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Peterborough Commuter Rail

A GO bus won't be a significant improvement to transit. There's already Greyhound service, so I don't see what good a GO bus will do. There's more demand for rail than people think, not only commuters but students and even tourists, a market that's basically ignored by rail in this country. VIA service (much more appropriate than GO) could really change how people travel in that area, something buses could never do.

I find it odd that a lot of people here have talked about building a new rail line to Orillia, but the same people oppose rail service to a city three times the size.

RedRocket191 said:
Peterborough is a Places to Grow Act growth centre. Intensification of downtown will occur regardless of this line being built. Any rampant greenfield development is Peterborough's failure to adequately implement its official plan.

I don't think the train is a bad idea. I think its a very good idea - but I think its best to run it down the 115/35 corridor to southeast durham region instead of across the Havelock sub, as you said.
Click to expand...
The Havelock sub parallels the 115 for much of its length, so all it would take to connect to the Lakeshore line is 20 km or so of new track near Bowmanville.
 
In previous posts I may have railed against this Peterborough idea, but I think a network of rail lines in Ontario would be a great idea. There should be a web of rail links across the province. Something in between GO and VIA. We could call it... Govia. Or Viago.
 
I'm with you, C.C.

I envision three tiers of service.

Local - DMUs stopping at every village along the line.
Regional - Higher capacity trains stopping at the major cities and towns.
Express - High Speed Rail, serves at only the most important cities.
 
^^^

You're reading my mind. ;)

Though I'm leery of GO or Metrolinx, which should only be concentrating on the GTAH, running services further and further out. There are plans to run GO Trains to Niagara, Peterborough, and Guelph with the implication that GO would eventually evolve into an Ontario-wide regional rail service. Meanwhile the on-time rate for the Lakeshore East GO Trains is in the 80s. I feel for my friend who lives in Whitby and works at Yonge/Eglinton, commuting by DRT bus/GO train/subway every day.

Some rush-hour trains to Guelph or Barrie should exist, but those should only be geared towards rush-hour service. Anything else will be a distraction to Metrolinx and GO from their key mandates.
 
urbanfan89 said:
^^^

You're reading my mind. ;)

Though I'm leery of GO or Metrolinx, which should only be concentrating on the GTAH, running services further and further out. There are plans to run GO Trains to Niagara, Peterborough, and Guelph with the implication that GO would eventually evolve into an Ontario-wide regional rail service. Meanwhile the on-time rate for the Lakeshore East GO Trains is in the 80s. I feel for my friend who lives in Whitby and works at Yonge/Eglinton, commuting by DRT bus/GO train/subway every day.

Some rush-hour trains to Guelph or Barrie should exist, but those should only be geared towards rush-hour service. Anything else will be a distraction to Metrolinx and GO from their key mandates.
Click to expand...

I was on a Burlington Train Friday at Midday and we were 10 minute late getting into Burlington to the point I miss my bus and had to take a cab to get to my meeting. We had to wait for a VIA train before we could cross from track 1 to 3. The VIA train then was held at Burlington on track 2 waiting for the GO train that was to go onto track 4 at Aldershot so it could use track 3.

On Tuesday after a meeting, I stop off and did some photo/video of Bathurst St bridge and a train sat close to 10 minutes at the mouth of the fly under waiting for 2 trains to arrived before allow to proceed.

Both cases were dispatching problems.

Thursday saw a train been cancel due to equipment problems.

How far GO will go is going to be interesting. It will kill most VIA routes if it goes as far as plan.
 
@urbanfan

We could use the London model. Within Greater London, passengers can use the national rail trains with the same fares as the underground.

VIA Ontario (or whatever we decide to call it) could set the schedules, while Metrolinx handles the stations and the tickets within the GTAH. Someone comming from Guelph, for example, could take a rush hour GO train into the city, and a VIA Ontario train to get back to Guelph if its more convenient for him. His GO ticket would be honoured.
 
RedRocket191 said:
@urbanfan

We could use the London model. Within Greater London, passengers can use the national rail trains with the same fares as the underground.

VIA Ontario (or whatever we decide to call it) could set the schedules, while Metrolinx handles the stations and the tickets within the GTAH. Someone comming from Guelph, for example, could take a rush hour GO train into the city, and a VIA Ontario train to get back to Guelph if its more convenient for him. His GO ticket would be honoured.
Click to expand...

That system already exists for passholders.
 
unimaginative2 said:
That system already exists for passholders.
Click to expand...

Not quite. VIA will sell you 10 rides for between $50 and $100 if you have a valid GO monthly or 10-ride. A VIA monthly pass or 10-ride ticket is $100 more than the equivalent GO ticket.

I'm proposing that VIA Ontario accept GO fares without having to pay an upgrade. GO could then pay VIA Ontario the difference.

Now, there are some legal restrictions with VIA making funding agreements with the provinces. Unless that is sorted out, then what I have described as VIA Ontario would have to be a division of GO.
 
Well GO Transit stands for Government of ONTARIO Transit, not "GTA Transit". So I see nothing wrong with it's mandate covering the whole province. But the intercity trains might need to be run separately from the commuter system.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Well GO Transit stands for Government of ONTARIO Transit, not "GTA Transit". So I see nothing wrong with it's mandate covering the whole province. But the intercity trains might need to be run separately from the commuter system.
Click to expand...

In the past it did.

Now it's the "Greater Toronto Transit Authority" (not to be confused the Metrolinx, aka, the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority). The acronym "GO" is therefore meaningless.

If Queen's Park wants to create a province-wide rail system, it must be separate from the GO system or Metrolinx will be distracted.
 
Though I think the idea of rail to Peterborough is not a bad one, I am glad nonetheless to see this quickly conceived idea disappear. Just reading through the last page and the comments about dealing with GO and VIA and fares and how to organize service there are quite a few fairly large problems that need to be addressed when it comes to service to areas such as Peterborough, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, perhaps even Niagara Falls; basically areas that start to lie outside of what most would consider an acceptable length of time on a GO train.

I actually hope that beyond keeping service at its current level, maybe some increased capactity, that intercity rail is given a long, detailed look before any major investments are made. It would be a shame to start throwing money at it without developing a set of plans that actually makes sense for society and travel today, not what it was in the 70's, and 80's. VIA as a whole is becoming less and less effective and relevant and I think, as some have said, splitting it into divisions, such as VIA Tourist and VIA Quebec-Windsor as one example, would be one good start. Putting some control in the hands of the provinces is also another idea that should be considered, along with some cooperation with the private sector.

Though some will say otherwise I am an advocate of rail travel. I would simply prefer that when substantial investments are made they actually works towards creating a modern, forward thinking rail system that also takes into account the specific needs and preferences of Canadians and the type of urban development we have, and are experiencing. Just like transit in Ottawa, I would much rather that half baked ideas are killed and wait a few more years for intelligent and visionary plans than watch as ideas from decades past are simply recycled.
 
VIA needs to set up a provincial partnership program like Amtrak is doing with some US states. Ontario Northland would be the most obvious candidate to be taken over by VIA with a provincial subsidy. I would like to also like to see VIA partner with commuter rail organizations to have a single brand and ticketing system. I like the idea of separating VIA into different divisions with completely different budgets:

VIA Canada - the cross Canada system with sleepers and remote areas
VIA Express - the future high-speed division
VIA Regional - the corridor services, ontario northland, Vancouver island, and to run Lethbridge-Calgary-Edmonton-Ft McMurray routes where the goal is to at least be competitive with the speed of a bus providing a real transportation alternative
VIA Metro - GO Transit, West Coast Express, AMT and future metropolitan area rail.

VIA Canada could be operated solely by the federal government. VIA Express could be a 50/50 federal provincial partnership with those provinces that benefit. VIA Regional could be run by the federal government and provinces would contribute to enhance the current base service level on a 50/50 basis. VIA Metro could be run by local agencies as the existing systems are now but the federal government would provide some financial support.

Such a system would give a single brand to promote greater awareness, a single ticketing system, and greater integration across the network. I don't imagine that many people living near a GO station would travel from that station when travelling on VIA simply because they aren't integrated eventhough a ticket could be purchased separately on each.
 
^I don't know if I would seperate VIA into that many divisions but some seperation does need to happen. The most obvious being the corridor and the rest of the VIA service which I would probably classify as tourist services.

VIA Metro is not a bad idea; at the very least fare integration does need to be a medium term goal at most. The problem with implementing that sort of integration at this time is that trying to co-ordinate GO/AMT and VIA schedules to make connections that would make combining the two services a feasible choice just doesn't seem likely. At best passenger rail is lucky if they can avoid too many delays from freight without adding in any other factors. One option in terms of passenger services that might also be worth looking at are electronic tickets (think reloadable cards) that would allow someone to buy tickets online and have it automatically transferred to an account so that you could avoid even the need to print tickets.

Long term though, the whole concept of passenger rail travel, be it super commuters or intercity, really needs to be planned from the ground up. It doesn't have to be ultra revolutionary like Maglev, but the technological advances, obviously best seen in Europe, in the past two decades, and the total neglect of passenger rail here, really provides the perfect opportunity to do it big, and do it right, from the start. I think proposals at this point are less interesting then some of the questions you can ask about passeneger rail. Just using the Peterborough line as an example.

- How long are people willing to spend on a train to commute?
- How much will it cost?
- How big is the market for this service?
- Where do they want to go? Is it just downtown? What about Pearson or contuing elsewhere into Ontario?
- What level of comfort do people want?
- Is frequency important? Would a service with more departures on smaller trains be more heavily used? If so, what investment needs to be done on mainlines to make such frequencies possible?
- Is this only going to benefit well off super commuters or can a wide segment of society gain from such a line?
- What has changed since service was last in place and since the last real proposal?

Once you ask this about not only this line, but any others you can think of, and then add in questions about the network as a whole, the list of questions become longer and more complex. This is why I think that there needs to be a rethinking of passenger rail and more relevant ideas and concepts put forward before serious investments are made.
 
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