[Coolibop]

Maybe someone has been reading this thread and this announcement will be for it.

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

@Allandale25 over in the Scarborough subway thread posted the scoop.

It's for ground breaking for the new line 2 subway stations.

 

[cplchanb]

@Allandale25 over in the Scarborough subway thread posted the scoop.

It's for ground breaking for the new line 2 subway stations.

awww man.... hopefully someone smart enough will ask about the highland creek bridge and the completion of the stoufville double tracking though im not optimistic.

 

[crs1026]

On closer examination, I note that Woodbine is captioned as "GO & UP Station".... UP has floated in and out of the scope for this station. Today, it's in.

- Paul

 

[dowlingm]

re Stouffville - I don't see the Markham Indy as making any difference to the scheduling of the bridge work at issue compared to previously. It's surely up to the organizers and the Town of Markham to ensure their venue has sufficient transportation capacity in place regardless of future improvements.

 

[Garuda]

On closer examination, I note that Woodbine is captioned as "GO & UP Station".... UP has floated in and out of the scope for this station. Today, it's in.

- Paul

At this point UP Express should be renamed “UP Local”. I’m glad these neighborhoods are getting more service like Woodbine, Weston, and Mount Pleasant but at some point you can’t service everyone on an airport link train.

 

[reaperexpress]

At this point UP Express should be renamed “UP Local”. I’m glad these neighborhoods are getting more service like Woodbine, Weston, and Mount Pleasant but at some point you can’t service everyone on an airport link train.

That's true but if we're going to drop stops to maintain an express service, I'd drop Weston rather than Woodbine. Weston is primarily used to get to Union Station, so it can easily be replaced by more frequent GO local service. Woodbine, on the other hand, would serve as a very useful transfer point to enable people from Kitchener, Guelph, Georgetown and Brampton to get to the airport. And if someone does want to get from Weston to the airport they can transfer at Woodbine.

GO seems to be in favour of just using UP as the local service, based on the track plans that show a pair of local tracks on the south side and a pair of express tracks on the north side of the corridor, as well as several conceptual service plans that show Airport trains making most stops. I think that's fine, since it's more important to have express service on the trips heading all the way to Kitchener (or possibly further). I think "GO Transit Airport Line" would be an intuitive renaming.

 

[APTA-2048]

There is literally amounts of salt year round at some stations. It’s so stupid and bad for the environment. I’m pretty sure it killed all the trees at Pickering GO Station too.

To my surprise, new trees have been planted this week. They’re American hornbeam. I hope these ones don’t die.

 

[Northern Light]

To my surprise, new trees have been planted this week. They’re American hornbeam. I hope these ones don’t die.

If salt was the issue, these are a horrible choice.

Salt tolerance for trees comes in two types.

Aerosol or what a tree can tolerate in spray on its leaves/buds etc.

And soil salt tolerance (what its roots can abide).

American hornbeam aerosol salt tolerance is rated: None. That's pretty unambiguous, while its soil salt rating is Poor.

 

[PShells]

The latest LSE Joint Corridor CLC suggests the retaining walls/berm will be complete by the end of 2025. Additionally, the Dundas and Logan bridges will be in good shape by year end if not completed by the spring.

The Queen bridge for GO is already complete, but the OL bridge over Queen will be built apart of the station.

Given the fourth track east of Logan has begun construction and is expected to enter service for the purpose of a makeshift layover facility next spring is there any hope of returning the third track to service? I’m assuming the desire to install a temporary switch is nil, but even if the third track is operational east of Logan (currently storing railroad equipment) that should allow increased service? Or does the third track need to be installed all the way to the USRC?

I’m assuming Metrolinx doesn’t have a moment of clarity in agreeing with Reaper’s analysis suggesting the third/fourth tracks aren’t needed for additional trains.

Related to fourth track discussion, the fourth track bridges over Woodbine, Warden and Danforth look “complete” including ballast recently being laid.

 

[Coolibop]

To my surprise, new trees have been planted this week. They’re American hornbeam. I hope these ones don’t die.

I've been hounding the City for some months now to get rid of the 'pylon trees'...happy to see movement...however...

If salt was the issue, these are a horrible choice.

Salt tolerance for trees comes in two types.

Aerosol or what a tree can tolerate in spray on its leaves/buds etc.

And soil salt tolerance (what its roots can abide).

American hornbeam aerosol salt tolerance is rated: None. That's pretty unambiguous, while its soil salt rating is Poor.

...this has me concerned as the over usage of rock salt around this station was also on my list of complaints.........

Now if I can only get someone to replace the faded Go signs all around the station (many look like blank white signs)...I've been struggling getting traction on this one...still trying.

 

[reaperexpress]

I’m assuming Metrolinx doesn’t have a moment of clarity in agreeing with Reaper’s analysis suggesting the third/fourth tracks aren’t needed for additional trains.

No, in fact just yesterday I received the following response from GO Transit Customer Care to my comment to them asking why there are no express trains given that the third track is still in service between Guildwood and Danforth:

To ensure the safe and efficient completion of this phase of construction for East Harbour transit hub and the Ontario Line, the third track on the Lakeshore East GO line has been taken out of service. The third track allows for express trains to pass all-stop trains, so the removal of this track means that Lakeshore East express trains are suspended. Metrolinx is always balancing current service impacts with work that will enable future service increases and new transit - removing the third track means that we can avoid more impactful, full track closures to complete this work. Although we do not have specific details as to when the express train service will resume however, we recommend that you keep an eye on our Service Updates page for upcoming changes to our schedules.

So even when my comment explicitly called out lies in their form letter, they still sent that same form letter back to me.

To be clear:
- It is not true that "the third track on the Lakeshore East GO line has been taken out of service". The third track is only out of service between Union and Danforth, a segment that doesn't contain any stations and therefore has fairly similar travel times between local and express service.
- It is not necessary for express trains to be able to overtake. The pre-pandemic schedule had hardly any overtakes to begin with - local service was only every 30 minutes so the express trains had room ahead of them to not catch up to the previous local. That said, the post-pandemic 15-minute local service is nice to keep, in which case an overtaking location would be needed to enable full-speed express operations.

 

[Bojaxs]

At this point UP Express should be renamed “UP Local”. I’m glad these neighborhoods are getting more service like Woodbine, Weston, and Mount Pleasant but at some point you can’t service everyone on an airport link train.

All these stupid "smart track" stations proposed by John Tory. If Toronto had actually built out it's subway network, we wouldn't have to add all these stations on the GO network in Toronto. Extending the trips and making the trains less competitive with driving.

How about we extend the Ontario line up to Mt. Dennis with a station at St. Clair Ave before we seriously consider building ANOTHER GO station on the Kitchener line in Toronto at St. Clair?

Is the UP express going to be stopping at St. Clair and Liberty Village as well when those stations get built?

And yes, I would still be making the same argument even if the trains were electrified.

Adding more stops on the Stouffville line seems foolish when the trains are already incredibly slow on this line, and we can't even widen the line to accommodate 3 tracks to allow for express service.

I support Bloor- Lansdowne, and Caledonia, because the Barrie line's only stop in Toronto is Downsview, which is too far from Union and riders on the Barrie lien should have easy access to the Bloor and Eglinton lines. I'll support East Harbour, but the trains will probably travel very slow between this station and Union. Similar to Exhibition and Union on the LSW line.

Not building the Eglinton West subway line continues to haunt Toronto. The line was intended to extend to Pearson. Could we have extended it one stop further to Malton GO and have a direct subway connection between Pearson and the Kitchener line?

 

[crs1026]

Given the fourth track east of Logan has begun construction and is expected to enter service for the purpose of a makeshift layover facility next spring is there any hope of returning the third track to service? I’m assuming the desire to install a temporary switch is nil, but even if the third track is operational east of Logan (currently storing railroad equipment) that should allow increased service? Or does the third track need to be installed all the way to the USRC?

Even once the roadbed is completed, I'm dubious (well, pessimistic) that we will see the third track resumed anytime soon for a couple of reasons

- the method of construction ML has adopted (wisely) requires complete physical separation of operating trains from construction activities. That's why the is so much use of jersey barrier walls. The point being, there may be places where OL construction needs use of the space (for craning, excavation, or whatever) and until those clearance/space needs have passed, the OL work will be given priority.

- so far, many of the signal gantries remain only three tracks wide. It's not a hugely difficult task to replace them.....if.... the signalling is unchanged. But if the signalling is being upgraded (again, wisely) then that work enters the critical path, and we don't know how far along its design has progressed.

- Construction of East Harbour may prevent connecting trackage until all the platform construction has reached a certain point, and that will take a while (see - Bloor Station/Randolph)

Hoping it is otherwise, but here we are.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

Right now the trains are not hourly, and buses aren't timed with the trains.

The question I was answering was whether Guelph Transit could be an effective way of getting to and from the station in the future when hourly train service is introduced.

The city has been pretty resistant to big change and i dont see them reconfiguring all the schedules to sync with trains when the vast majority of existing riders are within guelph and can benifit more from the existing schedules that have a few timed transfers in suburban areas.

On most routes, shifting a schedule by a few minutes to align with a GO train has no negative impact on travel within Guelph. The routes already go to the train station and the frequencies are already even multiples of the train frequency. Having a pulsed service is actually beneficial for transfers between Guelph Transit routes even for passengers who aren't taking the train.

The one case where shifting the schedule could impact local travel is where there are timed transfers in the suburbs between two routes that both depart from Guelph Central. If only one of them departs from Central, the other one can be shifted to maintain the timed transfer, so that's not an issue.

Even if two routes from Guelph Central have a timed transfer to each other in the suburbs, one of them can still be timed to meet GO trains.

Im also not convinced the streets up to the downtown station could handle the traffic if most bus routes were to come into and leave the station at the same time. There are lots of tight blocks and signals. Increasing frequencies on core routes as is planned (lets hope its implemented) helps the issue on core routes while providing other benefits

Well if every bus leaves at once that's 20 buses spread across 3 intersections, which is on average 7 per intersection.

But it's not like every bus would leave at once anyway. Frequent routes like the 99 would not be timed to meet GO trains, some routes would be timed for train arrivals while others are timed for departures.

And even within a given pulse, the departures can be staggered over the span of a couple minutes. That's probably a good idea regardless of traffic since the further bus bays take longer to walk to from the train platform.

So in total we'd be looking at a couple buses per minute per intersection in the most ambitious pulsed service scenario.

 

[PShells]

From the Sep 11 Board Capital Projects Report

Metrolinx has identified a segment of the RH line to pilot ETCS Level 2. Early works begin in late 2025.

I can’t recall if it’s in this thread or the Ontario Line thread, but there’s a mention of converting the existing berm at East Harbour into a bridge over Broadview for the new road and street car extension.