Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[Canard]

Scheduled WRoute connector!

[kps]

Yeah, moving the go station and track to accommodate an airport that has absolutely no demand for it, seems crazy.

Right, ‘moving’ the hypothetical station adjacent to Fountain (or Shantz) is important because those are the roads with exits from the hypothetical new Highway 7. Airport access is just a side benefit.

[SammyOES]

Even running a bus out there now doesn't make any sense since a lot of people are on the westjet flight that takes off at 6am and lands around midnight.

I've said it before, but a nice benefit of very infrequent flights is that the airport/airline could offer a genuinely convenient shuttle to passengers. It doesn't even need to have a route - people just sign up and it does a cycle (or 2) through the area for the interested passengers.

The thing is though, that I don't think passenger demand is really the issue at this point. So even THIS solution doesn't make a lot of sense.

[SammyOES]

Yeah, moving the go station and track to accommodate an airport that has absolutely no demand for it, seems crazy.

Right, ‘moving’ the hypothetical station adjacent to Fountain (or Shantz) is important because those are the roads with exits from the hypothetical new Highway 7. Airport access is just a side benefit.

The suggested change was to "move the proposed Greenhouse Road GO station to be physically located at the airport".  That's what I was talking about not any sort of shifting along the existing railway.

Although I honestly don't see how moving the go station to be adjacent to Fountain (or Shantz) makes any meaningful difference to airport access.

[bgb_ca]

Even running a bus out there now doesn't make any sense since a lot of people are on the westjet flight that takes off at 6am and lands around midnight.

I thought they changed that back to a suppertime flight

[timio]

Mid afternoon, I believe, but infinitely more convenient.

[Coke6pk]

The airport documents I have seen showed a spur line running down to the airport... stopping at the new terminal building. (Which would be built on the north side of the property, near the meat packaging plant). The airport's master plan calls for this being considered once we hit a million pax a year. Still a way off from there.

While the passenger numbers are low from the standpoint of having a full time bus route, there is only ONE scheduled flight per day at YKF right now. ALL of those passengers are arriving within the same hour, and departures would be in a similar time frame... a "School Special" type service could work well.

Coke

[Canard]

That would be a great service for one of the Bombardier TALENT Diesel sets that Ottawa isn't using anymore, just zipping back and forth between the Airport and the station up there, along that spur!

[jamincan]

I think the hypothetical situation that the airport is planning for with a rail connection is in the larger context of the GTA airport system. In this hypothetical situation, Pearson is constrained in passenger growth, and so growth needs to be accommodated in neighbouring airports and a new Pickering airport. In this scenario, the Waterloo airport could experience significantly greater growth as it receives passengers from the western parts of the GTA.

The reality is that this scenario has been anticipated for decades now, and yet Pearson still manages to accommodate passenger growth. That said, it doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't plan with this scenario in the back of our minds, but I don't think it's something we should spend a lot of resources to make room for a hypothetical rail connector.

[KevinL]

If YKF is being considered for YYZ overflow, a dedicated train connecting them could work.

[SammyOES]

But even with heavy traffic we're talking a 5-7 minute drive along the existing infrastructure. Fountain St. is very unlikely to become a major traffic bottleneck. I just can't imagine any likely scenario in the next 50 years where there is a justification for a dedicated spur line / people mover.

Edit: I guess if we're talking a line from a Go Station to a new terminal on the north side of Menno - it could make sense. But I also see almost no chance that becomes a reality in the next 50 years either.

[tomh009]

Depending on how things play out at YYZ, it could make sense to connect YYZ and YKF by rail within 20-30 years.

[KevinT]

The airport could just buy a shuttle bus for themselves and have a baggage handler drive the one loop per day necessary to service the WestJet flight. Flight arrives, unload baggage onto carousel, take arrived passengers to major GRT interchanges while picking up departing passengers from same, unload passengers at terminal, head around back and load checked baggage onto plane. Job done.

Until there's more than a single scheduled major commercial flight per day this would totally suffice.

(I'm sure I've just simultaneously offended baggage handlers and professional drivers alike, as nothing is ever as simple as it seems to an outsider. I am happy to learn why this wouldn't/couldn't work.)

[SammyOES]

Depending on how things play out at YYZ, it could make sense to connect YYZ and YKF by rail within 20-30 years.

Why rail though? Assuming there is a GO station in Breslau, It just seems really strange to build a whole new mode of transportation when we have existing infrastructure that will almost certainly meet the need of whatever traffic is going from the Go station to the airport.

[tomh009]

Depending on how things play out at YYZ, it could make sense to connect YYZ and YKF by rail within 20-30 years.

Why rail though?  Assuming there is a GO station in Breslau, It just seems really strange to build a whole new mode of transportation when we have existing infrastructure that will almost certainly meet the need of whatever traffic is going from the Go station to the airport.

On a 20-30 year horizon, things are necessarily fuzzy. But GO tracks to Breslau would already make it a 95% rail connection, leveraging the GO tracks for a "Kitchener-Pearson Express". The last mile, that could be rail or something else, that's relatively easily solved in the end.