The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

On the whole, this GO announcement is great news. However, there are a few blemishes.

- 15 minute RER servce ends at Bramalea, rather than the more natural TOD/Places to Grow-designated Brampton, also the terminus of the eventual Hurontario LRT.

- 15 minute service ends at Burlington, rather than Hamilton James St. This is slightly more forgivable than not going to Brampton.

- 15 minute service to Aurora is overkill, especially since so many of the existing stations on the Barrie line largely parallel the Spadina subway extension, and have little redevelopment potential. I suppose it will be useful for people who live on the western side of Toronto between Eglinton and Bloor.

- Why end 15 minute service at Unionville, and not Markham?

- The Milton line continues its legacy as a peak-only service, despite being the second busiest rail line after the Lakeshore pair. Damn CP. I wonder if the investment made into the line to Aurora would be better spent building a separate GO ROW for the Milton line.

They all have their reasons. The track layout makes it difficult to add tracks into Brampton. Same thing with Stouffville, the corridor woul be very expensive to double track North of unionville. For lakeshore west, it's the same thing with track ownership issues west of Burlington. And why do you think it should end at Markham? Markham isn't a busy station, both centennial and mount joy are busier.

Aurora makes sense for Barrie. aurora is actually an extremely busy GO station.

As for the $13.5 billion cost, that was the cost they were estimating for every line to be upgraded originally, I feel this "phase 1" must cost less. But idk, there is still very little information out there beyond a small press release and some tweets by some journos.

Part of that $13.5 billion would likely come from the outside of the GTA fund anyway, as Barrie and Kitchener are both expected to receive expanded service and they are outside of the GTA.

[WhipperSnapper]

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/projectsandprograms/corridorownership/corridor_ownership.aspx

Yeah, track ownership plays a huge role in their expansion plans

[red-paladin]

Metro Van's West Coast Express has the same problem. Translink would love to run more trains a day, but the CPR won't consider it at all.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Metro Van's West Coast Express has the same problem. Translink would love to run more trains a day, but the CPR won't consider it at all.

That's just all over North America. Same thing with AMT, which only owns the trackage on one line (Deux-Montagnes).

[BretttheRiderFan]

I think this is the guy the City of Edmonton gave the contracts for the Metro Line to. "I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook"


http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xhpO_WcR_jE/hqdefault.jpg

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

They all have their reasons. The track layout makes it difficult to add tracks into Brampton.

A lot of this is excuses. If we are going to have proper regional express rail, then we are going to have to spend money, and build tracks where needed.

It is just plain stupid to terminate 15 minute service at Bramalea, Unionville, and Burlington.

[WhipperSnapper]

Well, in a world where it rained doughnuts, maybe, but, the goal should be to get the most value from the budget. The price tag to purchase these corridors or build new ones would be enormous.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Well, in a world where it rained doughnuts, maybe, but, the goal should be to get the most value from the budget. The price tag to purchase these corridors or build new ones would be enormous.

I guess the German's should have piecemeal S-Bahan networks then? No. They spent the money to build inner city tunnels, build tracks, etc.

Toronto was prepared to build tracks in fully new corridors back in the 1980's for an RER system.
We need that kind of vision again. The money is there. We just need to stop with the excuses.

[WhipperSnapper]

What does Germany have to do with anything? It's a small, densely populated country with dense prewar designed city cores and a long history committed to rail. It benefitted too by being completely rebuilt 70 years ago. The money isn't there for every desire as far as I can see. Maybe you're privy to more detailed informationas an accountant for the province.

If they were prepared in the 1980s than something would have been built. This is all a pointless debate without financial reasoning. Unfortunately, you still don't seem to have grasped that yet. Saying the money is there to built and operate it is not proff enough.

this is a great first step for future sprawl and even longer commuting distances. It can be expanded further in time or as opportunities present themselves.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

What does Germany have to do with anything? It's a small, densely populated country with dense prewar designed city cores and a long history committed to rail. It benefitted too by being completely rebuilt 70 years ago. The money isn't there for every desire as far as I can see. Maybe you're privy to more detailed informationas an accountant for the province.

To be fair, the Greater Golden Horseshoe is also small and densely populated. Denser than Germany and comparable in size and population to a lot of the smaller European countries. Not that I disagree with you of course. The Germans have been investing heavily into regional rail since trains were invented while Ontario only got serious about transforming GO in the last few years. To demand what Germany has all at once is unreasonable. Even what we're getting is the biggest investment in GO's history and will completely transform the way people get around the GTA.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

They all have their reasons. The track layout makes it difficult to add tracks into Brampton. Same thing with Stouffville, the corridor woul be very expensive to double track North of unionville. For lakeshore west, it's the same thing with track ownership issues west of Burlington. And why do you think it should end at Markham? Markham isn't a busy station, both centennial and mount joy are busier.

Aurora makes sense for Barrie. aurora is actually an extremely busy GO station.

As for the $13.5 billion cost, that was the cost they were estimating for every line to be upgraded originally, I feel this "phase 1" must cost less. But idk, there is still very little information out there beyond a small press release and some tweets by some journos.

Part of that $13.5 billion would likely come from the outside of the GTA fund anyway, as Barrie and Kitchener are both expected to receive expanded service and they are outside of the GTA.

Well, I think that if you're going to spend $13.5 billion, you might as well spend an additional $500 million here and there to actually make the RER network go to actual destinations. Something like building 2 new tracks for the 4 km from Bramalea to near downtown Brampton, and then maybe an elevated 1 km section for the tight squeeze near downtown Brampton would mean the RER service actually goes to one of the Provincially-designated Places to Grow centres where there actually is some hope of redevelopment, and also where the Hurontario LRT actually ends. Ditto for building a flyover and separate trackage to get from Burlington to Hamilton James St.

It's not easy, but, then, I think that the cost of rebuilding the Barrie line guaranteeing 15 minute electrified service to Aurora won't be easy, either, nor do I think the returns are all that impressive. I would have probably just cut the RER service along the Barrie line, since 60 minute diesel service is sufficient. For those who really want to get from North and Northwestern York region to downtown, there's always the very expensive Spadina subway that we are currently building that provides essentially duplicate service as far as Highway 7.

Finally, I think that I would have ploughed some of that money into at least more stations in central Toronto. It's not really an RER if there are no intermediate stations between Danforth and Union. For the same reasons, the real RER on which this service is modeled doesn't just have one station within central Paris. Something at Gerrard and Cherry on the east, and Spadina and maybe near Roncessvalles on the west, at a minimum, is needed. That doesn't mean all trains have to stop there, but these places have more job destinations and density than practically any other station on the system other than Union and it will help serve as a DRL-lite, since we seem resigned to push that project further and further onto the backburner.

[WhipperSnapper]

I think you're missing the point with respects to Brampton. It's not a financial obstacle. It's an ownership one. CN has been unwilling to sell it.

[caltrane74]

www.vikpahwa.com

Tunnel Boring Machine - Eglinton West

[1overcosc]

GO RER really does seem much less intense than the government made it sound like it would be, but that's to be expected.

The government made a boo-boo by promising "15 minute service electric on all corridors!". It got our expectations very high.

If they said "More off-peak GO service, electrified tracks!", we would all be ecstatic at this announcement.

I'm surprised at the Milton line. I was under the impression that the reason why the price for full RER is so high is because of the cost of building an extra pair of tracks for GO use along the whole route. Without that, and without the snags at Brampton and Hamilton... how did it get that high in price?

[SkahHigh]

Another beauty shot by Michael Berry

AMT 809 by Michael Berry Railfan, on Flickr

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

I think you're missing the point with respects to Brampton. It's not a financial obstacle. It's an ownership one. CN has been unwilling to sell it.

So you build separate tracks in a separate corridor if required.

Amazing the excuses we make in North America. Yet Joburg in a country facing huge financial and poverty issues, was able to build an electric high-speed regional rail project in no time. While here, we keep saying we have no money.


By doing the project only halfway, we are going to miss out on big trip generators. Example:
The 15 minute service will miss Markville Mall in Markham by one stop.

I think there is going to need to be an understanding that the entire RER network may not be able to be built using all existing tracks. There are going to have to be some new sections of tracks, and dare I say, a few short tunneled sections (to Square One).

To be honest, this RER project is looking more like just a rapid transit expansion for the City of Toronto. As most of the stations getting 15 minute service, on most lines, will be within Toronto. Save for Lakeshore.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

So you build separate tracks in a separate corridor if required.

Which would require massive expropriation or tunneling? Both of which are massively expensive.

It's best to start with the easiest (and yes, cheapest) items that give the most bang for buck and go from there once the service is established.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Which would require massive expropriation or tunneling? Both of which are massively expensive.

It's best to start with the easiest (and yes, cheapest) items that give the most bang for buck and go from there once the service is established.

You are not going to get a huge uptake in ridership, if the service does not penetrate more into the outer suburbs.

Toronto is 20 years behind, and we cannot be wasting time doing small improvements. This is a big city region, and we actually need more trains touching more areas. If we are going to do 15, we might as well touch all the major population areas and do it right.

[Innsertnamehere]

$13.5 billion in improvements would hardly qualify as "small". It would be one of the largest infrastructure projects on the continent.

Markville is also only a regional mall, you don't get people across the region travelling to it like you do for Yorkdale and the Pacific Mall.

Unionville is also by far the busiest station on the Stouffville line, with huge amounts of demand growth in its vicinity with Downtown Markham. Centennial is far from busy with Mount Joy and Milliken being #2 and 3. Getting 15 minute service to Centennial would require an overly difficult push through old unionville with some complicated grade separations and possibly requiring tunneling to ensure the preservation of heritage structures located directly adjacent to the rail corridor. Not worth it to reach a station a couple hundred meters from a mall that has questionable ridership demand and almost 0 surrounding density.

As for "Toronto dominance", 15.5 of the RER stop that exist today will be in Toronto, and 17.5 outside of Toronto. Hardly Toronto-centric. Per capita that is roughly equal for the 905 compared to the 416. (.5 as Milliken effectively serves both Toronto and Markham being located directly on Steeles Avenue)

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

So you build separate tracks in a separate corridor if required.

Amazing the excuses we make in North America. Yet Joburg in a country facing huge financial and poverty issues, was able to build an electric high-speed regional rail project in no time. While here, we keep saying we have no money.


By doing the project only halfway, we are going to miss out on big trip generators. Example:
The 15 minute service will miss Markville Mall in Markham by one stop.

I think there is going to need to be an understanding that the entire RER network may not be able to be built using all existing tracks. There are going to have to be some new sections of tracks, and dare I say, a few short tunneled sections (to Square One).

To be honest, this RER project is looking more like just a rapid transit expansion for the City of Toronto. As most of the stations getting 15 minute service, on most lines, will be within Toronto. Save for Lakeshore.

More useless comparisons (to one of the most corrupt cities out there no less) and unsupported grandiose ideas other than to spend money haphazardly. The city has the ridership so why shouldn't RER be centred there. In time, it can be expanded outwards as the opportunities and ridership present themselves. I see no reason to spend billions and billions to develop new corridors when, in all likelihood, opportunities like the corridor in Brampton could be purchased and developed in less time.