Trying to make sense out of GO train times
Time for a math lesson on GO Transit. We’re not talking about the cost of extending train service to Niagara.
That’s just a guessing game at this point.
Easier to pin down, however, is the expected travel time between Niagara Falls and Toronto’s Union Station. It’s ugly. As you may know, Niagara Region is preparing a business plan on the extended service. It will be presented to Ontario’s transportation minister later this month.
A glimpse of the plan, which apparently remains a work in progress, was provided to regional councillors last week.
During the presentation, staff revealed the train trip from Niagara Falls to Hamilton would take 70 minutes.
The length of time seemed to take some councillors by surprise.
Indeed, a perplexed Bart Maves, a representative from the Falls, noted it only took him 35 minutes to drive to Hamilton. Why would it take the train so much longer, wondered Maves.
The response from staff was vague. But it seemed to have something to do with building in a time delay for crossing the Welland Canal.
But the travel time between the Falls and Hamilton wasn’t the biggest shock delivered by staff.
Council was told the train trip from Hamilton to Union Station would take 50 minutes. Huh???? I grew up in Oakville and was a frequent user of the GO train. Ingrained in my head as a teenager was the travel time to Union Station. You left on the half- hour and arrived in Toronto at 13 minutes past the hour. A 43- minute journey.
The time- span remains the same today. Kind of depressing, huh?
I mean, think of all the innovations and technological advancements the past 40 years, yet the province’s vaunted commuter train still chugs along at the same pace on the speed- challenged rail line as it did in 1975.
I recognize Hamilton is getting a new GO train station, but, given my Oakville experience, I remain bafflegabbed as to how the trip into Toronto from there would take only 50 minutes.
A check of GO Transit’s schedule supports my confused state.
A train leaving Hamilton’s existing station at 7: 05 a. m. arrives in downtown Toronto at 8: 15, a 70- minute trip that is made faster because of an express run from Oakville.
Add up the two 70- minute legs of the Falls- to- Toronto trip and it’s a two hour and 20 minute commute. That assumes there isn’t some sort of delay because of a possible required train transfer in Hamilton. Two hours and 20 minutes! Where in the universe, exactly, would such a lengthy daily trek be considered a game- changer? Planet Niagara. Here’s another interesting stat. The GO Transit schedule states that commuters catching a GO bus leaving Niagara Falls at 5: 56 a. m. and hooking up with the train in Burlington would arrive in downtown Toronto at 8: 15 a. m.
According to my math, that’s a two hour and 19 minute trip, a minute less than the just described train journey.
At last week’s meeting, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati, a master of empty bluster, pronounced that getting the province to extend the train service to his municipality is “non- negotiable.” In this instance, he may be right. The province could, quite understandably, look at the commute time from Niagara Falls and say, “forget it.”
It probably makes more sense to take the canal crossing out of the picture and simply offer bus service from Niagara Falls to the St. Catharines train station.
Hopefully, the Region still has time to change its business plan.