GO Transit

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GO Transit Buys CN Weston Subdivision

GO Transit announced today that it will purchase the CN Weston Subdivision for $160-million.  The line in question runs from roughly the Strachan Avenue grade crossing to the junction with the CN York Subdivision at Steeles Avenue.

CN and VIA run comparatively few trains (3 and 6 respectively) each day on the line, although VIA has planned improved service in this corridor for some time.  GO plans greatly expanded service both in frequency and in destination (extending to Kitchener), and this corridor will also host the Blue 22 Airport link should that line ever get beyond the drawing boards.

By purchasing the corridor, GO will not only have better control of train operations, it will be able to retain ownership of the substantial improvements needed to accommodate all of the new services.

The press release is silent on the matter of funding.

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Ottawa & Queen’s Park Announce GO Transit Improvements

A joint federal-provincial announcement today added a long list of GO transit improvements to the parking lot and the Hamilton Junction grade separation projects.

Among today’s improvements are:

  • Extension of GO Rail service into downtown Barrie (completion in 2011)
  • Expansion of the tunnel at Exhibition Station to provide a new north access, and additional track capacity at this station (completion in 2011)
  • Widening of the Credit River bridge on the Georgetown line to a capacity of three tracks, with two tracks initially on the new structure
  • Refurbishing existing locomotives to improve reliability
  • Adding 20 bi-level coaches to the fleet

Regular readers will know that I railed [sorry about that] against the amount of spending on parking lots announced in February.  Today’s project list is much more oriented to improvement of service and passenger facilities.  Yes, I know that to car commuters, parking is an important part of those facilities, but it’s not the only one.

From a longer range point of view, the planning issue of how parking lots and structures poison station locations remains a big problem.  The Metrolinx plan for “Mobility Hubs” doesn’t work very well without pedestrian-oriented stations and good local bus services.

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Metrolinx Marries GO, Dumps Pesky Politicians

Today the Government of Ontario announced that GO Transit and Metrolinx would be merged together in one agency.  Some sort of takeover was contemplated in the original Metrolinx legislation which proposed that GO become a division of Metrolinx, but this part of the bill was never proclaimed.

Since last fall when the Regional Transportation Plan emerged, some at Metrolinx have spoken darkly, and usually privately, about how the politicians are getting in the way of accomplishing Metrolinx’ manifest destiny.  Not long ago, a report on the innocent matter of cross-border fare integration showed Metrolinx’ staff’s true colours and their hunger for power over local transit agencies.  Now Queen’s Park has stepped in.

This is hardly a shotgun marriage, but it came as a big surprise to the local politicians who make up the current Metrolinx board.  This group has been accused of being dysfunctional and obstructionist when in fact anyone who actually watches the board at work sees a truly collegial group of senior politicians who are trying to do the right thing both for their own cities and for the region as a whole.  The 416-vs-905 dynamic everyone thought might doom Metrolinx never developed.

Problems lay, however, in Metrolinx staff and its Chair, Rob MaacIsaac.  Although the agency professed to want as much public input as possible, this was stage managed to produce feel-good support for Metrolinx work, and dissent was actively discouraged.  When the Board asked for a few extra months to fine-tune the RTP, a process that anyone who saw early drafts will know made a huge improvement to the final product, they were seen as delaying progress even though the plan did come out on time.

If anything, the foot-dragging lies at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa, neither of which has shown much love for actually paying for transit projects.  Lots of promises, but no money.  Indeed, the whole concept of multi-party funding schemes is a guarantee of inaction.

What will be the effect of this merger?  In the short term, many things are unknown, but there is good reason to worry that Queen’s Park may actually have derailed the very agency that was on the verge of building a regional network. Continue reading →

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Fare By Distance? Not When It Suits GO (Updated)

Today, GO Transit implements a 25-cent across the board increase in all fares.  Writing in the Star, Tess Kalinowski reports displeasure among commuters who have been slapped with higher relative increases for short trips than for long ones.

This isn’t the first time GO increased fares disproportionately, but the cumulative effect sets a pattern.

One commuter who travels from Old Cummer to Union complained that:

… the flat-fare hike means riders who live in Toronto are subsidizing passengers travelling from places such as Hamilton and Barrie.

“Over the last five years, I’ve seen my fares go up 27 per cent. Somebody from Barrie has seen their rates go up 9 per cent, Oshawa 14 per cent, Hamilton 10 per cent,” he said.

In response, GO replies that many costs have nothing to do with how far someone travels:

Transit officials defended the increase, saying many of the system’s costs, such as snow removal, station improvements and communications, are fixed and have nothing to do with distance. They also worry about discouraging riders from farther afield by pricing them out of the system.

Strange, that argument.  It’s precisely the one for which I, among others, have been villified when suggesting a flat (or at least flatter) GTA-wide fare policy.  Long distance riders are subsidised with free parking, new make-work garage building, and proportionately lower fares relative to the resources they consume.  Why?  Because we don’t want them driving to and from work.  The costs — both physical to provide and maintain infrastructure, and social to consume so much land with unproductive roadways and a low-density lifestyle — are greater than what it takes to subsidise their commute by GO.

As regulars here know, I have a big problem with parking construction as an alternative to improved local feeder bus services.  This issue will only grow as GO becomes less of a peak period carrier and more of an all day regional rapid transit system.  That’s one of the many areas Metrolinx, in its less than infinite wisdom, chose to ignore.  We won’t have “Mobility Hubs” complete with soaring interiors and palm trees as Metrolinx envisions if stations are surrounded by parking garages, and those who cannot afford to dedicate a car to all-day storage at a GO lot will still be isolated from regional transit services.

Finally, those who advocate for fare-by-distance as a “benefit” of the “Presto!” card (or whatever technology is eventually adopted) should compare notes with the folks at GO for whom high costs for long trips are a very bad idea indeed.  Queen’s Park and its agencies don’t seem to have a consistent view of how we should price transit.  There is no perfect system, and all of them will distribute benefits and rewards inequitably.

Metrolinx could do everyone a big favour by looking at the impact of various options for fare structures, including the wider issues of local service funding and the broad social value of mobility for everyone.  Will they will have the fortitude to take on this issue (and revenue tools in general) rather than studying only infrastructure we may never be able to afford to build and operate?

Update 1, March 14 at 3:50 pm:  Andrew Salmons of Milton has created an online petition requesting not only a reversal of today’s increase, but a lowering of GO’s cost recovery ratio so that fares could be reduced.

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GO Kitchener-Waterloo & Guelph

Mark Dowling passed along a link to the presentation materials from the recent GO Transit EA meeting in Kitchener.

You can follow the story of GO service from a Kitchener-Waterloo perspective on the GOKW Blog.

One of the fascinating points about the proposal for this corridor is that it recognizes that this line has bidirectional demand, as well as local demand that isn’t going to downtown Toronto.  This has always been the case, although VIA has done the worst to discourage people from using their service.

Intriguingly the track plans in the display materials show a substantial increase in VIA service in the future.  Those of us who travel to Stratford will relish better service, but the real bread-and-butter on this line is the traffic to and from universities.  It’s always been a natural corridor for better service, and maybe, finally, we may actually see it.

Also worth noting is the idea of eventually moving Kitchener Station so that the line will make a good connection with the planned KW LRT line.

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Ontario Parks

This morning, Premier McGuinty announced that, with the generous assistance of our friends in Ottawa, we are about to see a boom in transit spending.  On parking lots.

About $175-million will go to expanded parking at 12 GO Transit sites, half of which will receive parking structures.  This marks a reversal from the “we won’t build structures because they’re too expensive” policy of many years.  Moreover, it does nothing to address capacity on trains nor on the local transit systems that many GO riders use to reach those trains.

Metrolinx may be working on a regional plan, but this announcement sounds like an echo of the days when commuting meant driving to a parking lot.  Yes, we can build it quickly, but is this what we should be doing with transit infrastructure dollars.

Lurking down at the end of the announcement, almost as an afterthought, is $75.5-million for the Hamilton Junction grade separation.

It appears that the cost of these projects will be shared 50/50 by both governments.

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GO Georgetown South Open House Reviewed

Robert Wightman reports:

I was at the GO South Georgetown open house in Mt Dennis (Eglinton and Weston Rd.) today.  Some interesting things that I learned are:

  1. There will be a seven or eight track corridor from the TTR yards up the Weston Sub to the North Toronto sub where two tracks will head west on the Galt Sub. GO owns the Galt Sub south of the Diamond at the North Toronto Sub. If there are eight tracks one will probably disappear at Lansdowne where the Newmarket sub branches off.
  2. Bloor station will be two island platforms serving four tracks. It will be possible to have the Milton trains stop here. There would be four ARL (Air Rail Link formerly known as Blue 22) trains, four Mt. Pleasant locals, one or two Kitchener express trains, plus one or two Milton trains each way each hour in base service. God knows what it would be like in rush hour. There would be a direct connection to Dundas West Station, finally.
  3. There will be a four track depressed line in a 650 m long tunnel through Weston north of Lawrence. The station for Weston would be moved south to a level area so that the north end of the station, four tracks, would be just north of the bridge at Lawrence with most of the station to the south. There would be two CP tracks and one or two CN tracks go through at grade as they do not want to run them down and up the grade. Clearance would be 22 feet, 6.8 m in the tunnel, enough for electrification at 25 KV AC.
  4. Future stations are planned for Eglinton, to connect with the LRT to form a major transit hub and one at Woodbine. These would not happen until the line is electrified. The electrification would probably be at 25 KV AC but this has not been finalized though everything is being built with adequate clearances. Apparently when the Deux Montagnes line in Montreal was re-equipped it was converted to 25 KV AC according to the consulting engineer I talked to.
  5. The ARL line will be run with two car trains of self propelled Budd RDC’s on a 15 minute headway. There would be four trains providing the service with a two car hot spare train. (It would be plugged in with warm engine oil and be either heated or cooled to the proper temperature to be quick a change off.) There would also be one spare car for running maintenance. I do not think that this is an adequate spare ratio but we shall see.
  6. SNC Lavalin wants high platforms to provide easier loading and unloading but the GO guy and the consulting engineer doubt that this will happen as it make for under utilized station platforms at Union Station and will require gauntlet tracks at the line stations to allow freight and express trains to pass the high platforms. The artist’s rendering shows low level bi folding doors at each end, sort of like skinny doors on the single level GO trains.
  7. The line from the GO line to the airport is extremely interesting. The consulting engineer said that it was “straight from Canada’s Wonderland.” It consists of a light and airy, perhaps even flimsy, elevated single track line down the middle of the Goreway to get to the Airport and then grades up to 5% to get through the airport to a two track 80 m long island platform. This will allow for expansion to three car trains. He also said he saw a drawing of a two car train with a high platform sliding double door in the middle of the car. This would allow for faster loading and unloading.
  8. Every level crossing from Strachan Avenue to the airport will be closed or grade separated for passenger trains. It will be interesting to see what happens to the two remaining level crossings in Brampton but this study did not go that far. They figure that there will be 240 + trains a day through Weston with the freights still making level crossings at two streets.
  9. There was no one there who knew much about the rush hour only service to Bolton. One map had a line labelled enhanced GO service to Orangeville and one person thought that they were going to run GO trains through the Forks of The Credit but I think that it means better bus service to meet the more frequent GO trains.

I will try to get out to the meeting in Kitchener tomorrow night for the extended GO service but as I have to be at the airport for 6:00 a.m. Friday I may not make it. Apparently the storage area at Baden is the third choice. There is not room at the Kitchener station to store trains and they do not want to do a reversing move on the mainline so the yard must be to the west. The storage areas at Milton and Richmond Hill are accessed by yard trackage and are considered a reversing move so they do not have to change ends and perform a brake test. 

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Metrolinx Announces Weston Corridor Airport/GO Study (Updated)

Metrolinx has launched a study of substantially increased rail capacity in the Weston Malton corridor to serve the growing demand on several lines in the northwest as well as a Union-Airport shuttle service.

Affected and proposed GO services include:

  • Brampton (frequent, express all day service)
  • Georgetown (all day service)
  • Guelph (peak service)
  • Bradford (all day service)
  • Bolton (peak service) 

For further information please refer to the Metrolinx project homepage.  There will be six public meetings between February 3 and 12 in various communities.

Worth noting is the timetable which includes several months of consultation, then the formal assessment of the proposal and public comment.

Updated January 24:

Mike Sullivan from the Weston Community Coalition has provided the following information about proposal.

  • From a meeting with Metrolinx Chair Rob MacIsaac, Mike has learned that three tracks are to be added between West Toronto Junction and the Airport, four tracks from the Junction to Union.
  • The tracks on the CN only (not the CP) will be in a trench through Weston, and this will be covered (ventillation will obviously be an issue with diesel trains) from just northwest of Church to just southeast of King.
  • The John Street crossing just north of Weston Station will be closed and replaced with a pedestrian bridge.
  • Air-Rail Link trains will stop at Weston Station.
  • The crossings at Strachan Avenue (west of Bathurst) and Dennison Avenue (about .5 km south of Lawrence) will be grade separated.
  • Operations will be diesel both on GO and the Air-Rail Link.  Electrification might happen in the 15-25 year timeframe.  [By that time, the refurbished Budd cars providing the airport link will be at least 70 years old if they are still in use.]
  • Some land expropriation is likely both for the grade separation at Dennison and at the north end of Weston.
  • Service to Brampton will be every 15 minutes all day long in addition to the airport service and other trains in the corridor.
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GO Transit’s Relief Line: The 1986 Study

This post continues a series looking at old proposals for ways to get commuters into downtown Toronto.  This isn’t a new problem, and as we have already seen, the TTC and Metro Planning were contemplating various alternatives four decades ago.

In response to the proposed Downtown Relief Line and other subway schemes, GO Transit commissioned a study of the possibilities for GO Rail service.  This study recommended frequent, all-day service between Halwest (the point where the York Subdivision, CN’s Toronto bypass, meets the line to Brampton) to Doncaster (the point where the CN Bala Subdivision, used by the Richmond Hill train, crosses the York Sub).

As is quite evident from any GO timetable, this didn’t get built.  One reason was that interest in the DRL waned as the political dynamic and planning focus turned away from downtown to the so-called “centres” that would grow within Toronto’s suburbs.  Travel into downtown continued to grow, and the GO Lake Shore service handled much of the transit-based increase.

A few points worth noting:

  • The option of using the connecting track from the CN to the CP between Oriole and Leaside was considered to be the superior route, although it had its problems including a potential conflict with the proposed Leslie Street extension.
  • For reasons that are not explained, the equipment cost for the most limited of services is higher than for all-day service.  In general, I would treat the cost estimates with some suspicion because (a) they are two decades old and (b) ancilliary costs such as connections to the TTC at Dundas West don’t appear to be included.
  • The inclusion of a cost comparison between subway and GO construction was clearly intended to plump for GO as the much cheaper alternative.  However, the study does not address the variation in origins and destinations that requires both local and express services in any corridor as discussed here previously.
  • There are no demand projections, only a feasibility study of what service could be operated.

Richmond Hill Georgetown Study June 1986

Figure II: Richmond Hill Line

Figure III: Georgetown Line

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GO2020: GO Transit’s Answer to Metrolinx

GO Transit announced its plan for the next decade’s worth of expansion of (mainly) commuter rail service in the Greater Toronto Area on December 12.  The full text is an immense PDF (66MB) on GO’s site that you can download should you desire.  The Service Plan, however, fit in a lot less space, and I have reformatted this as a 115K PDF.

Although the text talks about how GO2020 fits in with the Metrolinx Regional Plan, there are a few noteworthy differences especially regarding very frequent service in some corridors.  Metrolinx has the electrification of some lines in its short term plans, but it remains to be seen whether this is tehnically viable at a cost that will fit within Metrolinx’ budget.  Moreover, there are serious questions about the ability of Union Station to accommodate all of the traffic (trains and people) that Metrolinx forecasts for this hub.

GO’s plans have the advantage of looking out little more than a decade, a timeframe in which the plan is actually credible.  Metrolinx has much at the 15-25 year horizon, and while this will keep planners gainfully employed, it does little to address current problems. Continue reading →