GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[duffo]

By regional, I'm not meaning within or to neighbouring third orders of government. I'm using the term in the more general sense. This is the same problem that's plagued St. Thomas-London service. It's a no brainer to have a regular direct link between the two; but it's stymied by dealing with two different govvernments.

Two? I'm counting City of London, City of St Thomas, Southwold Township, Middlesex County, Elgin County, and maybe one day, the Province. The existing service now running is operated by Middlesex County, but only cause they had provincial grant money to spend on it.

 

[Sauga89]

This may be a long trip between Six Nations and Hamilton / Aldershot, but remember that this is in consultation with Six Nations. It may be possible that going to Brantford is a higher priority; it is the home of their other reserve lands (Glebe Farm) and the Woodland Cultural Centre (former Indian Residential School turned art gallery, museum and library, and possibly home to undiscovered grave sites). There may be other important economic, social and cultural places for Haudenosaunee people that are more important than the GTA.

In fact, I'm shocked that Toronto-centred GO Transit is not running the shortest route. That said, if there is a desire to do that, service via Caledonia and Hamilton Airport would be a great side benefit for others.

I wonder if they could run service in a big loop and do both? Maybe they could have three buses per day go from Hamilton or Aldershot to Brantford, and then come back through Ohsweken, Caledonia, and the Hamilton airport. Then three buses could go the other direction to Brantford via Caledonia and Ohsweken, before returning to Hamilton or Aldershot. That would give the reserve a more direct service to Toronto while still providing service to Brantford. It would also provide six buses per day to Hamilton/Aldershot, instead of three (Though six buses might exceed demand for all I know).

It doesn't look like that's the plan though, otherwise I imagine Caledonia would have been added to GO's service area along with the reserve.

 

[Allandale25]

 

[sixrings]

View attachment 622083

“Situation” makes it sound negative. Who doesn’t love a train horn?!!!

 

[Undead]

Presumably "situation" refers to the near miss? @crs1026 @smallspy any details you can share?

 

[crs1026]

Presumably "situation" refers to the near miss? @crs1026 @smallspy any details you can share?

I don't have any incidents to report, but my generic answer would be, "Which one?"

Busy crossing on curve with poor sight lines, vs many nearby residences.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

I would add, there's a lot of wisdom applicable here from the Vision Zero road safety philosophy..... namely, that motorists draw a lot of inferences from road configuration, and this determines how they drive.
In the case of Eureka, the crossing has been heavily camouflaged in the interest of making it look like an insignificant branch line crossing that has only a few tiny slow trains that stop easily and don't interfere with the tony and leafy residential surroundings. Which is very much at odds with the reality - ie it's a heavily trafficed mainline crossing that may soon see 15 minute 2WAD headways run by full size heavy trains that are running at full permissible track speed (albeit thru a restrictive curve).
If I were the regulator, I would be cutting back bushes and doing other thing that might look stark and nasty but would make the crossing more intimidating to motorists.
And if I were a GO engineer, I would be leaning on the horn for every moving object and squirrel I encounter, whistle ban or not.

- Paûl