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Toronto’s growth is truly impressive, with the Greater Toronto Area expected to be home to over 8 million residents within just the next decade. The City of Toronto itself will add a million residents during that time. In previous decades, infrastructure investments—particularly in the area of urban transportation—have not kept up, and now work is happening at an impressive rate to build a rapid transit system appropriate for a region of this population.
In a follow up to my previous piece on Toronto’s substantial subway expansion plans, this piece, the first of two parts, will discuss Toronto’s Regional Rail ambitions. This part will discuss projects and investments occurring within the City of Toronto, while the second part will cover projects across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, which are intricately linked to Toronto’s GO Train expansion.
As it turns out, much like with subway expansion, Toronto is leading North America with its regional rail expansion plans. Other major North America city regions such as Mexico City, Los Angeles, and New York are also investing in regional rail, but none to the same extent as Toronto whose network will be transformed from a largely diesel-powered commuter railway to a frequent bi-directional electrified regional transit network in just two decades.
Before diving into the various projects occurring on the regional rail network, I’ll start with some key points. Currently Toronto’s regional rail system consists of seven individual GO Train lines fanning out in all directions from Union Station. These are the Lakeshore West, Milton, Kitchener, Barrie, Richmond Hill, Stouffville, and Lakeshore East lines. There is also the UP Express, the Pearson Airport express link which functions as a branch of the Kitchener Line. It should be noted that the UP Express uses different trains (diesel multiple units) from the rest of the regional network, which require separate dedicated platforms at all stations which the service calls at. All lines converge at Toronto’s Union Station where connections can be made to the Toronto subway network, streetcar services, as well as intercity and regional buses, VIA Rail—which some people use for longer distance commuting—and the Path underground pedestrian network.
Plans call for 5 of the seven regional rail lines to see substantial bi-directional service in the future, meaning trains will no longer only travel into the city in the morning and out of it in the evening. As it turns out, this bi-directional service already exists on the core Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East lines, and to some extent on the other 3 focus lines, which are Kitchener, Barrie, and Stouffville.
The Milton Line will not receive frequent all-day service in the medium term due to its critical role in Canadian Pacific Railway’s freight network. Plans for some degree of bi-directional service are developing, although its usefulness within the City of Toronto is rather limited, owing to its route which is largely interlined with the Kitchener and other regional rail lines.
Similarly, there are no plans for all day service on the Richmond Hill line, as its southern section through the Don Valley is winding and slow and is also somewhat at risk for flooding. The Richmond Hill line is also largely duplicative of the TTC Line 1 subway through the City of Toronto and as such is not seen as a top priority for frequent electric service.
All five of the lines mentioned will receive higher frequency bi-directional service for their entire length within the City of Toronto and beyond. Minimum service standards call for eventual service of at least every 15 minutes for most of each day. Some lines—notably Kitchener and Stouffville—will receive additional service partially as a leftover from the remains of Mayor John Tory’s ill-fated SmartTrack scheme (see my video on the remnants of SmartTrack, being 5 stations on various GO train lines). That said, there are substantial sections of the regional rail network within Toronto which service two or more lines, particularly near the city centre and approaching Union Station, which means some locations will see subway-like train frequencies, albeit across multiple tracks.
What service do we have today?
Now the natural question is what service do we currently see across Toronto’s regional rail network? This gives us a better sense of how improvements will change service patterns. Currently, the Lakeshore Line, which is the through-running composition of the Lakeshore East and Lakeshore West lines, sees peak frequencies of every 15 minutes during the midday, with increased frequency in the peak periods and reduced frequency in the evenings. The Kitchener Line sees commuter-oriented uni-directional peak service, with hourly bi-directional service during off-peak periods only between Bramalea and Toronto, and only on weekdays. The UP Express operates parallel to regional trains on the Kitchener Line with a pre-Covid all day frequency of 15 minutes in both directions, though this has unfortunately been reduced to every 30 minutes since the height of the pandemic. The Barrie and Stouffville Lines see hourly bi-directional services all day on weekends and during non-peak weekday periods, with peak periods seeing frequent tidal commuter-oriented service (inbound in the morning, outbound in the late afternoon).
With that out of the way, what work is happening to expand and enhance the system? Expansion can be mainly divided into three categories; service enablement, access enablement, and electrification and on-corridor works. The following section will serve to round up the major works currently underway under each of these categories.
Service Enablement
The following works are underway to help enable more service in both directions as well as express services.
The Kitchener Line is currently seeing a number of projects undertaken to expand the corridor to four tracks paralleling the length of the UP Express, from south of Bloor Street to just north of Woodbine Racetrack. These works will ensure that each regular service operating on the regional line has a dedicated pair of tracks. The major Georgetown South Expansion project undertaken prior to the implementation of the UP Express did most of the heavy lifting here with rebuilt stations, corridor expansion, and major grade separations. That means, besides one exception, that the entire corridor is ready for four tracks and so the fourth track simply needs to be laid. Minding that the stations on the corridor do need fourth platforms to serve the new track. Work on a fourth platform is currently underway at Weston Station, while more complex works will be required at Bloor-Dundas West Station in order to accommodate the West Toronto Railpath.
As mentioned, there is an exception where work is needed on the Kitchener Corridor to enable quad tracks and that involves the tunnel under Highways 401 and 409 and the adjacent Etobicoke North station. Two new tunnels have been constructed to take the additional tracks under the highways, which will allow the current tunnel to have its tracks reduced from three to two. This additional space will enable higher speeds through the existing tunnel. Unfortunately, track laying has not begun in the newly completed tunnels yet, and Etobicoke North Station will need to be decommissioned prior to their installation as its platform sits directly in their path. Fortunately, Etobicoke North will be replaced as I will discuss later.
On the Barrie Line, double-tracking works are currently slowly moving along to enable bi-directional service all day. Fortunately, the only non-Union Barrie Line station in the City of Toronto at the moment, Downsview Park on the Toronto York Spadina Subway Extension, is built with provision for a second track and platform. Other stations on the line are either currently being rebuilt or are in the planning phase, being Caledonia at the Crosstown LRT interchange station, and a SmartTrack station at Bloor and Lansdowne. Works are progressing more slowly than on other lines because service is limited by the massive Davenport Diamond Grade Separation construction project occurring on the Barrie Line just north of Bloor Street.
To understand the Davenport Diamond Grade Separation, CP’s North Toronto Subdivision (the same line that serves Milton Line trains, west of Dundas West) passes through Central Toronto parallel to and north of Bloor Street, and hence is crossed by several regional rail lines. While a major grade separation between GO and CP has already been constructed as part of the Georgetown South Expansion known as the West Toronto Diamond Grade Separation, the Barrie Line diverges from the Kitchener Line south of Bloor Street and hence crosses the CP North Toronto Subdivision at a different location, known as the Davenport Diamond. Due to the different profile of the land heading north on the Barrie Line (as opposed to northwest on the Kitchener Line) a guideway was chosen as the grade separation solution for this location and so a large double track viaduct is being constructed to take Barrie Line trains over the CP tracks. This project is still in its early days and hence is the limiting factor for Barrie Line service expansion.
Much like the Barrie Line, double tracking is moving along with the Stouffville Line with the intent to substantially increase bi-directional services once works are complete. This work is happening on essentially the entire North-South section of line between Kennedy station and Milliken station at Toronto’s northern border of Steeles Avenue. While the works do not seem to be moving as quickly as they could be, the three stations on this section of track—Kennedy, Agincourt, and Milliken—are all seeing lots of progress on the construction of second platforms. Once that work is completed, the original platforms will likely be taken out of service and rebuilt, finally leaving each station with two tracks and two platforms. So, by that point, the Stouffville Line will have two tracks throughout much of Toronto, though like the Barrie Line, there is a slight hiccup.
South of Kennedy Station, the Stouffville Line veers east and then enters a long curve that takes it to the Lakeshore East regional rail line. However, this is problematic due to a grade crossing of Danforth Road directly adjacent to Midland Avenue, as well as around 300 metres of track running mostly unprotected directly next to the sidewalk on Midland Avenue. Plans here are for a grade separation, likely involving a trench, though it would be good to even just see some additional fencing in the meantime. Plans were set to be much more complex when a large fly-under was planned to do this in addition to the grade separation at Danforth Road. However, as I learned in an interview with Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster a few months ago, a different service pattern on the Lakeshore East corridor will mean the fly-under is no longer needed. This is probably worse for long term service, but should speed the construction of the now much simpler grade separation. With that said, even with this short single-track section, the line should be able to operate half hourly or better when double-tracking work is complete, should Metrolinx decide to do so.
At the same time as works on the Stouffville Line are going on, the Lakeshore East line is also seeing an expansion. Currently, as with the Lakeshore West and parts of the Georgetown South corridor, the Lakeshore East is primarily triple tracked from the Union Station rail corridor, to the point where the Stouffville line diverges. Metrolinx is working to expand this section of the line to quad track in order to accommodate frequent service on the respective lines, as well as on the semi-regular VIA Rail services. Unfortunately though, between expansion works, and new corridor rebuild works associated with the Ontario Line which will be adding tracks in the area, as well as the raising of the corridor to accommodate higher city standards for bridge clearance, the number of tracks will be reduced for a significant part of the next decade. This will reduce the number of express and perhaps even local rail trains that will be able to operate during that time.
Nonetheless, when the works described in this section are complete, along with the not yet under construction Danforth Road grade separation, trains on the five regional-focus lines will be able to operate at frequencies up to and beyond every 5 minutes in both directions all day long, finally delivering subway-like service to Toronto’s GO corridors.
Access Enablement
Of course, all this new service will be wasted without strong pedestrian access from stations, both new and existing. Numerous projects are underway to create new connection points and improve existing ones to enable more transfer and direct access opportunities.
First, perhaps the most famous poor-quality connection between the Subway and Regional Rail is that between Dundas West station on TTC Line 2 and Bloor GO station on the Kitchener corridor. These stations are supposed to be getting a connecting tunnel in the next few years, which will make them one of the best connection points on the network outside of Union Station. Unfortunately, this saga has been ongoing since at least the 1990s. The confusing stations names on the other hand are something we have less certainty on, but rectifying the different TTC and GO names for interchange stations will reduce a lot of confusion for new riders as well as riders taking new routes.
We can also expect new Subway-Regional Rail connections at Bloor-Lansdowne (Line 2 / GO Barrie) as part of what remains of the SmartTrack program, and at Mount Dennis (Line 5 / GO Kitchener), the initial western terminus of the under-construction Line 5 Crosstown LRT. Unfortunately, connectivity to the subway will be somewhat weak at the former though. Caledonia station (Line 5 / GO Barrie) on Line 5 will also receive a new transfer connection.
The province’s four priority subway projects also include new transfers between Subway and Regional Rail. Bridge Station (Line 1 / GO Richmond Hill) adding a new northern connection for passengers travelling to North York from Richmond Hill—albeit with infrequent peak only service. East Harbour (Line 3 - Ontario Line / GO Stouffville / GO Lakeshore East) is a much more substantial planned station built just north of the Port Lands and adjacent to the Unilever site, that will provide connections between the various eastern lines. This is something that some, including me, would like to see at the planned Spadina Station west of Union, which is currently only intended for service from the Barrie Line, rather than all western Regional Rail lines. The future Ontario Line East Harbour station is also part of the SmartTrack program, which is funding five new urban stations on GO lines.
While the construction of East Harbour should alleviate some of the demand for rapid transit in the inner East End, multiple organizations including the Toronto Region Board of Trade and the Waterfront BIA are pushing for an additional Ontario Line station at Cherry Street, rightly reflecting the massive development planned for the Port Lands, the popular Distillery District, and the distance between East Harbour and key sites such as Quayside on the Waterfront west of Cherry.
Beyond East Harbour, more stations are being built as part of the SmartTrack program. These include: Finch-Kennedy, a useful bus transfer infill station in north Scarborough on the Stouffville Line, St Clair-Old Weston, a new streetcar connection and potential transit-oriented development surrounding the station on the Kitchener Line, and King-Liberty, a new station on the combined Kitchener-Barrie-Milton corridor between King and Queen streets serving the massive growth in Liberty Village.
There are also a few development-driven station projects occurring. At Mimico, a developer is constructing a new station building and other facilities for Metrolinx as part of a major redevelopment project. As it turns out, just east of Mimico is another major development driven station, Park Lawn, proposed as part of the Christie site redevelopment that would serve the entire Humber Bay Shores neighbourhood.
On the other side of Etobicoke near Woodbine Racetrack, there is a final major developer-funded station, Woodbine GO. It will replace the commuter-oriented Etobicoke North station with a more substantial facility that could eventually accommodate an extension of the Finch West LRT. At the same time, this station will act as a useful transfer hub for passengers travelling to Pearson Airport. Of course, it also plays a role in Woodbine’s redevelopment schemes, though their success will be highly dependent on the connection between the station and the redevelopment sites.
As you can see, there are a number of different station projects going on across the regional rail network that aim to improve access.
Potential for new development and public spaces
Now, I’d be remiss to not mention the incredible city building opportunities that this new service and infrastructure will enable.
As many GO stations, including those in Toronto, are surrounded by parking lots and other large suburban plots of land, there is incredible potential to redevelop sites and create new transit-oriented development that takes advantage of the subway-like service.
Perhaps even more valuable than these suburban sites are these major sites that should be freed up in the downtown core when trains no longer sit parked during the day.
There are also opportunities to reimagine suburban neighbourhoods through upgraded stations, expanded public spaces, and new connections as a result of station upgrades and grade separations.
In this article, I’ve discussed expansions and upgrades in Toronto. The next article will cover those that are happening in the 905. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, you can find more in UrbanToronto's dedicated Transportation Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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