GO Hub and Transit Station Study - Connecting Niagara

NRU
June 21, 2017
By Dominik Matusik

The building of four new GO train stations in Niagara Region will provide an opportunity for the region to connect to the other growth centres in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Rather than turning Niagara into a suburb of Toronto, the region hopes the promised service increase will help to integrate business and employment opportunities, encourage investment, and promote intensification.

In the past few years Niagara’s housing market has been stretched by buyers priced out of the GTA and this demand increased after the province announced plans to extend all-day, two-way GO rail service by 2023.

This makes it even more important that the region balance residential development with employment and commercial opportunities to ensure that Niagara does not become simply a Toronto bedroom community, Niagara long-range planning manager Diana Morreale told NRU.

The GO expansion represents an enormous opportunity for Niagara’s business enterprises to further integrate with those in the GTA.

“Some of the limitations of some of the employment opportunities here is that they want to be connected to the Greater Toronto Area, in particular Toronto downtown. Employers before that didn’t have that connection to Toronto. [They] perhaps may not want to locate here. But now that we have GO transit, it may be a barrier that’s now been removed ... The business community is looking forward to having GO Transit here.”

Niagara regional chair Alan Caslin told NRU that ever since the province’s announcement, the region has been considering how to integrate its transportation with the new GO Transit hubs.

“Once [the GO extension] was announced, we recognized that we needed to integrate the train arrivals and the train stations with not only our buses and our taxis but also our active transportation to make sure that we maximize the use of the properties in the vicinity of those hubs but as well make sure that we have hubs that make sense for all modes of transportation.”

The region has done a lot of work to make a business case for GO service expansion, Morreale says. “[There was a] need [for] regional GO Transit within Niagara to get people to Niagara and also to connect to other urban growth centres.

In particular, connecting St. Catharines urban growth centre with Hamilton, with Mississauga, with Toronto as well. We saw that there was a need and an opportunity.”

However, it isn’t necessarily just about integrating transportation. Updated land use plans are also needed to encourage intensification. Morreale says that Niagara Region has been proactive in making sure it had the right land use planning framework around the new stations.

Currently seeking public input on its GO Hub and Transit Station Study, the region intends to implement secondary plans to promote intensified land use near the new stations and integrate local and regional transportation. The study will also inform the design of the stations themselves.

“We’re trying to introduce that right land use that protects the stable residential neighbourhoods that exist there but you’re also increasing your densities around these transit stations. And how do we do that respectfully? That’s a key ingredient to our secondary plans... We also want to add opportunities for transit-oriented development that would support the transit stations and create commercial offerings for the local residents that already live in that area.”

Last year, the region identified four stations: the existing Niagara Falls GO station (used seasonally), St. Catharines VIA Rail Station (to be expanded to accommodate GO service), Grimsby GO Station (to be newly built near the Casablanca Boulevard exit off the QEW), and Lincoln GO (an area in Beamsville identified as the site of a future GO train station once growth justifies it). Niagara Region anticipates completing the secondary plans for all four station areas by the end of the year.