu,' said a Cambridge resident as another round of Cambridge GO Train talks come to the surface
www.cambridgetoday.ca
After attending the information session, it's hard not to get the impression that this is all but dead. I agree with Paul Langan on this one that a forced transfer will just kill ridership, and that if this is the plan they are going with, they should just run a bus.
The presenters tried to go through all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify their position (and their salaries to do busy work on this project I would assume), but as much as they tried, it didn't add up.
I personally don't think there is any reasonable case for Cambridge to have passenger rail. At this point, this useless project is just sucking oxygen out of the room for more productive measures. I hope that CN pulls up the line and sells it to property developers soon just so we can move on to discussing more productive investments in transit.
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
Sure, lets forever slam the door on a proper connection to Guelph because Paul Langan thinks Toronto is the only destination in the universe and no one seems to be noticing how extraordinarily good the cost benefit ratio is on the lower end versions of this. Whether you like the shuttle or not killing this corridor would be unimaginably stupid. Even compared to the likes of Orangeville.
And frankly, how are we getting to this idiotic ‘every service must be single seat to Union’ position? It’s an obnoxious throwback to GOs management style from 15 years ago.
And frankly, how are we getting to this idiotic ‘every service must be single seat to Union’ position? It’s an obnoxious throwback to GOs management style from 15 years ago.
crs1026
Senior Member
I'd like to see a traffic count for the 24 124. Spending $460M to correct a congestion problem that doesn't exist makes no sense.
If one is projecting growth/demand between Guelph and Cambridge, let's see how long it will take to fill up the existing road, and how well a bus solution might solve that with lower cost. Especially a bus solution that addresses first/last mile and gives multiple transfer free routing options at both ends.
Cambridge is a town that has precious little experience with urban transportation and certainly none with higher order transit. Their council is remarkably unsophisticated in this area. Wanting a GO service here really is a Monorail mentality.
Looking at this from the other end - suppose $500M in transportation funding suddenly became available. How would that money be best spent to improve transportation options for Cambridge? I'm pretty confident that the G+G connection would not be at priority #1. I even wonder what an extension to the Milton service might cost.... probably some doubletracking and signalling on the CP line through Campbellville, but probably not $500M.
And yes, numerically, I do believe that the number of Cambridge transit riders trying to reach the GTA far outweighs the number that need to get to Guelph. So meeting that need on the Milton line is indeed a better use of the funding, if the funds actually existed.
- Paul
If one is projecting growth/demand between Guelph and Cambridge, let's see how long it will take to fill up the existing road, and how well a bus solution might solve that with lower cost. Especially a bus solution that addresses first/last mile and gives multiple transfer free routing options at both ends.
Cambridge is a town that has precious little experience with urban transportation and certainly none with higher order transit. Their council is remarkably unsophisticated in this area. Wanting a GO service here really is a Monorail mentality.
Looking at this from the other end - suppose $500M in transportation funding suddenly became available. How would that money be best spent to improve transportation options for Cambridge? I'm pretty confident that the G+G connection would not be at priority #1. I even wonder what an extension to the Milton service might cost.... probably some doubletracking and signalling on the CP line through Campbellville, but probably not $500M.
And yes, numerically, I do believe that the number of Cambridge transit riders trying to reach the GTA far outweighs the number that need to get to Guelph. So meeting that need on the Milton line is indeed a better use of the funding, if the funds actually existed.
- Paul
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Sandpit
Active Member
I think a Guelph-Cambridge-Brantford bus service might work. It’ll complement the Waterloo-Guelph-Hamilton and Brantford-Aldershot services.
Metroscapes
Active Member
I drive 124 occasionally but I try to avoid it like the plague; I opt for county roads further south. I can say it's heavy (mostly moving, to be fair) most of the day and gridlocked during rush hours. It's certainly not Toronto-bound traffic, it's a bunch of Guelph <> Cambridge commuters like me.
I support a bus, but it'd be a fair point that it'd have an unreliable schedule, bus bypass lanes may mitigate that. If you can skip straight to a short train though, why not.
Sunnyside
Active Member
I see what your saying here, but I offer two counterpoints. Let me first say though that the usual contention of “better ways to spend the money” is not a great basis, because time and time again we see in Ontario that money doesn’t go elsewhere, it just dissapears if not spent as allocated. But I’ll talk about the places that money could go anyway later to cover my bases.
Anywho:
1. This is low hanging fruit. Rail corridors are “use it or lose it” type situations. Rail may not be warranted, but it is available. We wouldn’t build a new corridor for G-C certainly, but the opportunity cost of a rail line in the long term over a road or bus is huge- it will be able to handle any demand, while a road or bus might not. Similarly, could we not say that GO at its inception was an excessive way to deal with mounting transportation demand? Only now are we getting around to truly realizing the capacity potential of say, the Lakeshore lines. It’s not apples to apples, but it’s the same philosophy of playing the cards we are dealt.
2. This matters because you are right— there is not an immediate need for this project. But that is the nature of an economic investment; you create new potential and capacity for growth, rather than trying to facilitate growth that is occurring/will occur anyway.
On your point of ‘the best use of money’ which comes up a lot… Truthfully, I don’t think $500M could be better spent even if it didn’t dissapear; neither WR not Guelph have a pre-existing BRT plan to dump the money into like RapidTO (the usual way people suggest delivering more widespread benefits), it’s not enough for iON phase 2 (and that is solely an economic project- the transportation benefits will be null) and it is probably not enough for Milton-Cambridge, which has less utility and worse service baked in. You aren’t even better serving Cambridge-Toronto commutes either, your just avoiding the second-strongest destination en route.
Ironically we have spent so much time trying to catch up with our infrastructure deficit, that anything that tries to create new linkages is met with skepticism. Transportation and development is a chicken-and-egg problem, and we have been stuck on the chicken that the “egg” is unrecognizable. Whether there is net new growth is tbd; but, what is obvious is that the growth which is coming anyway to KWC and Guelph will now want to concentrate around this line.
In brief, considering that integrating KWC-G is a good policy direction, AND that the infrastructure alternatives are inferior, more expensive, and further off, then I think the scheme is a net economic benefit. KWC and Guelph aren’t one region, so they probably won’t be able do this on their own, even if the need arises, in 20 years or what have you. Furthermore, It’s a precursor to how things should be happening with disused corridors and ‘missing links’ once Metrolinx is done playing catch-up across the GGH. This isn’t Sheppard- it is certainly not excessively big in scope that it needs massive uptake on day 1 to justify it.
crs1026
Senior Member
I can get behind the concept of a Guelph-Kitchener-Cambridge-Brantford-(Hamilton?) transit web, and this would fit within that. There may be merit in looking at how to get that new network away from being road dependent. I see it however as separate from GO Transit and possibly a lighter-rail service similar to Ottawa's Trillium Line, using less than heavy rail equipment which, like Ottawa and KW LRT, may imply temporally separated from any freight operation. It may be best operated as some sort of cooperative inter-Regional entity and not driven from the Provincial level.
That's a new development for Waterloo Region and for GO Transit. It would demand some more serious consideration of how to get through Cambridge, and central Guelph, and might require reclaiming some downtown real estate and some popular trails that were once rail lines. I'm not sure the local Council is actually wanting to go there. They simply want the bragging rights of saying that they brought "GO Transit" to Cambridge - in any form, with any linkages. When you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. So I'm skeptical whether this proposal will actually serve the needs that might be most worth investing towards.
- Paul
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C_Johnson_1995
New Member
Who cares if we close the door? The case for rail to Cambridge will never be there. Not least on this corridor. The population and travel patterns will never be the right mix to make this a wise investment. Canada's population will start shrinking before then. In that case, if the land can be put to better use if not needed for rail, it should be used that way.
Cambridge to Guelph GO checks all the boxes of a vanity project. Cambridge wants higher order transit just so they can brag about it. They are not interested in actually creating the best transport links. If they actually push to get this and stage 2 ION funded, the province and Metrolinx will laugh in their face. It will be years wasted.
We need busses, and lots of them. Projects like this distract and deflect from doing the things that will actually improve connectivity and peoples' lives.
Northern Light
Superstar
1) You're being very aggressive in your position beyond simply advocating for it and citing evidence. (may I add, there's been precious little to work with on this proposal and on some others nearby) Being dismissive of anyone or their position, in all but the most extreme cases is unhelpful and will leave you short of fellow travelers sharing your view.
2) The right-of-way should be saved even if it were not rail-banked, because it can be a walking/biking trail, if nothing else, there is a nice chunk of nature along it.
I'm not necessarily sold on this project, but neither would I be inclined to flush the corridor down the toilet. It has at least some value, lets maintain that value either way, and give more consideration to the transit file in due course.
3) How about we fetch the cordon count data (not sure if 2023 is out yet) and have a look at the existing demand patterns? At a high level Cambridge to each of K-W, Guelph and Toronto, then if we can drill down to the level of Preston/Galt/Hespler than would be ideal. Then we can more intelligently discuss how to best facilitate certain movements. Rail should not be dismissed out of hand, even if it may not the be the right choice here and now; and/or maybe with consideration to different rollingstock and even provider. (Should Grand River operate such a service as opposed to GO?) Rail will not be successful without a strong bus system; but rail is unique in being far more attractive to far more choice riders vs buses, and that must be given some weight.
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