Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
This would be quite acceptable if it was on the cards. I do have misgivings about the cost and complexity of the enlarged tunnel and stations to accommodate commuter rail through the downtown core still, but it would alleviate capacity constraints that Union Station would face in the future.You make a good point. The problem is commuters coming in from Weston-York are using the same general area to enter the downtown. I still stand by my belief that the Relief Line tunnel should have provisions for GO service to be diverted away from Union because of this. But if the Roncesvalles area needs to be served, then it can't be served by GO and there would need to be a split, where GO trains surface to join the corridor and local trains continue westbound along Queen. I would suggest it look like this, where GO trains do not stop at unlabeled stations.
Oh, and I still say this is possible and preferred, since a project being dismissed once doesn't mean that corridor or general idea can never be considered ever again, or else nobody would be talking about Sheppard East. Nothing's impossible until shovels are in the ground.
You could even use the Richmond Hill corridor north of Lawrence to provide RER-service on the Richmond Hill line, completely by-passing the problematic Don River alignment (and take the Relief Line to Sheppard on Don Mills as planned).