Archive

Missing links in a bold transit plan

April 29, 2015   ·   0 Comments

PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING part of the latest Ontario budget document deals with the government’s promise to spend $130 billion in 10 years on improvements to infrastructure, and in particular the plan to use better public transit as the key to dealing with gridlock in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

There’s no doubt improved infrastructure can be a key to a better economy and with it more revenue for a debt-ridden government. However, it will be interesting to see whether such a huge amount of money can be raised without a significant new revenue stream, a need Toronto Mayor John Tory has already noted.

As we see it, with crude oil prices roughly half what they were a year ago and pump prices down roughly 30 cents a litre, the government ought to have raised the provincial tax on gasoline and diesel fuel 10 cents a litre on sales in Southern Ontario. (The budget merely commits 7.5 cents of the current tax of 14.7 cents a litre to two funds dedicated to support public transit and transportation infrastructure projects.)

Obviously, most of the money to be spent on transportation infrastructure will be in the GTHA. In an implicit acknowledgment of that fact, the budget document notes  that the GTHA is one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in North America.

And a point that might have been made was that some of the growth has been taking place well outside the GTHA, in places like Barrie, Guelph and even Peterborough.

That may be part of the reason for a glaring omission in the otherwise bold transit planning.

Although the government promises to work with Metrolinx and the GTHA municipalities “on how best to prioritize transit investments through the use of rigorous business case analyses,” the budget’s list of the “next wave of Metrolinx projects included in The Big Move” has nary a word about any transit improvements in this area.

And perhaps one reason for the omission is that while the budget document talks about electrifying GO Transit’s Lakeshore, Kitchener and Union Pearson (UP) express services, there’s no mention of any study of the planned form of locomotion.

Currently, every GO Transit vehicle is powered by diesel fuel (even the four-unit UP trains), and the diesel engines pulling and pushing the double-decker trains are all only a very few years old.

One would hope that at some point Metrolinx or the Transportation ministry would launch a study of what type of GO train should be used for service in off-peak hours and in parts of the GTHA that don’t require the huge double-decker coaches.

Our suspicion is that Bombardier could produce the sort of vehicles required, and might already be doing so in Europe.

As we see it, the perfect vehicle would be a self-powered hybrid, using natural gas rather than diesel fuel to generate power on non-electric lines and electricity where it is available.

The vehicles should also be lightweight, low-slung and capable of running safely on rails that aren’t up to the standard required for the double-decker trains.

The idea would be to use such trains for new GO services from places like Peterborough, Alliston and Orangeville, as well as at times of day on the existing GO lines when passenger loads are a tiny fraction of those during the morning and evening rush hours.

The option would produce double benefits, by providing GO train service where it would otherwise be deemed uneconomical and by sharply cutting operating costs in off-peak hours on the existing GO lines.

Readers Comments (0)