Monday’s approval of Metrolinx’ plans to run diesel trains on the Weston/Georgetown corridor stirred up lots of discussion here, in the mainstream media and at City Hall. If this approval rested on solid data and projections, we could simply argue the fine points and debate rollout plans. However, the claims made by Metrolinx for emissions from the project, comparisons with auto travel and supposed reductions by redirected auto travel depend on calculations that are transparently wrong.
In brief, Metrolinx assumes that every GO train trip, both ways, every day, all day in the corridor will be completely full of passengers, all 1,900 of them (a fully seated load on a 12-car train). This absurd premise overstates the likely ridership by a factor of at least 4, probably greater (details follow later in this article) with the following effects:
- Pollution caused by the trains is a fixed number determined by how many trips they make. If there are fewer passengers, the pollution per passenger trip is much larger than claimed by Metrolinx.
- If there are fewer passengers, then fewer auto trips are diverted to rail. This does not affect the pollution saving per trip (presuming that one even agrees with this premise), but the total saving is greatly reduced because so many fewer trips are diverted.
Opening day (2015) traffic projected for the corridor is 184 GO trains and 140 UPRL (Airport) trains. The total trips calculated by Metrolinx for the corridor GO services is 349,600 per weekday. To put this in context, the entire GO rail system carries about 180,000 passengers per day today.
In practice, the trains will carry nowhere near 1,900 per trip on average. Peak travel will be heavily inbound in the AM and outbound in the PM, with lightly loaded trains in the counterpeak. During the off-peak, loads will be much lower than at peak, and some trips (notably inbound late evening runs) will be almost empty. The same patterns can be seen on the Toronto subway system.
I am inserting the break here for those who don’t want to read the gory details, although the conclusions are down at the end.
The source material from Metrolinx on which this discussion rests includes background material on the calculations of emissions.
What is the All-Day Demand?
At this point, I must engage in some “back of the envelope planning”. Transit lines have a fairly predictable demand curve through the day, and this can be used to extrapolate from peak period demand projections to all day loads.
Peak hour demand generally represents half of the peak period demand given that the shoulder peak hours carry fewer passengers. A three-hour peak can be estimated at twice the peak hour. Double this to get both AM and PM peak demands.
The off-peak service on a well-used line (such as urban routes in Toronto) carries about half the all-day ridership provided that the service is reasonably frequent.
If we have a peak hour ridership of 1,000, then the all-day number will be somewhere around 8,000. (Double the peak hour to get the peak period, double again for AM and PM, double a third time to include off-peak riders.) The 8:1 ratio will be lower if the service and/or travel demand is strongly skewed to peak travel due to other factors such as an inability to reach the line thanks to poor feeder services or full parking lots.
Note here that I am trying to be as generous as possible in adjusting the Metrolinx figures to avoid overstating my case.
If GO will be carrying 1,900 per train at peak on a 15-minute headway, that’s 7,600 per peak hour. The corresponding all-day ridership would be 60,800. This number could be affected by various changes in the assumptions:
- If peak service runs at 12- or 10- minute headways, and off-peak demand stays at the same ratio, then all-day ridership would go to 76,000 or 91,200.
- If off-peak demand behaves more like commuter rail as we know it rather than like a heavy urban line, then the all day riding will be substantially lower. A fifty percent reduction in projected off-peak demand would reduce the ratio from 8:1 to 6:1 and the figures above would scale accordingly. This would reduce the 60,800 number to 45,600.
- Some counterpeak demand will exist (again by analogy to the subway system). However, counterpeak riders will almost certainly need frequent local transit at the outer end of their trips.
- The ability of GO to attract riding strongly depends on good transit service at the outlying stations and intensive development within walking distance of them. This is vital for counterpeak trips as well as for eliminating the need for parking for all inbound riders. (Again, compare to the subway network.) Nothing in Metrolinx’ plans suggests that this will actually occur or be funded, but it should be an integral part of their plans. They talk about “Mobility Hubs” but don’t make any provision for actually bringing them into existence.
This gives us a range of all-day demand between roughly 45,000 and 90,000 trips, not 349,600. Therefore demand-based calculations are off by a factor somewhere between 4 and 7.5.
By contrast, the demand modelling backgrounder to “The Big Move” projects much higher peak hour demand on lines in this corridor. However, this could only be achieved with headways in the 5-6 minute range (10-12 trains per hour per direction) which is substantially more service than the model parameters for the emission calculations.
Those 184 GO trains are not all destined for Brampton and beyond, but would also run on the Milton and Barrie lines (all day) and the Bolton service (peak). If the Metrolinx demand estimates are believed (many planners feel they are exaggerated), then the combined peak point demand for the peak hour is about 55,000 passengers. This is considerably more than the subway which strains at much above 30,000. At 1,900 per train, this would require one full GO train every two minutes, or 30 per hour. Clearly, the opening day 184 trains will handle far fewer passengers.
Adjusting for Demand Levels and Tier 4 Diesel Standards
For the sake of argument, I will take the base data used to calculate emissions at face value and will not challenge the calculation of pollution outputs from the diesel trains nor from the autos they might replace. The real issue here is the overstatement of demand.
- The NOX per passenger trip (see page 2 of the document linked above) for GO trains is shown as 5.71 grams versus 6.61 for autos. However, this is for a Tier 2 diesel. If we adjust for Tier 4, the train value drops to 1.14. However, correcting for the actual demand places the per passenger value at between 4.56 and 8.55.
- Particulate Matter (PM) per passenger trip is shown as .20 grams for Tier 2 diesels and .56 grams for autos. Tier 4 diesel is expected to drop this by 90% to .02 grams. Correcting for the demand level gives a range of .08 to .15.
- Carbon Dioxide (a greenhouse gas) is shown as .51 kg per passenger for diesel (the engine tier has no effect on CO2) and 6.08 for autos. Correcting for demand raises the diesel value to a range of 2.04 to 3.83 kg.
In brief, PM and CO2 are still better than autos, but not by as much; NOX may be better or worse depending on assumptions regarding demand.
Pollution from the Airport Link
The Airport service is in a much worse situation because the ratio of horsepower to passengers is much higher and, with that, the pollution per trip. Metrolinx uses Tier 3 ratings for their calculations. Even without adjusting for possible overstatement of passenger volumes, the UPRL figures (page 3 of the linked document) are sobering.
- NOX for airport trips is 77.54g by train, but only 6.61g by auto. Adjusting for Tier 4 only reduces the train value to about 15.5g, over twice the auto value.
- PM values are 1.41g and 0.56g respectively. Correcting for Tier 4 (roughly 20% of Tier 3) brings the PM value for trains down to .28g.
- CO2 numbers are 6.93kg versus 6.08kg.
For NOX and CO2, the airport service, even at Tier 4, will generate more pollution than the auto trips it replaces. This directly contradicts claims that the airport route will reduce pollution.
Metrolinx assumes that every trip to and from the airport will carry 56 passengers. This doesn’t sound like much, but is in fact a seated load for the cars that will be used in their new configuration. Any decrease in the average load per trip raises the emissions per trip accordingly.
Diverting Auto Trips to Reduce Pollution
Now we must turn to the auto side of the balance sheet. I will take the calculated emissions per trip as given by Metrolinx, but of course the number of trips diverted to trains will be much lower than claimed. Therefore, the emission reduction due to this diversion (assuming you accept the premise of such diversion) will be much lower than claimed by a factor somewhere from 4 to 7.5.
As an example, total GO CO2 emissions (which are not affected by Tier 4 standards) are given as 46 kilotonnes per year for rail and 553 kt for auto, a difference of 507 kt. Once the demand correction is applied, this falls to a range between 68 and 127 kt. There is a saving, but not as much as claimed. This will be offset by the higher pollution from train operations on the airport service.
It’s important to remember that this “reduction” is in the airshed of the Barrie/Georgetown/Milton corridor while the new pollution due to the trains is concentrated along the rail lines themselves.
Conclusion
The calculations underlying the Minister’s approval of the Metrolinx proposal are deeply flawed to the point of invaliding claims made about environmental impacts. The Minister and the Government have committed to a major policy decision that is not supported by materials filed by the proponent.
Whether this is an error of oversight (nobody recognized the flaw in ridership estimates) or an error of misrepresentation (someone hoped that this flaw would go unnoticed) is not for me to say. Either way, this shows extraordinarily poor analytical skills in Metrolinx and in the Ministry that this was not caught.
To reiterate (for those who scrolled all the way down to skip the details), correcting the Metrolinx data for Tier 4 emission standards and for their overstatement of riding in the corridor:
- For GO services:
- NOX emissions per passenger trip will lie in a range straddling the projected emissions for cars.
- PM emissions per passenger trip will be much lower for trains than for autos.
- CO2 emissions are lower for trains than autos, but the difference is much less than claimed.
- For Airport services (with no adjustment for possible overstatement of demand):
- NOX for train passengers will be over twice that for auto users.
- PM per passenger trip will be half that of autos.
- CO2 per passenger trip will be greater for trains than for autos.
Because the demand in the corridor is overstated by a factor of at least 4, claims of pollution reduction due to diversion of auto trips to rail are similarly inflated.
Metrolinx and the Ministry of the Environment owe everyone an explanation for this situation. Community groups have worked tirelessly in support of electrified transit and endured much criticism rooted in the belief that any trains, no matter what their technology, were vastly superior to auto travel. Electrification was something for tomorrow, something that needs a two-year study, something about which oddly little was known beyond its being “too expensive”.
Do the study, but structure it so that important information — basics like a validation of capital costs and operating savings — are available to guide policy decisions as soon as possible. If past studies (some as recent as Metrolinx own evaluation of the Lake Shore proposal in 2008) are wrong, explain why we should believe a new set of consultants more than the old ones.
We have already had one ministerial resignation this week in Ontario, and the Minister of the Environment would do well to encourage Metrolinx’ participation in reviewing the validity of their environmental claims.
Steve Munro 
My principal concern is that the lungs of 300,000 people along the corridor, including children and seniors, will be used as test cases for the adverse health affects of a technology and fuel that has not been scientifically analyzed yet, ‘clean diesel’.
While Metrolinx and the Minister of the Environment explore air mitigation measures and monitor our air from these ‘clean emissions’ generated from a high capacity corridor, our health costs will rise as respiratory illnesses increase in our neighbourhoods.
The residents of the rail corridor will be guinea pigs for a new, unproven, highly toxic technology, when one technology, which is proven and internationally implemented, electric trains, is not implemented at the outset. Electric trains are a proven mitigation standard to protect health.
What a waste of time and money.
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Metrolinx seemed slightly obsessed with what *could* happen (full trains all day long), rather than what *will* happen (full trains in peak only). They are also put far too much emphasis on “per passenger” emissions, rather than total emissions (which is what really matters). The way to get really low emissions is for people travel less often/less distance, but I’ve yet to see anything on reducing overall transport demand. (I would love to work close to where I live. I expect my town would love for my employer to have its office close to where I live as well, and my employer would like the lower rent/tax where I live too… it’s just a downtown Toronto address somehow seems to be required).
Could you do some similar calculations looking at fuel costs vs. electricity costs? Given that’s per train, we can sidestep the passenger count issue.
Steve: I will have to mine that info out of various studies. In this post I wanted to concentrate on the errors in Metrolinx methodology and, by extension, their conclusions. There is another saving beyond fuel, by the way. With electric, you don’t need as many trains to provide the same service because of their superior acceleration. This reduces fleet (capital and maintenance) and crew costs.
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Steve – the first thing I notice from that spreadsheet is that GO trains are assumed to have 5000bhp and UPRL trains to have 2000hp. Does GO have ambitions to pull 16 car sets to Bolton and has anyone told the GTAA for noise planning at their platform that all UPRL trains will be four powered cars and not 2 + 2 unpowered trailers? I seem to remember these numbers being linked from a previous post of yours, at least the Blue22 ones anyway.
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The entire population of Brampton will be using the GO train every day. What’s so hard to believe about that?
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More fun with figures:
“Our current estimate of the cost of electrifying the Georgetown line only is $1.5-billion. We estimate the cost of electrifying the GO system, including Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West and the other lines, to be somewhere between $7 and $10-billion”. From the Globe and Mail.
That’s $30 million/km for the Georgetown line. This seems absurdly high to me.
Steve: Compare to the figures quoted in the Metrolinx Benefits Case Analysis for Lake Shore electrification. The table on page 2 of the report (page 9 of the PDF), give a cost of $1.89-billion with service at 10 trains/hour for the electric option. This is roughly a $1-billion premium over the diesel option. Note that this will include some costs that would be shared with other routes if the whole network were priced such as the complex wiring of Union Station and its approaches, as well as a new maintenance facility for electric trains. Even so, this gives a cost somewhere around $14-million per route/km, much lower than the cost quoted for the GSSE.
However, the incremental operating costs for diesel are $215-million, while for electric they are $141-million.
The same study also states quite clearly that achieving the desired level of passenger capacity in the Lake Shore corridor is impossible with the constraints of corridor width and other train operations if diesel trains are used. The reason for this is that such trains accelerate and decelerate more slowly than electric trains, and therefore occupy more space for safe operation. This translates to a limitation on train spacing and, hence, train headways. Much higher capital costs are shown for the full build-out of electrical operations, but this is a configuration that could not be operated with diesels.
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Very well written piece Steve. Too bad Metrolinx don’t listen to us when we can see the trees for the forest and they can’t.
The ARL will never pollute less than the cars they are to replace. The business model is flawed from the outset.
Now we have various companies chiming in with the estimated cost of Tier 4 locomotives being an additional $5 million per vehicle. So to convert an MP40 at $5 mill will cost a further $5 mill. All of a sudden the electric alternatives doesn’t look that expensive does it?
Will we ever get the truth out of Metrolinx?
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I understand the issue about not using electric trains. However I think the debate over pollution is being blown way over the top. The people in this corridor bought homes knowing that a train line is there, and further more a train line that already uses diesel trains.
There is no room to complain knowing that a rail line does not stay static and it could see more or less trains as time goes on.
So the residents of the corridor should have thought about that before buying homes on a rail line.
Same issue happens with people who buy near the nuclear plant in Pickering, or the airport in Mississauga, etc. They all knew these places were there. Yet they choose to complain.
Steve: Your analogy is inappropriate. The Weston Subdivision, starting from Strachan Avenue at the south, has seen a long, slow decline in use to the point that there is little non-passenger traffic at the bottom end. CPR gave up space on its site of the right-of-way that became the Railpath, and huge areas that once held freight operations are now empty. Only because this space exists can Metrolinx propose to restore the corridor to 8-track operation with frequent service.
The design of the Airport link requires that it have two dedicated tracks for its own use rather than sharing trackage with GO.
From a pollution, noise and vibration point of view, the number of trains in the lower end of the corridor will rise immensely. Saying that “people should have known” begs the question of why developments were allowed to occur along these rail corridors. This happened for hte simple reason that nobody, including the politicians or planners, expected such a huge increase in rail traffic.
And Tom West, this is a big city. The idea that people are going to stick to their own neighbourhood and that is going to reduce the need for good all day transit service, I think is a sad sad idea. We should have had all day transit service on these lines 30 years ago instead of waiting till now.
If you want to live closer to work, then move into Toronto. Business should not be moving out of the core, because that only leads to more pollution, sprawl, and lower transit use. If we want to reduce how much people travel, than people should be buying closer into the city.
But that being said, we should still be providing all day frequent service on all train lines. If we did, we would probably see GO carrying close to a million riders a day, considering Sydney, which is not much smaller than Toronto carries almost 900,000 riders a day on their suburban rail network. Only difference is they run all day service on all lines.
Steve: And that entire network is operated with electric equipment.
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MIchael B, If you bought a house near Pearson knowing full well that there’s an airport there, and then our government decided to increase flights by a factor of 7-9 time are you saying that’s just too bad, you should have expected that? Really?
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MRC’s time-distance charts’ scenarios in the GSSE EPR (Appendix A), while poor quality compared to the Hatch Mott Macdonald time-distance charts prepared for October last year on the Lakeshore Corridor (Appendix E-1, beautiful), do show Georgetown peak period headways of, on average, around 7.5 minutes or better, when local and express are combined, 15 minutes each or better (counter peak for local service is at 30′ though, curiously, even though express rail counter peak frequency is the same as its peak frequency, suggesting that Metrolinx is underestimating the importance of local service).
Those same charts also show UPRL sharing the tracks hosting the express rail portion of the service. I overlaid the same-direction tracks for GO/VIA, and found that they do need 3 tracks, but not 4, that 4th track is the UPRL’s doing. GO/VIA, based on Metrolinx volumes excluding UPRL, will not fit on 2 tracks.
Steve: What is quite clear is that in all of these studies there are different assumptions about service levels and design every time someone addresses the question. Getting consistent answers about implementation cost and operational effects is challenging. A big challenge for the electrification study will be to explain why all of the previous studies, including the one for the Lakeshore corridor, are wrong, and if so why the government paid for them.
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“My principal concern is that the lungs of 300,000 people along the corridor, including children and seniors, will be used as test cases for the adverse health affects of a technology and fuel that has not been scientifically analyzed yet, ‘clean diesel’.”
What a load of bull.
If adding one more train is going to result in the death of 300,000 people, then would not removing one more train be very helpful? In fact, lets remove all the trains and see how well that works! So long as they are not in your backyard, thats fine and dandy! Have them drive along the 401 and be in those people’s back yards!
Steve: Your comment is a load of bull. Metrolinx is not going to add one train, but almost 400 to what now operates in the corridor south of West Toronto. The Minister’s order allows Metrolinx to go ahead with their new service provided they use Tier 4, provided that it is actually commercially available. Electric trains are available today.
To add to the confusion, the Metrolinx numbers, once corrected, lead one to suspect that pollution tradeoffs between the corridor and “diverted” trips elsewhere are anywhere near as rosy as claimed.
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I lived behind a low-volume rail line for years and I can honestly tell you that if I lived anywhere along the Georgetown rail corridor now, rather than fight this, I would simply get out now while the getting’s good.
Electric or diesel, their property values will tank and the noise/vibration will be far worse than the health effects of all the added pollution. Who the heck would want to live there with electric trains plowing through every 5 minutes? The noise will be constant.
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A while back I was trying to calculate how much in health care costs the diesel expansion would cost the city and the province. With this analysis on pollution levels it would be much easier. It costs 2 billion a year in respiratory illness related to traffic congestion in Toronto. That is A LOT of money. If there is actually an increase in pollution or a similar amount than for cars taken off the road with diesel, the province will have to pay, especially for those people who live along the corridor. With electrification, if the pollution levels are non-existent, how much will the province save? It would be interesting to try and put a dollar amount on this savings and see how long it would take for electrification to pay for itself.
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When Pearson gets busy, they build a new airport… when bus routes get busy we build subways, why is it that commuter rail operations are constricted to the small array of existing surface corridors?
Steve: For the same reason that we don’t build subway lines by tearing new rights-of-way through neighbourhoods. Also, when bus routes get busy, we build LRT (or should). The moment you want a new railway corridor, it will be almost impossible to find one that is completely on the surface. Underground operation precludes diesel trains and greatly increases construction costs.
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Tangentally related to this, given that Kitchener GO trains would use the Weston corridor, is a new report coming out talking about the feasibility of extending Milton GO service to Cambridge, and it looks like Waterloo Region has some interesting things to consider.
Reports on GO Kitchener and GO Cambridge claim that both services could be up and running by 2011, assuming the province came forward with funds. GO Kitchener, however, is a lot more expensive. Initial costs would run to around $180 million, and would give us a number of additional trains, but taking two hours to get from Kitchener to Toronto. To slash 30 minutes off the run would require the spending of at least another $300 million or so.
GO Cambridge could be done for around $110 million, and there’s no extra money required. The bottleneck that used to exist at Milton is now gone, and all that would be required is completing a second track between Milton and Cambridge, and paying for the construction of four stops (Galt Collegiate, Franklin Avenue Park ‘n’ Ride, Highway 6 and Campbellville). Now the Region, the province and GO have to choose.
Even though I live in Kitchener, and would see substantial benefit if we could fully upgrade Kitchener’s GO service (which would mean a similar increase in speed for VIA’s service), I’m thinking it might be better if Cambridge gets GO service first, because while GO Kitchener increases service, it doesn’t increase service choices. Cambridge residents still have to trek to Kitchener to take the new trains. GO Cambridge, on the other hand, adds a completely new service for region residents to access. This improves the accessibility of inter-city transit in the region. Your thoughts?
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M. Briganti said: Electric or diesel, their property values will tank and the noise/vibration will be far worse than the health effects of all the added pollution. Who the heck would want to live there with electric trains plowing through every 5 minutes? The noise will be constant.
Yeah, like those people living around the High Park subway station, how miserable it must be to live there. Just ask the Mayor. Nobody lives in High Park, it’s a run-down ghetto that nobody wants to live in. Who knows what that crazy developer is doing building a large condo building directly on top of the station!
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Hey Michael B!
You are SOOO missing the point.
Local residents think transit is needed.
More trains are OK.
WE WANT CLEAN NON POLLUTING TRAINS.
This is so the 300000 folks in the corridor do not have 8X the existing diesel pollution to deal with. This project’s cloud will equal 43% of total GTA industrial smog. We already have over 1000 kids in public school with asthma on the corridor. Do the math on their future, or the ones that follow them.
Let’s also recognize the microclimate across northwest Toronto where proposed diesel intensification will take place is a lot different than the shores of Lake Ontario where diesels already run and electric replacement is slated to happen.
But HEY, electrification of both should happen. It’s just that Georgetown South can cover its costs by the savings of choosing electric over diesel intensification, whereas Lakeshore is a straight full cost upgrade. And electrification deals with more folks living along the Georgetown South corridor, even if Lakeshore has higher existing ridership.
O, yes, and electifying the line from the outset means you don’t have a major service disruption in another 10 years. You can electrify now around 50 trains running each day on an intermittent schedule, not over top of 320+ trains a day after 2015.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! Everybody AGREES that the MX project has major HEALTH IMPACTS as it is proposed. Electric trains serve the same goal getting people out of cars, less congestion, and do it more effectively with better future flexibility to match to urban growth. They are world standard, commercially available today, and surpass tier 4.
The costs identified by Mr Prichard, by his own account a lawyer and media guru not a train engineer, accountant nor medical officer of health, are overblown at 1.5 Billion. AND did I mention that electric trains already surpass Tier 4.
But then Metrolinx wants to spend 1.3 B on implementing non-existent energy inefficient tier 4 diesel technology on this line PLUS spend 1.5 B (today’s dollars) in 10 years.
Can anyone spell f-i-n-a-n-c-i-a-l m-i-s-m-a-n-a-g-e-m-e-n-t o-f O-n-t-a-r-i-o-‘s r-e-g-i-o-n-a-l t-r-a-n-s-i-t b-u-d-g-e-t???
This doesn’t require rocket science, which Mr Prichard isn’t an authority on either, in case Mx may suggest so in its door flyers at some future date. My neighbours are among those 100,000 householders receiving info letters that burn tax dollars and now arrive weekly. BTW: most common folk recognize marketing propaganda when they see it, and the jig’s up in my neighbourhood. We hope the Ombudsman will take it from here.
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Steve. I’m going to be frank for a moment.
I cannot fathom WHY on EARTH you are taking the position you are? You make this sound like a debate between 400 Diesel trains and 400 Electric trains.
It is not.
This is a debate between 400 Diesel trains, and no new trains at all. The government is not going to shell out any extra money here, if they can’t get their Diesels, they won’t add anything at all. Those same people who are out there protesting this train thing will go to the ballot box and vote for whoever commits to “low taxes”. You cannot build a perfect transit network only collecting “low taxes”.
Steve: It will cost more in the long run to implement diesel and then convert to electric than to do it from day one. Read Metrolinx’ own analysis of the Lakeshore electrification where they talk about the inability of running frequent service with diesel trains, and then look at projections for the demand (and hence service level) for the lines running in the Weston corridor in The Big Move.
Add to this the fact that their own report shows that the pollution caused by the airport service will be greater than that of the cars it supposedly will replace, and that they greatly overstate the pollution “benefits” of diesel for the GO services.
For decades, Ontario tried to build GO on the cheap, but now they face the real cost and implications of building a regional rapid transit network. We keep hearing how important transit is to sustain the regional economy, but they’re not prepared to invest what it takes to build that system.
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Steve
I really appreciate the numbers and the calculations that you have included in this post. They are very helpful in understanding how passenger levels and pollution levels are measured.
Steve: Be careful using that info. It only deals with the overall comparison of emissions, and does not deal with localized effects or time-of-day variations.
It really is strange that Metrolinx and the Ontario Government are resistant to the immediate electrification of the Weston sub but ready and willing to go ahead with Lakeshore.
I’m sure there are numbers that justify waiting for the electrification of the Weston sub but there are also numbers that justify doing it along with the Lakeshore rail and it is up to the government to weigh and evaluate the numbers and make the decision.
I guess this is one time when we can say, thank goodness for politics because hopefully Thompson and Smitherman will realize that the Mayor of Toronto is elected by the people of Toronto and must be aware of their needs.
Regards, Moaz Yusuf Ahmad
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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This data’s emissions calculation is still based on NO WEEKEND SERVICE (see page 4 (5 days operation/week), and top of page 2 (260 days/year)). I find it very hard to believe GO would not be running even hourly weekend service in 2024.
If we do go by the data’s projected ridership and traffic volumes, just to humour them (we know it’s 184 * 1900, which makes no sense), Georgetown would be running 23 trains in the peak hour in the peak direction alone. Include the shoulder hours for the peak direction alone, and half the trips are already gone in 6 hours of peak direction travel. We should assume at least 6 trips (4 express, 2 local) per hour in the counter peak direction based on EPR Appendix A. That would only leave 4 hours and 40 minutes worth of trips between the two peak periods, again assuming 4 express/hr and 2 local/hr in both directions during the off-peak.
The figures are inconsistent within the same document, too. One page says 184 for Georgetown, another page says 109 for Georgetown.
Steve: The “184” number only makes sense if this includes other frequent services like Milton and Barrie as they might exist by 2015, opening day. Of course the big debate is the decade following when, in theory, service will be substantially expanded and electrification will arrive.
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“You make this sound like a debate between 400 Diesel trains and 400 Electric trains.”
Well, it’s not and in fairness Steve has admitted as much – even the Clean Trainers and the MOH will have to face the fact that electrification of UPRL/Georgetown will almost certainly mean an increase in diesel service in the 2025 timeframe from VIA, CN, CP and non-electric GO service to the likes of Bolton – unless dual mode locos are purchased.
One of the reasons I’d like to see moves towards a GO network for Ottawa is that it provides an outlet for F59 / MP40 / unpowered bilevels that future GO EMUs would displace. Perhaps if this was pushed on a political level the Province and Feds could see funding the electrification of GO Toronto as more than a local/regional issue.
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Milton and Barrie are listed at 88 and 86, respectively, on the page listing Georgetown at 109, so the figures are still way out of sync.
Steve: Yup. Every time one looks at a Metrolinx study, one sees different figures. Consistency is not their strong suit.
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Steve said: It will cost more in the long run to implement diesel and then convert to electric than to do it from day one …
The province doesn’t have a bottom-less pocket you know. Maybe we should cancel one of the Transit City lines and use that money to electrify the Georgetown corridor? With electrification, power lines will need to be brought in and who knows what other communities will claim health hazards from all the high-voltage power lines/towers needed to feed the line.
If these new locomotives produce 90% less emissions, I don’t see what the issue is. I think that this is all a thinly-disguised attempt by the Clean Train Coalition to derail the entire project. What they really are is the No Train Coalition.
I find is suspicious they’re not talking about noise, vibration, etc. etc. When I lived behind a rail line, that was the issue, not the diesel exhaust.
Steve: Even with the 90% reduced emissions, there are still emissions. In some cases, these will exceed the alleged savings from diverting road trips to rail. Those savings, such as they may be, occur dispersed over the trip paths that would otherwise be used by new GO and UPRL riders. Pollution from the trains is concentrated in one place.
I agree that noise will be an issue, and that’s another reason to push electric options. This gets rid of the loud roar as the diesel passes. The Minister’s order is silent on noise and vibration.
CTC has concentrated on emissions because there is a substantial difference between the diesel and electric options which can be tied to health effects.
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“who knows what other communities will claim health hazards from all the high-voltage power lines/towers needed to feed the line.”
Steve will be familiar with the opposition to a putative grid connection coming in from the east to the Danforth area if he reads the local community paper. Not applicable to Weston but a sign of Things To Come.
Given the number of hydro vault explosions in the last 24 months, at least two within 2km of my house, I think transformer location might be as contentious – hopefully not.
As for train noise what I hear most often from the Lakeshore East (1070m at closest point – Coxwell – according to Mr Google) is horn noise, which presumably is identical between modes, although I do hear engine noise from time to time.
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Karl Junkin says:
“Those same charts also show UPRL sharing the tracks hosting the express rail portion of the service. I overlaid the same-direction tracks for GO/VIA, and found that they do need 3 tracks, but not 4, that 4th track is the UPRL’s doing. GO/VIA, based on Metrolinx volumes excluding UPRL, will not fit on 2 tracks.”
I disagree. 4 tracks is the optimal number for bi-directional 2-way local and express service with the purposed rush hour frequencies. One track can be dedicated to eastbound local service, one to eastbound express service(and ARL and VIA), one to westbound local service and one to westbound express service(and ARL and VIA). These would substantially improve service reliability by saving minutes by negating the need for trains to crossover. A procedure which requires trains to reduce from track speed(80mph current maximum on the weston sub where it is not further restricted) to cross tracks (maximum speed at which is 45mph) and then re-accelerate. In addition to saving time there is fuel savings and emission savings and perhaps most importantly it is substantially safer by significantly reducing the number of times a train will be on the approach to a stop signal which will further reduce the chances of the rare but devastating SPAD(signal passed at danger) events (i.e. see Chatsworth crash L.A.). It also reduces wear and tear on trains and tracks and increases passenger comfort by not having trains go through jarring turnouts.
Also mechanical issues, medical and other events that result in delays occur fairly often on GO trains and when they do they cause significant congestion by occupying a main line for an extended period of time. Currently on the mostly 3 track lakeshore lines, when such events take place and just one track is taken temporarily out of service it almost always causes a massive backlog and capacity constraints. This results in a ripple effect that can last for hours during the rush hour. If this results in such a congested state on the current lakeshore lines just imagine what it’ll do to the georgetown line where future purposed frequencies are even greater. Having a 4th track can substantially negate the ripple effect such an impediment would create and allow for the resumption of some degree of express services to resume where as 2 operation tracks would not.
zb says:
October 7, 2009 at 11:36 am
“The entire population of Brampton will be using the GO train every day. What’s so hard to believe about that?”
The numbers are obviously flawed but take note that some studies project Brampton’s population as become larger than Mississauga’s by 2031 or at least as large as Mississauga’s today (Mississauga’s population in respect is poised to grow at a much slower rate)
M. Briganti says:
“Who the heck would want to live there with electric trains plowing through every 5 minutes? The noise will be constant.”
I guess the same people who live by any major highway and subway lines where the noise is even more constant eh?
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I don’t follow you. If the new trains produce 90% less, then you can increase the number of trains running through there by a factor of 10 and the net increase in pollution will be zero.
This whole debate is bordering on hysteria and paranoia. We breathe in so much shit every day, and are exposed to so many toxins, do people really think residents are going to start dropping dead the minute service is expanded?
Cancer risks you say? Asthma you say? Are you near a cell tower or high-voltage power line? Do you use #7 plastics in a microwave? Are you allergic to ragweed? Come on people, this is getting ridiculous.
Steve: The issue lies with the claim that the new train service will pollute less than the car trips it will replace, and that vast amounts of greenhouse gases will no longer pour into the atmosphere. Neither of these claims is true, or at least on anywhere near the level claimed by Metrolinx.
The underlying problem is that a lot of empty capacity is travelling back and forth during off peak periods, but it still creates pollution. Autos, for all their problems, sit quietly in parking lots, if one is available.
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In terms of the Cambridge GO service, isn’t there an issue of over-crowding the trains before they even get to Mississauga? I mean, the Milton Line already operates 12-car trains every 20 minutes, and it is unlikely that CP will allow them to run much more frequently than that.
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Mark Dowling says:
October 7, 2009 at 11:32 am
“Steve – the first thing I notice from that spreadsheet is that GO trains are assumed to have 5000bhp and UPRL trains to have 2000hp. Does GO have ambitions to pull 16 car sets to Bolton and has anyone told the GTAA for noise planning at their platform that all UPRL trains will be four powered cars and not 2 + 2 unpowered trailers? I seem to remember these numbers being linked from a previous post of yours, at least the Blue22 ones anyway.”
Don’t forget that there is a head end power generator in each locomotive that is approximately 1000 hp. I do not think that the UPRL trains are two motors with two trailers as I was told by one of the consulting engineers that they needed 50% of their axles powered for the grades and RDC’s only have two powered axles per car. Unless they are going to rework the trucks to power all axles then they cannot haul trailers. The original designs for the station have them as being just over 80 m long so they can only handle a three car train. With a weight per car of over 80 tonnes then 2000 hp for a three car train is in the right ball park for a three car train. Have they redesigned everything? I also though that they were going to use the old business car track at the west end of Union Station (which has probably been removed) and not use track one. If they have exclusive use of track one then that is mad.
In previous GO calculations they do not seem to count most of the dead head moves. There are two or three on Georgetown; I think six on Milton plus other lines. It would help if they looked at the equipment schedules and not the passenger schedules as equipment moves also generate pollution.
I think that the Liberals are scared s***less of the ballooning deficit and are trying to make short term savings for the next election. We can only hope that the come to their senses before they implement but governments never look farther ahead than the next election. For them that is the long term.
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Given politics and car usage in Waterloo Region, I doubt they will go with a Cambridge only approach.
People in KW don’t travel below the 401 or east of Highway 8 much wheras Cambridge people are more likely to travel to KW. That’s one reason why all the big successful expansion in Cambridge commercially happened in the Pioneer Sportsworld area. Traffic thinking in KW runs up Highway 8 from the 401 and then around the U of the Conestoga Expressway.
I also am wondering about the overcrowding of trains. I get the feeling we might be seeing infrequent Greyhound buses replaced with cheaper because of subsidy but more frequent GO buses chugging down the 401, a la the Hamilton bus service. GO would probably run this out of the Pioneer Sportworld depot area, which is going to bum out a lot of the Waterloo commuters as even with their rapid transit, you are still looking at a 45 minute commute to get there from many parts of Waterloo.
As for electrification on all that, I don’t think people in Waterloo region would care about wires etc. Unlike the more dense population service oriented Toronto residents who seem to get finicky about such stuff, KW has more of an industrial and wide open space background. Unless the wires go through their backyard, and anybody with a backyard facing an existing rail line in that area is already resigned to reduced property values anyways, I can’t see people complaining much. And its not like the volumes that will go through Weston will start plowing through Hespler.
People in Waterloo Region are more concerned about traversing those new fangled traffic round abouts safely in their cars, to be honest.
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“Steve: The issue lies with the claim that the new train service will pollute less than the car trips it will replace, and that vast amounts of greenhouse gases will no longer pour into the atmosphere. Neither of these claims is true, or at least on anywhere near the level claimed by Metrolinx.
The underlying problem is that a lot of empty capacity is travelling back and forth during off peak periods, but it still creates pollution. Autos, for all their problems, sit quietly in parking lots, if one is available.”
I’d argue, then, that we are debating an invisible elephant so to speak. As discussed any effort to remove cars from the road will simply be infilled by induced demand. It’s a pointless effort, to an extent. As Mimmo said, if we are able to reduce train emissions by 90% than a 10 fold increase in rail traffic will net out to essentially no change. Whatever happens with the other modes of traffic is irrelevant then. Wouldn’t you agree?
I wonder who/what directed the Metrolinx study to evaluate on the basis of car pollution removed from the road?
Steve: All of The Big Move has as one of its major tenets the reduction of emissions by getting more people on transit. The real irony is that the gas they are most concerned about, CO2 and its greenhouse effect, is not reduced by tier 4 standards.
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If all this rigmarole does lead to electrification, it will be interesting to see how GO/Metrolinx will louse this up.
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You may want to take a closer look at the time-distance charts I referred to when drawing the conclusion that 3 tracks would be capable of handling the load. The fact of the matter is that in scenario 1 (the only scenario without the UPRL), overlaying Track 2 and Track 4 (the outbound tracks) shows that no conflicts on a consolidated outbound track would occur until the Woodbine/Highway 27 area. That suggests that, between Brampton and Union, only the portion between Highway 27 and Bramalea GO Station would need to be 4 tracks, but it gets more interesting when you look at the southbound consolidated service, and it is worth noting that no conflicts occur between Bramalea GO (excluding the GO Station itself) and Highway 27, meaning that the southbound services can file down through that section on a single track, meaning the 3 tracks would be able to accommodate the entire corridor at all points (although I’d still build any underground portion of the route with 4 tracks, just to avoid an “oops” moment in 2040).
Additionally, high-speed turnouts exist. You don’t need to slow down for these, even at speeds of 90, these kinds of turn-outs are no problem. No time would be lost, and switches would typically be by stations anyway, where deceleration occurs anyway. High speed switches also don’t cause the same discomfort as regular switches. While there’s still frogs, it’s more comparable to going over the straight route of the switch than the curved route.
The emissions and fuel efficiency arguments are total red herrings because this is supposed to be an electrified project anyway if they were doing it right. As for track wear and maintenance, to look after 4 tracks for about 32km is going to be more expensive than 3 tracks with a few more switches over the same distance.
With Positive Train Control, there shouldn’t be any safety issues, and reliability should not be an issue with 3 tracks.
4 tracks in Georgetown instead of 3 will do nothing to solve that because the real cause of the congestion and problems with capacity are going to happen at Union Station, where there is insufficient track capacity for all the service projected by Metrolinx, especially if VIA Rail is included. They can’t add a new upper level at Union, it’s not structurally realistic (nor are the impacts it would have on the road network west of the station), and if they do opt for going under to a new lower level, it’s going to be a very long tunnel (I’d wager at least a 5km tunnel would be needed, if not longer), and it would be a very deep tunnel, too (below the streetcar tunnel).
Steve: And a very damp tunnel being well below the water table. The idea of digging under an existing working major rail corridor and station makes me laugh because many of the naysayers for the Union Station dig down said it could never be done. We’re lucky, and it can, but that takes out a good chunk of the space under the station. The only realistic way to build an auxiliary station is to have it west of the main terminal, as a stub end operation underneath the existing yard throat. All the same, you will bump into the convention centre which is directly under the tracks. This pushes a satellite station west to the point that it would be under Bathurst Yard (west of Spadina). That’s a bit of a hike to Union Station.
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Study recommending ARL get Track 1
The report talks about allowing turn-around service for RH or some other “less popular” GO line at the time, but this assumption is significantly out of date, and such lines no longer use 6-car trains, nor 8-car trains, they’re all 10-car trains now, and the plan in that report clearly would not work. You are 100% correct in saying this is mad.
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Based on those time charts that may be the case but that’s only a very preliminary schedule that’ll no doubt be subject to numerous changes. It can’t be accommodated with only 3 tracks with ARL service which at this point and time is part of the project. And as you have stated yourself, provisions should be made for a fourth track alone the entire line before an opps’ moment takes place in the far future when even without the ARL, as service increases may not be possible without a 4th track.
“Additionally, high-speed turnouts exist. You don’t need to slow down for these, even at speeds of 90, these kinds of turn-outs are no problem. No time would be lost, and switches would typically be by stations anyway, where deceleration occurs anyway.”
I’m aware of such high speed turnouts in fact I believe GO looked into the installation of 60mph turnouts for the recent upgrades on the Lakeshore West line but they were deemed inappropriate due to their extended length. Millions have already been spent upgrading 15mph turnouts to 45mph’s along the lakeshore west line at the controlled locations Dufferin, Mimico East, Port Credit, 9th Line, Oakville yard and Kerr St. They are not going to retrofit these locations again in the near future after retrofitting them for the first time in 50+ years. Perhaps in the advanced future GO will revisit the idea of higher speed turnouts but it is obvious that that will not be the case for the initial installation at controlled locations along the Weston and so the issues I’ve made note of would come into play in a 3 track system, though only for the express service and not those trains that are making station stops. This is as long as the controlled locations are located in close proximity by the stations. There are a few instances on the Lakeshore line where such locations are inappropriate and time is lost slowing down earlier than necessary. But that is due to CN operational requirements and GO has no choice in the matter on the Lakeshore whereas the Weston sub this should not be an issue considering it is now under GO’s ownership.
Positive Train Control? You are talking as if it’s a foregone conclusion that it’ll be installed once all the track construction is completed. GO transit’s current equipment roster has no provision for it neither does any purchases in the near future. There are no provisions for its implementation at the current time or for ‘day one’ service. I’ll agree that it should be in place for electrification but even that is no guarantee. And if Metrolinx doesn’t have enough money for electrification, then they certainly don’t have enough for PTC the costs of which are very significant. There aren’t even any concrete plans for the implementation of cab signaling yet along PTC. I believe it’s wishful thinking to assume its implemented before congestion requirements along the line would deem a 4th track necessary.
“4 tracks in Georgetown instead of 3 will do nothing to solve that because the real cause of the congestion and problems with capacity are going to happen at Union Station”
Yes I do realize that there’s going to be a massive capacity crunch in the USRC that has to be solved long before service increases can be implemented on many lines, but that’s not relative to capacity constraints at individual locations along the Georgetown line which is what we are discussing.
Also as a someone who’s involved in the day to day operation of GO trains I can’t tell you how much you are underestimating the impact such service disruptions can have on normal operations. They are not to be taken lightly or ignored.
In any case just to make my stance clear I am for electrification, though considering my position my opinion on the matter can be considered biased.
I applaud the efforts of transit advocates such as Steve Munro, though realistically I feel the chances of a major change in government policy on this issue remains slim. By no means however am I suggesting that everyone should just give up on the matter.
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Michael B says: “Tom West, this is a big city. The idea that people are going to stick to their own neighbourhood and that is going to reduce the need for good all day transit service, I think is a sad sad idea.”
The point I was trying to make (rather badly) was that reduced transport emissions come either from a shift to cleaner forms of transport (such as transit or cleaner cars), or from reducing demand. Current government policies are aimed firmly at the former, rather than the latter. Most (passenger) transport emissions come from commuters, and shortening the home-work distance will reduce emissions.
“If you want to live closer to work, then move into Toronto”
I like where I live, but thanks for the invite.
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Karl Junkin says:
October 10, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Robert Wightman said: I also though that they were going to use the old business car track at the west end of Union Station (which has probably been removed) and not use track one. If they have exclusive use of track one then that is mad.
Study recommending ARL get Track 1
“The report talks about allowing turn-around service for RH or some other “less popular” GO line at the time, but this assumption is significantly out of date, and such lines no longer use 6-car trains, nor 8-car trains, they’re all 10-car trains now, and the plan in that report clearly would not work. You are 100% correct in saying this is mad.”
Item 6 in the report makes reference to the former business track which is where a consulting engineer who actually seemed to know what he was talking about told me it should go.
Bullet four in section five is interesting:
This is the one that suggests putting in a removable energy absorbing bumper so that GO or UPRL trains could use either end of the platform. This would be interesting sine the last I heard UPRL trains were going to be high platform to speed loading or has this been change also. OR, God forbid, did HDI not know about this small problem.
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