Source Link: globeandmail.com

As the federal government hammers out a forthcoming economic-stimulus package, it should think seriously about helping passenger railways across Canada to follow the example of southern Ontario’s GO Transit by buying up train tracks from CN and Canadian Pacific. This week, GO announced plans to acquire a good chunk of the Toronto area’s network.

The freight operators’ ownership of the vast majority of the country’s tracks is a severe headache for commuter authorities in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, as well as VIA Rail, and the greatest obstacle to public investment in Canada’s rail system.

Mere tenants of companies whose business is moving cargo, not people, passenger railways operate at the mercy of freight traffic. The consequences are many.

Passenger trains in Canada often have to pull on to sidings to let freight pass. Switches owned by CN have failed repeatedly in Ontario, inconveniencing tens of thousands of commuters, not to mention periodic freight derailments, one of which completely shut down VIA service between Toronto and Montreal last summer.

The freight railways’ ownership of the tracks makes public investment in upgraded infrastructure less attractive, since riders may not enjoy their full benefits, and transit planners must get private-sector approval for service improvements.

If train travel is to be a viable alternative to driving within and flying between Canada’s metropolitan areas, this situation is unacceptable.

Rectifying it should be part of a comprehensive plan to improve Canadian railways. Not only is this the only G8 country without high-speed trains, but the intercity network depends on 20-year-old diesel locomotives, now being refurbished by VIA for decades more in service. Of the four busiest Canadian airports, three have no rail links, and no trains connect Calgary and Edmonton, just 300 km apart.

Although the Conservative government has pitched in for some limited upgrades to commuter networks and released enough funds to halt VIA’s long decline, much more is needed. Happily, rail agencies already have detailed but largely unfunded investment plans.

A modern rail system should be a principal goal of the infrastructure spending in January’s federal budget. That means making sure that people, not cargo, take priority on the tracks.

Source Link:  GuelphMercury.com

THE GUELPH MERCURY
City staff are clearly on track in recommending that council back the downtown Via Rail station as the preferred connection point for GO Transit trains that should be stopping here in 2011.

GO Transit will be the final decision-maker — and it will hold a second public meeting in the new year to help determine the right site — but it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t warm to the Carden Street station as its key location.

And if parking considerations can be untangled, it may be the only site GO Transit will need for a successful operation. But that may be easier said than done.

In this context, the role of the city’s proposed Wilson Street parking garage becomes infinitely clearer than it was before GO Transit signalled earlier this fall that Guelph stops are definitely on the radar in planned daily commuter service from Kitchener to Toronto.

But how successful the city would be in drawing enough paying customers into that new parkade to free up the more than 200 parking spaces that are anticipated for the initial phase of GO train operations is problematic.

Free parking for GO train users is central to the success of such a commuter service and implementing that through on-street or surface parking lot spaces would likely require the establishment of designated spaces for pass holders or daily ticket purchasers who would be able to signal their right to those spots by displaying permits on their dashboard.

This may entail a serious rethink of the current two-hour-free on-street parking practice, and a redirection of that portion of free parking to the city’s underused parking lots. That recommendation from a consultant was rejected by councillors when they embarked on the pilot phase of the two-hour free parking experiment, however it may be time to put it back on the table.

And if GO train service — which was last available here in the 1990s — catches fire once again in Guelph, much broader thinking will have to take place in regards to parking.

One of the proposals here is for the establishment of a second train station — with ample parking — at the former Lafarge property off the Hanlon Expressway.

A parking area outside the downtown core similar to a carpool lot will make eminent sense if 800 of even 1,000 spaces are ultimately required.

But instead of constructing a costly second station, that standalone parking area — either at the ex-Lafarge site or another locale — should be linked with Guelph Transit buses that would bring commuters to the Via station. That would accord with plans to move the downtown bus hub to the Via location from St. George’s square.