Categories
Roads Transit

GO’s gaping gap, gone

My experiences riding the new GO Transit Route 17, and thoughts on improving Route 21

Categories
Brampton Infrastructure Transit

Brampton LRT: a second chance to get it right

Brampton City Council will once again consider extending the Hurontario LRT north into downtown. Will they hold out for a tunnel? Or succeed in getting it built?

Categories
Ontario Toronto Transit

Reviewing GO Transit’s big April changes

On Saturday, April 8, GO Transit will introduce big changes to its rail and bus services. Brampton and Waterloo Region will see the biggest benefits, while a major gap in Ontario’s intercity bus network will finally get filled. However, major construction work on the Barrie and Stouffville Lines will require the bustitution of most trains […]

Categories
Transit Travels Urban Planning Roads Infrastructure

Montreal: a tale of two busways

Across Canada, our biggest cities are building new transit. Here in Toronto, the Crosstown and Finch West LRTs are well underway (though the first phase of the Eglinton-Crosstown is already three years late), as well as the Scarborough subway expansion, the Ontario Line, and GO Transit corridor improvements. Vancouver is building a major expansion to […]

Categories
Ontario Transit Travels

A transit tour of Southwestern Ontario

In January 2023, while visiting the site of the now-demolished Sarnia Eaton Centre, I took advantage of two new rural transit services serving Southwestern Ontario: Strathroy-Caradoc Transit and Huron Shores Area Transit. While both services connect London and Sarnia, they operate as separate services with different fares; they also have different terminals. Strathroy-Caradoc Transit offers […]

Categories
Brampton Infrastructure Transit

A better Bramalea Station, finally

Bramalea Station has come a long way, but it is not yet used to its full potential.

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

Middle America’s transit oddities

In 2022, with travel restrictions eased, I had the opportunity to take several road trips throughout the Northeast and Midwestern states, from New York and Maryland to Kentucky and Michigan. Previously on this site, I wrote about my visit to Philadelphia’s Rail Park, a lesser-known, yet ambitious project to repurpose former Reading Railroad corridors in […]

Categories
Intercity Rail Maps Ontario Transit Travels

Ontario intercity transportation at the end of 2022: More choices, fewer routes

On December 7, I took a trip out to Kingston to ride the newest coach operator to arrive in Ontario: Red Arrow. A division of Pacific Western, Red Arrow is the latest carrier to stake a claim to the busy Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa route, which is now served by five private companies. Between Toronto and Ottawa, five […]

Categories
Infrastructure Transit Travels

Why the future of transit might be found in Dayton, Ohio

Dayton, Ohio is probably best known as the hometown of Wilbur and Orville Wright, the two bicycle mechanics who made the first successful controlled heavier-than-air flight. The city has remained a centre of the aviation industry. The US Air Force (and its predecessors) have operated a major base in Dayton for over a century, which […]

Categories
Intercity Rail Ontario Transit

Neither here, nor there: the folly of transit naming rights

On Tuesday, October 4, Metrolinx announced a new name for Oshawa GO Station, the eastern terminus of its busy Lakeshore Corridor. In a ten-year agreement with Durham College, a publicly funded post-secondary institution, the station will now be known as “Durham College Oshawa GO.” This was announced on Metrolinx’s Twitter account, Durham College’s social media, […]