kEiThZ
Superstar
Should be noted too that the proposed Eglinton stop is going to turn Kennedy station into a superhub. Bloor-Danforth line, Eglinton LRT, GO Stouffville and VIA HFR.
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- Thread starter ehlow
- Start date
Bureaucromancer
Active Member
Aren't they pretty clear about going up the Don Valley? Kennedy is a no brainer, but I've always taken Eglinton to mean an attempt to squeeze something in around Leslie/Eglinton/Don Mills.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Have they even stated which route through Toronto they will take?
kEiThZ
Superstar
Guess we'll see how they route it. Is going up the valley firm? I was under the impression they were going to share with Stouffville line. Hence my assumption they were going to setup at Kennedy. If they are going up the Valley then yes a station at Leslie/Don Mills and Eglinton is likely. Not optimal for eastern Toronto. But passing up an Eglinton LRT connection is a bad idea.
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micheal_can
Senior Member
Have they even stated which route through Toronto they will take?
kEiThZ
Superstar
I think there's a bit of reading the tea leaves from Metrolinx filings. Nothing can be said for sure until the JPO puts out their reports.
crs1026
Superstar
The Don Valley route was assumed by many, and the maps VIA produced showing the Eglinton stop certainly hinted at that.
Various observers have formed their own views that the route might be via Kennedy, on the strength of the old GO Peterboro study which leaed towards that route. There is some logic to that, in the sense that adding trackage to the CP Leaside line seems inevitable if VIA goes that way, and that would be a huge expense given the Don Valley bridges needed.
ML then further muddied the waters by initiating an EA that appears to show the Don line converted to a storage yard.
Bottom line - we don’t know.
- Paul
Various observers have formed their own views that the route might be via Kennedy, on the strength of the old GO Peterboro study which leaed towards that route. There is some logic to that, in the sense that adding trackage to the CP Leaside line seems inevitable if VIA goes that way, and that would be a huge expense given the Don Valley bridges needed.
ML then further muddied the waters by initiating an EA that appears to show the Don line converted to a storage yard.
Bottom line - we don’t know.
- Paul
MisterF
Senior Member
Using the Stouffville line makes a lot of sense. They'd have to build about 7 km of brand new railway to connect the Stouffville Line to the CP line just north of Major Mackenzie, but that would probably be a lot simpler than trying to work around rail yards and bridges over the Don. The new route would be parallel to existing farm property lines and doesn't seem overly complicated to build. Plus it would piggyback on the major upgrades that Metrolinx is already doing.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
Does that corridor have enough capacity for RER and HFR? And/or room to add tracks if necessary?
micheal_can
Senior Member
A better question is whether there is a corridor that can do it all.
micheal_can
Senior Member
How does someone do an access to information?
crs1026
Superstar
There are segments that could go to three tracks, but there are zones that are problemmatic. For instance, the tunnel under Highway 401 is two track, and it would not be cheap to change that. If RER goes to 15 minute service, two tracks won't cut it. HFR would inevitably catch up with stopping RER trains and be delayed.
Also, that route is not that fast. That was not a drawback when ML was studying adding Peterboro GO service, but it would definitely impede HFR's desire to lower trip times.
Five miles' new construction, with land costs, and whatever is needed to add a third track south of the new connection, might look a lot more in 2020 dollars than the original study which is now ten years old. That Don Valley bridge might not look so expensive.
There is a TPAP looming for a flyover/under at Scarborough Jct, which would be on the HFR route if the Uxbridge line were chosen. The documentation for that project might tip ML's hand as to whether they anticipate VIA to proceed with that option. It might also reveal how many trains ML expects VIA to run on the Kingston Sub post HFR.
- Paul
ShonTron
Moderator
Transport Canada owns the majority of the land required to connect the GO Uxbridge Sub with CP Havelock Sub, anyway for the aborted Pickering Airport project.
If it were me, I'd only have stations at Kennedy/Eglinton, Pontypool (for only a few commuter-based trains with a bus connection to Lindsay), Peterborough, Perth and/or Smiths Falls, Fallowfield and Ottawa.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Why so few? I would add something near highways 407/7 in the Markham area plus Tweed and maybe Havelock. Having both Perth and Smiths Falls is almost a no brainer as well. Remember, this is HFR, not HSR or Express. You could have it where some stations are only served on some runs.
kEiThZ
Superstar
That would not be high frequency for that station at this point. I appreciate the discipline and restraint VIA is showing here. They need a GTA East station outside the 416. Much more than that is doubtful. Stations every 20km (distance from Perth to Smiths Falls) would result in slower service, for little gain in ridership (especially outside the Metros). Remember, every minute slower results in marketshare losses in the big metros. So the ridership gains from any new station enroute need to be weighed against those losses. Especially important for a project that is still shooting to break even or make money.
Skip-stop service also creates inconsistencies in service along the corridor. Instead of users expecting consistently spaced timings at each point, they now have to worry which station has service when. What's the point of spending billions simply to duplicate what exists to the south?
Instead of building more stations and running inconsistent schedules VIA needs to work with local services or build feeder services. Look at your example of Perth. A town of 6000 that is 20 km (17 min drive) from Smiths Falls. They would benefit more from a shuttle van connecting them to every single service at Smiths Falls than every second train stopping there to pick up maybe a dozen passengers.