05-20-2020, 03:32 PM
(05-20-2020, 03:15 PM)tomh009 Wrote: As little as I personally drive on the 401, and as much as I hate that driving experience, it's pretty much a necessary evil, for both people and goods. Even if we do get the all-day two-way GO (at an improved speed?) the 401 traffic will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
That seems defeatist. If we had two-way all-day GO trains running Kitchener to Toronto, every 30 mins or better, 60 min end-to-end travel time, I bet we'd make a huge dent in 401 passenger volumes. That doesn't even require the ambitious HSR proposals, running some EMUs and upgrading the track to class 5/6 standards would do. GO had a proposal to do something similar for Toronto-Hamilton they called Super GO.
The only reason we need to keep widening the 401 is that we refuse to invest in any alternatives. We're stuck in a cycle of "people don't take trains because service sucks" so "let's not improve trains because no one uses them" so "people don't take trains because service sucks" so....