Personally I think that is way too much money for just a pair of tracks that according to our laws in Canada, CP will be allowed to use for freight AND most likely will do so
CP would first have to have enough freight to want to use the added trackage as well as the track it has now. It doesn’t presently have that volume of traffic.
Have a read of this CTA ruling
https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/195-r-2013
The clear message is that it’s expected that the parties will negotiate a commercial agreement, and once that agreement is reached, it governs. So one would expect that if ML is paying to add tracks then they would negotiate an agreement with CP that would protect its right to priority over CP on these. If ML can’t get a reasonable deal with CP, it can appeal to the CTA.
Sure, It’s always possible that ML might negotiate poorly and end up with an agreement that gives CP an advantage. (I have heard comments that the quality of the agreements with CN when ML bought other lines is part of what has hamstrung ML elsewhere). But one would expect that ML would do a proper job of this. And the risk of being taken before the CTA is what would encourage CP to play ball.
The issue for this discussion is, what form of ML line would be compatible with CP’s operations and also be compatible with serving communities all the way to Milton (and perhaps Cambridge some day) - and also permit a stub branch or extended line up to Square One. One can’t extend Line 2, because a subway can’t run on a shared CP ML corridor. An extended subway could occupy its own space on the CP ROW, but that might take away capacity from RER service to communities west of there. I suppose one could build a GO sized tunnel from a junction at Cooksville to Square One, but that seems like a dubious value when the LRT will parallel it.
Personally, I would extend Line 2 only to Cloverdale, put a connecting LRT on Dundas across Mississauga, (notwithstanding the studies that say LRT isn’t required) and leave the CP line for vanilla RER. It might impress
@OneCity if it turned out that across the platform transfer from LRT to subway work just fine.
- Paul