doady
Senior Member
Outside of the peak, I don't think there is any GO train service that is anywhere near capacity. And I don't think that the Peterborough GO train service is meant to be a peak hour commuter service.
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Outside of the peak, I don't think there is any GO train service that is anywhere near capacity. And I don't think that the Peterborough GO train service is meant to be a peak hour commuter service.
nfitz
Superstar
I've stood on a Saturday heading into Union.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
I am once again baffled by transit "advocates" opposing transit improvements.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
This does not compute. The length of track requiring upgrade is unrelated to level of potential usage.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
Actually, I'm wondering if a good rail link could help include Peterborough and that area further into the GGH. Right now, it's a rather awkward highway route to get to Peterborough from pretty much anywhere in the rest of the GGH, and a train will change a lot of that. But this would have to be better than twice a day commuter service. It'll have to be hourly or even half hourly to be proper, and I think that's a fair thing to ask once all the other Go routes get running at 15 minute minimum frequencies (I'm expecting 5-8 minute Lakeshore frequencies by 2030.) Since it really is a much longer route with a lot less in between than Barrie or Kitchener, I think that express trains running at longer intervals should be able to accommodate the demand pretty easily.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
Sorry, that was dumb of me. What I mean is that because the length of track to be upgraded is long, and the potential ridership is low, the cost per rider for the Peterborough line is much higher than for the Barrie line.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
I am for transit, but I am against excessively expensive transit "improvements" that will have low ridership even during rush hour. The cost of a GO train to Peterborough (population 74898) could instead fund much higher-priority projects like GO train service to Waterloo region (population 506800) and Niagara Region (population 427421) and frequent all-day service on existing GO lines.
hbl33
Active Member
I think it is better off leaving the bus service to Peterborough as it is. Peterboro is most remote city from Toronto, with its growth have been independent of T.O. Should the train service extend to Peterboro, so should the Lakeshore East to Cobourg and Trenton. As for now, focusing K/W/C region and electrification is most important, followed by all-day service @ Barrie, G-Town and Milton lines. I think another hub should be built out of Kitchener/Waterloo, perhaps a link between Hamilton and K/W/C and even Brantford.
Second_in_pie
Senior Member
That'd be great for links through the southwest of the horseshoe. I wonder if there's any room for rail there?
Go should also be providing an interurban service through Niagara, which is in desperate need of new interurban services, and all the rail infrastructure is there.
I agree that Peterborough is the most secluded from any of the GGH cities/towns by far, but I think that a rail link might make it more included. I honestly think the biggest barrier is a lack of a real fast link from the city to anywhere else in the GGH, other than Northumberland County. Peterborough-Clarington and the 401 = 30 or 40 minutes. Peterborough to Markham = Over an hour
Peterborough to Toronto = Around 2 hours
If Go could get a train to Toronto that takes about an hour, stopping at Agincourt to link up with the Midtown and Stouffville Lines, then going down Stouffville to Union, it could very well help Peterborough, and take almost 100% of all Peterborough-Toronto commuters as well as Peterborough-Markham commuters. It could also help Peterborough's industries, which would now have the population of the GTA to employ.
TOareaFan
Superstar
Your enthusiasm is exciting but I have to ask.....
1. has a new rail line anywhere in the world ever captured 100% of any commuter population (or gotten even close)? I would imagine that some low percentage of the commuters is typically the target....so the potential audience/customer base is total populationXpercent that commuteXpercent of commuters that you hope to catch......so, in the case where the first number is small the hope of a successful line is reduced dramatically.
2. do you really think that this rail link will have such transformative powers that people who currently live (and presumably work) in Toronto will now seek employment in Peterborough? Just because they can now get there by train?
A question was asked earlier about why transit advocates are opposed to any transit improvments. I don't think anyone is.....but there have to be serious questions about priorities when rail links to relative remote and relatively small and relatively independant cities like Peterborough get advanced prior to other projects that many feel have a higher priority and will ultimately serve more people.
Perhaps we should look at splitting this discussion in two......GO Transit Improvements and another discussion for GO Transit Additions.
hbl33
Active Member
I strongly agree with Niagara expansion; with St. Catharines have strong link to Hamilton as well as Niagara Falls and cities along Welland, I don't see any hindrances or doubts to expand the bus services down there (and resume the train service from T.O. to Niagara Falls). If VIA serves Brantford, perhaps GO can takeover its operation, or add bus services from Brantford to Hamlton. But train operation can be reserved until all its current lines are fully electrified. Seriously, what is keeping them from electrifying entire train system?
The same cannot be said for Peterboro though. I mean, 401/35/115 is built to serve transport/industrial services between GTA and P-Boro. Railways stretching from T.O. and P-Boro is mostly utilized for freight rather than passengers. Granted, passenger train services do open more opportunities for business as well as easy commute between P-Boro and T.O. but at this stage the city is independent from GTA. At the current stage it is best to keep the bus service as it is.
Perhaps after Lakeshore East achieves max capacity, perhaps expect P-Boro train service. Or even extension to Belleville.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Perhaps we should call ourselves transit advocates for best solutions in the right places. A subway along Bayfield in Barrie might be a transit improvement (yay!) but it isn't the best solution for that area.
Likewise, I think Peterborough could be served by one or two VIA trains. The GO bus seems adequate at the moment for the rest of the demand. Should demand go up, then we'd have to re-examine the situation.
I think it's routes like this that really start to blur the line between what GO's core service (and service area) is/should be and what VIA's is. GO should be the GGH's medium to long distance commuter system, but when we start getting into trip times that are pushing 2 hrs; maybe that should be a service that VIA should be providing instead of GO. We don't want to overexted GO's network and negelct the inner 416 (and even 905) nor do we want to be cannabalizing routes from VIA that might be profitable for them.
Swarley
Active Member
Looks like GO is preparing to buy the portion of the Lakeshore West corridor in Toronto - there's a tender for a market value estimate on their website for the Yonge St to 29th St segment (almost to Long Branch).
jn_12
Senior Member
Niagara should be the next area of serious expansion. Inter-city bus service has been debated for decades with nothing to show for it because the various municipalities can't agree on how to pay for it. Basically, St Kitts and Niagara Falls don't want to subsidize service for the smaller towns. I feel the only way to make up for this squabbling is to have GO act as the provider of service. At least then it would take much of the politics out of it.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...216,-79.153061&spn=0.243976,0.617294&t=h&z=11
I put this in the Subway Maps Thread. It would be an optimal plan for Niagara (probably could use some tinkering). By no means are stops and routes set in stone, but I feel they're based on patterns that are somewhat realistic and unique to the Niagara Region. I've included two N-S routes, 1 circle route, 1 E-W route. I would suspect that the circle route would be the highest frequency, once per hour at least. The E-W route across the top of the region and the two N-S routes would be every 2 hours. Thorold and Pelham are close enough to St Catharines and Welland respectively that they don't really warrant stops. Wainfleet and other rural areas aren't addressed. To be honest, I'm not sure there's an argument for even one round trip per day. I've included the Go Train as a seasonal tourist option as we saw this summer.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...216,-79.153061&spn=0.243976,0.617294&t=h&z=11
I put this in the Subway Maps Thread. It would be an optimal plan for Niagara (probably could use some tinkering). By no means are stops and routes set in stone, but I feel they're based on patterns that are somewhat realistic and unique to the Niagara Region. I've included two N-S routes, 1 circle route, 1 E-W route. I would suspect that the circle route would be the highest frequency, once per hour at least. The E-W route across the top of the region and the two N-S routes would be every 2 hours. Thorold and Pelham are close enough to St Catharines and Welland respectively that they don't really warrant stops. Wainfleet and other rural areas aren't addressed. To be honest, I'm not sure there's an argument for even one round trip per day. I've included the Go Train as a seasonal tourist option as we saw this summer.
k10ery
Senior Member
unimaginative, perhaps?