High Speed Rail: London - Kitchener-Waterloo - Pearson Airport - Toronto

[Allandale25]

There was another announcement in Waterloo Region this afternoon about HSR. It included some details about the EAs between Georgetown and Kitchener and for the freight bypass. Details here and copied below (emphasis added with the specific details). Going to cross post this to the Bypass thread and the GO service thread.

Two-Way, All-Day GO for Waterloo Region Takes Next Steps Forward
Ontario Commits More Than $11 Billion for High Speed Rail and Takes Next Steps to Deliver Two-Way, All-Day GO Regional Express Rail Service to Kitchener
April 6, 2018 3:32 P.M.
Office of the Premier

Premier Kathleen Wynne was at Vidyard in Kitchener today to announce a series of actions Ontario is taking to dramatically expand regional transit for people in Waterloo Region.

As announced in the 2018 Budget, the government will make an initial investment of more than $11 billion to support construction of Phase One of Canada's first high speed rail line. This will create a fast route between Toronto's Union Station, Pearson International Airport, Guelph, Kitchener and London as early as 2025. Electric-powered trains moving at up to 250 kilometres per hour will slash travel times to an estimated 48 minutes between Kitchener and Toronto Union Station.

The Premier also announced key advances in bringing two-way, all-day GO train service to Kitchener by 2024, as part of the GO Regional Express Rail project (GO RER). Ontario is moving ahead with two environmental assessments (EAs), which are required to provide faster, electrified, two-way, all-day train service on the Kitchener line. One EA is to provide electrified service between Georgetown and Kitchener, and the other EA is the next step for the freight bypass to provide unrestricted rail access for passenger trains between Toronto and Kitchener. To help guide this work and deliver a near-term increase in service and faster travel times for customers, the province is hiring a technical advisor.

As part of this EA phase, Ontario is now working with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA) to explore options to connect two-way, all-day service on the Kitchener GO line to the proposed multimodal transit hub at Toronto Pearson International Airport. The major transit hub the GTAA is proposing to build at Pearson will offer seamless connections between trains, buses, airplanes, light rail vehicles and high speed rail along the Toronto-Windsor corridor.

High speed rail and two-way, all-day GO RER will strengthen transit connections across Central and Southwestern Ontario and help create jobs and economic growth. The new and expanded services will give people a faster and greener way to get to a good job, and will help businesses attract talented workers from across a wider area.

Expanding transit options in Waterloo Region and across Southwestern Ontario is part of the government's plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, and 65 or over, through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, and easier access to affordable child care.

 

[crs1026]

Trying to keep things in the right thread is challenging

Some EA related links

Kitchener station and transit hub

The original EA report for the GO Kitchener-Georgetown EA from 2009 is hard to find, but I put a copy on line here.

- Paul

 

[Allandale25]

Cross posted from he bypass thread because a new conceptual map has been posted.

Metrolinx has updated their page for the Kitchener Line Expansion and added a fact sheet PDF.

Page: http://www.metrolinx.com/en/greaterregion/projects/kitchener-go-expansion.aspx#projectupdate

Fact sheet: http://www.metrolinx.com/images/gre...o-expansion/MX RER Factsheet Kitchener V2.pdf

I've extracted the map:

 

[mdrejhon]

Train connection? That would be insanely expensive to redirect the passenger corridor to go theough Pearson -- cheapest is keeping existing rail corridor and building a high speed LINK II that connects to a nearby station such as Malton.

Bus/LINK/LRT connection for the divergence away from rail corridor? Much more palatable, but I think that should be Malton or some closer RER station.

Also, the "Existing Freight Bypass" planning is actually the proposed red line -- legend has one miscolor error.

And, why, Hurontatio, Brampton? It should have been a full connection to the corridor.

Other than that, exciting news indeed for the Kitchener corridor and Freight Bypass. Getting Phase 1 done by 2031.

 

[crs1026]

Train connection? That would be insanely expensive to redirect the passenger corridor to go theough Pearson -- cheapest is keeping existing rail corridor and building a high speed LINK II that connects to a nearby station such as Malton.

Bus/LINK/LRT connection for the divergence away from rail corridor? Much more palatable, but I think that should be Malton or some closer RER station.

Also, the "Existing Freight Bypass" planning is actually the proposed red line -- legend has one miscolor error.

And, why, Hurontatio, Brampton? It should have been a full connection to the corridor.

It's always risky reading too much into notional lines on a napkin, er, map - but in this case, I will indulge myself.

I'm thinking the same. Even the bit of tunnelling under the runways (as this map seems to suggest) to cross the airport seems like such an expensive proposition. A new loop from Rexdale into the north side of the terminals and on to Malton just seems so much simpler. Let alone, what the costs would be to the west of the airport.

I'm wondering where this map came from, anyways. The last we heard, ML was busy negotiating with CN on the bypass. Why would these notional options even get dreamt up?

I can understand the Premier poking ML and directing them to put out something, anything, given the state of the election campaign. The media is clearly drawing attention to promises versus action in the Liberals' platform. So ML has to make the thing look real, as if it's already moving.

My theories would be

A) CN may have walked away from the table, thinking that with Wynne trailing badly in the polls, the bypass is back to being a hypothetical. That leaves ML needing to say they have a plan, when their plan just evaporated. They can't say they are still negotiating, because CN may say (or it may just leak out) that the negotiation is dead. So, we draw lines on a napkin that remove any need for a bypass negotiation. Er, map.

B) ML has grappled with the challenge of fitting RER and KW express rail (HxR or otherwise) through the eye of the needle in Brampton, and concluded the two just won't fit. So the new notion is, continue to negotiate with CN to fit RER alongside freight tracks to Mount Pleasant, but look for a new option for HxR somewhere else with a connection near Georgetown. If one interprets the map as retaining RER on its current assumed route, that idea actually makes practical sense and the expense may not look that large in the context of GTAA's expansion plans. (Brampton loses an HxR stop, but ML doesn't owe them any favours after the LRT thing).

But it sure looks more like a half-hour's worth of political operatives' effort. At least they used an otherwise detailed map, rather than a cocktail napkin.

- Paul

 

[Allandale25]

I'm wondering where this map came from, anyways.

Just to be literal about it, the map came from the links I provided above. Where it really came from or who was involved is a different question.

It also shows the UP Express spur stattist much closer to Weston than it actually does.

 

[mdrejhon]

When the mother-of-all DBFOM RFP's is signed, ML needs to look at its staffing levels anyways. It takes only so many people to run the customer face and manage the contract. The DBFOM will make many at ML redundant. The contractor may need people anyways.

What about ownership of the corridors? The new operating room in Oakville? The GO bus service? New outer diesel connections like Bowmanville, Niagara, Bolton, etc? If all ~$30bn is spent ($13.5B RER, $11B HSR, +addons, etc), enough expansion occurs to require Metrolinx to still grow despite DBFOM of various subsegments of their network. DBFOM could but will not necessarily operate every single route, train, bus, etc.

Efficiencies must be gained, but this is a stupendous amount (in modern North America times) of rail expansion coming in less than 20 years.

Pulled off at the right efficiencies and proper optimizations, is sorely needed. Pulled off inefficiently, and we get a bunch of angry Ontarians. Threading the fine line they are.

Question is.... how to best handle this massive spend for maximum long-term regional/rapidtransit rail impact that lifts all boats including social and economic spinoffs. Lots will fight over the specific details in coming years, from NIMBY issues, unions, communities, spending efficiencies, routing, logic vs wants, and more. Politics.

What I am watching closely is, the first big-time move (e.g. the good contract that leads the first catenary and EMUs on the high traffic portions of GO). Considering they actually almost announced a timetable for diesel 15-min allday Lakeshore to already begin if it weren't for the CN dispatching issue...

 

[Kitsune]

Regarding that Pearson Spur.... I'm guessing that means we finally have the source of the go train in this image: (I pulled it off the ut db), although it seems to follow a slightly different alignment then the map. This option in the image would make more sense (the image below follows a 409 route, the map shows a Dixon route).

The problem with a Dixon route is that you would be creating a new corridor through a residential neighbourhood before going into Industrial area. The 409 option would be enitrely industrial.

 

[crs1026]

What about ownership of the corridors? The new operating room in Oakville? The GO bus service? New outer diesel connections like Bowmanville, Niagara, Bolton, etc? If all ~$30bn is spent ($13.5B RER, $11B HSR, +addons, etc), enough expansion occurs to require Metrolinx to still grow despite DBFOM of various subsegments of their network. DBFOM could but will not necessarily operate every single route, train, bus, etc.

Efficiencies must be gained, but this is a stupendous amount (in modern North America times) of rail expansion coming in less than 20 years.

Pulled off at the right efficiencies and proper optimizations, is sorely needed. Pulled off inefficiently, and we get a bunch of angry Ontarians. Threading the fine line they are.

.

Well, actually, yes DBFOM is said to be operating their entire network. And building it. And buying the equipment. Every single train, bus, and route.

I agree, the overall staff number will grow. But those staff ought to belong to the contractor.

What I was trying to say was - typical government bureaucracy thinking will encourage ML to hang onto all its people, even after the work moves to the contractor. ML is fat in its overhead staff already. It will take some hardnosed management action to pare the organization back to only those functions that ML truly needs once work shifts to the contractor.

Closing down a project is not easy. People always want to polish the cannonball. And wax it.

- Paul

 

[kEiThZ]

I see a ton of baying among fiscal conservatives online. Hopefully, they don't carry the day on this project, if Ford wins.

 

[BurlOak]

I see a ton of baying among fiscal conservatives online. Hopefully, they don't carry the day on this project, if Ford wins.

I would say high speed rail to Windsor is one of the stupidest ideas that this government has come up with and it was purely related to buying votes along the way. Cancelling this should be very high on the priority list.

 

[Sandpit]

I would say high speed rail to Windsor is one of the stupidest ideas that this government has come up with and it was purely related to buying votes along the way. Cancelling this should be very high on the priority list.

I think this is really more of an economic stimulus project than a transportation project, which makes it much less stupid.

 

[kEiThZ]

I would say high speed rail to Windsor is one of the stupidest ideas that this government has come up with and it was purely related to buying votes along the way. Cancelling this should be very high on the priority list.

Disagree. It's eminently sensible. Just not well-executed.

For one, it should be three phases. The first phase to Kitchener has a very, very sound business case. It's the portions beyond that are debatable.

And it's being built on top of GO RER, so this HSR promise doesn't amount to much until GO RER is complete for the Kitchener corridor. We're years away from that. So at the point, it's only an EA. See no reason to cancel while they refine the business case.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Disagree. It's eminently sensible. Just not well-executed.

For one, it should be three phases. The first phase to Kitchener has a very, very sound business case. It's the portions beyond that are debatable.

And it's being built on top of GO RER, so this HSR promise doesn't amount to much until GO RER is complete for the Kitchener corridor. We're years away from that. So at the point, it's only an EA. See no reason to cancel while they refine the business case.

If anything, the eventual extension to Windsor is really going to benefit Detroit more than Windsor. It will stimulate Windsor's economy to an extent but make Detroit much more attractive as a result. One thing that should happen when HSR reaches Windsor, a provision must be made for rail to cross the river, and interline with Wolverine services (which is already a higher speed railway with speeds reaching 180 km/h) into Chicago. That would be extremely useful.

 

[crs1026]

The mistake is in calling it HSR and applying all the political window dressing that goes with that.

It makes eminent sense to upgrade the tracks to match the performance of the new rolling stock. Why buy 125 mph trains and run them on 80 mph track? But that can be done incrementally, with a sensible budget.

The economic case to improve the service to Kitchener and London is unstoppable. The naysayers will get shouted down by those who recognise its value. I suspect the Windsor portion is more compelling than one might think. I have been meeting a remarkable number of US tourists who already are parking in Windsor and taking VIA to Toronto rather than drive. If we cut an hour off that trip, the radius of the potential tourist population widens, perhaps even reaching Chicago. Nobody *likes* driving the 401 to Windsor, and the 401 is full east of Kitchener.

The problem is politicians who have to make this sound sexy. Wynne’s Achilles heel is her absurd self-promotion. So we call it HSR and we end up with an $11B price tag, and we get sticker shock.

It’s a fair question to ask - why $11B? What would $4B get us? The answer will be, much better service, but not true HSR. The only group that benefits from calling it ‘HSR’ is the pols. Calling the rose by that name means it comes with thorns.

- Paul