Thing is is that I don't think the Weston crowd were at all anti-transit NIMBYS. The reality is that the Weston Community wants transit but realize this is not a transit service. They were not asking for an end to the UP Link but rather having it as a transit service for all Torontonians.
It IS a transit service but it is an express transit service and it comes with improvements required to improve the GO rail service. The line of thinking that would say this is not a transit service fits with a subway or nothing mentality.
They didn't want less service but rather much more service but they didn't want the pollution and noise of a train that only the business people who can use it as a tax right-off will be able to afford.
Everyone who is an airline passenger going to the airport can afford it if they want to. It costs less than the tax collected on an airline ticket. They just don't want to pay that fare because they aren't in that much of a rush.
Even Metrolinx acknowledges that this is not a transit service for the masses because if it was they certainly wouldn't refer to the riders as "guests". Remember with enhanced GO there are going to be all diesel trains going thru Weston at the rate of one every 4 minutes.
Yes, and they will admit the Lakeshore line isn't local transit either. Each form of transit has its purpose and for the purpose of getting consultants, executives, and tourists from downtown to the airport the express train is the best way to do it. I would have preferred it stop at a monorail station on the rail corridor or a rail diversion rather than spur but that isn't what was decided. The GO service that would push trains to one every 4 minutes would be the more affordable trains that supposedly they want. Those are also the trains that pollute more.
I ussually have limited empathy for people who bitch about trains when they choose to live next to a rail track but when the debates comes down to health then that is different.
It isn't different at all. If VIA was increasing service on the line it would also be diesel and not a local transit service. They are against anything that doesn't support their needs perfectly. That is a NIMBY.
GO could easily electrify atleast the UP Link within a couple years and there is absolutely NO excuse to not atleast electrify the spur portion now under construction. To not do it while it is still under construction is the height of irresponsibility and incredibly poor planning. Trying to add it later will cost much more than if they do it as part of the original construction.
What would be the point of that? It would spend a lot of money on an electrical substation and wires that would go unused until the Georgetown line was electrified. Why would installing poles, hanging electrical wire, and building substations be substantially different when trying to do it at the same time as bridges, tunnels, and trackbed is laid? It seems like one construction activity would get in the way of the other. Wouldn't installing electrical be near the last task of building an electrified ROW?
The only reason the spur is not being electrified now is because Metrolinx specifically doesn't want it to be.
Yes, because that is a more expensive project. The only reason the province is not building an Eglinton subway, Sheppard subway, SRT replacement as a subway, DRL subway, and Yonge Extension subway right now and instead waiting until later is because they don't want to. They don't want to because that changes the current budget.
By having the spur electrified it would add tremendous pressure to electrify the rest of the UP Link to say nothing of the entire Kitchener Line. Metrolinx is not electfifying the line now because it means they can put it off indefinately by saying it's under their "25 Year Plan" which is an affront to Torontonians.
Putting it in a 25 year plan and telling Torontonians it is coming also puts pressure, I think more pressure than electrifying a stub like a white elephant with no statement about network electrification.
If Toronto was to start to play hardball by using local laws and artificial delays along the route to ensure the line would not be running by the Pan Am games, how many HOURS would it take for Metrolinx is all of a sudden "find" the money to electrify the UP Link and all of a sudden realize it won't take 25 years but rather 25 months?
The air link would likely be cancelled or moved to the 15 year plan much the same as how Transit City was pushed out since there were obstacles thrown up by the current administration. The Air Rail link is already significantly more than the original budget due to changes at Strachan and Weston. If the auditor didn't like the look of the project now the auditor would really disapprove after throwing more money in for electrification with minimal benefits.
