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GO Transit Midtown Corridor

kamira51 said:
Are you really defending CP and CN? defending the big corporations? the two corporations that own rail lines across North America?
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In this case yes since they were there long before we were born.

CP has the longest time frame when that line was built in the 1880's under Q&C. This is their Main Line to the US. That also was the Back Wood area at the time

CN Halton Sub has only been around 60 years and is the Main Line to the US for them.

How far north due you expect RR move to that doesn't effect travel time, operation cost as well Maintenance?? Then there is the capital cost to built as well which residential folks get screw who have to move for that line???

The Milton Line as well the Crosstown Line can handle 4 tracks easy with various sections seeing 5 or 6 tracks.

All 3 parties need to get on page one that will benefit everyone, including transit riders.
 
Tangentially related - something that I like that Russia does is that they treat Railroads like a form of patent. If you build a new railroad, you get 25 years to do whatever with that railroad, but after 25 years it gets turned over to the government who can do whatever they like with it. This means that a company can't build a hugely useful and important railroad and get several lifetimes worth of control over it, and hog it for their own personal gain - especially when it could be extremely useful for other purposes like Passenger Rail - which is inherently a use that is far more time sensitive than freight rail.
 
ARG1 said:
Tangentially related - something that I like that Russia does is that they treat Railroads like a form of patent. If you build a new railroad, you get 25 years to do whatever with that railroad, but after 25 years it gets turned over to the government who can do whatever they like with it. This means that a company can't build a hugely useful and important railroad and get several lifetimes worth of control over it, and hog it for their own personal gain - especially when it could be extremely useful for other purposes like Passenger Rail - which is inherently a use that is far more time sensitive than freight rail.
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- and also less carbon intensive than freight rail. Trucks emit far more than cars. We often forget it, but we have some of the best freight rail networks in the world; this also means less emissions than using it for passenger service.

There's also multiple problems with that system. We don't live in Russia, so who operates the freight after 25 years? CN 2.0? What incentive is there to maintain railroads (admittedly we don't get construction in our current system)? Might as well give the government a rotting piece of infrastructure (hint: this is a major factor in the streetcar dismantling). Might as well get out of the freight business, in general.

I know that most freight is not time-sensitive, and that passengers are. However, in our current set up, there could be difficulty with Russia's system (especially if freight companies need to pay to use the tracks).
 
DirectionNorth said:
There's also multiple problems with that system. We don't live in Russia, so who operates the freight after 25 years? CN 2.0? What incentive is there to maintain railroads (admittedly we don't get construction in our current system)? Might as well give the government a rotting piece of infrastructure (hint: this is a major factor in the streetcar dismantling). Might as well get out of the freight business, in general.
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Franchising. The federal government steps in sells operating rights and/or timeslots to whichever company requests it - and considering how vital the Freight Infrastructure is in this country as you mentioned, I doubt the federal government will just abandon the tracks - especially since most major parties have a keen interest in expanding services like VIA who would also be competing alongside CN and CP for these timeslots in this scenerio. It really isn't that far-fetched of an idea.
 
ARG1 said:
Franchising. The federal government steps in sells operating rights and/or timeslots to whichever company requests it - and considering how vital the Freight Infrastructure is in this country as you mentioned, I doubt the federal government will just abandon the tracks - especially since most major parties have a keen interest in expanding services like VIA who would also be competing alongside CN and CP for these timeslots in this scenerio. It really isn't that far-fetched of an idea.
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The feds don't really have a history of supporting VIA, and dedicated tracks could have been bought at many points in history ...
 
ssiguy2 said:
The Mid-town Line is an excellent idea as it is the only viable option for getting across the city without going thru Union.
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There are two things that stand in its way 1.) CP sharing their track with go transit and 2.) go transit actually seeing a need to have transit only in Toronto or being allowed to do so as it could be stepping on the toes of the TTC
 
EnviroTO said:
Agreed. I like love the station overviews and updates... the fact based videos which are focused on the images of the station and environment. Great camera work, the other person who comments in some of the videos is great too. I'm not a fan of the talking head here is my opinion videos that are clearly not from someone involved in working with budgets, modelling behaviors and traffic patterns, etc. There are all these tools and models that real planners use to understand the return on investment and how one decision both adds and subtracts ridership, but who cares, Mikey likes it and budgets are limitless. If I see the highlight image of the video is a guy making a strange face then clearly the video isn't going to be meaningful enough to watch.
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Pretty sure he worked as a planner, so maybe there should be more credence given.

Also, the midtown line is pretty low hanging fruit? Done smart you could probably do it for the same budget as some of our outrageously expensive subways.
 
DirectionNorth said:
The feds don't really have a history of supporting VIA, and dedicated tracks could have been bought at many points in history ...
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It won't be done by the federal government but from an arm's length agency, whose sole job it is to manage these timeslots. Now with such an agency, intervening from Parliament will always be a concern, but I also don't see that many situations where interventions would happen.
 
ARG1 said:
Franchising. The federal government steps in sells operating rights and/or timeslots to whichever company requests it - and considering how vital the Freight Infrastructure is in this country as you mentioned, I doubt the federal government will just abandon the tracks - especially since most major parties have a keen interest in expanding services like VIA who would also be competing alongside CN and CP for these timeslots in this scenerio. It really isn't that far-fetched of an idea.
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Because rail franchising has SUCH a successful history.
 
Bureaucromancer said:
Because rail franchising has SUCH a successful history.
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Are you talking about the UK?

Apples to Orange comparison. Doing a Highway 407 style "sell the service/infrastructure to the lowest bidder" i.e. privatization vs "let's take back control of the infrastructure and sell timeslots based off who needs to use it". Maybe franchising is the wrong word here.
 
Didn't several European countries create separate network operators that maintain the track and charge usage fees to operators, and quite successfully?
 
Those European countries also care about trains, the UK less so, and our government, not at all.
 
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