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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

innsertnamehere said:
Lakeshore west is scattered with at grade crossings.

Lakeshore East is much closer to being entirely grade seperated, only a few at grade crossings in Scarborough (I think 6), and 3 of them are in the process of being separated right now.

Grade separations are part of the plan for GO RER, but not 100% separation. separations cost $10-$15 million a piece usually, and GO has literally hundreds of crossings on its network, including some extremely complicated bits like Downtown Brampton and Guelph. 100% separation won't work, but I do expect to see a lot of separations constructed over the next 10 years. Stouffville and Barrie especially have very poor separation for most of their respective lines.
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Clarkson Rd and Loren Park Rd in Mississauga will cost close to $25+ Million with closing of roads off as well tearing homes & business down.

A few other places in Mississauga have the same issues as above to the point one or 2 can be closed off. Mostly are pre war or war houses in the first place. If they grade separate Stavebank, it would get rid of the slow order for crossing it from a dead stop from the station.

Oakville is to get 2 grade separation within the next year or so. The Lakeshore line could be the first line fully grade separated within the next 10-15 years. You will need about $1.3 Billion for grade separation.

You need Billions to put up fencing to stop people crossing tracks and need to be 10' plus high and that not going to happen anytime soon.
 
One of the ML powerpoint documents I read recently (too lazy to try to remember which one and try to find it) indicated that they had a formal list of prioritised grade separation projects which they attempt to work down but yeah there are dozens of them and they can't get to them all. IMHO this should be in the public view and there should be a committed annual funding stream with a goal that some day (maybe decades out) they are all eliminated. You eat the elephant one steak at a time kind of thing.

You may not be able to stop people from accessing the tracks at level crossings, but the quality of fencing along the ROW's is poor. Fencing isn't that expensive. GO could at least put an emphasis on good unbroken fencing and deal with crossings as time and money allow.

- Paul
 
innsertnamehere said:
Grade separations are part of the plan for GO RER, but not 100% separation. separations cost $10-$15 million a piece usually, and GO has literally hundreds of crossings on its network, including some extremely complicated bits like Downtown Brampton and Guelph. 100% separation won't work, but I do expect to see a lot of separations constructed over the next 10 years. Stouffville and Barrie especially have very poor separation for most of their respective lines.
Click to expand...

GO has ~1,000 crossings on its network (including roads, rails and watercourses). Below is a map of all at-grade crossings from about 5 years old (sorry for potato quality).

l5qT5Mf.png
 
Wow, that many. Hmm, interesting that image uses the proposed switch to the CP trackage through Oshawa to Bowmanville.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Lakeshore west is scattered with at grade crossings.

Lakeshore East is much closer to being entirely grade seperated, only a few at grade crossings in Scarborough (I think 6), and 3 of them are in the process of being separated right now.

Grade separations are part of the plan for GO RER, but not 100% separation. separations cost $10-$15 million a piece usually, and GO has literally hundreds of crossings on its network, including some extremely complicated bits like Downtown Brampton and Guelph. 100% separation won't work, but I do expect to see a lot of separations constructed over the next 10 years. Stouffville and Barrie especially have very poor separation for most of their respective lines.
Click to expand...

Lakeshore East has the advantage of running parallel to the 401 through almost all of Durham, so most of the grade separations were done in conjunction with off/on ramps or over/underpasses.

It's interesting, when you look at the map that DonValleyRainbow posted (very helpful map, btw, thanks for that), that most of the at-grade crossings are in residential neighbourhoods. Mississauga has a tonne on Lakeshore West, but Halton has almost none. When you look at the adjacent land uses in Mississauga, it's mostly residential. When you look at it in Halton, it's mostly commercial/industrial.
 
I also think that they are really only focusing on grade separations for the RER network for now, which is only a smaller portion of this map.
 
Metrothinks said:
They should just use concrete pillars to build elevated tracks in/next to the existing right of ways. This would be good for electrification too and allow for speed increases. It eould be similar to how the UP express links to the airport or how the sky train runs in Vancouver. Here is an example https://www.gsconst.co.kr/FileUpload/business/ko_civil_04_1.jpg
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This would be exponentially more expensive, take much longer, be an eye sore in neighbourhoods and cost exponentially more in the long run due to maintenance costs (look at the Gardiner expressway)

Im sorry but this is a horrible idea. Why would you elevate in an existing right of way? That makes no sense.

Grade separations for roads are very cost effective and quick to do, at least compared to entire line elevation.
 
robmausser said:
This would be exponentially more expensive, take much longer, be an eye sore in neighbourhoods and cost exponentially more in the long run due to maintenance costs (look at the Gardiner expressway)

Im sorry but this is a horrible idea. Why would you elevate in an existing right of way? That makes no sense.

Grade separations for roads are very cost effective and quick to do, at least compared to entire line elevation.
Click to expand...

I'm just guessing here but maybe they were thinking for the Don River valley to avoid flooding? But then the supports would also have to be strong enough to withstand the current...creating more lateral pressure and increasing the cost. I'm just thinking where this would be required.
 
muller877 said:
I'm just guessing here but maybe they were thinking for the Don River valley to avoid flooding? But then the supports would also have to be strong enough to withstand the current...creating more lateral pressure and increasing the cost. I'm just thinking where this would be required.
Click to expand...

Would make sense if the Richmond Hill line was slated for RER, but its not.
 
muller877 said:
I'm just guessing here but maybe they were thinking for the Don River valley to avoid flooding? But then the supports would also have to be strong enough to withstand the current...creating more lateral pressure and increasing the cost. I'm just thinking where this would be required.
Click to expand...
If you raise the RH line where it is most likely to flood, you create a bunch of grade crossings with streets that have streetcar tracks. Hopefully Waterfront Toronto get money to build the spillway etc. sooner rather than later - but of course development in the Unilever lands is what will make that happen, not reliability for RH line commuters.
 
They was a knife attack last night on the 21:38 GO train out of Oshawa that resulted in a Lakeshore East shut and numerous train cancellations. The suspect apparently fled by pulling the emergency brakes and then getting off the train on the right of way between Danforth & Scarborough GO stations, quite audacious. The tracks were shut down for several hours while police searched for the suspect along the right of way. The victim was a female, no word on any injuries. I'm a little surprise that none of the major news outlets have reported anything about this, nothing on social media either. Granted there probably wasn't many witnesses on that late night train.
 
vegeta_skyline said:
They was a knife attack last night on the 21:38 GO train out of Oshawa that resulted in a Lakeshore East shut and numerous train cancellations. The suspect apparently fled by pulling the emergency brakes and then getting off the train on the right of way between Danforth & Scarborough GO stations, quite audacious. The tracks were shut down while police were searching for the suspect along the right of way. No word on any injuries though the victim was apparently female. Frankly I'm a little surprise that none of the major news outlets have reported anything about this nor is there anything about it on social media. Granted there probably wasn't many witnesses on that late night train.
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Breakfast television were all over it this morning...had Anne Marie Aikins on to discuss it.

seems it was up on their web page 11 hours ago too.

http://www.bttoronto.ca/2016/01/27/man-leaps-from-go-train-after-robbery/
 
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