Ontario Liberals vow electrified GO trains that will run every 15 minutes

Thestar.com
April 17, 2014
By Richard J. Brennan

Within a decade commuters will be travelling on GO trains powered by electricity and they will only have to wait 15 minutes for one to show up, Transportation Minister Glen Murray says.

Inside a train maintenance centre in Etobicoke on Thursday, Murray, along with Premier Kathleen Wynne, promised a regional express system in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton and area and beyond that will dramatically cut existing commute times.

It is all part of the minority Liberal government pre budget rollout and adds details to an announcement earlier this week where Wynne pledged $29 billion in dedicated transit funds. The budget is May 1 , and if it falls on a confidence vote, an election would come shortly after it.

“This trains running all days in both directions every 15 minutes. This competes now with the standards set in Paris, London in the United Kingdom and gives us 15-minute rapid rail service all across every corner of the GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area),” Murray told reporters.

“This will double the ridership of GO over the next decade,” he said.

GO released a $4-million study in 2011 that put the cost of electrifying the Georgetown and Lakeshore lines at about $1.8 billion. Metrolinx anticipates that GO’s ridership of about 65 million trips a year will have doubled by 2031.

Murray said for example the GO train trip from Danforth to Union stations will take nine minutes as opposed to 28 minutes by TTC, and 18 minutes from Kennedy to Union stations or almost 20 minutes less than by the TTC.

Right now train runs every half-hour only on the Lakeshore line.

Wynne said it is a priority for her government to improve transit into Toronto’s downtown core.

“When I think about the convenience we are aspiring to, it’s the notion that you could show up at a station knowing that within the next 10 to 15 minutes there is going to be a train come by,” she said.

“This is about commuters, it is about congestion on the roads and it’s about convenience and helping people in their lives,” she said.

Murray explained the system will gradually be transitioning from diesels into electric multiple-unit vehicles, which he says, can move much more quickly, noting the Lakeshore line would probably be done first.

“We brought in a team from the U.K. and we consulted with our friends in France and they describe this as a regional surface subway because it is that kind of frequency,” he said.

The minister said it is hoped that with increased ridership there will a decrease in provincial subsidy for the GO service.

The new transit fund is expected to reallocate $1.2 billion of the $2.39 billion the province collects in gasoline taxes as well as another $130 million from the HST the government collects on gas and diesel fuel.

“We know there is an economic imperative to get this right and make sure that people can move around this region and beyond and that’s why we are making this investment,” Wynne said.

“We must continue to upgrade this system. Otherwise we are not going to have the economic prosperity that we need and we know we are capable of,” she said.