rbt
Senior Member
It is better, but there is definitely a cost limit. Whether that limit is closer to $1Trillion than $1Billion is up to the reader.
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
It is better, but there is definitely a cost limit. Whether that limit is closer to $1Trillion than $1Billion is up to the reader.
Northern Light
Superstar
You often offer very sensible posts; this one, not so much.
There is no variation of this proposal that comes into the hundreds of billions/trillion mark; nor a material fraction thereof.
There are plenty of alternative choices to lower costs ranging from scaled-back stations; to greater efficiency in signalling, to, honestly buying up land in certain areas to simply make a new corridor (not the whole route, but being tied to the exact location of the existing corridor can be cost-inflating); along with a gradual build out.
robmausser
Senior Member
In his defense you did say irrespective of cost. Which is something I see floated around here.
We don't live in a utopia. Sure greedy people do take more than their fair share, but this isn't a forum on class economics structures.
There simply is only so much in the pot to go around. We should spend it wisely. A certain subway extension is being built "irrespective of cost" and its a complete and utter unnecessary boondoggle thats sucking funds from other important projects.
Fritter
Active Member
What I find interesting is that has been some significant land costs already spent on this project. Metrolinx currently owns lands at the proposed Bowmanville and Courtice stations as well as the whole expensive process they undertook to expropriate the former Knob Hill Farms property in downtown Oshawa. In my opinion that would be a lot of money spent to just abandon that route.
mdrejhon
Senior Member
NOTE to readers: Beamsville is between Grimsby and St. Catharines/Niagara Falls
Beamsville GO station could come sooner than expected
While changes to the way Metrolinx develops GO train stations may been a boon for the prospect of a Beamsville station, the change shouldn’t impact Grimsby’s prospective future in that regard.www.stcatharinesstandard.ca
I would not be surprised if Beamsville gets a GO station before Grimsby.
Why? I know the guy, met him a few times.
The guy behind this used to work in Hamilton, and he helped flip a few transit dominoes. Lincoln poached him away from Hamilton.
Beamsville now has local transit service, and Grimsby does not! Michael is working to deploying transit expansion there! In that small unknown place between Grimsby and St.Cat, essentially a suburb in middle of nowhere! Kudos to Michael Kirkopoulos for pushing a GO station instead of screaming about 403 widening. Would prefer to see more upgrades to the Grimsby subdivision instead of QEW width expansions, all the way through eventual electrification (especially if/when Empire Corridor electrifies in tomorrow's climate-change pressures).
I met Mike for the purposes of the LRT Advocacy endeavours, he helped some of the initial initiatives long before Metrolinx had local staff. Mike used to work for City of Hamilton (LinkedIn - Director of Corporate Communications and Intergovernmental Affairs) and I met him a few times for community-relations purposes. We talked over many things (including the theoretical Gage Road GO station) and he's pretty well-informed about GO. Mike is also more of an urbanist and pro-transit (LRT/GO) than the average suburban councillor.
Though some there are inspired by the Innisfil Uber Experiment, and other controversial “creative solutions”, they at least deployed a minibus transit service that now appears in transit apps and Google Transit — something you can’t do in Grimsby. And ridership was a third beyond predictions.
Note: Hamilton LRT Advocacy, which I founded in 2015, has historically been an instrumental contribution in several initiatives -- many delegations to City Hall -- and our advocacy's successful Gage Park LRT Station initiative that succeeded (original spark, CBC amplification, TheSpec amplification, resulting success, since people overwhelmingly asked for the station at the PIC). The successor to the Hamilton LRT Advocacy is now #yesLRT.
Importantly, I hope Beamsville GO is more TOD than average (than a parking lot), but it does fill a gap between Grimsby and St. Catharines. Zone the area around it at higher-than-suburban density.
Kirkopoulos can easily out-pace Grimsby to the point where Beamsville GO beats Grimsby GO in becoming an active stop on the Niagara line. It would just simply take a 1-to-2-year delay to Grimsby -- and an accelerated Beamsville TOD development plan (nondetached+walkable+uLinc+GO) in 38 acres owned by a Beamsville developer currently willing to cover a significant chunk of Beamsville GO station cost (in line with the new Metrolinx focus) -- and Beamsville might be seeing service first. The beginnings of amenities are next to there (a Sobey's supermarket and strip mall, plus also the 403 highway stop amenities is within a walking distance too) so that little patch is ripe for densifying beyond detached home density if you bring walkable+uLinc+GO together in that 38 acre location. The Beamsville Secondary Plan PIC slides has diagrams of 4 to 7 storey buildings. They appear to be planning-this-out on this faster than Grimsby is including the recent introduction of Beamsville's first permanent transit system. They are preparing to zone for urbanization-densification. Streetviewing the area shows the surrounding area appears clearly easily ready for urban-towns and lowrises (4 to 7 storey) apartment/condo blocks to initially begin with, and doesn't steal any existing Niagara vineyards. There's already a developer willing to help build Beamsville GO station and already owns that 38 acres next to the rail corridor -- a developer that Grimsby doesn't seem to yet have (as far as I know).
In the new TOD+developer focus of Metrolinx, non-taxpayer money will easily leapfrog Beamsville ahead of Grimsby, especially I know Mike Kirkopolous is friendly to transit+densification, and he has a way of diplomatically baby stepping the suburb community towards sensible TOD inclusion in the town.
Therefore, I rate Beamsville 50% chance of getting a real GO station before Grimsby.
Who knows?
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Bureaucromancer
Active Member
I do hold out hope that the project gets us away from turning the existing Oshawa GO into a branch... As much as they don't want to have to rebuild the station there, it's a one time cost while splitting the service will be a problem basically forever, and breaks the GO/VIA connection... As much as I'd like the route through central Oshawa I suspect Bowmanville is actually more useful closer to the 401, and given a choice between split service to Oshawa or the southern route I am left thinking the southern route might be preferable.
In the back of my head for Oshawa service is also that even discounting the importance of connection to VIA, Oshawa Station is probably better placed for connections to Simcoe St rapid transit than a station actually AT Simcoe, sharing the King/Bond pair with Hwy 2 service through downtown and serving commercial spots on Stevension south of Hwy 2 rather than the entirely residential Simcoe south. As nice a downtown(ish) station is, sidelining the existing Oshawa station would make a mess of network connectivity.
Towered
Superstar
Interesting! I accidentally discovered Beamsville this summer when passing through on the way to NOTL. I'd never heard of it before, but it's a cute, quaint little town with some historic character in the centre. Very cool that the councilor there is pushing for a GO station to be built. Normally that's not what gets advocated in those kinds of places.
rbt
Senior Member
Sorry, you're right; it wasn't helpful.
"... at any cost" is a pet peeve of mine as I've gone to significant effort to prepare an estimate for well funded people unwilling to compromise on their technical requirements and had them freak out at what was a reasonable price for an unnecessarily complicated request. On other occassions (no free estimates without a stipulated cost cap) I've found professionally that "at any cost" means "I don't understand the problem well enough to know realize it may go well past my accepted limit".
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robmausser
Senior Member
7) The real concern from these people in the articel near the tracks are about noise and not actually that they are empty trains. I'm sure that they are empty AND making noise is an extra punch in the gut, but its because they find them a sound annoyance is why they complained in the first place. With electrification for GO RER, you will have far fewer diesel trains and the extra trains will be very quiet, and these complaints will go awat.
drum118
Superstar
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Allandale25
Senior Member
^ Are they doing some track maintenance?
crs1026
Superstar
Krypto98
Active Member
Someone had tweeted to GO transit asking to extend the 7:47-9:51 train from 6 to 10 cars. The go transit Twitter said schedule changes are coming late October?. Anyone know what these schedule changes might have?
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Over 100 disembarked a single West Harbour train today.
And also, overhead view of disembarkation, two arriving trains later.
Easily more ridership PER train — than the entire day ridership of first years (2015-2017ish).
The doubling of trains had a more-than-doubling amplifying effect.
And also, overhead view of disembarkation, two arriving trains later.
Easily more ridership PER train — than the entire day ridership of first years (2015-2017ish).
The doubling of trains had a more-than-doubling amplifying effect.
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Garuda
Active Member
Weekend service??