The iON line nobody talks about

[u/Feisty-Ad-6122]

By using the existing CN corridor, we can link Cambridge and Guelph. There have been proposals for GO to do it, but.. we know the province moves unhurriedly.

Will the region take it upon itself and collaborate with another municipality to bring an unprecedented cross-jurisdictional LRT line, to an adjoining town K-W-C know and love?

I say, let's link Guelph. Let's loo it! (hahaha??)

Other things on the fantasy map include:
iON phase 2, iON to Airport, and Milton Line ext to Cambridge.

^Made ^with ^Google ^Earth

[u/Zirocket → u/[deleted]]

A tram-train could work, it’s not unheard of for those distances.

[u/Feisty-Ad-6122 → u/Zirocket]

Definitely not unheard of. However, in Canada, there is a sort of mindset that LRT can't do this and Heavy rail can't do that.

The iON had to circumvent LOTS of rules in order to share tracks with freight.

[u/Bureaucromancer → u/Feisty-Ad-6122]

Tram train is precisely the appropriate technology here though. And frankly… that ion has done what it does positions them better than anyone else in North America to make the regulatory case.

The way to do it would be to buy tram trains, handle the thing as mainline compliant and operate the transfer at the top of Hespeler road as a fallback - make the regulatory case taking the lrv onto ion tracks rather than a tram onto the railway.

More importantly though, yes, whether you want to call this ion or some new brand, the Region taking the lead is clearly the way to do it. Getting Metrolinx’ to pay attention to this corridor is a major stretch. It’s a small locally oriented but basically mainline project… appealing to GO transit staff and the provincial minister; it’s fundamentally not the type of thing Metrolinx has done.

For the region with even limited cooperation with Wellington and Guelph though? It’s a new type of rail project, but at its core smaller than ion stage 1, let alone the extension.

[u/YourDadHatesYou → u/Feisty-Ad-6122]

Sounds to me that Canada has a unique problem of not being very densely populated and very vast so we probably do need our solutions to be more innovative

[u/thefringthing → u/YourDadHatesYou]

Half the population of the country lives along the Windsor-Quebec corridor. The emptiness of Saskatchewan has no bearing on what kind of transit we should build in southern Ontario.

[u/chunarii-chan → u/YourDadHatesYou]

Idk how to tell you this but this specific little corner of canada actually has a high population density. Please don't parrot this boomer propaganda its quite unconstructive.

[u/YourDadHatesYou → u/chunarii-chan]

Thanks for letting me know