GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

[Jonny5]

The temporary accessibility ramp is now history at West Harbour

 

[mdrejhon]

The temporary accessibility ramp is now history at West Harbour

Your photo is dated 2015-08-04 but there looks like a GO Train going past, behind the other GO train. Was that a Niagara Seasonal Summer Train? This would be strange as I don't see seasonals on Tuesdays. Was the train stopped, train moving past, towards the left, or towards the right, and at what time? Did it appear to be deadheading somewhere?

Here's another video of the Niagara Seasonal Summer Train moving past West Harbour GO without stopping.

It passes by 16 times a weekend (2 Friday, 8 Saturday, 6 Sunday) -- 8 rides coming from Niagara going towards Toronto, and 8 rides incoming from Toronto towards Niagara.

Make it stop in Hamilton, and -- voila -- AD2W summer weekend train service at a net-profitable stop that reduces the cost of Niagara Seasonal Service (at less than 5 Hamilton boardings per train, to cover 2-3 minutes extra fuel, 2-3 minutes extra crew time, 1 staff to man the station). Whether we want to go to Toronto or Niagara. And friends coming visit us from either Toronto or Niagara. And much faster (1 hour) than the Niagara bus (2 hour). And it passes West Harbour in less than an hour after leaving Union -- so it's more express than the weekday expresses.

I am almost finished writing a RaiseTheHammer article (might be submitted to other media, too) about how to get Niagara summer trains to stop at West Harbour beginning in the 2016 or 2017 season (500 meter rail extension underneath James and then John, then a sufficient speed (to minimize slow train crawl delay) rail crossover back to CN mainline east of John underpass. About 3 pieces of CN equipment needs to be relocated, but this would be stuff already funded for 2019 Stoney Creek GO, but the Lewis Train Yard in Grimsby is opening earlier (2016) supposedly. The elements of work is apparently funded through to 2019 -- just needs acceleration and re-phasing of the construction of the first 500 meters ($1-2M possibly?) of rail, so that the seasonals can stop sooner than 2019. I've already made a few posts in this forum about this.

I am in the midst of several correspondences between myself and GO, and trying to get the mto comment on the Niagara-Seasonal-Not-Stopping-In-Hamilton story I'm currently writing, as it is in their interest to make sure my article is accurate... Like correcting me on costs, or simply saying "No Comment".

(BTW, vegata_skyline, I've sent you a PM about calculating fuel consumption of a 40kph-0kph-40kph stopping-dwell-acceleration cycle for an MP40... trying to refine napkin math)

 

[Jonny5]

Your photo is dated 2015-08-04 but there looks like a GO Train going past, behind the other GO train. Was that a Niagara Seasonal Summer Train? This would be strange as I don't see seasonals on Tuesdays. Was the train stopped, train moving past, towards the left, or towards the right, and at what time? Did it appear to be deadheading somewhere?

It was just a yard shuffle. It pulled in there and then immediately reversed back to park for the night on a different track than it originally came from.

 

[dowlingm]

Make it stop in Hamilton, and -- voila -- AD2W summer weekend train service at a net-profitable stop that reduces the cost of Niagara Seasonal Service (at less than 5 Hamilton boardings per train, to cover 2-3 minutes extra fuel, 2-3 minutes extra crew time, 1 staff to man the station). Whether we want to go to Toronto or Niagara. And friends coming visit us from either Toronto or Niagara. And much faster (1 hour) than the Niagara bus (2 hour). And it passes West Harbour in less than an hour after leaving Union -- so it's more express than the weekday expresses.

I am almost finished writing a RaiseTheHammer article (might be submitted to other media, too) about how to get Niagara summer trains to stop at West Harbour beginning in the 2016 or 2017 season (500 meter rail extension underneath James and then John, then a sufficient speed (to minimize slow train crawl delay) rail crossover back to CN mainline east of John underpass. About 3 pieces of CN equipment needs to be relocated, but this would be stuff already funded for 2019 Stoney Creek GO, but the Lewis Train Yard in Grimsby is opening earlier (2016) supposedly. The elements of work is apparently funded through to 2019 -- just needs acceleration and re-phasing of the construction of the first 500 meters ($1-2M possibly?) of rail, so that the seasonals can stop sooner than 2019. I've already made a few posts in this forum about this.

Does the Niagara service use the same track section (the one closest to WH GO) in both directions in all scenarios? If sometimes it uses the other through track then that would complicate moves into/out of WH GO and the necessary switches more, no?.

This is one of those ones where you gotta think it isn't that simple for UTers to solve (or CN is just saying no irrespective of technical merit) because otherwise WTF.

 

[mdrejhon]

This is one of those ones where you gotta think it isn't that simple for UTers to solve (or CN is just saying no irrespective of technical merit) because otherwise WTF.

I risk reducing my exclusivity by revealing my sources, but...

I have already spent hours on research on this one single matter, as a railfan, and as a freelance reporter.
- I've been writing a large article I'm about to submit (within days) to a media website expecting my submission.
- I spent 5 hours visiting and photographing 3 construction sites that had actual Metrolinx-funded shovels going on, including some photos no UT'ers have ever seen.
- I have emailed half a dozen GO staff, with a couple of good useful responses that confirms a lot of what I've been saying all along, so far. Yes, funded -- it appears all pre-requisites are being worked on 2015-2016.

GO media relations (Alex Burke) confirmed they are beginning construction later this year to make West Harbour a through station that reconnects back to the CN mainline. He also directly confirmed that this is a technically possible route of Niagara-bound trains (without yet confirming they'll actually stop).

Alex Burke, GO media relations, confirmed this is already fully funded as part of West Harbour ongoing construction (presumably it was always planned as part of Phase 2+). This is also consistent with what I had already read in government documents. Through station capability is existing West Harbour construction funding.

This confirmed it was not dependant on Stoney Creek GO funding. Technically, West Harbour was always planned to be a through station even if Stoney Creek GO was never going to happen. In public documents, West Harbour construction phases are finished by 2017, if not delayed. So it's more tied to a 2017 deadline (West Harbour complete) rather than a 2019 deadline (Stoney Creek complete), but various elements are completed sooner (e.g. parking garage, tracks, etc) so the through-station-capability could happen sooner.

He stopped short of saying that Niagara Seasonals will happen next year, but his reply was clearly worded in a way that the door is potentially open for a 2016 Hamilton stop for the Niagara Seasonals.

This is consistent with information found in government documents, and the elimination of the wheelchair ramp is consistent with this prep.

So my prediction remains -- Spring 2016 or Spring 2017 -- at an even higher confidence factor.

(More info to come in the upcoming major article -- including direct quotes of paragraphs from the email)

Note: Any p[ress reading this -- take advantage of my due diligence rather than trying to race ahead of me on this matter -- Please send me a PM. I am allowed to submit variants of my upcoming content to other sites, as RaiseTheHammer (the recipient site) does not require my article to be exclusive to them, and I ask for no compensation except I like to see this gain publicity.

 

[smallspy]

I risk reducing my exclusivity by revealing my sources, but...

...Really long post clipped....

Sorry, but exactly what part of this is actually news?

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[andrewpmk]

Why are the station doors locked in afternoon rush hour?

I accidentally forgot to tap off my Presto card at West Harbour, then realized that the door was locked and couldn't get inside to where the Presto readers are. There certainly don't seem to be very many people using West Harbour station, although presumably this will change if all day GO service starts using it (or if Niagara starts having regular weekday GO service). Fortunately I was able to tap off at the other Hamilton GO station.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Why are the station doors locked in afternoon rush hour?

I accidentally forgot to tap off my Presto card at West Harbour, then realized that the door was locked and couldn't get inside to where the Presto readers are. There certainly don't seem to be very many people using West Harbour station, although presumably this will change if all day GO service starts using it (or if Niagara starts having regular weekday GO service). Fortunately I was able to tap off at the other Hamilton GO station.

They don't have Presto readers outside that you can access? That seems to be a bit of an oversight.

 

[mdrejhon]

Sorry, but exactly what part of this is actually news?

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Not news to you.

But tons, and tons, and tons of uninformed people exist.

Comments sections in Hamilton news site sections.

People saying the Niagara trains would never stop, or won't be till 2019 when Stoney Creek GO finishes.

Remember, 20 years of promises to Hamilton residents about all-day train service, that are repeatedly broken.

People claiming expansions will never happens, and that West Harbour is a waste with sometimes only a few people using it (duh -- at only two trains at only 6:15 and 6:45 -- and a couple of incoming evening trains) -- and with over 100-200+ students with backpacks disembarking many Aldershot trains, and occasionally long lineups at the GO buses during surge moments.

People who are not happy with the Hamilton status quo and don't bother taking trains.

In fact, many Hamilton politicians aren't even aware of the various details, and remain skeptical.

I recently educated my city ward's elected councillor (and the one I voted for, too) about this GO stuff -- he now follows me on Twitter!

 

[TOareaFan]

he now follows me on Twitter!

So its all been worthwile!

 

[salsa]

I recently educated my city ward's elected councillor (and the one I voted for, too) about this GO stuff -- he now follows me on Twitter!

I wonder how you cope with the character limit on Twitter .

 

[dowlingm]

Sorry, but exactly what part of this is actually news?

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

The timeframe?

The question for me is: can VIA and their partner Amtrak be leaned on to stop at WH in both directions once the necessary track connections are in place. The more services stop, the more useful WH becomes especially ones which provide connectivity Hunter St can't - to the east.

 

[mdrejhon]

So its all been worthwile!

It fully paid for all the hours I waste on this subject.

 

[mdrejhon]

I wonder how you cope with the character limit on Twitter .

You'd be amazed. Some cities are now being rapidly being shaped by tweets. At least one infrastructure improvements have already snowballed because of a tweet. Butterfly Chaos Theory -- one thing started, then next thing it snowballs. Hamilton is small enough that community advoacy is more effective than for the average city, including social networking, twitter, facebook, etc.

Citizen Crowdurbanplanning is occuring far more per-population-capita with Hamilton than Toronto.

Example: See things like brainstorming the 403 ramp redesign for LRT (Twitter pic);
and our mayor actually personally REPLIED on Twitter!

Hundreds of other examples on twitter nowadays. I'm part of that statistic in numerous cases. Like my councillor to my tweet of a public transit vision in an an UrbanToronto post - which he complimented me on!

If interested in more, expand the rest of my post:

This ramp modification design on twitter is a far cheaper version that wasn't earlier considered. It has since been re-posted as a Comment in a recent raisethehammer article about our LRT which (as far as I know) roughly half of the Hamilton city councillors actually regularly read now. Although city makes final decision, citizen influence of current Hamilton changes is quite incredible right now compared to the past.

Twitter advocacy, along with other sources, is part of reason how we finally got Cannon Bike Lanes installed -- yeswecannon.ca -- twitter @YesWeCannon -- and people like me are dashcamming it to defend the bike lanes (TWITTER) against anti-bike "The Bike Lanes Are Empty" people. The bike:car ratio is currently roughly 1:4 during weekends the last few times, almost close to the road surface allocation ratio 1:3 ratio -- was trying to convince automobile users to think differently on the "success/fail" balance when they only see 1 bike for every 4 cars; and this is still improving -- the protected Cannon barried bike lanes with green paint are less than 1 year old! In concurrent, we've have things like SmartCommuteHam helping tweet better bike routes through ultra-carhappy Hamilton, and we've got SoBiHamilton on twitter (who recently corrected an incorrect Globe & Mail article) really active locally on twitter, our mayor FredEisenberger on twitter who personally tweets and reads twitter -- and replies to some citizens -- instead of a secretary.

Bike infrastructure in Hamilton is very much in its infancy, but with our recent out-bikesharing Toronto, has finally convinced local non-bike-owning population (twitter example, example, example, example - twitter quotes like "Took my first @SoBiHamilton ride with @Ciaramilk last night. Fantastic service. Time to build more bike lanes in #HamOnt!") to become more bike-friendly and these recently convinced Hamilton's cycle department to accelerate a further bit of Hamilton bike infrastructure expansion in the coming 3-4 months (RaiseTheHammer comment thread example). See, our city bike infrastructure is majorly driven by twitter, commenboards, facebook, etc! Before 2014, Lower City had almost no bike lanes, and protected bike lanes was a utopia dream.

Hamilton citizens on twitter, have profile titles like: "Anglo-Latvian interaction and experience designer; Product manager @WPtouch; Co-founder @EmbraceUX; Public Safety Lead @PrideToronto" (@mkuplens) and also "Nuclear engineer. Hamilton resident. Sophomoric thinker. Married to @francescaricci. Mentor for @celtxrobotics. President Hammer City Makers" (@PopularEthics) .... so these are real tax payers not unemployed artists. At least one Hamilton councillors follow each of them on twitter!! Likewise for me.

Finally, 2014, bike infrastructure green paint and bike barriers arrived for the 1st ever time in Hamilton's history (pic, pic).

It may be fairly rough and ugly by Toronto standards, but this is a Hamilton miracle, it's become popular among residents along Cannon and some drivers now actually like Cannon better because it's slightly calmer (not calm enough, but better). And a bunch of us are watching the bike ratio like a hawk, after the city screwed up by placing bike counters at the ends rather than the center (I'll even sharpie a note onto the bike counter casing if they screw THAT up again). It's just ONE measly ugly protected bike lane (with fewer flower boxes than they planned, but still -- real flower boxes, barriers, and knockouts, and green paint -- not just a single painted line -- for ONE crosstown route of many arterials, but it's still a miracle it happened. Yes, it's ugly and empty during weekday bad-weather car peaks. But it's finally getting popular during the summer weekends. And now they've agreed to extend it this year -- a bit sooner than I expected. Thanks to citizens like me who advocated on social networks for it to happen.

Yes, Toronto politics has a twitter culture too, but it's lower per-capita than with Hamilton, and doesn't have as much citizen-lobby ratio / pull-per-project ratio.

Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack discussion, but this also explains part of the reason I'm fairly loud here on UrbanToronto -- people like nfitz may not care much and cannot understand why I love Hamilton so much -- background information for readers here that Hamilton (at least for some elements like bike infrastructure) is a little more social-network driven than the average city. WIN!

My upcoming GO article is not targeted to smallspy who already knew.

My upcoming GO article is targeted to the average citizen, including jaded long-time Hamiltonians and unaware city councillors, too. I know people on GO network (Oakville, Pickering) who want to go to McMaster and would just prefer not to transfer at Aldershot. And there's of course, demand for incoming travel to Hamilton -- not just us travelling outwards. Jaded citizens and Hamiltonians, witnessing light usage of West Harbour at inconvenient 6:15am, do not understand (yet). And as a commuter with sometimes-varying time-of-day commute times, I have seen surge of 200 McMaster students simultaneously disembarking certain Aldershot trains because there's no continuing train, GO trains does not yet accomodate student peak surges, nor counter-commuters and visiting family/friends. And even beyond this, Hamiltonians who don't like the 2 hour bus trip that would love a 1 hour trip to Niagara, and the casino. Or the opposite direction (to Toronto, of course). There is large latent demand for more convenient GO service that cannot be judged by a 6:15am visit to currently quiet prematurely-opened-before-trains-were-available West Harbour GO station. The Niagara GO train is a very low-lying apple that I am attempting to massively raise local awareness for -- we have at least 1 city councillor apparently so skeptical that they think the Niagara train's not stopping till 2019. I am changing that perception.

On another note -- not all Hamilton neighbourhoods are ugly like when driving Skyway/Barton/Burlington to a TiCats game or PanAm game -- our house front yard has won Hamilton Trillium 2015 award as one of the 10 most beautiful residential gardens in the entire city (Thanks so much to my spouse, who is highly active in local ward meetings and often runs into our city councillor Michael Green there, too). Two blocks to the north are shuttered storefronts. 1 block is unexpectedly the B-Line LRT route (did not know, so we got lucky). Two blocks to the south are mansions. Nearby are a few revitalizing businesses here and there. And I'm still Lower City, only a 15-20 minute walk from the International Village of Hamilton downtown, so it's not a suburban area. Most drivers from Toronto miss these beautiful parts of Hamilton, after all and thanks to Toronto indifference to this, there were still bargains on Toronto "Rosedale-beautiful homes" 4-bedroom 2500sqft detached for price of 700sqft Toronto condo as recently as last year...We are currently in Hamilton's equivalent of Cabbagetown, an equally near-downtown neighborhood.

 

[drum118]

Here are shot from July 24 now on line of Mississauga Station Gate New Terminal. They have finish all the road and sidewalk rebuilt. The stations is still a few month off yet.