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Since Monday's announcement (Toronto's Regional Rail Network is a GO!) regarding Metrolinx moving forward with its GO Expansion program with a consortium led by Deutsche Bahn (DB), more details have now been released regarding the service levels this new regional network will provide to Toronto and its suburbs.
A news release by Metrolinx today mentions frequencies at key stations on the GO Network within the City of Toronto such as Bloor (at Dundas West subway station), the future expanded Exhibition Station, and the future East Harbour Station (which Metrolinx has begun to procure), will have trains arriving roughly every three minutes in peak periods. This is because Exhibition and Bloor are served by both the Lakeshore West and Kitchener Local and Express services respectively, while East Harbour is served by both the Lakeshore East and Stouffville lines. This sounds great and it will be, but is a little misleading since this refers to the combined frequency across four tracks — which at East Harbour and Bloor will mean trains headed into the city will not share island platforms — meaning taking advantage of a train every three minutes likely won’t be practical. Still, six minute peak service frequencies on each line is nothing to sneeze at, and should allow for convenient connections to Line 2 as well as the future Ontario Line (tentatively to be called Line 3).
More mention of frequencies is made with reference to Burlington and Pickering, both of which are set to receive service up to every five minutes, combining the service provided by local and express trains.
It seems that Metrolinx and DB are planning to make much more intensive use of double tracked and electrified lines, which in the GO Expansion Full Business Case released in 2018 had only modest improvements over the base fifteen minute service standard that has long been the goal for GO Transit. Achieving these frequencies will not be easy but ERTMS signalling (discussed in Tuesday’s article) and higher performance electric trains will help significantly.
The biggest barrier to higher frequencies on the network remains Union Station, where narrow platforms with poor vertical access limit headways. Metrolinx mentions redesigning the platforms at Union Station as well as reconfiguring the tracks leading up to it on either side (usually referred to as the station throats) in order to fix this issue, likely by removing tracks and substantially widening platforms — something proposed by transportation guru Jonathan English on UrbanToronto nearly 10 years ago!
Interesting information was also released about speed improvements across the GO network. While GO trains can currently hit speeds of over 140 kph, poor track conditions, signalling, train performance, and switches reduce the amount of time trains can spend at top speed, significantly lengthening journeys. Metrolinx expects speed improvements to reduce trip times by an average of 10 minutes but, by as much as 20 to 30 minutes in some cases. This would make trips from Barrie or Hamilton to Toronto on the train faster than driving, and could also significantly improve travel times on the key Kitchener corridor reducing trips from Kitchener to Toronto to below an hour and a half.
A map was also released, which confirms the electrification on the GO network will include the full Barrie and Stouffville lines, something which was previously unclear.
With these substantially increased frequencies and speedups, the ONxpress consortium has supposedly increased the benefits outlined in Metrolinx’ full business case by over 50%, creating what will undoubtedly be the highest quality regional rail network in North America.
Make sure to check out my video on the topic below, and to discuss this latest news items visit the relevant forum thread!
Stay tuned to UrbanToronto's Front Page for all the latest about the GO Expansion, but as we await more details, you can learn more from our dedicated Transportation Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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