Hamilton Confederation GO Station | ?m | 1s | Metrolinx

Milaisacat said:
Now that the rebuild of York Blvd. is basically done, is it going to make the QEW redundant for getting to Burlington?
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If you are coming off Hwy 6, Burlington or Aldershot will be faster than Hamilton or Comfederation. Goimg west to Hamilton Station will be faster than Confederation. Otherwise I have no clue where X is coming from to say York is faster than the QEW.
 
drum118 said:
If you are coming off Hwy 6, Burlington or Aldershot will be faster than Hamilton or Comfederation. Goimg west to Hamilton Station will be faster than Confederation. Otherwise I have no clue where X is coming from to say York is faster than the QEW.
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I think Milaisacat was making a joke statement that paralleled the reporter's question.
 
I tend to drive to Aldershot, from near Gage Park. When the westbound York was ripped up it was horrible (though necessary) and I often took my chances over the Skyway in the morning... or if I really felt like gambling it was Eastport across the lift bridge.

But I think it will take some time for it to be less convenient to drive to Burlington. The people who won't, at the start, will be those who primarily take transit and those who would rather not deal with the traffic stress. Days when there is an incident on the bridge will be hell for all commuters.
 
Went to Confederation GO on opening day, here is some photos I got of the station. While it is very nicely designed, it does feel very bare bones and basic. It has the main entrance from the bus terminal and parking lot with stairs and a ramp down to the tunnel, then 2 elevators and stairs up to the platform just east of the accessibility coach area. 1 of the elevators leads to the west side very close to the accessibility coach while the other one leads to the east side of the platform. The secondary, stairs only exit to the sidewalk of the bridge on Centennial Parkway is a bit further east on the platform, and even has its own Presto reader.

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the 1,000 light posts on the platform is a bit odd to me I have to say.

I'm not surprised it's a bit bare-bones, it will likely be fairly low ridership. I am annoyed they couldn't spring a few thousand bucks to make the pedestrian sidewalk areas concrete instead of asphalt though.
 
innsertnamehere said:
the 1,000 light posts on the platform is a bit odd to me I have to say.

I'm not surprised it's a bit bare-bones, it will likely be fairly low ridership. I am annoyed they couldn't spring a few thousand bucks to make the pedestrian sidewalk areas concrete instead of asphalt though.
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I agree the asphalt gives it a real cheap feel to it. The light posts could just be a safety feature at night given that people have been struck by GO Trains at other stations without much lighting. The other annoying thing is the lack of a third track means trains can only serve one side of the platform, so the platform kinda feels incomplete
 
Looks pretty good to me, I'll definitely be using the station quite a bit. I believe the bridge and platform were built to accomodate an extra track in the future if ridership warrants it, if you look at it on google maps its fairly wide.
 
It's got that idiotic T symbol instead of the GO symbol, grrr...

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innsertnamehere said:
the 1,000 light posts on the platform is a bit odd to me I have to say.

I'm not surprised it's a bit bare-bones, it will likely be fairly low ridership. I am annoyed they couldn't spring a few thousand bucks to make the pedestrian sidewalk areas concrete instead of asphalt though.
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I think it's only low ridership if Metrolinx makes it that way. Increasing frequency and reducing transit time to Toronto I'm sure would be a boost. I would much rather take the train than drive into Toronto most times these days. Not sure how much they can do about transit time. In comparison, a train from Greenwich CT to Manhattan is ~45-60 minutes and only about 12km less in distance than between confederation and union.
 
IamNotaRobot said:
I think it's only low ridership if Metrolinx makes it that way. Increasing frequency and reducing transit time to Toronto I'm sure would be a boost. I would much rather take the train than drive into Toronto most times these days. Not sure how much they can do about transit time. In comparison, a train from Greenwich CT to Manhattan is ~45-60 minutes and only about 12km less in distance than between confederation and union.
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Confederation is going to be battling the long travel time around Burlington Bay which will always limit ridership, especially for people coming off the QEW from the east. It takes nearly 30 minutes for the train to go around to Burlington GO - even in rush hour it is unusual for it to take that long to drive over the skyway outside of extreme events. Many will continue to drive to Burlington instead.

Cutting travel times, especially through Hamilton, would make it more competitive, but outside of peak rush hour it's just not really going to be able to compete with driving to Burlington GO which is typically only about a ~10 minute drive.
 
innsertnamehere said:
It takes nearly 30 minutes for the train to go around to Burlington GO - even in rush hour it is unusual for it to take that long to drive over the skyway outside of extreme events. Many will continue to drive to Burlington instead.
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Yeah, I know a few people who live in upper Stoney Creek who said they would just continue to take the Redhill down and go to the Burlington station - even if they have to contend with traffic... especially on the way home.

And even those in the east end who take the bus to catch the GO, Confederation may not be worth using - depending on where they live (assuming they aren't taking the train outside of rush hours).

I live close to King/Nash, and if were still taking the GO - I would take a bus down to the Hunter station. There's no point in trekking to Centennial to take a bus down to Confederation - and then pay a little more in train fare just to travel in the direction the Delaware bus was going in the first place.

Hopefully this station will get some ridership that's worth it, but I suspect it may take some time to see it as being worthwhile.
 
interchange42 said:
It's got that idiotic T symbol instead of the GO symbol, grrr...

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Metrolinx is now starting to use the ''T'' symbol at places where GO and local agencies connect, as the t stands for transit. Obviously Line 5 and 6 have it as you might know, but now also GO Bus stops and it looks like new GO Stations where there is local transit connections (so, almost all of them), going forward. The other thing also is there is still a GO symbol sign but it's all the way at the intersection to the station and not the main entrance building.
 
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IamNotaRobot said:
I think its only low ridership if Metrolinx makes it that way. Increasing frequency and reducing transit time to Toronto I'm sure would be a boost. I would much rather take the train than drive into Toronto most times these days. Not sure how much they can do about transit time. In comparison, a train from Greenwich CT to Manhattan is ~45-60 minutes and only about 12km less in distance than between confederation and union.
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Yes. And honestly on the first day, the station was busy enough even for the limited trains that will serve it for now, that just adding more service, would give it a boost. Obviously the travel time is also an issue but if it's not busy for now you can blame the lack of frequency.
 
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