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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

sixrings said:
If it stretched out that far wouldn’t you need more capacity on the trains?
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It would be a unique line, so probably not. At least the peripheral service would be from Burlington to Oshawa via the 407->403->Pearson->427n-> 407, not touching the proposed 427s and RL Don Mills alignments. It’s essentially just rehashing GO ALRT as an upgrading of the GO Bus trunk to rail in a sense. Pretty good idea as it goes.

Though it’s worth questioning if the Ontario Line would have enough capacity to accommodate a full ‘U’ from Leslie/407 to Pearson via the 427 south (I don’t really buy that this will be implemented as a loop service- Doug just hasn’t decided how it’ll get to Kipling from Exhibition!).
 
Sunnyside said:
This is a much better framing. It’s not that the project isn’t worth tackling, or even that it’s less worthy than other projects being built right now… (which is what I tried to explain in my posts) it’s just too big to add to our collective plate. And that is, in a very strong sense, extremely significant.

Full Expansion is more similar in scope to the Ontario Line than GO Expansion, which was noticeably pushed at the expense of other projects. Now, is it necessary? Yes. Is it worth prioritizing ahead of others? Likely yes too. BUT—we cannot confuse rapid political action for excess work capacity. Metrolinx’s is at the limit, and all other active projects are affected directly (GO Exp, funded projs) or indirectly (the LRTs, SSE, YNSE) from having time and energy diverted to something of this size.

The under-discussed consequence of trying to force things through is that we’ll pay significantly more to get contractors to A) take our work instead of something else’s’, and/or; B) find the additional labour needed to actually do that. And they don’t play fair on pricing, as we all know.

The Milton Line’s time will come. Perhaps planning work can start if it hasn’t already. But shovels will need to wait a while
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Sure, I agree with this. But again, it's time to start finishing the projects we have now. Something needs to give here.
 
Sunnyside said:
It would be a unique line, so probably not. At least the peripheral service would be from Burlington to Oshawa via the 407->403->Pearson->427n-> 407, not touching the proposed 427s and RL Don Mills alignments. It’s essentially just rehashing GO ALRT as an upgrading of the GO Bus trunk to rail in a sense. Pretty good idea as it goes.

Though it’s worth questioning if the Ontario Line would have enough capacity to accommodate a full ‘U’ from Leslie/407 to Pearson via the 427 south (I don’t really buy that this will be implemented as a loop service- Doug just hasn’t decided how it’ll get to Kipling from Exhibition!).
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There is not a single person currently alive who will still be alive when/if the relief Line reaches Burlington or Oshawa, so I think this is a lagely moot discussion.
 
ARG1 said:
Is that a fact or your opinion? At least for Eglinton West, the IBC very much showed that Option 4 (the one we're building) had the highest Benefit-Cost Ratio. Granted, the BCR for almost all of these is abysmal and there is a very clear argument that perhaps we shouldn't be building anything here, but regardless - your opinion on value isn't exactly relevant to anyone.

View attachment 606748
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This is waay off topic and maybe belongs elsewhere, but I've always thought cost/return ratios are almost fraudulent. We put a magic number in, and get a magic number out. If we double the value of a minute saved (for example), the BCR changes, but nobody's actually saved any more time. Or if we cut in half the cost of carbon, the same project doesn't emit more, but the BCR magics differently. Or jobs created, etc, etc. In this way, it's almost a "societal value" rather than "business case" analysis.

Ridership is what determines the value of a transit project. Higher ridership means the project is (relatively speaking) more useful compared to other options, and Option 1 is at $82,000/rider while Option 4 is $133,000/rider. Also, $3.5 billion for 9 km of "mostly at-grade" project is completely nuts (it would be expensive even for a 100% underground).

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Going back to Mississauga, slightly more on topic, while I agree that Milton GO isn't particularly effective for local trips, in the off-peak, local transit would not be competitive for, say, Dixie to Erin Mills. Milton off-peak would not only connect MCC to central Toronto with a better all day link than "bus to Eglinton LRT to the TTC-operated subway" or "25 minutes on HuLRT to catch LSW" but also create an express option across Mississauga itself. It's not a #1 priority project, but Milton Expansion+MCC tunnel should explored for the 2030s transit list.
 
Why are we talking about tunneling a GO line? Shouldn't we be talking about building a new central Mississauga Transitway segment from the 403 down into the existing Erindale GO? You get your direct interchange, and open up a rapid transit corridor along Burnhamthorpe to Square One. It'd be a net improvement without unnecessary reconstruction.

I touched on this briefly on my Mississauga Transitway video.

 
Metroscapes said:
Why are we talking about tunneling a GO line? Shouldn't we be talking about building a new central Mississauga Transitway segment from the 403 down into the existing Erindale GO? You get your direct interchange, and open up a rapid transit corridor along Burnhamthorpe to Square One. It'd be a net improvement without unnecessary reconstruction.

I touched on this briefly on my Mississauga Transitway video.

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Its definitely a good idea, but it doesn't really address the fact that MCC will have very poor connections to downtown Toronto. The Transitway+Eglinton line Combo will be a nice way to get to the Airport and Midtown Toronto, but your options of:

1) Transitway --> Line 5 --> Kitchener
2) Hurontario -> Milton/LSW
3) Transitway -> Milton

are all options that leave a lot to be desired in terms of trying to get to Downtown Toronto (which is by far the most important node to connect to).
 
Metroscapes said:
Why are we talking about tunneling a GO line? Shouldn't we be talking about building a new central Mississauga Transitway segment from the 403 down into the existing Erindale GO? You get your direct interchange, and open up a rapid transit corridor along Burnhamthorpe to Square One. It'd be a net improvement without unnecessary reconstruction.

I touched on this briefly on my Mississauga Transitway video.

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Does your video have a map of your proposal or am I going to waste ten minutes of my life.
 
DirectionNorth said:

This is waay off topic and maybe belongs elsewhere, but I've always thought cost/return ratios are almost fraudulent. We put a magic number in, and get a magic number out. If we double the value of a minute saved (for example), the BCR changes, but nobody's actually saved any more time. Or if we cut in half the cost of carbon, the same project doesn't emit more, but the BCR magics differently. Or jobs created, etc, etc. In this way, it's almost a "societal value" rather than "business case" analysis.

Ridership is what determines the value of a transit project. Higher ridership means the project is (relatively speaking) more useful compared to other options, and Option 1 is at $82,000/rider while Option 4 is $133,000/rider. Also, $3.5 billion for 9 km of "mostly at-grade" project is completely nuts (it would be expensive even for a 100% underground).

---------------------------------------------------------
Going back to Mississauga, slightly more on topic, while I agree that Milton GO isn't particularly effective for local trips, in the off-peak, local transit would not be competitive for, say, Dixie to Erin Mills. Milton off-peak would not only connect MCC to central Toronto with a better all day link than "bus to Eglinton LRT to the TTC-operated subway" or "25 minutes on HuLRT to catch LSW" but also create an express option across Mississauga itself. It's not a #1 priority project, but Milton Expansion+MCC tunnel should explored for the 2030s transit list.
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I think the 401 wouldn't be as awful if people could take the trip to Toronto from Milton off-peak without issue. When I was in Oakville, I didn't have a car because of the Oakville Transit and hourly (and then half-hourly) trains.
 
T3G said:
There is not a single person currently alive who will still be alive when/if the relief Line reaches Burlington or Oshawa, so I think this is a lagely moot discussion.
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I wouldn’t be calling it “the relief line” firstly, and secondly I do think it’ll be around for the younger people here. If not from Burlington to Oshawa, then at the bare minimum MCC-Markham. It would be fully at grade in a protected alignment, so it’s not a subway at all. And, there are frankly a finite number of other projects that precede it, even if that lineup seems long. Much of our major works are already on the 1-2 decade horizon.

Something like this has been proposed for decades, and GO buses will eventually be so frequent that a rail replacement makes sense anyhow. They already run a bus every 10 minutes on the central 407 most of the time; nevermind the network effects of GO Expansion.

Since this has been discussed before and it’s somewhat off-topic, I’ll leave it at “we’ll get it when we get it”— but that it’s perhaps worth bringing the central section into the discussion fold sooner rather than later.
 
Sunnyside said:
I wouldn’t be calling it “the relief line” firstly, and secondly I do think it’ll be around for the younger people here. If not from Burlington to Oshawa, then at the bare minimum MCC-Markham. It would be fully at grade in a protected alignment, so it’s not a subway at all. And, there are frankly a finite number of other projects that precede it, even if that lineup seems long. Much of our major works are already on the 1-2 decade horizon.

Something like this has been proposed for decades, and GO buses will eventually be so frequent that a rail replacement makes sense anyhow. They already run a bus every 10 minutes on the central 407 most of the time; nevermind the network effects of GO Expansion.

Since this has been discussed before and it’s somewhat off-topic, I’ll leave it at “we’ll get it when we get it”— but that it’s perhaps worth bringing the central section into the discussion fold sooner rather than later.
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See I don’t think it’s a small list in front of it. Finch will want to be extended to at least Yonge. Once there it will want to be extended to Scarborough. Sheppard is begging to get to Downsview. But also to Scarborough town centre. There’s Eglinton East that needs to happen. Something has to happen on jane. Ontario line West will be a thing. And then waterfront lrt east and west. If you’re asking the people of Mississauga who use this line to wait for all those projects to be complete. That’s an extremely hard pill to swallow.

Whose placing bets the PCs manage to buy back the 407 or announce the Sheppard extension before they can figure out the impossible task of buying this freight corridor.
 
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