If I'm not mistaken, in addition to Concord GO Station being built on top of Downsview Park TTC station on the TYSSE on the Barrie line just south of, and replacing, York University GO station, a station at Eglinton to connect with the LRT line is planned in the semi-near future, and sometime after that another station is also planned (or under consideration, at least) at St. Clair. Now people want another one at Dupont and Lansdowne? Eesh.
Just to clarify:
- Concord station will be at Highway 7, connecting to Viva and potentially the 407 GO bus service as well.
- Downsview Park station is at Sheppard, fully integrated with the University line subway station. York U station will close concurrently with its opening.
- Caledonia Station will be at Eglinton, with a connection to the ECLRT
- now we're talking about a stop at Bloor, with connection to Lansdowne subway station.
Each of these stations have considerable merit, they are all great network connections. But this line stretches 100 km to Barrie, so speed is also very important. Operating a mix of express and local service therefore an absolute must. Which raises the question: will double-tracking be enough, or do we actually need more than 2 tracks?
The line currently operates at up to 4 trains per hour in the peak direction, so I think it's safe to assume that we'd be looking at 8+ trains per peak hour upon full build-out.
Let's consider a scenario where peak-hour local service operates every 15 minutes from East Gwillimbury to Union and express trains operate every 15 minutes from Barrie to Union. Assuming a minimum separation of 4 minutes between trains, the express service can be at most 7 minutes faster than the local service through if they share the same tracks (i.e. the southbound express service is 11 min behind the local at East Gwillimbury, and 4 min behind at Union). Given the number of new stations added to the line, I suspect that this 7-minute savings would still translate to an express service slower than today's all-stops service.
We therefore should be considering locations to build third and fourth tracks to allow express trains to overtake local trains.