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Canadian Urbanism Uncovered

5 comments

  1. If Metrolinx considers an express line with no intermediate stops to be important, then we have a problem.

  2. Does B22 – as least as previously proposed – serve people north of Richmond St? No. A Weston stop would help but what does it connect with beyond the local MPP’s retention of her seat? What’s actually needed is a stop at Bloor GO, so people from midtown and east Toronto/East York don’t have to hike to Kipling on the TTC!

    Does B22 serve the growth areas of the GTA – i.e. the 905? No. Who in their right mind would get a GO train to Weston to backtrack to Pearson.

    Does B22 serve Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge/Guelph/London? No.

    A GO/VIA station at Woodbine would achieve all these objectives, assuming that the people mover was extended upgraded from a swishy ride better placed at Canada’s Wonderland to something with more than one vehicle per side not entirely slaved to serving an monster airport car park.

    An Eglinton-Airport Road-Brampton link should be *as well as*, not *instead of* the GO link.

    The next objective should be improving the rail line to London with 160km/h double track – god forbid we lay 350km/h, this is Canada – to eliminate the multiple flights per day Air Canada sends there.

    Tomorrow there will be more flights from Pearson to London Airport (10 each way, 172km by road) than from the Island Airport to Ottawa Airport (7 each way, 444km by road). That is nothing short of a scandal. 7 flights each way to Kingston (266km). How many VIA services right now from Brampton? Three outward, three back at huge spacings and 2hr30min journey times – about 65km/h journey speed, and you’re still 23km from the airport!

    http://www.viarail.ca/pdf/2008/timetable/TRTO-LOND-SARNIA-CORR-5MAI08.pdf

    According to the BBC, Air France is talking to Veolia about running its own TGVs from Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2 to replace regional flights – Air Canada should be looking to partner with VIA or with another operator to run trains to London, then Kingston and ultimately Ottawa/Montreal.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7489483.stm

  3. Amen, brother, to every Mark Dowling said.

  4. I was under the impression that it would stop at Bloor or am I thinking of the GO plan instead ?

  5. scott d – I went back to the original Transport Canada announcement after your post and you’re right, that does mention a Bloor stop.
    http://www.tc.gc.ca/mediaroom/images/bigmap.jpg

    However, it obviously had no Weston stop and lists Woodbine station as optional which is usually a dubious addendum in government documents. I would certainly hope that any stop in Weston would not be achieved by deleting the Bloor stop.

    Maybe Woodbine Live would swap the City of Toronto’s property tax writeoff for a GO station 🙂

    Ed Drass of Metro submitted a Q&A to Transport Canada – I found Q8 particularly interesting in that he queries why GO was essentially excluded from being the service operator:
    http://westoncommunitycoalition.ca/Transport%20Canada%20Q&A.pdf