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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

BTW, you don't have to buy a UPX ticket to access UPX's lounge.

Initially, for waiting for GO trains for outbound trips, there's the UPstairs, the UPX lounge. It's essentially a defacto high-end cafe with premium coffee (Balzacs), beer (Mill microbrewery), and free WiFi, so a nice bright elevated place removed from Union pedestrian traffic, big wall of glass windows viewing GOtrains passing by. Like a Starbucks (or maybe higher class) but with beer as a bonus -- an attraction in itself. The public can relax there to drink while waiting for a GO train, rather than a UPX train.

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...open to public, drink coffee or beer with WiFi while waiting for next GO train, if you've missed the last one!...

It doesn't require UPX fare to use the coffee/beer lounge to drink beer or premium coffee, the lounge is open to the public to purchase coffee/beer, as long as you drink beer on premises. You miss the GO train by seconds, you can look forward to going to the UPX lounge while waiting for the next GO train.

It'll likely be a very popular lounge, even after the new "Urban Eatery" style food court underneath York concourse by next year or so. When UPstairs is not crowded during offpeak, with less-frequent GO trains, I'll definitely use it sometimes to pass time whenever I miss my GOtrain. Metrolinx isn't going to make the lounge UPX-only because of UPX high frequency will not keep the lounge filled, and the benefit of UPstairs to essentially 'advertise' the UPX to potential users, too. Many GO commuters will figure out UPstairs is a nicer waiting area, even some who have no intention of ever using UPX.

(GO commuter tip -- you're welcome)
 
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All this infrastructure happening at once is quite something... Never thought I'd see the day (nor the massive investment proposed).
 
And the crazy thing is that this city cannot have its appetite satisfied when it comes to infrastructure it seems. People are still crying for more, and hopefully we get it.

I still think Ford was one of the better things to happen to this city recently, for a rather unusual reason. He got the city talking transit in a big way that never happened before. Ford escalated transit from an important, but not extremely important issue in 2010 to something that dominates the electorate today. People want infrastructure, and have a surprisingly deep interest in it generally I believe.
 
innsertnamehere said:
And the crazy thing is that this city cannot have its appetite satisfied when it comes to infrastructure it seems. People are still crying for more, and hopefully we get it.

I still think Ford was one of the better things to happen to this city recently, for a rather unusual reason. He got the city talking transit in a big way that never happened before. Ford escalated transit from an important, but not extremely important issue in 2010 to something that dominates the electorate today. People want infrastructure, and have a surprisingly deep interest in it generally I believe.
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Totally agreed. My urban/transit-illiterate friends are all posting about UPX on FB.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I still think Ford was one of the better things to happen to this city recently, for a rather unusual reason. He got the city talking transit in a big way that never happened before. Ford escalated transit from an important, but not extremely important issue in 2010 to something that dominates the electorate today. People want infrastructure, and have a surprisingly deep interest in it generally I believe.
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Interesting POV.

One fear is that when all projects are completed, funding will stop and we have another 20-year dry spell. We don't want that.

We have a 10-year lag when it comes to transit project completions: York-Vaughn extension, ECLRT, ION, Confederation Rail, new streetcars, Union revitalization, Waterloo ION LRT, Ottawa Confederation LRT, Lakeshore GO 30-min two-way all-day 7-day, Georgetown Corridor, UPX. All these projects were started the last 10 years alone! NONE of these projects are open yet which is why we're screaming, screaming, screaming, screaming loudly at our governments to get something done.

More pressure. This causes Hurontario, GO RER, Sheppard LRT (resurrected, resume 2017), improved GO infrastructure and service (incrementally), GO corridor purchase (GO now owns most of its corridors!), and Finch LRT (resurrected, start 2016), to be pushed into the "funding & construction buffer". But we're still screaming (quite loudly and ever louder) to our governments because nothing is finished yet. Some cancelled projects immediately put back into the hopper. We're hoppin' mad.

Even more pressure. Then more potential dominoes yet to fall, like Scarborough (story still unfolding), High Speed Rail (HSR feasibility study under way), DRL (to come later), Hamilton LRT (back burner, but still in play), and more. The pipeline get choked full with new transit projects get choked full of new megaprojects, at an incredible rate. Still room for more transit projects to be crammed into the pressure cooker.

Even if a couple of the above projects gets scaled back, we've still got a massive surge to look forward to in the next 10-15 years. It begins this year with York concourse & UPX, and the dominoes of completions fall rather rapidly with near-annual completions of major projects.

I really hope it doesn't satiate Toronto's appetite for even more construction -- it would be great that later this century that most of 416 is within walking distance of a rail route of some kind, and most of 905 can go to each other's downtowns in less than an hour during peak (Markham-Mississauga, Scarborough-Toronto, Toronto-Markham, Hamilton-Toronto, whatever). If we love all/most of the new infrastructure and our transit appetite is not satiated within twenty years, it will keep going at the current rate. Then we'll almost catch up to good central European commuter quality standards within half a century.

Prospective university students, heed note in career decisions. The project hopper's getting full, with future job opportunities for you, methinks.
 
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Yes there's around a 10 year lag, but I take comfort in the knowledge that there are so many planned, funded and under construction projects happening, and that several are beyond the point of no return (UPX, Eglinton, Spadina, York & Mississauga BRTs, Waterloo LRT, Ottawa LRT, GO Georgetown, GO Stouffville double track, GO Barrie double track). I also see & hear all the loud noises of construction every day on Eglinton, and drive around & through it, if I need a further reminder of progress.

I wasn't really paying much attention to transit back then, but the 2010's in general seem much more productive for transit than the 2000-2010 or the 90's.

I mean, Sheppard happened, but in my opinion Eglinton will be a far more useful & well used line in terms of expanding the system, especially considering the full line is 4x the length and the tunnel itself is double the length of Sheppard.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I still think Ford was one of the better things to happen to this city recently, for a rather unusual reason. He got the city talking transit in a big way that never happened before.
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Yeah he got the city talking about dumb subway projects in suburbia. We will be lucky to have any LRTs built for a long time thanks to Ford.
 
We're finally hitting the mass openings phase. UPX will start everything. Off peak GO service is coming incrementally starting next year, Spadina & ION opens in 2017, Ottawa's Phase 1 LRT opens in 2018. Finch & Eglinton open up in 2020, GO electrification starts being completed in the early 2020s, Hurontario in 2022... it's basically going to be a giant wave of transit projects completed in the next 10 years... and it all starts now!
 
salsa said:
Yeah he got the city talking about dumb subway projects in suburbia. We will be lucky to have any LRTs built for a long time thanks to Ford.
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Mel Lastman and Greg Sobrara are more at fault for that.

FWLRT, SELRT, HMLRT and "Hamilton Rapid Transit" have got their funding committed to them in the past few days. We are building LRTs in the GTHA.

Once Eglinton, Finch and Sheppard open, I am sure WWLRT and WELRT will follow.
 
1overcosc said:
We're finally hitting the mass openings phase. UPX will start everything. Off peak GO service is coming incrementally starting next year, Spadina & ION opens in 2017, Ottawa's Phase 1 LRT opens in 2018. Finch & Eglinton open up in 2020, GO electrification starts being completed in the early 2020s, Hurontario in 2022... it's basically going to be a giant wave of transit projects completed in the next 10 years... and it all starts now!
Click to expand...

There are some good things afoot, yes. My prediction would be that what has been promised will take longer, partly because it's very ambitious and partly because when it comes time to spend the money, more cautious heads will prevail. Also, I would distinguish between things that are easy to achieve (like a few more GO trains) and things that will take more construction to achieve (like 2WAD, Electrification, Finch LRT, Sheppard LRT). So "Next Wave" is getting close to "Things I hope will have accessibility because I will be pretty old by then" (I'm not being maudlin, I turned 60 this year and the commissioning dates are sure daunting on these projects)

I do think we are over the hump on LRT vs Subway. Toronto Council blew their brains out (and their budget) with the Line 2 extension and if they actually want credit for any further transit-boosting they will have to pick affordable projects. The public has grown tired of the debate, so subway proponents no longer have any traction.

And don't write off the Relief Line. When the first person falls off a Subway platform due to overcrowding (again, I'm not being maudlin, but I'm convinced it will happen) everyone will say "RER/Smarttrack will solve that". When the second person falls off, everyone will say, "we have a problem".

Lastly, ignore what politicians *say*. The Wynne budget is just the Hudak budget, without the same PC-party bloodlust and meanness. Given a particular problem, any party in power will generally reach the same conclusions, they will just find a different spin.

- Paul
 
There might be a very mild relief (may or may not be as much as DRL), by combining potentially far less expensive and quicker-to-complete megaprojects:

- ECLRT interchange with GO RER on Barrie (planned) with new Caledonia GO station (funded, begin construction summer 2015).
- ECLRT interchange with Hurontario(planned)
- Hurontario diverting Mississauga people away from TTC Kipling to Brampton/Milton/Lakeshore GO RER (planned)
- GO RER on Richmond Hill (unfunded) and/or Don Branch (unfunded), requires flood remeditation first, add ECLRT interchange.
- GO RER on Stoufville, with added infill stations (ala SmartTrack) and ECLRT interchange
- GO RER on Kitchener, with added infill stations (ala SmartTrack) and ECLRT interchange

Alone, won't weigh the same as a DRL, but combined altogether, might actually almost weigh as much. We still need the DRL, but the question is if the projects are completed sooner than a DRL might, and provide relief sooner while we wait for DRL funding which might not be approved until we've already approved funding for most or all the above.
 
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