Raise the Hammer

Strangely I find myself somewhat agreeing with Capitalist.

All day train would be nice, but we do have express bus service, which is faster at non-peak times, and we have express train service currently. If getting all day train means we end up losing express bus service it will be a TREMENDOUS step backwards.

I also agree that adding all day train at liuna station is problematic, largely because it creates two "nearby yet distant" downtown train stations that provide different services. I'm sure people will get confused as to which station you should be at and when. Also what happens if I miss the train out of hunter st. and the next one is leaving from LIUNA? Will someone tell me this? Do I have to know this? How do I get from one to the other expeidently? We really dont' want to confused out of towners during the Pan Am Games, or at any other time really.

Unfortunately, I know there are practical problems with basing all day train service out of Hunter St. - first there is a bottleneck of tracks through the downtown city, and the track owners will not permit GO to run any more train on their tracks because it would interefer with their freight traffic (that is my understanding anyways) secondly, the alignment of the hunter street station and the proposed niagara rail corridor are somewhat conflicted, resulting in an "out of the way" trip, and perhaps even making a stop at Centennial impossible (I'll admit to not being sure where hunter street meets up with the proposed niagara rail corridor east of the downtown.)

Unfortunately with trains we're essentially constrained to the locations of existing tracks - especially when talking about moving within a city. Unless you want to tunnel, and that's expensive.

That said, I hope the City, GO, and VIA work together to find a way to connect the Hunter and LIUNA stations to (1) help minimize the impact of any confusion for users of the GO station by providing conveninent and free passage between the two (2) make LIUNA more acessible to public transit.

As an aside Capitalist, I believe they're proposing significant parking at LIUNA, which should be helpful for all the people who complain they can't park at the GO station in downtown Hamilton.