The train is slow so we shouldn't spend money on improving the train? Yes, fixing the tunnel should be one element of needed improvements. But we're not going to get fast EMUs and express trains without fixing the tunnel first.
We're not going to get faster service and EMUs until billions of dollars and dozens of projects are completed elsewhere, none of which depend on this tunnel. They are among the many higher priority GO projects that deserve to be completed first. Come back with this idea in 15 years.
If 90% of jobs are outside of downtown, 10% are downtown. If your percentages are correct, that would still be around 20 thousand jobs in downtown Hamilton. I'm sure it's far less than that, but it's still far more employment within walking distance of a station than any other station on the GO network outside of Union. If the government's policy is to encourage infill and intensification, they should be investing in infrastructure that makes established employment hubs like downtown Hamilton more desirable because they're accessible to a larger employment base. And as for those jobs at McMaster and the future innovation park, Mohawk college, and the hospitals, Hunter Street has much MUCH better existing AND planned transit connections to those sites than James St North.
If the government wants to encourage employment growth in Downtown, maybe they should stop moving their employees out of downtown Hamilton. Maybe they should give the Hamilton school board funding to renovate a building downtown, instead of moving their hundreds of staff out to Limeridge Mall. Maybe they should front the money for an LRT system, to provide HAMILTON RESIDENTS, with better transit service, rather than ferry in people from Halton and Peel on slow, plodding GO trains, which they will no doubt love to take instead of one of their three family cars which could do the commute in 1/3rd the time. Maybe they should clean up Hamilton brown-field sites and consolidate suburban government workers into these locations.
Hunter St = encourage a healthy downtown Hamilton with travellers passing through and increased demand for downtown Hamilton office and residential space.
James St North (and Centennial Parkway) = Hamilton is a bedroom community for Toronto.
Great talking points. Zero evidence.
Everyone who wants to work in Toronto and live in Hamilton already is. My parents were two of them, until they retired two years ago after 25 years of commuting (oh and they never used the Hamilton station, they always drove to Burlington Stn [No, not even Aldershot], like pretty much every other Hamilton resident who works in Toronto). There are four express trains leaving Hamilton every morning and coming back at night. Adding slow, once and hour trains, in the mid-afternoon, to James North (which is still downtown, no?) and Centennial (see below) is not going to make people suddenly move to Hamilton and turn it into a Toronto job bedroom community. Neither is it going to make people from Halton and Peel want to make an epic commute to Hamilton, complete with transfers for a 30 minute ride on the HSR. It's a well intentioned idea, but it is laughable. Hamilton's downtown needs to have employment accessible to local commuters.
Besides, much of west Hamilton already is a bedroom community (and by west, I am talking about the old city, not Hamilton's ultimate bedroom community, Waterdown.) But the people here are not commuting to Toronto, they are going down the QEW and 407 to jobs in Halton and Peel. I personally know four people in Hamilton who commute to Meadowvale every day. Here's an irony for you: GO used to provide bus commuting service between Hamilton and Meadowvale. It was cancelled.
And one other thing, don't ever bring up the Centennial Parkway GO station. People who mention this as some kind of commuter hub have obviously never looked at a map. It is a 15 minute drive from this station to Burlington GO Station. I have taken the GO bus over the skyway quite a few times and it always makes it this quicky. Why would anyone, ever get on the GO train at this spot and take a 40 minute trip around the bay to Burlington, when they could drive it in 15 minutes and park their car in a sheltered garage? Knowing GO's fare struture, it would probably cost the same. Similar to what I said above, no one will be encouraged to live in Hamilton and work in Toronto because of this station. Those people already are living in Hamilton
EDIT:
This post is more confrontational than I like, but here is where I am at: I come from a family of Hamilton residents. I commuted to Burlington for work for a year. I commuted to Toronto for work for years. My family members commuted to Toronto for work for decades, from both the west and east of Hamilton. They commuted from the old James North Station. They commuted from the old bus terminal (abandoned, but I think still standing) on Elizabeth Street. They commuted to places as distant as North York, because we liked Hamilton. We could have moved to Newmarket, but we didn't. Between all of us, we have taken TENS OF THOUSANDS of GO trips between Toronto an Hamilton. We have taken the first bus, the last train, the first train and the last awful drunken nightmare 1:30am bus and everything in between. We have lived in Hamilton a combined 240 person years.
I have to ask this... do you really think you know better than us? I'm asking because I want to know why you think this is necessary as I just don't see any possible way it is needed or wanted or helpful.
I would love fast train service all day every day between Hamilton and Toronto. But spending money on this tunnel does not give it. Dozens of other projects need to be done first, and they will take decades. That $100M could be put to much better immediate use. Hell even, fixing sewers in Hamilton would be a better use. How are Locke Street businesses supposed to thrive when their 100 year old water mains break and flood their stores three times in one year! As I said above, this is a proposal for 15 years from now. Hamilton will get no benefits from it being done today.
EDIT2: I just read through this again and I want to make sure I am clear that I am not trying to be insulting and I am not close minded. I really want to know what your perspective is and why you think this project is a priority. I think we both agree that intensification of employment in downtown and making that employment accessible to the region is critical for the health of Hamilton. I just can't see GO being anything but a very minor part of that process at this time. If you have reason to believe otherwise, please share it. I would like to hear opposing points of view fully elaborated.
