Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

Not sure how much OL will relieve from Kitchener and Barrie. since there is no interchange directly between the two. You'd have to get off at Bloor/Bloor -Lansdowne, then go Line 2 -> Line 1 -> OL to exhibition. OL will do a much better job for relief from people already in TO, or taking line 1 in.
 
Not sure how much OL will relieve from Kitchener and Barrie. since there is no interchange directly between the two. You'd have to get off at Bloor/Bloor -Lansdowne, then go Line 2 -> Line 1 -> OL to exhibition. OL will do a much better job for relief from people already in TO, or taking line 1 in.
The concept ML developed a decade ago is to relief half the lines to retain capacity at Union. They know they can’t do that for Barrie and Kitchener Lines.
 
I'm still wondering how they will handle the exhibition crowds. But we'll see.
In my experience the exhibition crowds are spread out over the day, and are a fraction of those from major sporting events at BMO Field.

Personally, my Danforth to Exhibition GO trips will be replaced by using the Ontario Line - as it would be so frequent, and avoids the train sitting at Union for 5 minutes or so.
 
I expect exhibition, king and Bathurst, queen n Spadina, to be heavily used . Those street car lines are already heavily used. A subway line will do wonders in those areas.

This really is a great line imo, just not looking fwd to the construction. That's gonna be a nightmare.
8 underground stations & 3 interchange stations, yikes
 
I expect exhibition, king and Bathurst, queen n Spadina, to be heavily used . Those street car lines are already heavily used. A subway line will do wonders in those areas.

This really is a great line imo, just not looking fwd to the construction. That's gonna be a nightmare.
8 underground stations & 3 interchange stations, yikes
Technically, it is 4 interchange stations, but only 3 of them are downtown.
 
In my experience the exhibition crowds are spread out over the day, and are a fraction of those from major sporting events at BMO Field.

Personally, my Danforth to Exhibition GO trips will be replaced by using the Ontario Line - as it would be so frequent, and avoids the train sitting at Union for 5 minutes or so.
GO trains will be significantly more frequent as well by the time the OL opens. And with only 3 stops (compared to 15 plus a transfer) it will almost certainly be faster than the subway for that trip.
 
GO trains will be significantly more frequent as well by the time the OL opens. And with only 3 stops (compared to 15 plus a transfer) it will almost certainly be faster than the subway for that trip.
Well, it should be faster. I'm not sure I trust GO though to remove the 5-minute padding at Union (it's a 7-minute lay-over now). This has only gotten longer in recent years. Nor do I trust them to not break the line into two at Union. Or finish speeding up the track speeds through Union.

And then there's the last mile situation. I'm just under a mile to the GO, and normally take the streetcar. But there's still a 3-4 minute walk to Danforth GO, which was poorly designed for transfers to other modes. Sure, it's (Google says) an extra 8 minutes to get to the Gerrard subway station - but the connection time should be much faster, and I don't trust GO to move Lakeshore to every 5-minute frequencies (over 40 years after they promised this) - especially on evenings and weekends, when I'm usually travelling. Or even fare integration.

But yeah, maybe it will be faster, or at least similar. And on a nice day, I can at least walk to Danforth.

It depends what you count. There's been closures on Adelaide while they've been building the detour streetcar track, so they can close Queen Street.
 
Well, it should be faster. I'm not sure I trust GO though to remove the 5-minute padding at Union (it's a 7-minute lay-over now). This has only gotten longer in recent years. Nor do I trust them to not break the line into two at Union. Or finish speeding up the track speeds through Union.

And then there's the last mile situation. I'm just under a mile to the GO, and normally take the streetcar. But there's still a 3-4 minute walk to Danforth GO, which was poorly designed for transfers to other modes. Sure, it's (Google says) an extra 8 minutes to get to the Gerrard subway station - but the connection time should be much faster, and I don't trust GO to move Lakeshore to every 5-minute frequencies (over 40 years after they promised this) - especially on evenings and weekends, when I'm usually travelling. Or even fare integration.

But yeah, maybe it will be faster, or at least similar. And on a nice day, I can at least walk to Danforth.

It depends what you count. There's been closures on Adelaide while they've been building the detour streetcar track, so they can close Queen Street.
Fair enough. Although it occurs to me that GO expansion (including the Union Station platform project and rail upgrades) and Ontario line are both Infrastructure Ontario projects. So if you don't trust that the GO and Union Station work will get completed then surely that same lack of trust extends to the Ontario Line. I think they'll all get done. The widened platforms will reduce dwell times at Union, plus electrification and track upgrades will speed up trains.
 
So if you don't trust that the GO and Union Station work will get completed then surely that same lack of trust extends to the Ontario Line. I think they'll all get done. The widened platforms will reduce dwell times at Union, plus electrification and track upgrades will speed up trains.
The excess dwell time at Union isn't because of the crowds. It's scheduled that way to improve on-time performance, to improve their KPIs.

There's a difference between a brand new turnkey subway line and a whole lot of separate contracts to upgrade a portion of a main-line rail network. We've already seen some of the potential time-savings from electrification vanish with the switch to electric locomotives rather than EMUs.

But hey, I'll take whatever is quicker, if frequency is equal, or it's the next thing coming. If they can pull off fare integration, and it's not raining hard.
 
The excess dwell time at Union isn't because of the crowds. It's scheduled that way to improve on-time performance, to improve their KPIs.

There's a difference between a brand new turnkey subway line and a whole lot of separate contracts to upgrade a portion of a main-line rail network. We've already seen some of the potential time-savings from electrification vanish with the switch to electric locomotives rather than EMUs.

But hey, I'll take whatever is quicker, if frequency is equal, or it's the next thing coming. If they can pull off fare integration, and it's not raining hard.
once the infrastructure and service is in place nothing is stopping them from upgrading to EMUs later.
 
once the infrastructure and service is in place nothing is stopping them from upgrading to EMUs later.
Exactly. This is the most likely outcome anyway. It would be insanely costly to replace the entire GO Fleet now, plus refit all the maintenance yards for EMUs. We have more bi-level passenger cars than we could ever find a buyer for, so it's far more cost effective to just switch to locomotives, and use the existing rail cars until they hit their service life. Given that likely will happen over a number of years, it feels most likely that we'll see a transition to EMUs line by line as the existing fleet ages out of service. It'll be much easier to resell a few dozen electric locomotives than hundreds of passenger cars.
 
once the infrastructure and service is in place nothing is stopping them from upgrading to EMUs later.
And nothing has stopped them upgrading to DMUs for the last 55 years. And yet here we are.

It would be insanely costly to replace the entire GO Fleet now, plus refit all the maintenance yards for EMUs. We have more bi-level passenger cars than we could ever find a buyer for, so it's far more cost effective to just switch to locomotives, and use the existing rail cars until they hit their service life.
Of course they'll be keeping the bi-levels. But at the same time, there's going to be expansions, so there's no point buying more bi-levels. New equipment can be a mix of electric locomotives, and new EMU trains - there's no reason they can't be run mixed in with electric locomotives.

... it feels most likely that we'll see a transition to EMUs line by line as the existing fleet ages out of service.
With the service expansions and increases, they are going to need more cars. Unless there's a solid plan in place, to start buying some EMUs, we'll see more bi-levels similar to what we have now.
 
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