GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Northern Light]

Excellent news, next for this route is to get something 2-way'ish in rush-hours. That 7-hour long gap on weekdays going south is more than a bit much. Presumably we at least have to wait for the current double track projects to complete, maybe next year for that?

 

[Northern Light]

A couple of further notes on this.

Station buildings along the Stouffville line will not be open on weekends. Use PRESTO for easy travel.
- This strikes me as an issue in a few ways, no washrooms, no heated building in winter, and I wonder if some folks would feel uncomfortable, especially late at night, with an unstaffed station.

Also of note, service being provided by an L6

 

[Krypto98]

A couple of further notes on this.

Station buildings along the Stouffville line will not be open on weekends. Use PRESTO for easy travel.
- This strikes me as an issue in a few ways, no washrooms, no heated building in winter, and I wonder if some folks would feel uncomfortable, especially late at night, with an unstaffed station.

Also of note, service being provided by an L6

L12 would be overkill. I'm looking at you 7:53 and 9:53 PM Kitchener Train

 

[crs1026]

^You gotta start somewhere. Ridership will build.

LSE/LSW wasn't always L12 nights and weekends.

- Paul

 

[Richard White]

A couple of further notes on this.

Station buildings along the Stouffville line will not be open on weekends. Use PRESTO for easy travel.
- This strikes me as an issue in a few ways, no washrooms, no heated building in winter, and I wonder if some folks would feel uncomfortable, especially late at night, with an unstaffed station.

Also of note, service being provided by an L6

I agree this will be a safety issue. Most of the Stouffville Line Stations are in the middle of nowhere making for some interesting situations if anything were to occur. Even myself as a male would not feel comfortable waiting outside late at night alone at the station. What happens if you get some looney toon wandering around the station asking for change or lurking around trying to rob someone.

Also... what about in the dead of winter when there is a full on blizzard and -30 temps without the windchill?

 

[johntauren]

I agree this will be a safety issue. Most of the Stouffville Line Stations are in the middle of nowhere making for some interesting situations if anything were to occur. Even myself as a male would not feel comfortable waiting outside late at night alone at the station. What happens if you get some looney toon wandering around the station asking for change or lurking around trying to rob someone.

Also... what about in the dead of winter when there is a full on blizzard and -30 temps without the windchill?

I think something needs to change about buildings being open on weekends.
I myself have found myself waiting in the dead of night at Bramalea, which gets very frequent bus service even on weekends, but the building is still closed.

For a line that will actually get weekend train service, to not even have the buildings open? Unbelievable.

 

[hw621]

^
Some of the stations don't even have a building.

 

[ShonTron]

I think something needs to change about buildings being open on weekends.
I myself have found myself waiting in the dead of night at Bramalea, which gets very frequent bus service even on weekends, but the building is still closed.

For a line that will actually get weekend train service, to not even have the buildings open? Unbelievable.

Hopefully the new Bramalea station building, which will be better integrated with the bus terminal, will be open late and on weekends.

 

[Richard White]

I think something needs to change about buildings being open on weekends.
I myself have found myself waiting in the dead of night at Bramalea, which gets very frequent bus service even on weekends, but the building is still closed.

For a line that will actually get weekend train service, to not even have the buildings open? Unbelievable.

This is like some of the Milton Stations like Dixie and Cooksville which close during the day when only buses serve the stations.

The only exception to the rule that I have seen is the Niagara GO station which is unstaffed but remains open during the summer.

 

[Richard White]

I dunno why GO would put a weekend service on a Stouffville line. The line doesn't need it right now. They should wait until the Stouffville corridor is finish before they can implement full service along that line. Or they could just implement it on the Kitchener line to Bramalea instead since the line has at least 2 tracks and mostly grade separated.

I don't know why they put a regular daily service to Niagara but they did it and the line is much more desolate than Stouffville.

 

[felix123]

I know. GO should invest in better bus route, not those useless services. We are not ready for the weekend service on the Stouffville line.

No offense, but based on your posts, you're never "ready" for anything. When would you be ready?

 

[mdrejhon]

The decision to start Niagara 4 years early was highly political.
I have hugely mixed feelings about that because many optimizations are needed first before Niagara is way more practical.

I think we need more upgraded buses in the interim, too.

That said, Niagara GO is here to stay for better or for worse -- I've seen quite a lot of construction south of Lake Ontario (kind of a spiritual sequel to my old 2015 article). Helping Niagara's long-term business case recently is the major increase of West Harbour GO ridership (~10x increase), and there's some potential acceleration to Beamsville GO (Town of Lincoln) -- but many optimizations are needed between Aldershot and Niagara Falls to reduce the 2.5h ride to about 1.5h which is technically possible within a decade.

West Harbour in 2015 was as dead as Niagara Falls GO in 2019 at often less than a dozen boarding many trains.

But now with over 100 on some West Harbour GO trains [VIDEO] -- lots has changed in 4 years. The GO Expansion Business case (Page 45) shows hourly diesel semiexpresses that skips most stations between Burlington-Union to Hamilton. And also, new track is masterplanned all the way from West Harbour to Lewis Yard. GO trains would be able to go at a very good clip (80mph) along upgraded sections in the CP corridor. Not quite as fast as the 90mph on express parts of Lakeshore West.

Not to mention, the need to stop all Niagara trains in Hamilton, is a longtime bone of contention -- Now that the weekend service is permanent, over 400 weekend Niagara trains per year pass Hamilton without stopping, because West Harbour is still a dead-end station. Hamilton has a bigger population than many stations along the Stoufville line, so I really think 100% of all Niagara trains deserve to stop in Hamilton. More people are on Niagara weekend trains than are on the Stoufville weekend trains, although the inverse seems true for weekdays (more people on weekday Stoufville trains than weekday Niagara trains).

With the new weekday trains (backing in and out of West Harbour) -- which really slows down the weekday Niagara trains. Skipping the backin-backout step would save 15 minutes off the 2.5 hour time alone -- not to mention the other optimizations

Combined optimizations but it would dramatically cut time both north & south of Lake Ontario.
-- Express Union-to-Burlington operation (except for stops in Oakville); as seen on Page 45 of 2018 GO Expansion Business Case.
-- Elimination of backin-backout at West Harbour; an inefficiency occuring today.
-- Rail speed upgrade south of Lake Ontario thanks to new Metrolinx-funded parallel tracks in CP corridor; buildout is reportedly to begin in 2020 extending the dead-end tracks at West Harbour and slowly incrementally builds outwards towards Lewis and probably eventually beyond.

Combined, this will turn a 2.5h commute to an easily sub-2h commute, while also providing the Hamilton-Niagara commute option that's faster than driving Hamilton-Niagara. Toronto-Hamilton can be a sub-hour trip, and Hamilton-Niagara can be a sub-hour trip. Not quite as fast as the 47-minute Union-Hamilton GO train I once was on, but potentially sub-1hr accounting for a few stops. That makes it faster than freeways most of the time. That invite quite a ridership increase.

Such optimizations -- once complete -- would skyrocket StCat / Niagara ridership.

This may take many years (more than 4 years) to complete the necessary optimizations to build the ridership and StCat is where more ridership occurs than Niagara Falls. I suspect that StCat will eventually be future allday 2way terminus once the service is fast enough (1.5h to Toronto, with convenient stops in Hamilton). With Niagara Falls remaining a peak-only terminal.

The problem is that starting the GO train services has sometimes been used to scale back the GO bus service (like what happened to Stoufville). I fear the same might have already happened to Niagara, now that still-highly-unoptimized trains runs 365 days a year from Niagara Falls.

But there is no turning back the clock -- Metrolinx certainly appears 100% commited to upgrading Niagara, and what is recently happening to West Harbour ridership pretty much very well may vindicate the decision to stay the Niagara Falls path -- eventually.

 

[Neutrino]

I know. GO should invest in better bus route, not those useless services. We are not ready for the weekend service on the Stouffville line.

Of course the line is ready. Have you seen downtown bound weekend DVP traffic? There's plenty of demand for weekend service.

 

[crs1026]

The decision to start Niagara 4 years early was highly political.
I have hugely mixed feelings about that because many optimizations are needed first before Niagara is way more practical.

Making just enough investment to gain a photo op is a terrible way to build a transportation network, but in this case it may have been a good thing. Instead of a big ticket investment to create an optimal system, Ontario implemented one demonstrably bad train. That has put a spotlight on the deficiencies, and now the Province feels some pressure to improve it.

If the Niagara route had been run through the original RER BCA process, the numbers for that fuller investment might have driven the project to a lower priority, and nothing might have been done for another decade.

I’m not that enthused about BCA methodologies, as they all suffer from finger-on-the-scale dynamics. But a route that parallels a congested six lane highway with development a-building on its full length, is a no-brainer. The sooner we get proper GO service to Niagara, the happier I will be.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

I dunno why GO would put a weekend service on a Stouffville line. The line doesn't need it right now. They should wait until the Stouffville corridor is finish before they can implement full service along that line. Or they could just implement it on the Kitchener line to Bramalea instead since the line has at least 2 tracks and mostly grade separated.

GO has wanted to put off-peak service on Stouffville for many years, as a way to mitigate the constant delays and prolonging to the schedule of the 71 buses. It is not unusual to have to route them via the 407 and the 427 to get them into downtown on a timely manner, rather than via the 404 and DVP.

Dan