Metrolinx buys Toronto-Barrie CN rail line

[toraerach]

Whether its for freight or passenger service, you'll still get people like k10ery and others on here who will criticize GO for leapfrogging the greenbelt and encouraging sprawl etc etc. We've all heard it many times. It doesn't matter how many cars it takes off the road, because it's encouraging sprawl. Yawn.

It depends on what kind of service is offered. If it's a daily commuter service between Collingwood/Wasaga Beach and Toronto with a couple inbound trains in the morning and a couple outbound trains in the evening, then it could of course encourage sprawl. If it's a seasonal tourist service (similar to last summer's Niagara Falls service), I doubt it will cause massive sprawl.

The 3-7 hour (one-way!) Greyhound trip from Toronto to Wasaga Beach encourages nothing but a dependence on the car. If we want to take cars of the road and pump some major dollars into local economies that depend on tourism, a GO connection to Collingwood/Blue Mountain/Wasaga is a no-brainer. If you don't want sprawl, don't zone for it - just don't use it as an excuse to keep reliable transit out of communities that could benefit extremely from it. That's assuming that people actually would take the train up there - something that will obviously have to be studied before we through money at a project. A train would work for day-trippers and for people who are staying in town, but it will not take many cottagers off the roads. The key is finding out whether those day-trippers could support the service.

 

[ShonTron]

GO really should, now that it's in a empire-building mode, take over the old PMCL operations of Greyhound, and at least operate a proper commuter and reverse-commute bus service connecting with the Barrie express buses and trains. It would be a lot of work to bring the Barrie-Collingwood Railway up to reasonable standards, and would still not be able to serve Wasaga that well. But a GO bus network going all the way to Blue Mountain to the west (and perhaps even Meaford, Owen Sound), and serving Collingwood, Wasaga, Midland/Pentang, Angus, Tottenham and Alliston out of a northern hub in Barrie isn't a bad idea.

It would certainly also benefit seasonal tourism workers as well as commuters, people going for medical appointments in larger centres, budget travellers, etc.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Again, I think Go should really be focusing on the real inner city urban transport through the GGH. That's what they've become; a regional transit system. If we want a government service to serve rural and intercity travel, we can make that, but it'd be very inefficient if Go starts branching their service out everywhere.

 

[k10ery]

Whether its for freight or passenger service, you'll still get people like k10ery and others on here who will criticize GO for leapfrogging the greenbelt and encouraging sprawl etc etc. We've all heard it many times. It doesn't matter how many cars it takes off the road, because it's encouraging sprawl. Yawn.

How odd; I didn't say that at all. I suggested it is nonsensical to argue for subsidizing employment (or indeed sprawl) to improve the economics of regional rail. That is a far cry from saying we shouldn't subsidize regional rail. If you weren't yawning so much maybe you could think more logically.