I'd hardly call the bus to London frequent! If you ignore the 4-5 hour milk runs there's about a bus every 2 hours. So you aren't exactly going to show up at the bus station without aiming for a particular departure time!
I can finally do that on Lakeshore West line. I just show up without knowing when the train is arriving, because GOTrains are passing by there every 15-20 minutes during morning peak and every 30 minutes offpeak. GO Lakeshore like catching an infrequent subway. No need for timetables. Sometimes I coincidentally park 30 seconds before the train departs, and I tap+hop onto the GOtrain 1 second before the sliding doors automatically closes! Just like a subway! Lakeshore West finally feels almost like a surface subway that goes all the way between Hamilton/Oshawa, and it will become moreso with 15-minute GO RER.
Missing a VIA train will ruin your day.
Missing a Lakeshore GOTrain won't ruin your day.
My point, hereby, is proven.
Bring on GO RER and 15-minute offpeak, turning the whole GO network into a surface subway in 10 years. No timetable needed.
Bring on half-hourly HSR service, Metrolinx!
Is VIA going to bring subway-style commuter service to the Kitchener corridor? I thought not. It's Ontario HSR; let Metrolinx bring us commuter-friendly HSR timetables where you just show up, speedily pay fare, and hop onto the next HSR, just like you can in Japan & Europe. Many people over there now use HSR like subways there on the frequent-service routes, you know. Let the rabbit Metrolinx start HSR -- Ontario is already paying for the study and Metrolinx owns half the starter HSR corridor which they plan to electricify for GO RER! Let VIA & Metrolinx work it out once it's time for HSR to extend to Quebec.
I love the VIA Canadian train as much as the next train lover, and I have over 10,500 VIA Preference points (sleeper to Vancouver, baby!) but realistically --
-- it's quite obvious -- and seeing the tree in the forest. VIA definitely isn't starting-up Ontario HSR. Ontario is laying the groundwork. Even if the next government is Liberals, Ontario is barrelling forward with so much pre-requisites (study, ownership, electricification, etc) that they're just going to help Ontario get HSR started (while separately helping, say, Edmonton-Calgary get HSR started). Heck, both VIA and Metrolinx can run separate HSR trains like in Europe (e.g. Eurostar versus TGV) running over overlapped sections of the same HSR corridor. Metrolinx for commuter HSR, and VIA for interprovincial HSR. I'd even bet my mortgage on some kind of a provincial-federal separation ultimately happening.
Metrolinx is the rabbit here. VIA is the tortise here. Example Dec 17th --
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...tml?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
This time, the tortise won't win.