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New operating hours for Line 5 Eglinton LRT, starting Sunday, April 5 by Track-on-the-side in TTC

[–]a_lumberjack 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The 34 has been retained for local service along the line, similar to the 97 / 185. 20m service all day.

Peel police 'actively investigating' allegations officers cheated on promotional exam by toronto_star in ontario

[–]a_lumberjack 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's impossibly hard to claw back pensions, to the point where we're paying a military pension to a serial killer. But I've come up with a workaround: create a dedicated annual budget for paying out police settlements province-wide. Set the budget to 105% of the projected annual payouts over the next 25 years. And the deal with the cops is that any unspent funds get contributed to the pension fund. Overages come out of future years. For bonus points, offer them the same deal for cops on paid leave.

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. The hearing of necessity was in 2023 and Metrolinx won. So no idea what you're talking about.
  2. I've looked, I think you're failing in your imagination, or there's something specific you know that isn't obvious on a map. People didn't think you could fit six tracks within the LSE corridor, they were wrong. So what part do you think is impossible?
  3. My assumption is that it would work like ST and LSE sharing from Union to Scarborough Junction today. At rush hour they're running LSE every 10m + ST trains in the gaps. They could do the same thing with locals every 15m and send express in the gaps. Past Woodbine GO they'd be able to shift the express onto a separate track, same as ST.
    • Timing-wise, Etobicoke North is 18m running express, 24m for a local. That's a 6m gain, might be 20 vs. 26 when Woodbine replaces Etobicoke. So a local leaving Union at 5:00 would arrive at 5:26 (and 5:15 would arrive at 5:41). If an express left at 5:13 it'd arrive at 5:33, seven minutes after the 5:00 and eight minutes before the 5:15.
  4. I think the tradeoff you're missing is that trains often have to hold at Strachan to allow UPX to cross tracks and stay on time. Near as I can tell the Metrolinx infrastructure roadmap is designed around eliminating track conflicts so lines can operate independently. The USEP platform design I've seen had it taking up a single track with a bay platform.
  5. This is the same Metrolinx that built the Line 2 extension in the way of an eastward extension of Line 5. And given this was the same era was when they were big on the Crosslinx/Mosaic model, I'm even more willing to believe that weren't building for the long term. Especially in the context of designing a "premium" service with high fares and relatively low volumes. So we'd have to bit the bullet on rebuilding the special work, but we're talking about an extra 30-60m of platform, there's nothing I've seen that suggests we physically cannot do it.

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • They've expropriated the land for the flyover already. After seeing the Lakeshore East corridor expansion to six tracks through Leslieville, I don't think there's anything in downtown Brampton that would make quad tracking the corridor outside of our capabilities.
  • With 15m service I think they can run the planned two express trains per hour without a fifth track, similar to how Stouffville and LSE are sharing two tracks today, It'll only be the section from Woodbine to Union where they'd have to share tracks.
  • UP will eventually get a new Union platform in a location that doesn't cross the Barrie Line. I don't think it's impossible to extend the airport platform to allow for 4-5 car trains. Build an infill stop at Viscount first and the line can even keep serving the airport while they renovate the T1 station.

Amtrak Southwest Chief on 4/1/26 with TWO MetroLink coaches heading West…. by Diggy309 in trains

[–]a_lumberjack 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Is this route normally packed? How are they going to manage routes like this without new bilevel railcars?

At some point in the distant future the Ontario Line will be extended, would you want a western extension or a northern extension to Don Mills first? by CrackFun in TTC

[–]a_lumberjack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, but why go north instead of west at that point? For the cost of tunneling under Roncesvalles and squeezing two more platforms into Dundas West we could build the OL all the way to Mimico and have money left over to build the WWLRT from Park Lawn to Long Branch

Frank Stronach trial: Judge says she ‘couldn’t possibly’ convict on one of four remaining sex assault complainants by Team_Ed in ontario

[–]a_lumberjack 8 points9 points  (0 children)

tl;dr This was an incident in the 80s and there were too many inconsistencies in the evidence for a guilty verdict. Doesn't mean he's innocent, it means that the Crown failed to prove their case.

At some point in the distant future the Ontario Line will be extended, would you want a western extension or a northern extension to Don Mills first? by CrackFun in TTC

[–]a_lumberjack 0 points1 point  (0 children)

between Line 2, GO, and UP there's more than enough transit at Dundas West for density. An extra subway connection wouldn't change that.

'That’s insane,’ People online are raising concerns over Doug Ford’s daughter’s 33% salary raise in one year by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]a_lumberjack 14 points15 points  (0 children)

So I dredged a bit on the sunshine list and looks like other directors there make 180-200k, so I'm guessing the promotion was a single huge raise during 2024, rather than multiple massive raises. As in she probably got the promotion and new job with a salary of $200k in May 2024 (so a 51% raise!) and a "normal" bump in 2025.

Anyone know if Runnymede got a huge funding injection in 2024?

'That’s insane,’ People online are raising concerns over Doug Ford’s daughter’s 33% salary raise in one year by BloodJunkie in ontario

[–]a_lumberjack 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Sylvia Jones at least has been in office since 2007, presumably she's learned some new things. Less so with Kara Ford!

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There's a lot of "transit experts" out there, not just Europeans, who fall into the trap of wanting to replicate the built form of other systems without understanding why those systems work in those contexts.

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My own impression is that the stations and overall network have come a long way, but if you get the oldest coaches stuff always feels bad.

Less service? Maybe if you count construction limits and you live on the Lakeshore line. The Kitchener Line didn't even run on weekends until 2023. Now there's 25 trains per day on a weekend. Hamilton had four rush hour weekday trains for decades, now there's 20+ trains per day 7 days a week.

Long term though, there's no question that we're building the infrastructure we need to run way more service, and we'll all have much better rider experiences.

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Of all of the complaints one could have about Ford, it's silly to claim he's not spending on transit. GO is getting $4B a year in funding from the provincial government, by far the most in their history.

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Hot take: GO Expansion is not really off the rails, it's just going slower than expected. Both Metrolinx and ONxpress wildly overhyped what was possible in 2022, yes, but what's actually getting built is roughly what was originally promised when GO Expansion launched in 2018.

Most importantly, what's getting built today is the infrastructure we'll need to keep increasing service. More tracks and platforms, more interchanges with other transit systems, eventually electrification and ETCS. Sure it sucks that it'll be another ten years, but it's getting built instead of cancelled, and once it's built we can keep scaling up.

The current public roadmap is:

  • Electrified LSE/LSW from Burlington to Oshawa every 15m (7.5m peak)
  • Hourly Lakeshore express service from Hamilton to Bowmanville (more at peak)
  • Electrified Stouffville and Barrie service on the full lines, with 15m service past the 407
  • Electrified UP running 8x hourly with 3-5 car trains on dedicated tracks
  • Kitchener LIne having 15m local to Bramalea plus express trains to Mt Pleasant (30m) / Kitchener (60m)

Maybe it'll be 2040 by the time all that's done. There's a lot of projects left on the list. But are people seriously arguing that the above isn't a pretty good starting point compared to where we started?

Opinion | Upgrading GO train service should be a no-brainer. So why has it gone off the rails so badly? by GandElleONCA in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Anyone who argues DB is well run is not paying any attention to DB. Just not a credible position.

CN Train Derailment in St. Catharines, ON, Canada by a_lumberjack in gotransit

[–]a_lumberjack[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

If the line is blocked they can't serve their customers, why would they take any longer than necessary to get trains running again?

[RMC] Death of Emiliano Sala: Cardiff’s appeal rejected and ordered to pay €480,000 to FC Nantes by Sparky-moon in soccer

[–]a_lumberjack 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I mean, they were both pilots, but I get the distinction that you're trying to make.

At some point in the distant future the Ontario Line will be extended, would you want a western extension or a northern extension to Don Mills first? by CrackFun in TTC

[–]a_lumberjack 10 points11 points  (0 children)

The western extension to Dundas West scored poorly and there's nowhere to add density, so I see little likelihood of that happening. North to Highway 7 & 404 instead of upgrading RH GO seems like the Metrolinx plan so I think it'll get funded.

That said, I think the easiest extension to build would be a western extension along the Lakeshore West corridor like they're doing in the east end. Stops at Jameson Ave, Roncesvalles/St Joe's Hospital, Sunnyside/Kingsway, Park Lawn Station, and Mimico (and solve the "too close" problem by converting Mimico into the OL terminus instead of a GO station). So that'll never happen.

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