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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

We speculate about it all the time, but there is no way this will happen without

1. the Missing Link, plus new CP RoW along all of the CN freight corridor i.e. York Sub.

2. a even more costly infrastructure project to add tracks and replace all the infrastructure (bridges, etc.) along the North Toronto Sub

3. paying an obscene amount of money per year to use the Midtown corridor, for what will probably be a fairly low ridership line compared to the commuter routes

4. a huge chemical spill in the middle of town by CP freightcars resulting in the city threatening to sue CP (but I find that unlikely)
 
4. a huge chemical spill in the middle of town by CP freightcars resulting in the city threatening to sue CP (but I find that unlikely)

I am not advocating or hoping for this, but if one phrases the question as "which will happen first, a frightening (but hopefully non-fatal) calamity or somebody finding the money to fund a rerouting of CP around the City instead of through it?", my bet is on the calamity coming first and the plan only coming afterwards. Because, politics.

- Paul
 
Oh, for sure. Many members of this forum (including myself) doubt that the Milton Line would ever have happened without the spill.
 
We speculate about it all the time, but there is no way this will happen without

1. the Missing Link, plus new CP RoW along all of the CN freight corridor i.e. York Sub.

2. a even more costly infrastructure project to add tracks and replace all the infrastructure (bridges, etc.) along the North Toronto Sub

3. paying an obscene amount of money per year to use the Midtown corridor, for what will probably be a fairly low ridership line compared to the commuter routes

4. a huge chemical spill in the middle of town by CP freightcars resulting in the city threatening to sue CP (but I find that unlikely)
There is room to add one track...now to convince CP.
 
There is room to add one track...now to convince CP.
You aren't going to get CP moving to the Halton/York Sub on a single track. Even if you offer CP 2 tracks that will require rebuilding the York sub to 4/5 track, CP will say thanks but no thanks as long as the Agincourt yard remain as is.

If CP moves their yard to the east that will be longer to handle longer trains than Agincourt can, you may get CP to move to the Halton/York Sub, but not on their dime.

CP will retain running rights on the existing line even if they move to the Halton/York Sub that could cause problems for GO.

As for the spill, it will cause more problems on a joint CN/CP ROW than in their own ROW.

Bottom line, the Province/Cities for this joint ROW don't have the funds to do it and the Feds will most likely say no for to any funds to built this Joint ROW. You are looking a a decade or 2 before the ROW is 100% built if funding is found.
 
The lever to get CP off the North Toronto is the exploitation of the air rights over that corridor. Should the freight come off, one could bury the resultant rail line - effectively an electrified transit line - under new buildings..
Government at all levels is unlikely to raise that amount of capital, but private developers might be able to.
The stick in the mud would be CN, who would a) want fair compensation for sharing their asset with a competitor....”fair” being the moon and stars and b) want a share of CP’s real estate windfall, just because it’s there to be plundered.
There is nothing in our national legal or political system that would enable a rational, pragmatic solution to all that wealth sharing or exchange of proprietary advantage or even urban planning. So, barring an accident, I can’t see anything changing for a long time - more like 30 years.
- Paul
 
Don't know if this will ultimately belong here, or in the construction thread.............but there's a presser tomorrow at Cooksville GO Stn, involving the Minister of Transportation and Phil Verster.

The subject is listed as GO Transit Improvements for Mississauga.

 
It was always odd that GO operated that to me anyway. It was effectively a local route where everyone paid a DRT fare anyway. It was odd.
 
It was always odd that GO operated that to me anyway. It was effectively a local route where everyone paid a DRT fare anyway. It was odd.

It started off as a train-meet connection back in the 1970s. It wasn't until DRT took over transit and improved intermunicipal connections that the 90 slowly became redundant.

What bothers me is how the 88 was recently rerouted to stop at the Bowmanville bus loop (where a GO station may eventually go, west of Downtown Bowmanville) and along old Highway 2 to the35/115, adding more even time to the trip for anyone going between Oshawa GO and Peterborough/Trent U. The 88 has become a milk run.
 
map.jpg



Whoa.

Check out York University
 

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