GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[CDL.TO]

Let's not forget that, traffic notwithstanding, it will be faster to hop on in a car or bus and drive to Burlington station across the skyway and catch the train there than it will be to board at Stoney Creek and ride all the way around the harbour.

The need for this station and its potential ridership is highly questionable.

 

[rbt]

isn't Stoney Creek inside the GTHA? i thought it was in the H part.

Sigh, you're right. Stoney Creek was amalgamated into Hamilton in 2001. I had thought it was still separate when I wrote that.

 

[nfitz]

Let's not forget that, traffic notwithstanding ...

I'd drive everywhere traffic and parking costs notwithstanding!

 

[rbt]

It would seem Grimsby is on this list too.

http://www.610cktb.com/blog/2014/04/27/go-trains-to-niagara-but-only-to-grimsby-for-now

Pretty certain Option 2 was selected (Grimsby is Casablanca Boulevard station) but I'm finding it hard to verify that decision in the EA document below.

Niagara EA which contains the chart on page 98 from the above article: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...=63yFwsfgjTejaT0-blQ6Gw&bvm=bv.85464276,d.aWw

Ridership projections (page 9) look pretty weak to me. Might be plenty of extra room in that 700 space parking lot in Stoney Creek.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

It would seem Grimsby is on this list too.

http://www.610cktb.com/blog/2014/04/27/go-trains-to-niagara-but-only-to-grimsby-for-now

Pretty certain Option 2 was selected (Grimsby is Casablanca Boulevard station) but I'm finding it hard to verify that decision in the EA document below.

Niagara EA which contains the chart on page 98 from the above article: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...=63yFwsfgjTejaT0-blQ6Gw&bvm=bv.85464276,d.aWw

Ridership projections (page 9) look pretty weak to me. Might be plenty of extra room in that 700 space parking lot in Stoney Creek.

Grimsby was always on. It was either that or Beamsville. I think the projections are weak because the ride will be more then two hours.

 

[CDL.TO]

I'd drive everywhere traffic and parking costs notwithstanding!

Traffic on the skyway usually isn't even that bad, and using local streets such as Eastport Dr would still be faster than the train.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

It would seem Grimsby is on this list too.

http://www.610cktb.com/blog/2014/04/27/go-trains-to-niagara-but-only-to-grimsby-for-now

Pretty certain Option 2 was selected (Grimsby is Casablanca Boulevard station) but I'm finding it hard to verify that decision in the EA document below.

Niagara EA which contains the chart on page 98 from the above article: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...=63yFwsfgjTejaT0-blQ6Gw&bvm=bv.85464276,d.aWw

Ridership projections (page 9) look pretty weak to me. Might be plenty of extra room in that 700 space parking lot in Stoney Creek.

For the lazy - here are the option diagrams and costs:

According to RJ's Project Team, Option 2 "has a great deal of merit." Ultimately, though, all four options were put on the table for GO to decide on. If the government was worried about expenditures, Option 1 was supposed to be the way forward; it was the least-built option. I think we had a bit of debate over how much the government was saving by only implementing half of it (or maybe that was on CPTDB, I can't remember). As reaperexpress touched on, some money had to be spent regardless to establish James Street North.

One advantage of Confederation station: convenient launch point for the Niagara buses. You can eliminate that insane loop-dee-loo for the Stoney Creek P+R to/from Burlington, and facilitate an easy connection between Niagara and downtown Hamilton.

Grimsby is part of Option 2. That would be an additional $10 million (nothing!) over an opening day buildout to Confederation.

 

[reaperexpress]

Grimsby was always on. It was either that or Beamsville. I think the projections are weak because the ride will be more then two hours.

According to the summer 2014 GO Lakeshore West schedule, it takes 1h38 from St. Catharines to Toronto, so I highly doubt it would take "more than two hours" from Grimsby which is closer.

And while it may take a long time to get to Toronto from Grimsby, it will take a very short time to get to Hamilton where I'm guessing a fair number of Grimsby residents work.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

According to the summer 2014 GO Lakeshore West schedule, it takes 1h38 from St. Catharines to Toronto, so I highly doubt it would take "more than two hours" from Grimsby which is closer.

And while it may take a long time to get to Toronto from Grimsby, it will take a very short time to get to Hamilton where I'm guessing a fair number of Grimsby residents work.

I was going to say from Niagara falls. My apologies.

 

[mdrejhon]

I was going to say from Niagara falls. My apologies.

Not too different from Kitchener from Toronto. But the canal.... If they grade-separate the canal, it will be incredibly expensive just only for Niagara all day service. That may wait until electricification and high speed service, reducing time to around an hour. If the Americans ever decide to electricity the Empire corridor, that may provide an impetus, and fast commuter service would be only one of the reasons to grade separate all rail all the way to Niagara Falls. Under what other conditions will we spend nearly a billion to grade separate the Welland canal? That's the cost of a nice LRT elsewhere!

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Not too different from Kitchener from Toronto. But the canal.... If they grade-separate the canal, it will be incredibly expensive just only for Niagara all day service. That may wait until electricification and high speed service, reducing time to around an hour. If the Americans ever decide to electricity the Empire corridor, that may provide an impetus, and fast commuter service would be only one of the reasons to grade separate all rail all the way to Niagara Falls. Under what other conditions will we spend nearly a billion to grade separate the Welland canal? That's the cost of a nice LRT elsewhere!

Hopefully that happens in our lifetime! That sounds amazing.

 

[TOareaFan]

In spite of mdrejhon's usual TL;DR comment D) what he says does make sense. It sounds like a similar situation to UPX, where people talked about it costing $500 million even though most of that money was spent to facilitate more frequent service for existing GO services.

That is not the way I understand it. In the Georgetown/KW corridor there are two separate projects. One is the GTS and that is the project that is expanding the overall corridor and the cost of that is $1.2B. The UPe project has a separate capital budget of over $450million and that is for the airport express alone....has no bearing on capacity for GO.

 

[dowlingm]

if Welland Canal was GSed, and fairly frequent GO operating, I'd look for this:

US Border Check at Niagara Falls ON
Terminate all three Empire Service trains serving NF NY there (with an NPCU for a quick turn)

Less convenient than a one seat ride? Perhaps. But mid route border checks add a lot of padding to the timetable and some convenience would be added back by having three daily departures between NY and Southern Ontario rather than one.

 

[ssiguy2]

I think going rail to St.Catherines makes sense but not to NF............the cost is far too high for the amount of ridership it would generate. Those huge funds would be better spend buying buses to connect all areas of Niagara to the SC GO station.

I think the Niagara service would get quite good ridership as I think many will get off at Hamilton. The huge amount saved by not going to NF would be better spent on a GO rail extensions to Cambridge/Brantford/Peterborough.

 

[WislaHD]

Niagara Falls seems really expensive.

For that money couldn't we send the GO line down through Thorold, Welland and Port Colborne? Rapid transit may just spur the Niagara region into a regional growth and economic centre.