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MoveOntario 2020

liarliar said:
I heard that the public service was totally taken by surprise on this announcement. Apparently public infrastructure, municipal affairs, and transportation knew nothing about this plan. Nice huh?
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It might have been nice to be told before hand but I don't see how it is bad really. Now instead of developing projects and having to spend years begging for funding they can just go ahead and do them without that concern. Most of the projects mentioned were not just created on the spot, they were, or are being planned by local transit agencies. They can still go on as normal, the only difference is now they have money.

The only exception to this though seems to be GO. I have spent the past week trying to get more information on the projects from them and I also got the impression that they were totally caught off guard by this. Some plans seem to have been in advanced stages and were either under construction or next on the list to be built. But others, like the crosstown line and the electrification of Lakeshore seem to be a total surprise. Not to say GO has not done some planning or studies on them, but without any sort of real funding before this announcment they probably never considered them very seriously because of their costs.
 
New GO Crosstown rail line between Weston Road and the Don Valley
New GO Crosstown rail line between the Don Valley and Agincourt
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I don't understand why they wouldn't extend the cross-town line down to Longbranch station. That way people coming in from the west and heading uptown could transfer at Longbranch, and then the line could intersect with the Bloor-subway line and the Milton GO line at Kipling. The CANPA sub is just to the east of Longbranch, and passes right south of the Kipling station before joining up with the Galt sub (Milton line).

Google Maps of CANPA sub, with Longbranch highlighted.
 
GregWTravels said:
I don't understand why they wouldn't extend the cross-town line down to Longbranch station. That way people coming in from the west and heading uptown could transfer at Longbranch, and then the line could intersect with the Bloor-subway line and the Milton GO line at Kipling. The CANPA sub is just to the east of Longbranch, and passes right south of the Kipling station before joining up with the Galt sub (Milton line).
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Good point. When the EA comes up I might suggest this addition.
 
liarliar said:
I heard that the public service was totally taken by surprise on this announcement. Apparently public infrastructure, municipal affairs, and transportation knew nothing about this plan. Nice huh?

What do the Liberals expect the public service urban planners to do now? Implement something that was totally election motivated? Throw out everything they had been working on?
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And what exactly have they been working on? Fact is, there is very little new in the Liberal's plan, as has been stated many times before, so no one should be taken by surprise.
 
York Region is holding off on some of their bus lanes until they are sure the subway is a go.
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Ed Drass (Metro's In Transit) told me the same thing today. Still, that subway is a long-way off from opening and a higher-order busway would fill the time gap nicely in the interim.

A few things (since I haven't said anything yet)...

*This announcement reminds me of a time when governments dared to think big and damn, that's exciting! What's announced strikes me more as a "catch-up" to where we should be after two lost decades, than as a shining example of what will be. Still, it could easily make us North America's premier transit region in 20 years.

*Everything about the GO plans seems to make sense over the long-term, but there's a lot of what-ifs regarding the type of service. Let's hope it's something s-bahn like on Lakeshore (and possibly Georgetown) than the "commuter"-type service they currently run.

*Downtown is basically ignored, yet you'll have even more people wanting to take the transit option into the city due to better GO and subway services. I can't even imagine how bad our crosstown streetcar lines will be in the core. Since the money seems to be out there (for the first time in a generation) Toronto needs to try and get something for east-west travel in the downtown.

*Will the province vacate the LCBO out of Summerhill in 10 years?

*I await the NDP and Conservatives response to this. It would be nice to see an election campaign fought over GTA-transit. Actually, it would be a dream.

*If this MoveOntario2020 does come to fruition, I look forward to the GTTA coordinating and ranking the projects by importance. It seems rather thrown-together (despite the value of pretty much all the individual projects).
 
I take buses on Yonge north of Finch every day and the situation is not that bad. For whatever reason - I don't know if they've done anything with light cycles or enforcing the diamond lanes, etc. - they flow well. Bus lanes won't do much if Viva buses are stuck behind Steeles buses stopping for local traffic.
 
*Will the province vacate the LCBO out of Summerhill in 10 years?
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It would be smarter to avoid Yonge by putting the stop at Dupont. Less congestion this way.
 
^ I was thinking of people heading for Bay and King but I guess they would be using Union for that. You're right that Yonge would be best for Yonge and Bloor or Yonge and Eglinton. See you later LCBO.
 
Rail through North Toronto would be fantastic to see again! And the LCBO "is" the province anyway, so they'd pretty much have to abide.

It would make sense to have stations at both Dupont and Summerhill methinks.
 
I would love to see stops at both Yonge AND Dupont, but that's probably too much to ask. I suspect the big interchange will indeed be Dupont. Though I remeber reading somewhere that the TTC has reserved a bit of land for a southern entrance to Summerhill station for years in anticipation of something like this.
 
I'm sure the two could peacefully coexist. A GO station there doesn't need to be a large facility and the subway station it would connect to lies just to the east of the LCBO building.
 
Darkstar416 said:
*Everything about the GO plans seems to make sense over the long-term, but there's a lot of what-ifs regarding the type of service. Let's hope it's something s-bahn like on Lakeshore (and possibly Georgetown) than the "commuter"-type service they currently run.
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While no official details have been announced yet, and probably won't until after the election, it does appear that an S-Bahn style service is what is going to be developed over the coming years, starting with the Lakeshore line. The use of regional class trains is being explored and with the electrification of Lakeshore that would allow all lines leading into it to also consider the idea once it is completed. Georgetown is a bigger question mark, but, there is still a small chance that the scope of the project could change in the next few months and upgrades to the line could include electrification and frequencies approaching those of a regional system.

Aside from Lakeshore, and maybe Georgetown, I would not expect any other lines to change in nature from commuter rail to regional rail, at least not for another 5 - 10 years. And not because GO will have no desire to do so, but mostly because to make that happen is going to require a very large modernization program of its tracks which will simply take time to bring lines up to the standard needed for regional rail service.
 
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