07-23-2020, 03:32 PM
(07-23-2020, 03:06 PM)clasher Wrote:(07-23-2020, 01:23 PM)Bytor Wrote: Nope. Not at all. Only supposedly less expensive to implement #2WADGO. It actually makes it harder to do it as electrified rail because of continuing to share tracks with CN.
Another supposed reason was because it would let them do it sooner than what the Liberals promised, but no timelines coming out of Metrolinx have change from the Wynne government promises.
Well dang. I guess there's no way around the shared tracks short of building a whole new line somwhere which doesn't really seem all that easy around here.
If building something new isn't all that easy, then we have bigger problems than transit.
The thing is building new things is really easy, if the political will is there, see the new highway 7 (which, yes, I realize has been promised for years, but is still being built right now). This drives me absolutely insane, we are going through this whole process, building business cases, etc.
But for building a brand new freeway, if MTO says it, well, open the flood gates to the slush fund, no justification, no evaluation, no business case needed.
It doesn't even matter which is more controversial...I don't think anyone anywhere is, on principle, against improving GO service, but plenty oppose expanding the highway, so only one of these things is controversial.
And no, there is no way around those tracks without building new tracks, we CN has private property rights, and is unlikely to just give up their core business in southern Ontario so that we can run electric passenger trains because we ask nicely.
Like I said, I assume the plan right now is to run dual mode locomotives...which are...a thing which technically works but just seems really wasteful.
Of course, metrolinx hasn't answered this yet...frankly, given how political metrolinx is being run right now, I wouldn't put it past them for the unspoken policy to be to back the future government into a shitty corner where they can't even run electric trains on that section.