GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[TransitBart]

Perception is reality, which is why effective change managers need to be good at managing PR.

ML and Ontario's feel-good PR strategy is backfiring. They could have managed expectations. Instead, they are "moving forward" with everything. Press releases and photo-ops and puffery for all.

ML won't come clean with the reality that this stuff takes time, and they won't explain what time-consuming construction work required. Instead, they announce grandiose station expansions. Nice stations, no new track. Is it any wonder people think things should be better? It's what they have been told to expect.

- Paul

Paul - what is missing here that comes to your mind?

 

[crs1026]

Paul - what is missing here that comes to your mind?

Well, here's the original press release from March 2015 when the double tracking was announced. And here's the ML project description for the Barrie line, from their web site. And here's the report from the first series of consultation meetings, dated April 2016, which includes the presentation material used in the public consultation. They all focus on the end state (not bad) but don't mention intervening steps.

I would have expected something in each of these stressing "The first phase of expansion will be the introduction of hourly 2-way service from Toronto to Aurora, commencing by Spring 2018. Further service improvements north of Aurora, and more frequent 2-way service south of Aurora, will require the completion of additional double tracking projects throughout this line. These projects are expected to begin in 20xx and are scheduled for completion in 20xx.".

In its presentation to the Davenport community meeting on June 23 2015, ML did disclose that there would only be 36 daily trips in 2017..... so that was always understood. The fact that those trips would only reach Aurora must have been known at that time, but wasn't highlighted (that fact was moot for the concerns at Davenport, but those further north should have been told).

Why wasn't it stated that way? Because it would diminish the "feel good" impact for people towards Barrie. Their reaction might have been closer to "What? Not until 2024?" Which is what they are saying today, but at least they would have received the straight goods and not developed expectations that now are being disappointed.

The old maxim - under promise and over deliver - should have been followed. That's just not happy enough and soon enough for ML or DD.

- Paul

PS - it would have been nice to have announced a second double tracking segment further north, allowing the 2-way hourly service to reach further. The Rutherford-York U segment was neither complex nor expensive. Why ML didn't push the plan further north from the beginning baffles me. Time wasted.

 

[reaperexpress]

Out of curiosity, I checked a selection of off-peak trips before and after the change from bus to train, from Barrie Terminal to Union:

Weekday midday NB:
June 2017:
Departs Union 9:10, 10:10, 11:10 etc
75 minutes to East Gwillimbury
5 minutes transfer
65 minutes to Barrie Bus Terminal
Total: 145 minutes

January 2018:
Departs Union 9:40, 10:40 11:40 etc
49 minutes to Aurora
8 minutes transfer
90 minutes to Barrie Bus Terminal
Total: 147 minutes

Travel time change: +2 minutes

Weekday midday SB:
June 2017:
Departs Barrie Bus Terminal at 9:45, 10:45, 11:45 etc
65 minutes to East Gwillimbury
5 minutes transfer
75 minutes to Union
Total: 145 minutes

January 2018:
Departs Barrie Bus Terminal at 9:51, 10:51, 11:51 etc
95 minutes to Aurora
15 minutes transfer
52 minutes to Union
Total: 162 minutes

Travel time change: +17 minutes

So between Barrie and Toronto, the northbound trip is the same speed as before, though with the train being probably more reliable than the bus, trips might actually be faster in practice. The big change is the southbound trip which is considerably slower, and almost all of the added time is due to an increased transfer time. That time needed to be increased because while the connecting bus at East Gwillimbury used to hold for the southbound arrival from Barrie, the train does not. Holding the train for a late bus is not an option because the train needs to arrive at the siding at the right time to meet the northbound train.

But anyone travelling between Barrie and downtown Toronto in a hurry should probably just take the intercity services operated by Greyhound and Ontario Northland which do the same trip in 90 minutes. The real change is for people in Newmarket who used to have a direct bus to downtown in 63 minutes from Newmarket Terminal, and now have an indirect trip which takes 83 minutes.

I think GO has the right idea with their 3 connecting buses:
69 to Newmarket Terminal
68 to Barrie Terminal via Newmarket GO
69A to Wellington/404 Park & Ride

But more could be done to improve access to the train from the north.

Route 69A Aurora - Aurora P&R
It's interesting that GO created this route, shuttling between the GO station and the Wellington/404 Park & Ride lot. This service could allow that lot to act as an overflow lot for Aurora station, except that the bus only runs outside of peak periods. So anyone who might travel during the peak period in either direction of their trip wouldn't be able to use it.

I think the route could be expanded to all day (including peak periods), and extended north to Sutton, replacing YRT's route 50 (Newmarket Terminal - Sutton via Davis Drive). It would serve Newmarket's Davis/404 bus terminal, which would connect it to the Viva Yellow BRT line, and DRT route 960 from Uxbridge.

Route 68 Aurora - Barrie; Route 69 Newmarket Terminal - Aurora
Currently Route 68 provides local service for its entire length, which makes it painfully slow. It takes 95 minutes just to get from Allandale to Aurora, which is the same time it takes off-peak trains to cover the entire route from Allandale to Union! The portion between Barrie and Bradford provides essential local service to that area which is otherwise unserved, but the portion between Bradford and Aurora should operate express, with YRT covering the local service.

Currently Route 68 gets off of Highway 11 to drive through the centre of Holland Landing. Meanwhile YRT's route 52 runs roughly every hour from Holland Landing to Newmarket Bus Terminal.

By combining YRT's route 52 (Holland Landing - Newmarket Terminal) with GO's route 69 (Newmarket Terminal - Aurora GO), Holland Landing would then have direct access to the GO train via Newmarket Terminal, allowing GO's route 68 to blast non-stop down Highway 11 from East Gwillimbury station to Bradford station.

While the connecting buses themselves will not be as fast as a direct train or a direct bus, the fact that there are 3 north-south routes through Newmarket would means that this is somewhat offset by better coverage. In other words, although the bus takes longer, it takes you less time to get to the bus.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

People just like bitching. Also, us in Kitchener find that the bus-train trips are generally faster than the all-train trips (except the express). Here, we really need weekend buses to downtown Toronto or Hwy 407 station. That would be a blessing.

Welcome to UT!

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I'm in the habit of monitoring some transit-related twitter feeds extra closely, and recently GO has had a LOT of complaints from people who live in Barrie who are positively enraged about the new AD2W service due to most of the trains ending at Aurora.

I'm in shock about this. Maybe I'm just not seeing something obvious, but can someone tell me why people are angry that instead of transferring from a bus to another bus at East Gwillimbury, they're transferring from a bus to a train at Aurora? It makes no sense. There's virtually no difference in the transfer experience, then the train is a superior experience to the bus (slightly slower compared to the DVP on the rare occasion there's no traffic, but faster and more reliable where traffic or weather are concerns, and more comfortable+spacious+has washrooms and some power outlets). This is in no way comparable to the Stouffville change that added a forced transfer, since there was an existing bus-to-bus transfer on this line nearby already.

I think it's most likely jealousy/indignation and a total lack of comprehension of the fact that trains need track in order to operate. Perhaps they should have built a couple of sidings between Aurora and Barrie, and none south of Aurora, and only have trains Barrie-Aurora then a bus to continue to Union? Holy cow...

Could you link some of the feeds for us? That would be great. And I think Metrolinx handled this badly, but it's metrolinx.

Well, here's the original press release from March 2015 when the double tracking was announced. And here's the ML project description for the Barrie line, from their web site. And here's the report from the first series of consultation meetings, dated April 2016, which includes the presentation material used in the public consultation. They all focus on the end state (not bad) but don't mention intervening steps.

I would have expected something in each of these stressing "The first phase of expansion will be the introduction of hourly 2-way service from Toronto to Aurora, commencing by Spring 2018. Further service improvements north of Aurora, and more frequent 2-way service south of Aurora, will require the completion of additional double tracking projects throughout this line. These projects are expected to begin in 20xx and are scheduled for completion in 20xx.".

In its presentation to the Davenport community meeting on June 23 2015, ML did disclose that there would only be 36 daily trips in 2017..... so that was always understood. The fact that those trips would only reach Aurora must have been known at that time, but wasn't highlighted (that fact was moot for the concerns at Davenport, but those further north should have been told).

Why wasn't it stated that way? Because it would diminish the "feel good" impact for people towards Barrie. Their reaction might have been closer to "What? Not until 2024?" Which is what they are saying today, but at least they would have received the straight goods and not developed expectations that now are being disappointed.

The old maxim - under promise and over deliver - should have been followed. That's just not happy enough and soon enough for ML or DD.

- Paul

PS - it would have been nice to have announced a second double tracking segment further north, allowing the 2-way hourly service to reach further. The Rutherford-York U segment was neither complex nor expensive. Why ML didn't push the plan further north from the beginning baffles me. Time wasted.

The libs would have lost reelection if they had done this.

 

[joet00]

That's the 7:05pm departure, arriving at 8:45pm at Allandale Waterfront.

I checked the online GO schedule for a typical January 2018 weekday, that's what it says...

So yes, the train is extended to Allandale Waterfront. I trust the online/twitter more than I trust the paper schedule.

This 7:05pm departure continues to terminate at Bradford. Confirmed via Twitter a couple of days ago:

"the tweet that was sent is incorrect, the trip ends at Bradford GO. We are working to fix the online schedule. Our apologies for that^MS"
https://twitter.com/GOtransitBR/status/946473383457447936

(I still can't figure out how to embed a tweet; None of the BBCode/HTML tags that I've found seem to work on this forum. Also, as of the time of this posting, the online schedule remains incorrect.)

I'm in the habit of monitoring some transit-related twitter feeds extra closely, and recently GO has had a LOT of complaints from people who live in Barrie who are positively enraged about the new AD2W service due to most of the trains ending at Aurora.

I'm in shock about this. Maybe I'm just not seeing something obvious, but can someone tell me why people are angry that instead of transferring from a bus to another bus at East Gwillimbury, they're transferring from a bus to a train at Aurora? It makes no sense. There's virtually no difference in the transfer experience, then the train is a superior experience to the bus (slightly slower compared to the DVP on the rare occasion there's no traffic, but faster and more reliable where traffic or weather are concerns, and more comfortable+spacious+has washrooms and some power outlets). This is in no way comparable to the Stouffville change that added a forced transfer, since there was an existing bus-to-bus transfer on this line nearby already.

The tweets I've seen so far appear to be either those that regularly crow about the lack of service north of Bradford (I recall one user who had a previous tweet suggesting that all Bradford departures should instead deadhead back up to Allandale to start their runs there), or those who took the announcement to mean "2WAD trains to/from Barrie". Of course, this is not what launches next week.

Those of us interested enough in transit to be reading/participating in UT understand the difference between the above vs "2WAD trains on (a segment of) the Barrie Line", but I can understand how the average Barrie resident might misinterpret the headline and be disappointed when they see the schedule.

Within the next couple of weeks, I think we will see very similar types of complaints/negative press that we saw last summer on the Stouffville Line:

1. There will be complaints from residents regarding the noise, etc. from new train operations in the early morning (Bradford-Union), mid-day (Aurora-Union), and late-night (Bradford-Union).
2. South of EG, 30-minute service is being reduced to 60-minute service.
   
3. One-seat trips originating between Newmarket BT and Aurora P&R will now require a transfer at Aurora GO. (I'm thankful GO is launching route 69, rather that ending service via the Newmarket BT.)
   
4. Loss of one-seat local services between East Gwillimbury GO and Newmarket BT. (Sure, people can take YRT, but still a change in time and cost.)

As we saw with Stouffville (the line), GO/ML will weather the storm, but it's a PR hit to be managed.

Out of curiosity, I checked a selection of off-peak trips before and after the change from bus to train, from Barrie Terminal to Union:

Weekday midday NB:
June 2017:
Departs Union 9:10, 10:10, 11:10 etc
75 minutes to East Gwillimbury
5 minutes transfer
65 minutes to Barrie Bus Terminal
Total: 145 minutes

January 2018:
Departs Union 9:40, 10:40 11:40 etc
49 minutes to Aurora
8 minutes transfer
90 minutes to Barrie Bus Terminal
Total: 147 minutes

Travel time change: +2 minutes

Weekday midday SB:
June 2017:
Departs Barrie Bus Terminal at 9:45, 10:45, 11:45 etc
65 minutes to East Gwillimbury
5 minutes transfer
75 minutes to Union
Total: 145 minutes

January 2018:
Departs Barrie Bus Terminal at 9:51, 10:51, 11:51 etc
95 minutes to Aurora
15 minutes transfer
52 minutes to Union
Total: 162 minutes

Travel time change: +17 minutes

So between Barrie and Toronto, the northbound trip is the same speed as before, though with the train being probably more reliable than the bus, trips might actually be faster in practice. The big change is the southbound trip which is considerably slower, and almost all of the added time is due to an increased transfer time. That time needed to be increased because while the connecting bus at East Gwillimbury used to hold for the southbound arrival from Barrie, the train does not. Holding the train for a late bus is not an option because the train needs to arrive at the siding at the right time to meet the northbound train.

But anyone travelling between Barrie and downtown Toronto in a hurry should probably just take the intercity services operated by Greyhound and Ontario Northland which do the same trip in 90 minutes. The real change is for people in Newmarket who used to have a direct bus to downtown in 63 minutes from Newmarket Terminal, and now have an indirect trip which takes 83 minutes.

I think GO has the right idea with their 3 connecting buses:
69 to Newmarket Terminal
68 to Barrie Terminal via Newmarket GO
69A to Wellington/404 Park & Ride

But more could be done to improve access to the train from the north.

Route 69A Aurora - Aurora P&R
It's interesting that GO created this route, shuttling between the GO station and the Wellington/404 Park & Ride lot. This service could allow that lot to act as an overflow lot for Aurora station, except that the bus only runs outside of peak periods. So anyone who might travel during the peak period in either direction of their trip wouldn't be able to use it.

I think the route could be expanded to all day (including peak periods), and extended north to Sutton, replacing YRT's route 50 (Newmarket Terminal - Sutton via Davis Drive). It would serve Newmarket's Davis/404 bus terminal, which would connect it to the Viva Yellow BRT line, and DRT route 960 from Uxbridge.

Route 68 Aurora - Barrie; Route 69 Newmarket Terminal - Aurora
Currently Route 68 provides local service for its entire length, which makes it painfully slow. It takes 90 minutes just to get from Allandale to Aurora, whereas off-peak trains take 95 minutes to do the entire route from Allandale to Union! The portion between Barrie and Bradford provides essential local service to that area which is otherwise unserved, but the portion between Bradford and Aurora should operate express, with YRT covering the local service.

Currently Route 68 gets off of Highway 11 to drive through the centre of Holland Landing. Meanwhile YRT's route 52 runs roughly every hour from Holland Landing to Newmarket Bus Terminal.

By combining YRT's route 52 (Holland Landing - Newmarket Terminal) with GO's route 69 (Newmarket Terminal - Aurora GO), Holland Landing would then have direct access to the GO train via Newmarket Terminal, allowing GO's route 68 to blast non-stop down Highway 11 from East Gwillimbury station to Bradford station.

View attachment 131349

While the connecting buses themselves will not be as fast as a direct train or a direct bus, the fact that there are 3 north-south routes through Newmarket would means that this is somewhat offset by better coverage. In other words, although the bus takes longer, it takes you less time to get to the bus.

Many of the objections/negatives could have been reduced/eliminated by extending off-peak trains to East Gwillimbury (or Bradford, since that station already has 2 platforms. I'm guessing a passing track/siding would have been required north of Aurora. Was that ever contemplated before full double-tracking?

 

[reaperexpress]

PS - it would have been nice to have announced a second double tracking segment further north, allowing the 2-way hourly service to reach further. The Rutherford-York U segment was neither complex nor expensive. Why ML didn't push the plan further north from the beginning baffles me. Time wasted.

The double-track segment from York U to Rutherford was presumably prioritized because it was complex and expensive. It involved building a brand new bridge on a considerably widened embankment. In contrast, the rest of the double tracking south of Aurora doesn't require any significant infrastructure work other than the station upgrade projects already underway - all of the structures can already support at least two tracks.

Before (scaffolding is for the new bridge; on the right you can see how much wider the new embankment is):

After:

But I do agree that extending the hourly service further north would provide a very large benefit, and new sidings to enable that should be a high priority.

 

[reaperexpress]

Many of the objections/negatives could have been reduced/eliminated by extending off-peak trains to East Gwillimbury (or Bradford, since that station already has 2 platforms. I'm guessing a passing track/siding would have been required north of Aurora.

See my speculation on schedules from May here. (tl;dr: They equally could have run every 75 minutes to East Gwillimbury with the existing tracks, but hourly to East Gwillimbury is not possible at the moment. It would definitely be possible when the line is fully double-tracked to Aurora station)

 

[crs1026]

The double-track segment from York U to Rutherford was presumably prioritized because it was complex and expensive. It involved building a brand new bridge on a considerably widened embankment. In contrast, the rest of the double tracking south of Aurora doesn't require any significant infrastructure work other than the station upgrade projects already underway - all of the structures can already support at least two tracks.

I'm not so sure that even with this complexity, this relatively short stretch was the backbreaker of the route - let's see, for instance, what civil engineering challenges emerge up around the Holland Marsh - but even if they were, we have a contract let in 2015 and pretty well nothing since then. Except stations. If that was the longest lead time item, why has no other package of track expansion been procured since 2015?

The reality of the RER cash flow is, it really hasn't started yet. Ontario is certainly spending money on transit - TYSSE just got paid for, for instance, and there are shovels in the ground on other projects. The RER will kick in when money is available, and I'm not suggesting it should have kicked in sooner, given the other projects that were already in the pipeline with bills coming due. But that's what is so dishonest about the Liberals' communications..... talking about things as if they are already here, or just about to arrive, when it's going to be years before they are completed.

I admire the vision to get RER started, and it's hard to argue both sides at the same time (ie, the Liberals have created the impression that they are willing to spend recklessly enormous pots of money on transit, vs the Liberals aren't spending fast enough). But the total lack of exactitude and candour about what is coming and when, is the Liberals shooting themselves in their foot.

The ultimate vanity of politicians and their spin doctors is the belief that the truth will not out. Karma is a bitch, and yes the truth will out. People are pretty fed up with good news that doesn't have the ring of truth to it.

- Paul

 

[Megaton327]

Could you link some of the feeds for us? That would be great.

Sure. I don't really use twitter in the typical manner of following people, I have a bookmarks folder where I open a few feeds and read through them in some depth:
https://twitter.com/bradTTC/with_replies
https://twitter.com/hmacmillanbrown/with_replies
https://twitter.com/femwriter/with_replies
https://twitter.com/prestocard/with_replies
https://twitter.com/GOtransitBR/with_replies
https://twitter.com/gotransit/with_replies

These with_replies links include their responses to people who tweet at them. I don't bother with ttchelps due to the huge volume of tweets they issue+respond to, and the generally low quality of discourse/information in those tweets; brad+heather+AMA provide useful information not found elsewhere and GO's feed tends to be populated by people making more valid comments and having more interesting discussions with GO.

the rest of the double tracking south of Aurora doesn't require any significant infrastructure work other than the station upgrade projects already underway - all of the structures can already support at least two tracks.

Actually there is 1 remaining bridge in Aurora at Yonge St just south of Henderson Drive which I'm quite certain only supports 1 track and is scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of years. And naturally the Davenport Diamond is a major concern, they won't be bothering to double track that in the interim. Other than that I believe you're correct.

As far as I know the plan is for triple-tracking between Aurora and Union by ~2025 for RER so that the 60-minute-headway Barrie-Union trains can operate express south of Aurora while the 15-minute-headway Aurora-Union RER trains service all stops. But plans change and certainly every-15-minute service can be done with just 2 tracks, simply without express service.

 

[Megaton327]

I had the pleasure of riding the 4th train to service Downsview Park GO today, the 11:15 Allandale Waterfront - 12:53 Union Station, servicing Downsview Park GO at 12:31. Didn't get off at the station myself--looking forward to using it next week for a meeting at St George, though--but I noticed approximately 10 people get off the train there. 3 of them were rolling carry-on suitcases beside them. It occurs to me that this is a good way for transit riders living in Barrie to connect to Pearson Airport, either by taking Line 1 a mere 3 stops south to Yorkdale then transferring to GO's 34 Bus or by going 4 stops north to 407 and transferring to the GO 40 (longer ride, but as each bus is hourly on weekends one schedule or the other may have been more suitable to connect from the train+subway).

I've been taking these weekend Barrie Line trips pretty often for the past few years, I will note that both southbound and northbound we didn't have to stop and wait for the opposite-direction train while on the York U - Rutherford siding; stopping to wait was an extremely regular occurrence causing a 5 minute delay more often than not on the Maple - Kirby Rd. siding. Not sure if this is that much longer or if it was just luck of the draw, but I never once had a round trip occur without a stop at Kirby previously.

The southbound train was however delayed a good 5 minutes at the Davenport Diamond. That project really needs to get moving. I had a weekday northbound rush hour train recently get delayed a whopping 20 minutes there--not that I didn't enjoy the free ride, but +20 minutes on a scheduled ~55 minute trip is a bit much. I can't remember the last time we proceeded through without stopping for some amount of time or another, although I am not a daily rider.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Sure. I don't really use twitter in the typical manner of following people, I have a bookmarks folder where I open a few feeds and read through them in some depth:
https://twitter.com/bradTTC/with_replies
https://twitter.com/hmacmillanbrown/with_replies
https://twitter.com/femwriter/with_replies
https://twitter.com/prestocard/with_replies
https://twitter.com/GOtransitBR/with_replies
https://twitter.com/gotransit/with_replies

These with_replies links include their responses to people who tweet at them. I don't bother with ttchelps due to the huge volume of tweets they issue+respond to, and the generally low quality of discourse/information in those tweets; brad+heather+AMA provide useful information not found elsewhere and GO's feed tends to be populated by people making more valid comments and having more interesting discussions with GO.



Actually there is 1 remaining bridge in Aurora at Yonge St just south of Henderson Drive which I'm quite certain only supports 1 track and is scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of years. And naturally the Davenport Diamond is a major concern, they won't be bothering to double track that in the interim. Other than that I believe you're correct.

As far as I know the plan is for triple-tracking between Aurora and Union by ~2025 for RER so that the 60-minute-headway Barrie-Union trains can operate express south of Aurora while the 15-minute-headway Aurora-Union RER trains service all stops. But plans change and certainly every-15-minute service can be done with just 2 tracks, simply without express service.

Thank you! I agree with about the davenport diamond. Seems they were not planning for the tons of delays it has had.

 

[reaperexpress]

Actually there is 1 remaining bridge in Aurora at Yonge St just south of Henderson Drive which I'm quite certain only supports 1 track and is scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of years. And naturally the Davenport Diamond is a major concern, they won't be bothering to double track that in the interim. Other than that I believe you're correct.

Right, I don't know how I missed that one. And of course the Davenport Diamond goes without saying.

As far as I know the plan is for triple-tracking between Aurora and Union by ~2025 for RER so that the 60-minute-headway Barrie-Union trains can operate express south of Aurora while the 15-minute-headway Aurora-Union RER trains service all stops. But plans change and certainly every-15-minute service can be done with just 2 tracks, simply without express service.

I personally think that when they start looking at the work involved to for triple-tracking, the 15 local / 60 express will suddenly become 30 local / 60 express so it can fit on two tracks.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Could you link some of the feeds for us? That would be great.

If you'd like, here is a "transit" Twitter list that I made and monitor religiously.

 

[reaperexpress]

Maybe the coolest part of all this to me is that once we have Landsdowne and Caledonia, Barrie will basically be a Western Express connector from Union north that might even poach line 1 riders once fares are better integrated, a true network!

The Barrie Line is already poaching riders from Line 1 and it will only do so even more starting next week when GO Transit customers start getting 50% off TTC fares. Unfortunately, it's poaching the University leg of the line, rather than the overcrowded Yonge side.

The speed and comfort of the GO train are such that I've often taken the GO train where previously I would have ridden Line 1, and I have a Metropass so the price comparison was $5.02 vs $0.00! Once you've experienced getting from Union to Steeles in under 20 minutes, it's hard to go back to sitting on the subway and bus for an hour.

[EDITED BELOW - ORIGINAL POST HAD INCORRECT TIME FOR LINE 1]
Line 1 does Downsview Park to Union in 30 minutes, but the GO train does it in 18 minutes. Which means that if you're coming south on Line 1 headed to Union in the AM Peak, it's usually faster to get off at Downsview Park and transfer to the GO train. In the worst case scenario where you just miss the train and have to wait the full headway of the next train (15 minutes) you'd get to Union 5 minutes after the train you got off of, but on average you'd get there 3 minutes faster, and in the best case scenario you'd get there 10 minutes faster.
(Assuming 2 minutes to change platforms at Downsview Park)