There are two separate transportation challenges presented here:
1. Movement within the City/Region
2. Movement between Cities/Regions
To get back to the original challenge of planning a trip from Sweetbriar/Ruskview in Kitchener to Morrison Crescent in Grimsby, the answer is fairly simple, but will take a little more planning:
1. Convince GO Transit to run a bus route from Kitchener, to Cambridge and straight down Highway 8 to Hamilton, Grimsby, St Catharines and terminating at Niagara Falls
2. Convince GO Transit to upgrade the bus route a higher order of transit using smaller trains than a 12-car train.
There was briefly a CPR train (largely a self-driving electric or diesel-electric unit) that ran from Cambridge (Galt) to Hamilton via the CPR connection that runs between the Guelph Junctions (just west of Cambellville) and Waterdown. Alas, it only lasted a couple of years in the mid-1920s.
It wouldn't be politically feasible, but it's nice to dream about what might happen if there were a moratorium on highway widening while all capacity-increasing funding were directed to other transportation improvements (be it passenger or freight upgrades). Canada is somewhat stuck unlike other countries around the world where the rail network is largely public property. This makes it easier to make upgrades as necessary without needing to haggle with a private company that owns the track and station areas at the centre of the cities.
1. Movement within the City/Region
2. Movement between Cities/Regions
To get back to the original challenge of planning a trip from Sweetbriar/Ruskview in Kitchener to Morrison Crescent in Grimsby, the answer is fairly simple, but will take a little more planning:
1. Convince GO Transit to run a bus route from Kitchener, to Cambridge and straight down Highway 8 to Hamilton, Grimsby, St Catharines and terminating at Niagara Falls
2. Convince GO Transit to upgrade the bus route a higher order of transit using smaller trains than a 12-car train.
There was briefly a CPR train (largely a self-driving electric or diesel-electric unit) that ran from Cambridge (Galt) to Hamilton via the CPR connection that runs between the Guelph Junctions (just west of Cambellville) and Waterdown. Alas, it only lasted a couple of years in the mid-1920s.
It wouldn't be politically feasible, but it's nice to dream about what might happen if there were a moratorium on highway widening while all capacity-increasing funding were directed to other transportation improvements (be it passenger or freight upgrades). Canada is somewhat stuck unlike other countries around the world where the rail network is largely public property. This makes it easier to make upgrades as necessary without needing to haggle with a private company that owns the track and station areas at the centre of the cities.