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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Jag202 said:
As a heads up, memo's were released yesterday indicating that hourly midday train service will be starting on the Barrie Line in January to East Gwilimbury.
The question now is if they will be maintaining half hourly headways supplemented by the bus fleet, or if we will be adopting the same path that the stouffville line took.
Click to expand...

Nope. You'll see the half-hourly bus service replaced by hourly trains. Good news that it's going all the way up to East Gwilimbury, a logical terminal point beyond the main population centres; a big problem with the Unionville service is the bus connections to Centennial, Markham, Mount Joy that add much more time than the direct bus to Union was.

A lot better than having the turn-back at Aurora. It's pretty much the same thing what happened to the Kitchener Line: half-hourly buses on two branches (Brampton via 410 Express and Bramalea-Malton) replaced by hourly midday trains, with a turnback at that line's equivalent to East Gwilimbury (Mount Pleasant).
 
Jag202 said:
As a heads up, memo's were released yesterday indicating that hourly midday train service will be starting on the Barrie Line in January to East Gwilimbury.
The question now is if they will be maintaining half hourly headways supplemented by the bus fleet, or if we will be adopting the same path that the stouffville line took.
Click to expand...
good. now for the other two.
 
References in this article to the level of GO train service to West Harbour in Hamilton and discussion with CN Rail. Reference as well to the third track being added between West Harbour and Bayview Junction.

No really news other than discussions with CN continue.
 
Jag202 said:
As a heads up, memo's were released yesterday indicating that hourly midday train service will be starting on the Barrie Line in January to East Gwilimbury.
The question now is if they will be maintaining half hourly headways supplemented by the bus fleet, or if we will be adopting the same path that the stouffville line took.
Click to expand...

ShonTron said:
Nope. You'll see the half-hourly bus service replaced by hourly trains. Good news that it's going all the way up to East Gwilimbury, a logical terminal point beyond the main population centres; a big problem with the Unionville service is the bus connections to Centennial, Markham, Mount Joy that add much more time than the direct bus to Union was.

A lot better than having the turn-back at Aurora. It's pretty much the same thing what happened to the Kitchener Line: half-hourly buses on two branches (Brampton via 410 Express and Bramalea-Malton) replaced by hourly midday trains, with a turnback at that line's equivalent to East Gwilimbury (Mount Pleasant).
Click to expand...

Yeah, this isn't remotely comparable to the severe screw-up that is the midday Stouffville trains terminating at Unionville:
  • First and foremost, the half-hourly buses mostly already terminate at East Gwillimbury (some near-rush-hour runs terminate at Aurora GO) and passengers travelling to/from Barrie have to get off and transfer to another bus there; this used to happen at Newmarket GO Bus Terminal but it's now at East Gwillimbury GO. If you have to get off a bus and transfer to another bus or get off a bus and transfer to a train, that doesn't make much of a difference. Stouffville buses for comparison were running all the way up, and the transfer was added.
  • On the Barrie line, a HUGE percentage of the ridership is at York U, Rutherford, Maple, King City, Aurora, Newmarket, and EG. The ridership at Bradford, Barrie South, and Allandale is not as massive. The trains will service 8/11 generally busy stations on the line including Union; on the Stouffville Line, 5/10 stations get trains missing several busy ones, and the first 3 stations in Toronto aren't as busy as they have existing TTC service for one; Markham is a very populous city and 3 major Markham stations don't get train service.
  • Barrie line buses DO NOT service York University at all, and only service Rutherford, Maple, and King City at limited hours, not nearly as much as they service Aurora, Newmarket, EG, Bradford, and Barrie. It's also a separate service, GO buses from Rutherford/Maple/King will not connect you to Aurora/Newmarket/Barrie period. The trains will service all of these major stations and connect them to each other, this is a huge service improvement to busy stations. I will personally travel between Aurora and Downsview Park a decent percentage of time instead of to Union when I have a destination on the northwestern portion of the subway system. The Stouffville buses, from what I understand, directly connected Union to Unionville then seamlessly travelled to the stations farther north. While the first 3 stations on the line in Toronto gained train service, this is not comparable to the huge ridership at Rutherford and Maple gaining service, and they don't have TTC buses there.
  • Overall trip times were significantly increased for north-of-Unionville passengers on Stouffville due to the added bus connection, and from what I understand, the trip time Unionville to Union was not consistently shorter. This one point is somewhat comparable to the Barrie Line in that Aurora-Union times will be a bit longer at some times of day due to swinging around west for the King City-Downsview Park stretch, rather than the buses that take the 404 straight down. However, the trip times from East Gwillimbury, King City, Maple, or Rutherford to Union should be consistently faster by a good margin. And Newmarket GO, which is on the Viva Yellow rapidway line on Davis Dr., isn't a stop on the regular half-hourly weekday bus, so it'll be much faster than taking Viva to the bus terminal west of Yonge and connecting to GO there. And again, the transfer at EG already exists today, so compared to the new transfer at Unionville that's a significant increase in time that doesn't happen here.
 
^ I would have thought the government would have wanted to do this by June because of the election. Is the reason for the September start due to the needs to train more crews and get more rolling stock?
 
Allandale25 said:
^ I would have thought the government would have wanted to do this by June because of the election. Is the reason for the September start due to the needs to train more crews and get more rolling stock?
Click to expand...

Actually, a correction: the date was June 2018. My apologies.

As for the date as a specific, I have no clue as to why to be honest, although I suspect that's part of it. The contract documents that a contact of mine showed me had a bunch of key dates that had to be met - including June 2017 for mid-day and evening service, and June 2018 for weekend service.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Any indication on whether they will start serving Downsview Park? Any implications for York U?
Click to expand...
I believe both York University GO Station and Downsview Park GO Station will be served by GO trains. I hope something can be done about York U GO, but from the looks of the previous announcements and maps, it will remain. Still waiting for GO’s official announcement for the Line 1 Extension.
 
Leo_Chan said:
I believe both York University GO Station and Downsview Park GO Station will be served by GO trains. I hope something can be done about York U GO, but from the looks of the previous announcements and maps, it will remain. Still waiting for GO’s official announcement for the Line 1 Extension.
Click to expand...

God what on earth are they waiting for...

Rip the bandaid off.
 
Relevant to Hamilton:

upload_2017-11-17_14-43-44.png


I still keep getting mixed messages whether Stony Creek will open in 2019 or in 2021.

Good to hear 2019 is still on track. (if it is.)
 

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