GO/VIA Transit

[Innsertnamehere]

the James North station is designed to handle eventually AD2W service, likely now 15 minute electrified according to Metrolinx's initial documentation on it. Opening day will only be the 2 daily trains though, likely expanding to 6 daily in 2016. Mind you hey haven't formally announced it for some reason, though they are building 4 storage tracks in Stoney Creek, and I don't really know what else they would be used for.

[thistleclub]

Threatened Coach Canada Service Cancellation Recalls Hamilton’s Glory Days As A Major Interurban Transit Hub
(Bay Observer, Oct 24 2014)

Faced with what it calls “ a significant passenger reduction, due to the expansion of GO Transit bus services into the Hamilton-Niagara region,” Coach Canada says it may have to sharply reduce its service between Hamilton and Niagara Falls, and between Hamilton and Kitchener.

A Coach Canada news release says it is impossible to compete with a taxpayer-subsidized service like GO, noting, “The rapid expansion of GO Transit bus services comes at an enormous expense to taxpayers and to you as a regular customer of Coach Canada. A 2011 study showed that taxpayers subsidize $33 of every $100 spent by Go Transit.” Under transportation regulations Coach Canada would be required to provide 90-day notice to the Ontario Highway Transportation Board to eliminate service on the Hamilton to Niagara Falls and Kitchener lines or a 30 day notice to implement a significant service reduction. Coach Canada customers are being urged to write Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca to protest the circumstances that have created the possible service reductions.

The possible departure of Coach Canada from Hamilton would mark the end of more than a century of more or less uninterrupted interurban transit with Hamilton as the hub. In 1896 a group of Hamilton entrepreneurs, all named John (Dickenson, Gibson, Moodie, Patterson, and Sutherland) formed the Cataract Power Company of Hamilton Ltd., with a plan to generate and transmit electricity 56 km from De Cew’s Falls at St Catharines to Hamilton. The company’s name was changed to the Dominion Power and Transmission Company and by 1907 Dominion, which already owned the Hamilton Street Railway, now had bought up electric rail lines radiating from Hamilton to Beamsville, Oakville and Brantford, and erected a transit hub known as the Terminal Building at King and Catharine Streets in Hamilton—a space currently occupied by Effort Square and the Crowne Plaza hotel. Applauding the ambitious plan the Hamilton Times wrote, “ “The idea of the promoters has always been to make Hamilton the centre of a perfect network of electric railway lines that would make all the country for 40 miles every direction tributary to this city.”

Read it in full here.

Not that it's packing it in, but CC's departure would leave the Hunter GO Centre with five interurban bus routes.


On a related note, the recently-released mandate letter for MTO PA Kathryn McGarry includes "supporting the ongoing development of recommendations on modernizing and appropriately regulating the intercity bus regime" as well as "advising on the continuing implementation of Ontario’s first-ever cycling strategy, #CycleON" and "assisting with establishment of a regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles and for stretcher transportation services."

[Beedok]

So, they aren't actually cancelling though? Just running fewer buses?

[movingtohamilton]

Originally Posted by Beedok

So, they aren't actually cancelling though? Just running fewer buses?

"Coach Canada says it may have to sharply reduce its service between Hamilton and Niagara Falls, and between Hamilton and Kitchener."

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by Beedok

So, they aren't actually cancelling though? Just running fewer buses?

Correct. The headline is sensationalized.

A similar situation is taking place in MPP McGarry's back yard, where Greyhound recently announced that it is trimming service in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph by 9% and 16% respectively.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by movingtohamilton

"Coach Canada says it may have to sharply reduce its service between Hamilton and Niagara Falls, and between Hamilton and Kitchener."

They started with that, but then went rambling about how cancellation was terrible and it was the end of an era.

[matt602]

Rumors are that once Coach Canada pulls out or even before, GO is looking to introduce a service from Hamilton to Cambridge and/or Kitchener. This could be further evidenced by the garage they are building in Waterdown. They've already made the Niagara Falls route cost ineffective for Coach Canada.

[palace1]

If GO is taking over, then it's strange that Coach Canada would create fear by announcing that routes will be cut back?

It hadn't occurred to me that Waterdown doesn't have GO service when other smaller communities like Aberfoyle do.

http://www.flamboroughreview.com/news/go...acility-under-construction-in-waterdown/
"Ward 15 councillor Judi Partridge said the maintenance facility is a start.
“Having the whole GO operation move up here from Hamilton, I have been meeting with ministers, I have been meeting with director at GO, at Metrolinx, for the last three years,” she said. “It’s something that we really need – it just makes sense."

Does this mean the GO use of the former HSR facility on Wentworth St. N. will cease when the Coreslab Dr. (West Flamborough not Waterdown) facility opens?

[matt602]

Originally Posted by palace1

If GO is taking over, then it's strange that Coach Canada would create fear by announcing that routes will be cut back?

It hadn't occurred to me that Waterdown doesn't have GO service when other smaller communities like Aberfoyle do.

http://www.flamboroughreview.com/news/go...acility-under-construction-in-waterdown/

Does this mean the GO use of the former HSR facility on Wentworth St. N. will cease when the Coreslab Dr. (West Flamborough not Waterdown) facility opens?

Most likely. I'd imagine it was always a temporary thing until GO built their own garage in the area anyway.

[king10]

Originally Posted by matt602

Most likely. I'd imagine it was always a temporary thing until GO built their own garage in the area anyway.

As another poster alluded to. The HSR facility on upper james is getting pretty crowded and they may be looking to move lower city busses to the soon to be vacated GO Bus space at the Wentworth yard as it saves having to build a new facility. The Darts busses are already located out of the wentworth yard.

[DHLawrence]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

the James North station is designed to handle eventually AD2W service, likely now 15 minute electrified according to Metrolinx's initial documentation on it. Opening day will only be the 2 daily trains though, likely expanding to 6 daily in 2016. Mind you hey haven't formally announced it for some reason, though they are building 4 storage tracks in Stoney Creek, and I don't really know what else they would be used for.

Just curious, if James North will be getting all-day service, will GO be likely to preserve service to Hunter Street? Doesn't seem like it would be necessary.

[SteelTown]

There's also pressure to commence regular GO Bus service from Brantford to Hamilton. I believe Brantford council has already approved a motion requesting this from Metrolinx.

[LikeHamilton]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

There's also pressure to commence regular GO Bus service from Brantford to Hamilton. I believe Brantford council has already approved a motion requesting this from Metrolinx.

They have asked for GO service to Mohawk Collage and the Hamilton GO Centre.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

There's also pressure to commence regular GO Bus service from Brantford to Hamilton. I believe Brantford council has already approved a motion requesting this from Metrolinx.

The rail ways exist so I'm going to keep the hope that we'll get some sort of Brantford to Hamilton rail transit. Eventually.

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

There's also pressure to commence regular GO Bus service from Brantford to Hamilton. I believe Brantford council has already approved a motion requesting this from Metrolinx.

The routing explored in IBI Group’s GO Transit Business Case (Feb 2014) explores three Brantford-Hamilton options:

1A: Hamilton GO via McMaster University
1B: Hamilton GO via Mohawk College
2: Aldershot GO via McMaster University

The study anticipates between 70 and 150 round-trip riders daily in year one, between 120 and 250 round-trip riders daily in year two, improving nominally to 135-280 round-trip riders daily by 2021. The report cites Greyhound’s Brantford-Hamilton fare at $4.13 and presumes that GO fare would be at least $1 higher than that.

Perhaps less than wowed by ridership demand, GO has suggested that the Brantford-Hamilton service could be fast-tracked by the City of Brantford operating the service itself or contracting a third-party such as Greyhound. The net operating costs laid out in the study show that either of those options would be about third of the expense of the GO option (exclusive of capital costs such as obtaining buses), but I believe it's still under review at this stage.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by Beedok

The rail ways exist so I'm going to keep the hope that we'll get some sort of Brantford to Hamilton rail transit. Eventually.

The old radial line > Too bad we needlessly ripped up the tracks.

It's a fantasy of mine that the old radial lines to Niagara, Brantford, etc., might be revived. Dream on...

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

The old radial line > Too bad we needlessly ripped up the tracks.

It's a fantasy of mine that the old radial lines to Niagara, Brantford, etc., might be revived. Dream on...

There's still a route that goes through Dundas, and slightly into Aldershot. Not a perfect route, but better than none.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by DHLawrence

Just curious, if James North will be getting all-day service, will GO be likely to preserve service to Hunter Street? Doesn't seem like it would be necessary.

Right now the official plan is to have the current amount of trains to continue to depart from Hunter Street, with all service expansion occurring at James North.

I've heard rumours however that all day service, which will come in the form of 15 minute electrified service, will now go to Hunter, with only Niagara region trains making stops at James North. GO transit designed the James North station under the old plans of 30 minute diesel service using existing locomotive hauled bi-level trainsets, not the electrified 15 minute service using EMUs that is currently under planning.

[matt602]

I wouldn't put much faith in those rumors. With only one track through the Hunter Street tunnel and competition from Canadian Pacific on their own trackage, there's no way that's ever happening unless they were able to buy the entire line (also not happening because it's a very important route for CP) or expand the size of the tunnel to run a second track through it (incredibly expensive and difficult). Electrification to Hamilton would have to go through James North since it has the rail capacity, possibly even in excess.

[markbarbera]

Personally, I would seriously question the validity of the claim that the tunnel makes transit service expansion here prohibitive. Given the length of the tunnel, I believe it really to be more of a bureaucratic bottleneck rather than simply a logistics issue.

Having said that, if tunnel widening is truly necessary, I can see it becoming become more viable, economically feasible, and politically motivated should Metrolinx embrace John Tory's Smarttrack concept and extend that model to deploy a rapid transit solution for Hamilton by electrifying the existing GO Transit route along the existing CP Hamilton subdivision from Guelph Junction to as far east at Vinemount.