[anb]

I've just checked out most of those changes and sadly they are largely the same except for some seasonal summer services. They also must be forgotten on restoring pre-pandemic service on the 16 QEW bus to fully 7 days a week including rush hours. That route has been very popular that it just goes non stop between toronto and hamilton and riders prefer that route because they don't make stops in between!

It’s probably the mindset of them thinking that all day service to West Harbour is sufficient enough for most Toronto-Hamilton riders. Obviously that isn’t the case as the station is still a 20 min walk from the downtown and the train ride itself is currently almost 90 mins.

 

[Bordercollie]

It’s probably the mindset of them thinking that all day service to West Harbour is sufficient enough for most Toronto-Hamilton riders. Obviously that isn’t the case as the station is still a 20 min walk from the downtown and the train ride itself is currently almost 90 mins.

It could be faster if they had every third train run express to Clarkson or port credit.

 

[tsm1072]

It’s probably the mindset of them thinking that all day service to West Harbour is sufficient enough for most Toronto-Hamilton riders. Obviously that isn’t the case as the station is still a 20 min walk from the downtown and the train ride itself is currently almost 90 mins.

If they ran the train as a super-express only stopping in Burlington, Oakville, Port Credit, Exhibition, and Union, expect the trip could cut down to close to 60 minutes. That align with improved HSR service to West Harbour (as planned) should make it a pretty good hub for Hamilton with connections both to Toronto and St. Catherine's/Niagara.

 

[ownthesky]

It’s probably the mindset of them thinking that all day service to West Harbour is sufficient enough for most Toronto-Hamilton riders. Obviously that isn’t the case as the station is still a 20 min walk from the downtown and the train ride itself is currently almost 90 mins.

Hamilton's plan once LRT gets into the ground is to use West Harbour as the downtown bus hub with buses arriving and leaving West Harbour every few minutes and then scooting down James St. Essentially, if you need to get down James St into the core of Hamilton's dense area, you will not need to wait at all because of the dozen parallel bus routes using it as a corridor. With fair integration, people are obviously welcome to walk, but a free bus that is arriving every few minutes will be a good offer. Ditto when the tram is running every few minutes upon reaching King.

Eventually feeding the entire mountain suburbs' bus lines into West Harbour, as the city wants to do, could also be a compelling option for folks that want to skip the ever-worsening LINC->403->Aldershot commute.

 

[Sunnyside]

Hamilton's plan once LRT gets into the ground is to use West Harbour as the downtown bus hub with buses arriving and leaving West Harbour every few minutes and then scooting down James St. Essentially, if you need to get down James St into the core of Hamilton's dense area, you will not need to wait at all because of the dozen parallel bus routes using it as a corridor. With fair integration, people are obviously welcome to walk, but a free bus that is arriving every few minutes will be a good offer. Ditto when the tram is running every few minutes upon reaching King.

Eventually feeding the entire mountain suburbs' bus lines into West Harbour, as the city wants to do, could also be a compelling option for folks that want to skip the ever-worsening LINC->403->Aldershot commute.

It is a good plan, I will give it that. But it will unquestionably make James (and by extension, Upper James) a matter of discussion for transit improvement. The street is already a key auto corridor, for better or worse, and a significant number of bus routes already use James for getting to MacNab Terminal and Hunter St GO. I would say shut it down to cars and make it one transit-only lane in each direction (with wider sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements), but realistically speaking, It's going to bring the A-Line into the fold. You won't be able to cram all downtown buses, plus cars and trucks, onto James without some infrastructure. Making West Harbour the hub is still the right move, but adding the LRT into the fold will push James to the limit.

Without diverting discussion too much, what to do on James street is a difficult question unto itself, but it affects regional travel to and from Hamilton. And I can say that I'm not the only one who has concerns about whether we can implement any sort of A-Line, so this is not just pure speculation: Surface RT is not a very practical option. Transit-only lanes will compromise automobiles, even if it's only on James for all the feeder routes. But, if you grade-separate to avoid that (or even stomach the lane reduction and just use LRT for trunk capacity), you'd have to go all-in and climb the escarpment to intercept those mountain routes before they go down the Jolley Cut. So it's either a half-measure in the core that will see major pushback, or an extremely expensive option we go all-in on. Or, of course, do nothing- but as I've said, that won't do for very long.

 

[Bordercollie]

Why is it that the transit apps don't mention the Hamilton express as an option to get from Hamilton to Union station?

 

[ownthesky]

It is a good plan, I will give it that. But it will unquestionably make James (and by extension, Upper James) a matter of discussion for transit improvement. The street is already a key auto corridor, for better or worse, and a significant number of bus routes already use James for getting to MacNab Terminal and Hunter St GO. I would say shut it down to cars and make it one transit-only lane in each direction (with wider sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements), but realistically speaking, It's going to bring the A-Line into the fold. You won't be able to cram all downtown buses, plus cars and trucks, onto James without some infrastructure. Making West Harbour the hub is still the right move, but adding the LRT into the fold will push James to the limit.

Without diverting discussion too much, what to do on James street is a difficult question unto itself, but it affects regional travel to and from Hamilton. And I can say that I'm not the only one who has concerns about whether we can implement any sort of A-Line, so this is not just pure speculation: Surface RT is not a very practical option. Transit-only lanes will compromise automobiles, even if it's only on James for all the feeder routes. But, if you grade-separate to avoid that (or even stomach the lane reduction and just use LRT for trunk capacity), you'd have to go all-in and climb the escarpment to intercept those mountain routes before they go down the Jolley Cut. So it's either a half-measure in the core that will see major pushback, or an extremely expensive option we go all-in on. Or, of course, do nothing- but as I've said, that won't do for very long.

The secret sauce for the city's plan is that most of the buses will actually enter West Harbour from the West by taking Bay St via Cannon, avoiding the narrowest section of James that, as you point out, will otherwise require a massive infrastructure overhaul. In this way, only the Southbound bus traffic will need to be accommodated through the historic Art Crawl chokepoint.

 

[Allandale25]

Provincial guidelines needed before Durham can raise cash for new GO stations, says region

Durham region is asking Queen's Park for a crucial go-ahead as the Bowmanville GO train extension continues. This comes nearly two years after the province p

www.durhamradionews.com

On Wednesday, officials warned that revenue could be on the line.

“In Clarington, we have developers that might be impacted by this, that are in front of the [Ontario Land Tribunal],” said Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster. “If the OLT gets to this before the province gets to this, there could be a significant impact on the fees that are collected to provide those stations.”

“We had a promise that this was going to be done prior to the end of 2024,” he added. “We haven’t seen it. We need to light a fire under the appropriate individuals to get those [regulations] passed, because the potential financial impact to Durham Region – if this does not happen fast enough – is significant.”

“The province needs to understand that there is an urgency to this,” added Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter.

 

[WB62]

Surprised nobody’s talked about it yet.

Today is the anniversary of GO Trebuchet. GO Trebuchet was proposed on the 1st of April, 1400AD by the Government of Ontario to provide safe and fast transit service across the General Toronto Area using Ontario-designed people-launching trebuchet's.

This line was never built.

 

[reaperexpress]

Surprised nobody’s talked about it yet.

Today is the anniversary of GO Trebuchet. GO Trebuchet was proposed on the 1st of April, 1400AD by the Government of Ontario to provide safe and fast transit service across the General Toronto Area using Ontario-designed people-launching trebuchet's.

This line was never built.

View attachment 640872

Although the Iroquian government may have first proposed the trebuchet in 1400, it wasn't until the 1700s that the Crown established the Urban Trebuchet Development Corporation

 

[Sauga89]

Although the Iroquian residents may have first proposed the trebuchet in 1400, it wasn't until the 1700s that the Crown established the Urban Trebuchet Development Corporation

The Trebuchet Development Corporation approved the plans for the Trebuchet after 10 years of exhaustive studies, despite opposition over the 5 trees which would have to be cut down to build the Trebuchet. However, the Corporation's repeated studies had consumed all of the funds allocated for the Trebuchet, and so construction was deferred until new funding could be secured.

 

[crs1026]

An early implementation of the Trebuchet technology was attempted in Scarborough, but after several decades of useful service, it reached end of life.... and after an extensive and circuitous debate by the Crown and numerous court jesters, the machinery eventually wore out and was not replaced.
The three occupants of its final unsuccessful projection all survived, without injury.

- Paul

 

[Bojaxs]

I rode the Stouffville line today from Kennedy to Unionville. Some thoughts;

The train was horribly slow the entire time. Averaging 45-50km/h. What's the reason for this?

The noise walls are horrendous. Every time I ride this line they seem to get more covered in graffiti. The walls ruin the view while looking out the window and block out the sun if you're riding on the lower level of the coaches. I just wonder why MX had to go through the trouble of installing these noise walls on the Stouffville line, but no such walls exist on the LSW line. Particularly through Mississauga where people's backyards back against the tracks? On the LSW line, MX simply used black, chainmail fences to divide people's properties from the tracks.

There is work going on at Finch Ave. Couldn't tell if it was for the RER station or grade separation.

Sometimes I wonder if my complaints about the other lines comes form the fact that I'm spoilt from being a regular LSW rider. But in all honesty, I just want to see all the other lines brought up to par with the Lakeshore lines.

Once at Unionville, I rode the GO bus back to Oakville. I'm 38 years old, and every time I get on a GO bus I'm always made to feel like one of the oldest riders. There's a lot of young people that rely on the GO buses. Lots of students.

 

[Bordercollie]

I rode the Stouffville line today from Kennedy to Unionville. Some thoughts;

The train was horribly slow the entire time. Averaging 45-50km/h. What's the reason for this?

The noise walls are horrendous. Every time I ride this line they seem to get more covered in graffiti. The walls ruin the view while looking out the window and block out the sun if you're riding on the lower level of the coaches. I just wonder why MX had to go through the trouble of installing these noise walls on the Stouffville line, but no such walls exist on the LSW line. Particularly through Mississauga where people's backyards back against the tracks? On the LSW line, MX simply used black, chainmail fences to divide people's properties from the tracks.

There is work going on at Finch Ave. Couldn't tell if it was for the RER station or grade separation.

Sometimes I wonder if my complaints about the other lines comes form the fact that I'm spoilt from being a regular LSW rider. But in all honesty, I just want to see all the other lines brought up to par with the Lakeshore lines.

Once at Unionville, I rode the GO bus back to Oakville. I'm 38 years old, and every time I get on a GO bus I'm always made to feel like one of the oldest riders. There's a lot of young people that rely on the GO buses. Lots of students.

The noise walls are there to dampen the noise from the houses. When you go from 6 trains a day in each direction to every 15 minutes people are going to notice the noise more.

 

[crs1026]

I rode the Stouffville line today from Kennedy to Unionville. Some thoughts;

The train was horribly slow the entire time. Averaging 45-50km/h. What's the reason for this?

The noise walls are horrendous. Every time I ride this line they seem to get more covered in graffiti. The walls ruin the view while looking out the window and block out the sun if you're riding on the lower level of the coaches. I just wonder why MX had to go through the trouble of installing these noise walls on the Stouffville line, but no such walls exist on the LSW line. Particularly through Mississauga where people's backyards back against the tracks? On the LSW line, MX simply used black, chainmail fences to divide people's properties from the tracks.

There is work going on at Finch Ave. Couldn't tell if it was for the RER station or grade separation.

Sometimes I wonder if my complaints about the other lines comes form the fact that I'm spoilt from being a regular LSW rider. But in all honesty, I just want to see all the other lines brought up to par with the Lakeshore lines.

Welcome to RER !

You are indeed accustomed to what has always been a heavy main line, rather than a sleepy branch line,

The Stouffville line is about the slowest on the system, zone speed from Scarborough to just north of Agincourt is only 40 mph - has not been higher in the last 20 years. North of that the zone speed is 50 mph. I have seen no indication that there is a plan to raise speeds when construction ends someday. As there is no express GO or VIA service on this line, you won’t see 60 mph + ever happening.

The sound walls are a good thing, but yes the charm of riding along and looking into all the backyards is gone. It's pretty close to riding on a subway these days. We have discussed how the walls might be softened and graffitti discouraged, but so far ML has not taken me up on my offer of cuttings from the indestructible ivy in my garden that I can't kill.

- Paul