Georgetown South/ Union Pearson Express (Airport Rail Link)

[wyliepoon]

I admit I don't like to spend much on transportation. In HK I would take the longer and cheaper route. But most usually take the airport express. If you take the cheaper route it does come with inconvenience of having to carry your luggage around every time there's a change of method or station change. Staying at Tsing Yi Island which is near the airport is okay. But if I stayed further like Kowloon or HK, I would rather take the airport express and avoid the crowds, station change and having to move my luggage on and off.

In Hong Kong, most locals and ex-HKers who have gone back for a visit would take the airport buses to and from the airport instead of the Airport Express or the MTR. It's much easier using HK's point-to-point bus network (instead of the grid network here in Toronto) to get between the airport and virtually anywhere in the city. The Airport Express is pretty much a shuttle for non-Chinese tourists, convention-goers (to Asia-World Expo near the airport) and the occasional railfan.

[Automation Gallery]

That's kinda how Scarborough got stuck with the RT. No thanks.

I dont think so.This ancient system was desperately shoved down the TTC throats by the Provincial Government when there was a better alternative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special...orough_RT_(TTC

[AKS]

In Hong Kong, most locals and ex-HKers who have gone back for a visit would take the airport buses to and from the airport instead of the Airport Express or the MTR. It's much easier using HK's point-to-point bus network (instead of the grid network here in Toronto) to get between the airport and virtually anywhere in the city. The Airport Express is pretty much a shuttle for non-Chinese tourists, convention-goers (to Asia-World Expo near the airport) and the occasional railfan.

I'm not sure about most locals. Even my friends were telling me to take the airport express. While I was there, I noticed airport buses. But those are only at specific areas. If you're not near the area, you need to take the MTR to that area then take the airport bus. I don't notice many people rolling their suitcases in the MTR. So either they lived near the airport bus stops or else they got someone to drive them to the airport. I seldom take public transit from and to the airport since my relatives always drop me off or pick me up. So I can't really say if many people take the airport express or not. Once I did take public transit there to leave but it was pretty dead on the bus I took maybe cuz it was a weekday. There were less than 10 people with me on the bus going to the airport from Tung Chung.

[catcher_of_cats]

Residents fear diesels to Pearson will damage Humber River habitat, 1845 heritage house
Feb 06, 2009 04:30 AM
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Tess Kalinowski
transportation reporter

Richard Paine's house is a tiny grey square beside the wide red line that represents the train tracks on Metrolinx drawings of the proposed Union Station-to-Pearson rail link.

In real life, though, shrouded in a new snowfall, the old grey stucco home looks like a Christmas card. The view from the French windows in the living room is a pristine slope down to the Humber River at the back of the property.

It's paradise to the Paine family, who own the house on Humberview Cres., just off Weston Rd., that rare city home where deer and birds are regular backyard visitors.

The Paines have learned to live with the GO and freight trains that roar by 50 times a day. The animals, of course, scatter, said Richard Paine, 53.

He fears for their future and that of the river if the rail link plan proceeds and that single track is expanded to four, carrying what Metrolinx projects to be 220 trains a day, including 140 to the airport.

Mike Sullivan, chair of the Weston Community Coalition, says that's a conservative number. He believes there will be 346 trains daily in the future, including 15-minute GO service and more VIA service.

The Weston community is expected to be out in force at today's Metrolinx open house at the Weston Park Baptist Church, one in a series of six being held along the line. No formal protest is planned, but the coalition has been urging residents to turn out to see the detailed maps and storyboards. In the past, that's been enough to draw thousands.

"Metrolinx has done everything they can to put this in a format to make sure not a lot of people don't show up. It's spread over a whole day and it's on a Friday," said Sullivan.

Paine won't speculate on what it will be like when the expansion is finished in 2014. The Paines had hoped the rail link, stalled at the environment ministry for about two years, would just go away. But when the proposal to build the line and add all-day, two-way GO service to Brampton and Georgetown resurfaced last month, for a fast-tracked environmental assessment, their wishful thinking dried up.

"Obviously, selling is not an option," says Paine, who grew up in what's known as Holley House, named after its first occupant, Joseph Holley, one of Weston's first settlers and owner of a nearby grist- and sawmill.

Dating from about 1845, Holley House is believed to be the earliest home still standing in an area studded with heritage jewels. It's also one of the last remaining adobe brick houses in Ontario.

At one time, it served as the clubhouse for the Weston Golf and Country Club. Cooking was done in the downstairs fireplace, says Richard's wife, Deborah.

Cherri Hurst, of the Weston Heritage Conservation District, calls it a wonderful house and worries about its survival.

"An adobe brick house will never stand all the shaking, especially if we're talking the big heavy diesels. That's the thing about adobe brick – if you move it, it will fall apart," she said.

Hurst points out that the rail link's impact will be much wider. "It's not just single buildings, it's the whole connectivity," she says, noting that trains will limit access to the library and run only metres from St. John the Evangelist Catholic School.

Paine believes his house, built on a foundation of river stone, is solid.

He's not interested in seeing it turned into a heritage cause and he's leery about it being used as a pawn in the political battle around the rail link, something to which Sullivan says his association is sensitive.

"We're just making sure the planners know it's there and they've got to protect it," he said.

To Paine, Holley House's importance rests in the memories there. His father, Samuel, bought the house in 1949. He and his wife lived there until their deaths a few years ago. Paine has always lived close by, and his sons played there as children. The extended family gathered there for Saturday suppers.

"It was always central. The memories are here," he says. "Every season is beautiful. The greens are different as they come alive. You can't help but enjoy it.

"I just wonder how this is going to affect us, how lives are changing up and down this line."

[MisterF]

The Westonites are looking more and more nimby all the time. Although the tone of the article really fans the flames...

[Automation Gallery]

The Weston community is expected to be out in force at today's Metrolinx open house at the Weston Park Baptist Church, one in a series of six being held along the line. No formal protest is planned, but the coalition has been urging residents to turn out to see the detailed maps and storyboards. In the past, that's been enough to draw thousands.

"Metrolinx has done everything they can to put this in a format to make sure not a lot of people don't show up. It's spread over a whole day and it's on a Friday," said Sullivan.

What a bunch of shysters this public authority run by the Government of Ontario is.I hope enough people in these neighbourhoods adjacent to this future line speak up to get this outdated system scraped.

He fears for their future and that of the river if the rail link plan proceeds and that single track is expanded to four, carrying what Metrolinx projects to be 220 trains a day, including 140 to the airport.
Mike Sullivan, chair of the Weston Community Coalition, says that's a conservative number. He believes there will be 346 trains daily in the future, including 15-minute GO service and more VIA service

I know that if i turned on my 6 kw Honda diesal generator in my backyard every 3-15 minutes 346 times a day i would have the noise and pollution control police on my door to arrest me.

[nfitz]

What a bunch of shysters this public authority run by the Government of Ontario is.I hope enough people in these neighbourhoods adjacent to this future line speak up to get this outdated system scraped.

Rail an oudated system?? Yes, we need pave the railway lines, so the Nimbys can drive everywhere ...

I know that if i turned on my 6 kw Honda diesal generator in my backyard every 3-15 minutes 346 times a day i would have the noise and pollution control police on my door to arrest me.

So it's all about the noise in your backyard is it? I guess that makes you a Nimby too - absolutely shameful! If you had an industrial facility there for 150 years, which required the use of a generator, then why would anyone stop you. They couldn't stop you as business expanded either. What astounds me, is that someone would move next to a facility where everyone knows a generator runs frequently, and has the gall to complain about the noise!

"Metrolinx has done everything they can to put this in a format to make sure not a lot of people don't show up. It's spread over a whole day and it's on a Friday," said Sullivan.

Sullivan has got to be kidding. Instead of having the typical 2-hour session done in the past, there are unprecedented 9.5-hour long open houses from 11:30 AM to 8:30 pm. I can't imagine that too many people couldn't make that somewhere. And then there are 6 of them! On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. How is this trying to make people not show up?

The one thing Metrolinx has done so far, is demonstrating how clearly to everyone how much of a Nimby that Sullivan is; he's clearly only interested in trying to keep trains out of Weston, than improving the city as a whole.

[lordmandeep]

If the train infrastructure is improved we could finally get some real Train connections to the Western GTA.

PLus rails are not an outdated technology. If you have noticed they have been reborn across the entire world.

[Prometheus The Supremo]

..

What astounds me, is that someone would move next to a facility where everyone knows a generator runs frequently, and has the gall to complain about the noise!

to be fair, some people can deal with an inconvenience some of the time. it's a different thing when the inconvenience is there pretty much all of the time.

of course they can eliminate that inconvenience with electric units. it's gonna happen one day, why not start now?


i think some people are throwing this nimby label around too loosely.

[lordmandeep]

Imo they cannot change it to electric now if they do not have the infrastructure to ran more frequent trains.

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Imo they cannot change it to electric now if they do not have the infrastructure to ran more frequent trains.

i meant when they upgrade the corridor/ add the infrastructure.

[cacruden]

to be fair, some people can deal with an inconvenience some of the time. it's a different thing when the inconvenience is there pretty much all of the time.

of course they can eliminate that inconvenience with electric units. it's gonna happen one day, why not start now?


i think some people are throwing this nimby label around too loosely.

I don't know the exact history of rail and weston, but I have seen it over and over again where a rail, airport, highway is built - and then a lot of residential housing pops up next to it - then they turn around and complain about the noise.... they bought next to this and you would have to be an absolute idiot to think that the highway will not get busier, the rail will get not busier or the airport will not get busier... I find it really annoying.... Now, there may be people that actually buy land before a rail line goes through, and I have no problem with them being compensated when the line ORIGINALLY goes through - but not when it just gets more busy.

[nfitz]

of course they can eliminate that inconvenience with electric units. it's gonna happen one day, why not start now?

Electrification is done to increase acceleration and speed; those promoting this are not even raising these issues; they are approaching it from noise/smell issues - which seem completely unfounded from my observations of living near the Lakeshore line; I've never smelled a passing GO train in my life; which is more than I can say for a TTC bus!

i think some people are throwing this nimby label around too loosely.

No. I think we've waited several years too long to start throwing it around. Originally there were some real complaints with what was being done. Now we are hearing just about anything being said to try and stop and delay this. We have the absolutely unbelievable complaint that they can't do it because trains smell - oh my god, can you believe anyone saying anything so off-the-wall? And we have Sullivan out there saying that 57-hours of public meeting is just trying to make sure people don't show up.

There are some real issues out there. The split between the CP and CN tracks, where the CN tracks will be in a tunnel, and there will still be level crossing with the CP tracks is insane. This means there will be Bolton GO trains (infrequently at least) using the level crossing, and only the Georgetown/Kitchener/Pearson service will be tunnelled.

And the whole economic model of the Pearson train just doesn't make sense; there should be GO service to Pearson, to allow everyone to get to the airport, not just those who can afford a $50 round trip - which I imagine not too many Pearson workers will be able to afford.

And there's a question of why there are no stations planned on the GO service between Bloor and Union.

If those in Weston wanted to improve the whole thing, they would be focussing on these issues. Instead, they are focussing on issues that seem to be designed to simply stop the project.

[Automation Gallery]

Rail an oudated system?? Yes, we need pave the railway lines, so the Nimbys can drive everywhere ...

So it's all about the noise in your backyard is it? I guess that makes you a Nimby too - absolutely shameful! If you had an industrial facility there for 150 years, which required the use of a generator, then why would anyone stop you. They couldn't stop you as business expanded either. What astounds me, is that someone would move next to a facility where everyone knows a generator runs frequently, and has the gall to complain about the noise!

le.

I believe this guy is on a rail line.


One fine spring afternoon had all my home windows open to smell the spring flowers while my
wife was out back hanging the clothes on the line to dry when this baby whispered by.


Hey im all for a train service,but i also do not want to see something that is just shoved down our throats by this government.I am telling you i have been throughout Europe by rail many times and no way anyone in their right mind would approve in this day and age this type of system that Metrolinx has proposed for Toronto.

About being a Nimby,i have to laugh about that one.
That whole industrial facility,business expansion,generator runs frequently,gall to complain is all Gibberish to me.

[Prometheus The Supremo]

There are some real issues out there. The split between the CP and CN tracks, where the CN tracks will be in a tunnel, and there will still be level crossing with the CP tracks is insane. This means there will be Bolton GO trains (infrequently at least) using the level crossing, and only the Georgetown/Kitchener/Pearson service will be tunnelled.

And the whole economic model of the Pearson train just doesn't make sense; there should be GO service to Pearson, to allow everyone to get to the airport, not just those who can afford a $50 round trip - which I imagine not too many Pearson workers will be able to afford.

And there's a question of why there are no stations planned on the GO service between Bloor and Union.

If those in Weston wanted to improve the whole thing, they would be focussing on these issues. Instead, they are focussing on issues that seem to be designed to simply stop the project.

they do focus on those issues. they have been complaining about the cost (fare), the exclusiveness (rail rights) and the accessibility to members of the public (more stations) since the beginning.