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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

You know what's REALLY overdue? More grade separation on the GO lines. Every time I pass by East Gwillimbury GO, I can't help but wonder what would prevent a Green Lane East overpass from being built. The road practically dives down to meet the tracks and then climbs back up again. Is it just because of the Nokiidaa Trail being there?

The Lakeshore lines also need to get on some of the easier ones like Morningside Avenue, or one of the bajillion in Halton.
Can‘t speak as much for LE, but LW has been implementing grade separation ongoingly, and now starting with Burloak. But you are not incorrect. There are grade crossings where higher speeds would be very common in Mississauga as well that could/should be activated on.
 
Scarborough residents had a RT line for decades, but has terribly aged and now wanted an actual subway. There's actual demand for it. And its not like its a completely new line, its just a literal extension of Line 2.

Don't forget that there's also LSE and Stouffville lines and not to mention some of the Eglinton crosstown. All of this will carry Scarbs from currently just having a crappy aged RT, only 3 stop subway coverage in southwest Scarborough, a GO line that doesn't even run counter peak yet now let alone on weekends anymore, and an actual all day GO line but is overcrowded and too far off for most Scarb residents. To soon be a transit covered borough with all these projects mentioned being upgraded and/or new lines and extensions with subway like frequency to all. The GO and TTC projects will complement each other on this. So we're actually getting multiple things done in Scarborough and not just the one thing that you think will be over built and useless as a Subway because this extension is the centerpiece as to what is coming all around in the borough.
As a former Scarborough resident I am quite well aware of everything you are getting and or already had access to. You say it as if you paid your dues with the rt so you earned the Scarborough extension. Mississauga has paid it’s due with one way a few trains a. Day service on the cooksville line. But all I hear about is back room meeting plans.
 
Can‘t speak as much for LE, but LW has been implementing grade separation ongoingly, and now starting with Burloak. But you are not incorrect. There are grade crossings where higher speeds would be very common in Mississauga as well that could/should be activated on.
I've never taken a non-Barrie GO train in my life and I'm still a little salty about Kerr Street getting de-prioritized.
 
For what possible reason should we do this, if we have the room to create more track?

Why would you intentionally handicap your system like this?
Because you can't always build more track the idea that we have the room depends, sure the raw space exists in most spaces but as you can see on the Lakeshore East Line - (which combined with Stouffville and VIA is handling maybe 10-12 TPH) it can be really expensive to unlock that space! Retaining walls, bridge expansions, etc. Which is great in the long term, but not really technically necessary with adequate signalling and ops (again assuming we weren't planning to use lumbering NA style commuter stock for so long).

So sure where it's easy add track, but we also don't need full double track on every corridor to operate a decent all day service, and we also have a lot more room to eke out extra capacity with better ops and signalling.
The business case for the Stouffville line (Figure 3.2) has a design spec of 11 trains per hour in each direction at peak (8 EMU and 3 loco hauled). That is way beyond what single track can handle. Requiring full double tracking is eminently sensible and good value for money.
I don't disagree, but that's also *way* under what double track could handle, and we seem to generally assume that this is an incredibly intense level of service when 16+ TPH is pretty standard for emus. I just get the sense that we overestimate the amount of track we need with *performant* trains. And yes we are going with locos for the foreseeable future, but I don't see an adequate critique of how much we could reduce our infra capex on so many projects if we didn't need every train to be a lumbering set of bilevels.
 
Ok..........I deleted a comment I was going to make, but now I'm going to try again with a variation.

Can we please, not revisit every transit project that has or has not happened in any thread; let alone TTC projects in a GO transit thread.

I get it, we all have tangential exchanges...... (myself included)

But this is running way off topic, because people read one person's take as a swipe or less than meritorious and off we go down a very bad road.

Can we please bring this back to GO Transit Service?
Apologies, it was me who brought it up the subway vs the Kipling GO Terminal vs the Milton GO Line.

But I would like to see more focus on Peel and not just the Kitchener Line.
 
You know what's REALLY overdue? More grade separation on the GO lines. Every time I pass by East Gwillimbury GO, I can't help but wonder what would prevent a Green Lane East overpass from being built. The road practically dives down to meet the tracks and then climbs back up again. Is it just because of the Nokiidaa Trail being there?

The Lakeshore lines also need to get on some of the easier ones like Morningside Avenue, or one of the bajillion in Halton.
Bajillion in Halton? There will literally be 3 level crossings left in Halton Region on LSW in a few years - Fourth Line, Kerr Street, and Chartwell Road. And Kerr Street is probably going to be "undeferred" sooner rather than later and get built.

Morningside Road is happening as well, with the contract having been issued recently from what I remember.

I do agree Metrolinx should focus on separations more, but ultimately they are very expensive. I would love for Metrolinx to focus on "cheaper" crossing removals - i.e. closures or replacing a level crossing with a pedestrian crossing only for many of the lower traffic crossings. There are 7 level crossings on LSW through Mississauga for example - you could probably just close 3 or 4 of them tomorrow with no major impact.

There are a lot of grade seperations moving in the background as well. Off the top of my head, the following are happening in the next few years:

LSW:
1. Burloak
2. Kerr (technically deferred, but funding will probably be identified somewhere some time soon as it's quite advanced)

Kitchener
1. Mississauga Rd (Peel will likely widen this soon and separate it)

Barrie
1. Davenport Diamond including Wallace Ave (recently opened)
2. Langstaff Rd - York Region is widening this in a few years and will grade separate it
3. Rutherford Rd - recently completed
4. McNaughton Rd
5. Wellington St Aurora

Stouffville:
1. Scarborough Junction Seperation including Danforth Rd
2. Progress Ave
3. Huntingwood Dr
4. Finch Ave (part of SmartTrack)
5. McNicoll Ave
6. Passmore Ave
7. Kennedy Rd
8. Denison St

LSE:
1. Scarborough Golf Club Rd
2. Morningside Avenue
3. Galloway Rd
 
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I'm guessing this is the additional train needed to begin weekend services from Mt Pleasant to Union, pre-positioned to the Georgetown Yard. The second consist required will return as Trip 3627 (17:04 Union to Gtown) this evening:
1680815363874.png
 
I have a question here for the Kitchener Line: Why does the weekend service go all the way to Mt Pleasant, but some weekday trains stop at Bramalea?
Weekend service will just be hourly all day at all times and just to Mt Pleasant and back, while weekday service has more trains running back and forth. More specifically during peak times and going to further points on top. The Bramalea only trips are for 2 reasons, one because they can pull off non stop express trains from Bramalea to Union for the trains that are coming from Georgetown/Kitchener, and have another train do stops in between. The other reason is we simply have way more capacity currently in general from Union-Bramalea to run more trains as it is obv the priority corridor for the RER type of service on the line.
 
Bajillion in Halton? There will literally be 3 level crossings left in Halton Region on LSW in a few years - Fourth Line, Kerr Street, and Chartwell Road. And Kerr Street is probably going to be "undeferred" sooner rather than later and get built.

Morningside Road is happening as well, with the contract having been issued recently from what I remember.

I do agree Metrolinx should focus on separations more, but ultimately they are very expensive. I would love for Metrolinx to focus on "cheaper" crossing removals - i.e. closures or replacing a level crossing with a pedestrian crossing only for many of the lower traffic crossings. There are 7 level crossings on LSW through Mississauga for example - you could probably just close 3 or 4 of them tomorrow with no major impact.

There are a lot of grade seperations moving in the background as well. Off the top of my head, the following are happening in the next few years:

LSW:
1. Burloak
2. Kerr (technically deferred, but funding will probably be identified somewhere some time soon as it's quite advanced)

Kitchener
1. Mississauga Rd (Peel will likely widen this soon and separate it)

Barrie
1. Davenport Diamond including Wallace Ave (recently opened)
2. Langstaff Rd - York Region is widening this in a few years and will grade separate it
3. Rutherford Rd - recently completed
4. McNaughton Rd
5. Wellington St Aurora

Stouffville:
1. Scarborough Junction Seperation including Danforth Rd
2. Progress Ave
3. Huntingwood Dr
4. Finch Ave (part of SmartTrack)
5. McNicoll Ave
6. Passmore Ave
7. Kennedy Rd
8. Denison St

LSE:
1. Scarborough Golf Club Rd
2. Morningside Avenue
3. Galloway Rd
Do you have a source for these? not that I don't belive you, I just want to see for myself.
 

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