raptor
Senior Member
hold your horses, Hydrogen feasibility study may delay this even further.
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GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx
- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
cplchanb
Senior Member
ughh......
hopefully if the cons do get elected they first, maintain the project as it is and second, KILL OFF this waste of time and money before it incepts too many lobbyists
rbt
Senior Member
Your vision of a PC win is much better than mine.
cplchanb
Senior Member
well...im not excited for PC....but since theyre poised to win due to hate over wynne id figure theyd do what every changing govt does which is
make counter policies or retract existing ones just because..... so im banking theyll scrap the hydrogen project because its not "fiscally responsible".
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
I highly doubt that the PCs would continue with elecrtification. All their senior MPPs are rural and buy into the garbage narrative of “the country pays for the city”. Even if RER survived (it’s a $13.5 billion project), it would most likely be stripped down to the bones to the point were it would be unrecognizable.
cplchanb
Senior Member
how i wish metrolinx was a private business....no need to rely on public funds and bullshit politics to do their projects.....
ShonTron
Moderator
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I'll coin a term for that: Smarttrackification!
Allandale25
Senior Member
I think it might be a little premature to say that. At the risk off getting off-topic, given how competitive the 905, KW and Barrie will be for them, they may not want to endure the wrath of the Liberals and GO commuters if they say during the campaign that they'll cancel electrification, like they did in the 2014 election. They are also releasing very little if any policy at the moment, unlike what Hudak did. They have a big policy convention in November so maybe we'll see more specifics. I just don't think the Liberals can easily assume that the PCs will blindly try to do what they did last time. Maybe they'll try to appease their rural base by saying they'll be better project managers/be more transparent/get better people to run Metrolinx and the RER program to ensure it runs on budget/on time. Of course, the time they take to make that decision after the election could well push it past 2025. Mark has predicted before RER won't be done by the timeline even the Liberals are suggesting.
The PCs could well end of acting like they did from 1995-2003. I'm just suggesting it might be too early to say and we don't have a lot of direct quotes or primary information just yet. Also, the PC Transportation Critic was actually favourable to the new Metrolinx CEO because he's got a rail background.
rbt
Senior Member
That's when we find out just how much pull Tory still has in the PC party. Several years ago I predicted that a Stouffville/Barrie U line would be the only route to get RER service (by 2025) and that remains a possibility today.
Allandale25
Senior Member
mdrejhon
Senior Member
I have a feeling that less damage will be done to GO electrification than Ford did to Transit City.
Likely some rebrandings (RER? SmartTrack? Etc), some cancellations of elements (Hydrogen, etc), some changes (e.g. merging UPX/SmartTrack/RER as a "fix that boondoggle" move) but the vast majority of the $13.5bn initiative would seem to survive. Worse is a few-years delay rather than the 1990s-era butchering of GO.
Big Move already trojanhorsed a lot of dependancies if GO RER is fully cancelled:
-- Union station revitalization is a cat in the bag
Union Station mall will almost a ghost mall offpeak, almost as bad as Aura's mall; possibly full of failing stores due to insufficient traffic. Major GO expansion is badly needed to justify the Union revitialization.
-- Eglinton Crosstown LRT and York TTC subway extension is a cat in the bag
They all have very significant GO integration that assumes GO is a FRTN (15-min AD2W). It would be very difficult to sabotage the Crosstown LRT.
-- Several transit networks at at varying stages of progress at the moment, all of which depends on GO becoming a FRTN (15-min AD2W)
-- The studies have made GO RER practically ready to begin construction after election, so rebrandings are much easier ("Let's brand this or that to something new but is actually essentially the same"). Reuse the majority of the studies and proceed with construction.
Conservatives are somewhat more transit friendly now than they were a few decades ago, especially at least to rail-based transit systems (subways, GO, etc) and the reach of GO is bigger now than it was (more rural ontario served now thanks to GO extensions since 1990s) so conservative ridership of GO is bigger today than it was in the 1990s. Many conservative politicians commute on GO now, and this kind of buffers things a little more than the Harris days.
Major disruptions to plans? Yes. Mostly unmodified? Maybe. Rebrands? Probably (SmartTrack is simply political branding of slightly enhanced GO RER). Ford Transit City league treatment of GO RER? Almost certainly not. I don't think so; way too scandalous to go all the way there. Four or eight year line-item gentler postponements? Possibly.
Many timelines are easily bumpable, such as Kitchener AD2W and Bowmanville, but those also serve many rural commuters too, so some conservative candy was also built into GO RER to make it unlikely to receive more than only partial Harris-style treatment (weaker than what happened to Transit City) -- Lakeshore East extension hadn't even completed yet to get conservatives used to riding it (like many are now). But now many extensions are already operating and conservative territory reach is bigger than it was in the 1990s.
Likely some rebrandings (RER? SmartTrack? Etc), some cancellations of elements (Hydrogen, etc), some changes (e.g. merging UPX/SmartTrack/RER as a "fix that boondoggle" move) but the vast majority of the $13.5bn initiative would seem to survive. Worse is a few-years delay rather than the 1990s-era butchering of GO.
Big Move already trojanhorsed a lot of dependancies if GO RER is fully cancelled:
-- Union station revitalization is a cat in the bag
Union Station mall will almost a ghost mall offpeak, almost as bad as Aura's mall; possibly full of failing stores due to insufficient traffic. Major GO expansion is badly needed to justify the Union revitialization.
-- Eglinton Crosstown LRT and York TTC subway extension is a cat in the bag
They all have very significant GO integration that assumes GO is a FRTN (15-min AD2W). It would be very difficult to sabotage the Crosstown LRT.
-- Several transit networks at at varying stages of progress at the moment, all of which depends on GO becoming a FRTN (15-min AD2W)
-- The studies have made GO RER practically ready to begin construction after election, so rebrandings are much easier ("Let's brand this or that to something new but is actually essentially the same"). Reuse the majority of the studies and proceed with construction.
Conservatives are somewhat more transit friendly now than they were a few decades ago, especially at least to rail-based transit systems (subways, GO, etc) and the reach of GO is bigger now than it was (more rural ontario served now thanks to GO extensions since 1990s) so conservative ridership of GO is bigger today than it was in the 1990s. Many conservative politicians commute on GO now, and this kind of buffers things a little more than the Harris days.
Major disruptions to plans? Yes. Mostly unmodified? Maybe. Rebrands? Probably (SmartTrack is simply political branding of slightly enhanced GO RER). Ford Transit City league treatment of GO RER? Almost certainly not. I don't think so; way too scandalous to go all the way there. Four or eight year line-item gentler postponements? Possibly.
Many timelines are easily bumpable, such as Kitchener AD2W and Bowmanville, but those also serve many rural commuters too, so some conservative candy was also built into GO RER to make it unlikely to receive more than only partial Harris-style treatment (weaker than what happened to Transit City) -- Lakeshore East extension hadn't even completed yet to get conservatives used to riding it (like many are now). But now many extensions are already operating and conservative territory reach is bigger than it was in the 1990s.
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steveintoronto
Superstar
There remains the conundrum RE: Electrification as to cost. I'd be preaching to the converted here to list all the advantages that make the cost a very wise investment (missing gaps on some branches besides), but the cost has to be the reason the Libs have dragged their drawbars on moving this forward in the time-frame they promised.
And that won't engender the Cons to doing it any more than it has the Libs. This is a favourite rant of crs 1026 (Paul) for good reason. It becomes theatre of the absurd that QP looks for every reason not to do this, when it should be the other way around.
I can't see the Cons moving this forward at all. The days of the Davis Progressive Cons are long gone. If the present Cons have any vision, there's been absolutely no sign of it.
And that won't engender the Cons to doing it any more than it has the Libs. This is a favourite rant of crs 1026 (Paul) for good reason. It becomes theatre of the absurd that QP looks for every reason not to do this, when it should be the other way around.
I can't see the Cons moving this forward at all. The days of the Davis Progressive Cons are long gone. If the present Cons have any vision, there's been absolutely no sign of it.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Most people don't know what GO RER is. Cancelling at this stage would have almost no real impact. Projects only matter when there are shovels in the ground. But that's hard for RER because it's not very visible or comprehensible, even with shovels in the ground. I'm with @alexanderglista. I think the Tories will significantly scale back RER. In line with what Hudak pledged last election.
crs1026
Superstar
If ML were smart they would be talking more practically and less with the branding. "Additional trackage to increase GO service" is something the Tories could get their heads around (at the very least, they'd be hard pressed to say that isn't needed). "Convert diesel locomotives to electric" would also be sellable - people know there are lots of GO locomotives, and they would probably accept that once you have lots of locomotives out there, electrics are cheaper, and greener. Nobody other than transit wonks on UT know what an EMU is. Don't go there. Let the Tories (eventually) point out that locomotive hauled trains only make sense at peak when the trains are long. Let them take the credit for what is already self evident. Frankly, 3-car trains consisting of existing bilevels with an electric loco would not be that bad an idea as the starting point for electrification. Nobody really reads the business case that carefully.
And frankly, RER is gold plated. The focus on palatial stations is incredibly wasteful. We could make do with some bus shelters and incremental station improvement.
- Paul
steveintoronto
Superstar
And much quieter! How quiet, in terms Joe Average can understand? "As quiet as a subway train running in the open air, but capable of running much faster".