Nobina
New Member
I couldn't agree more with you Jaye101!!!
Reducing pollution, noise levels, and vibrations isn't the main benefit of electrification, they're just added bonuses. The main benefit of electrification is having stock (i.e. EMUs) that can accelerate/decelerate quickly, and can accomplish high speeds on short stretches between stations. This enables stations to be constructed much closer together (and allows for much smaller headways), making it a much more local service, and useful to people living in the communities surrounding the rail corridors. This eliminates the need for long commutes to train stations just to use the service, and reduces the need to provide parking at these stations, all of which makes it a much more useful service, and more likely that people will use it. Changing the way we think about commuter rail, and how we use our rail corridors is key to making public transit competitive with the automobile. All of this can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost of expensive subway construction, and would provide much faster service than LRVs with their own ROWs ever could.
In Toronto and the GTA, we are blessed with these extensive rail corridors, some of them quite wide, and it makes me extremely sad that we don't use them (and have no plans to use them) to their full potential, while gridlock is severely impacting our economy, and degrading our quality of life. True commuter rail can never be realized with solely diesel stock. Express services could continue to operate with diesel trains, since they serve fewer stops that are usually spaced farther apart. But in order to provide true local rail service, electrification is a prerequisite, as well as fare integration with local services (i.e. TTC fare for a GO Transit trip inside Toronto) and bus connectivity.
Local stops should be placed at major arterial roads and at other important locations (e.g. on the Georgetown corridor in Toronto, there could be stops at Lawrence (existing Weston GO), Eglinton, St. Clair, Bloor (existing Bloor GO), Queen, and Bathurst. Think about how much more of a local service this line could be with just the stations I suggested. Express services bypassing most or all of these stations can still continue to operate. But until attitudes start changing at Metrolinx, all of this is a pipe dream. The CityRail proposal is the closest idea we've had for providing true commuter rail in the GTA.
We should be building it right the first time, instead of doing it later, if ever... It's not like we have to look far for examples of excellent commuter rail services - there are good examples all around the world (mainly Europe and Asia). I don't get why we have to "re-invent the wheel" in Toronto, when it comes to providing quality public transit.
(Example, Sm4-class EMUs in Helsinki, Finland regularly accomplish speeds of 100km/h in "all stops" local service with very short distances between stations, while the same trains regularly accomplish speeds of 160-170km/h in "limited stops" express or regional services with stations spaced farther apart.)
Reducing pollution, noise levels, and vibrations isn't the main benefit of electrification, they're just added bonuses. The main benefit of electrification is having stock (i.e. EMUs) that can accelerate/decelerate quickly, and can accomplish high speeds on short stretches between stations. This enables stations to be constructed much closer together (and allows for much smaller headways), making it a much more local service, and useful to people living in the communities surrounding the rail corridors. This eliminates the need for long commutes to train stations just to use the service, and reduces the need to provide parking at these stations, all of which makes it a much more useful service, and more likely that people will use it. Changing the way we think about commuter rail, and how we use our rail corridors is key to making public transit competitive with the automobile. All of this can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost of expensive subway construction, and would provide much faster service than LRVs with their own ROWs ever could.
In Toronto and the GTA, we are blessed with these extensive rail corridors, some of them quite wide, and it makes me extremely sad that we don't use them (and have no plans to use them) to their full potential, while gridlock is severely impacting our economy, and degrading our quality of life. True commuter rail can never be realized with solely diesel stock. Express services could continue to operate with diesel trains, since they serve fewer stops that are usually spaced farther apart. But in order to provide true local rail service, electrification is a prerequisite, as well as fare integration with local services (i.e. TTC fare for a GO Transit trip inside Toronto) and bus connectivity.
Local stops should be placed at major arterial roads and at other important locations (e.g. on the Georgetown corridor in Toronto, there could be stops at Lawrence (existing Weston GO), Eglinton, St. Clair, Bloor (existing Bloor GO), Queen, and Bathurst. Think about how much more of a local service this line could be with just the stations I suggested. Express services bypassing most or all of these stations can still continue to operate. But until attitudes start changing at Metrolinx, all of this is a pipe dream. The CityRail proposal is the closest idea we've had for providing true commuter rail in the GTA.
We should be building it right the first time, instead of doing it later, if ever... It's not like we have to look far for examples of excellent commuter rail services - there are good examples all around the world (mainly Europe and Asia). I don't get why we have to "re-invent the wheel" in Toronto, when it comes to providing quality public transit.
(Example, Sm4-class EMUs in Helsinki, Finland regularly accomplish speeds of 100km/h in "all stops" local service with very short distances between stations, while the same trains regularly accomplish speeds of 160-170km/h in "limited stops" express or regional services with stations spaced farther apart.)
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