Now this is some great news...great way to start off my day
[quote]
GO wants trains to Kitchener by 2011
September 25, 2008
Kevin Swayze
RECORD STAFF
WATERLOO REGION
GO Transit wants to bring four passenger trains a day to Kitchener by 2011.
GO officials expect a study now underway will bolster the case for the commuter-rail link with Toronto. The recommendations should be ready by March, Bruce Sevier, GO's senior projects officer, said yesterday.
Design of a preferred route could start later in 2009 and, if financing comes through, construction of stations would start in 2010, he said. Trains could be running the next year.
It depends on money, however. Sevier estimated the expansion would cost $40 million to $50 million, since GO would have to upgrade tracks and buy trains.
"We don't know where the pot of gold might come from," he said in an interview, adding that this question hasn't been asked yet. But when GO extended rail service to Barrie last year, the capital cost was evenly shared by Queen's Park, the federal government and the City of Barrie. This could be the way financing is arranged for the Kitchener expansion, he said.
An environmental assessment now underway is looking at a route west from Georgetown along the former Canadian National tracks.
The GO train proposal for Kitchener is up for public comment tonight during an information session at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 54 Queen St. N. Doors will be open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Ken Seiling, the Waterloo Region chair, cautioned yesterday that local residents shouldn't get excited about boarding GO trains anytime soon.
"It's not a given that it's going to happen," said Seiling, who has been lukewarm to the idea of expansion. "What GO is saying is they would like it to happen. It's in the very early stages."
In the past, Seiling has expressed concerns that GO train service would turn Waterloo Region into a bedroom community of the Toronto area.
The 2006 census found 10,665 people commute daily between Waterloo Region and the Toronto area. Another 12,480 region residents head to Wellington County to work, and 9,465 Wellington County residents head to the region to work daily.
Go officials are talking about adding bus service to Waterloo Region as early as next year.
The area under study for GO trains follows the Goderich and Exeter railway -- formerly Canadian National -- as far west as Baden. There is no suggestion passengers could board trains in Baden, however. Downtown Kitchener would be the station farthest west. The tracks to the west of the city are included because they might be needed for parking trains overnight, Sevier said.
GO service to downtown Kitchener would also link to the rapid transit system proposed for Waterloo Region. The Kitchener station is one of the likely stops on the rapid transit route, Sevier said.
Today, Via Rail offers the only passenger train service to the region -- three trains a day into Kitchener. Via is studying upgrading the tracks it uses between Kitchener and Georgetown, along with modernizing the "archaic" signal system, Sevier said. It is also looking at boosting the number of trains it runs through Kitchener, he said.
GO is talking to Via about the upgrades, which would allow more trains to travel faster, he said. Some stretches of track have speed limits of 16 kilometres an hour. By comparison, trains using GO's Lakeshore and Barrie tracks top 100 km/h.
While Kitchener's GO train expansion appears on the fast track, a long-proposed westward extension from Milton to Cambridge is less certain, Seiling said. Regional council has approved a business case study of using the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks to run passenger trains into south Cambridge. The cost and ridership study is expected to be done next year.
Today, there's a bottleneck to expanding GO service west from Milton, Seiling said. The tracks between Milton and Toronto need to be upgraded to deal with today's demands. GO says Milton trains are running at 140 per cent capacity now; there's no way to handle more passengers without a huge capital investment.
The region's Cambridge-Milton study would lay the groundwork for such an expansion whenever the Milton crunch is resolved, Seiling said.
kswayze@therecord.com
{/quote]
Im not entirely sure why Ken Seiling thinks this is going to be a bad idea. It will without a doubt take cars off the road, combine that with LRT, there are great possibilities!
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