I think for people in Niagara, it's far more important to have strong inter-city service within the region than to be connected with the GTA. Realistically i think it would much better for the region if only St Catharines and Niagara Falls had direct trains to the GTA. I've said it before, but Niagara is not a bedroom community or a series of bedroom communities for the GTA. Commuting outside of the region is a really foreign concept in the region. We've had some debates elsewhere about whether Niagara should remain a somewhat isolated region, but I truly believe that if it is going to get itself back on its feet it has to be self-sustaining as it has been throughout history. When I say this, I mean that there should be sufficient jobs in Niagara to service the population.
I would definitely not want that, as Jonny5 has paralleled to Durham Region. But Niagara could certainly interact with the GTA more, and become more of a region than an arbitrary group of communities. I honestly think the region would be a lot better off interacting with the rest of the GGH more, but not in the suburban sense, but by sort of exchanging people sense. There might be an equal number of jobs to workers in the region, but maybe half will commute to the rest of the GGH, while people from outside Niagara will come in to work in the region. That way, the region's cities and towns will evolve as real cities and towns, but both the population and industry have more of a pool to pick from in terms of jobs.
For instance, I see St. Catharines as a great place to develop more of an information industry and light manufacturing in Niagara region, serving as a hub for more modern industry, and possibly connecting with Hamilton. The thing is that for more advanced industry like that, it's hard to expect each of the little towns to have their own little pocket of industry that requires more specialization than the more traditional heavy industry in the region. That's why it needs to have a solid link with the other municipalities, and it'd also prevent a brain drain in the region towards the suburbs of Hamilton and Toronto. By having those two rail lines, a large part of the population can connect to more advanced industries in Niagara, without needing people to live their old towns. By making the connection rail, it should also be a hard hit to suburbanization.
Obviously, Niagara Falls would want to be looking at a bigger tourism industry, and the entire industry (hotels, amusement parks, casinos, shops, to name a few,) could potentially employ thousands upon thousands of people, drawing those from the region, Hamilton, and maybe other GGH cities and towns. I like to think of it as the family-friendly Vegas, and Great Wolf Lodge should be
the first of that trend, imo. Also, the picturesque landscape along the river through Niagara Falls could provide a great place for condos, who's residents could work in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, or Hamilton or even Toronto. But two things: first of all, Niagara Falls's industry would be able to support a large population, and so people in St. Catharines or Hamilton could work there. Also, creating a high density strip along the river would make a good downtown core and doesn't really scream suburbanization, especially when there's also thousands of new jobs.
Me personally, I don't like the idea of Niagara being isolated from the rest of the GGH. Obviously, I would never want Niagara region to become a big suburb of Hamilton and Toronto, but mingling with the other regions with people commuting in either direction is certainly healthy, and could help the development of more specialized industries. Heavier or less specialized industries could move into some of the smaller towns, and creating better farming techniques (green ones, I hope,) will ensure they don't become real suburbs. One of the big reasons I like to call the big monstrosity we know as the GGH the GGH is because I don't see it evolving as a completely Toronto-centric area. If the governments wanted to be smart, they would make the region instead into a large network of highly interconnected cities and towns, who can be successful through the huge density of scale that the size of the region creates. If Niagara region wants, they could choose to be left out of such a chain, but I think it's in their best interests to participate. It just needs to be planned properly and especially, ESPECIALLY, in conjunction with the plans of other cities. Hence, my big anger at Places to Grow.
That map looks good though. Apart from changing the St. Catharines-Port Colborne route to a train, it's just about exactly how I'd imagine it. The Yellow route 4 would be a more local bus serving the Lakeshore, right?
If we see a HSR proposal from New York to continue up to Toronto, I've said it many times before that the entire corridor should be upgraded to HSR standards, with all the tracks capable of high speeds (maybe 240 km/h on all the lines except the express one, which should definitely be the HSR standard 320 km/h.) If that existed, it'd mean speedy, speedy transportation across the entire lakeshore line. Then, people would have the right to smack another across the head when they say they'd rather drive from Whitby rather than take the train
EDIT: And RR, I'm in love with your RailOntario proposal. I wouldn't mind to revive that thread, because it could use some more discussion, and I think a lot would agree that it's actually quite feasable. All the little green lines do end up slowing my Google Earth/Maps down to about 1 fps though, but it's interesting to see how comprehensive the province's rail network once was
