'Airport rail link may fly'
 

I wonder if Mayor Miller will stop this initiative like how he killed the YTZ bridge.
Miller and his band of hardliners is determined to send Toronto back into the Stoneage.

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Toron...78231-sun.html


...high-level talks between Queen's Park and SNC-Lavalin are building steam, and construction could begin on a rail link from Union Station to Pearson Airport as early as 2009 -- more than a year after the long-sought after train was originally intended to start running.

What does this have to do with Miller's objection to a bridge to the Island airport ? The rail line is a fine initiative and the mayor has proposed an extensive light rail system, including the Eglinton West line to YYZ. I'm sure the mayor would like people to get to YYZ conveniently by transit - the current situation with no real transit to a major airport is the rule in Canada but not the rest of the world. It's good that Vancouver has had to do something because of the Olympics. Now Toronto can try to catch up It would be nicer if the rail line would be integrated with the transit systems rather than a single purpose route.

For what it's worth Miller recently went on the record supporting this. I'm sure Tangoer's comment is just uninformed hatred of a lefty politico. I prefer informed hatred, this lefty hates Miller too because he's the worst kind of politician, a panderer (OK, they all are to some degree but he's particularly bad). Given that there is always a risk that the small bunch of raving loons in Weston that oppose the railway right of way changes that are necessary for both GO improvements and Blue22, could get noisy enough that he would feel the need to pander to them for votes in the next election (and chances are slim and none that he will not run again in two years) and he would flop on this like pancakes at a Stampede Breakfast.

I imagine this will progress as quickly as the "lakefront development" that was also promised in Millers go at being mayor. It would be great if it did indeed move forward, but I just can't hold my breath that long.

Umm, you are aware that there really is a fair bit of stuff actually happening along the waterfront, but like everything government it's all moving at a snails pace and hidden behind construction hoardings.

For what it's worth Blue 22 was never the city's idea, it was something cooked up by the feds when the libs were still in power and is actually a pretty lame idea. What we actually need is something like the CTA blue line to ORD. What Blue 22 is more like is the Heathrow Express. At somewhere between 20 and 30 bucks for a one way trip it does nothing for airport workers and by stopping only at Union Station it addresses the needs of a small minority of airport travelers.

I'm no great fan of the city's current plan to serve the airport with surface light rail sometime in the very far distant future, what they should really do is scuttle the Sorbara extention to Vaughn and instead spend the money to extend the Bloor line west from Kipling to the 427 and north on the surface alongside the west side of the highway, then under the 401 directly onto the airport property. Chances of that happening, nil and less than nil.

I actually ran into someone last night and the line to the airport came up in conversation. He apparently works for a company involved in the line, and he says that it is actively planning the line and thought a time frame of a couple of years wasn't unreasonable. I'm still in the I'll believe it when I see it camp.

That would probably be SNC Lavalin, the main partner in the Blue22 scheme, and also the company behind the 407 ETR cash grab. The original plan was to be up and running this year, at this point I don't even think they've finished the EA so I think "a couple years" is probably aggressive as they still have to do the actual construction for grade separations in Weston (which they need to do for GO regardless of Blue 22) and build the spur line, which involves the not inconsequential problem of expropriating land between where the spur line sort of ends now at Northwest Drive and Zahavy and either the Peoplemover station 1-2 kilometers south of there or the heavy rail station location that is provided for in the T1 design.

I still think the right way to provide service to YYZ is to come at it from the south-east, looking at google maps I'll revise my opposition to the surface light rail idea. I still think it can't be faster than the current 192 service but as long as they aren't too stupid about the number of stops west of Black Creek it might actually be about the same and certainly more comfortable and the proposed west end is actually physically quite close to the airport property, just on the wrong side of the 401.