The long-awaited Environmental Assessment to study the electrification of the Union-Pearson Express is coming in 2014, with advertising set to appear in many community newspapers along the Kitchener-Georgetown corridor.
Both Metrolinx and Hydro One will be running parallel EAs on the subject, which will include community consultations.
Electrification is not guaranteed. It is dependent on implementation of the “Metrolinx Investment Strategy” — in other words, on the Ontario government supporting new revenue tools to pay for Metrolinx “Big Move” transit projects, of which electrification is just one.
The UP Express, meanwhile, is going ahead as a carcinogenic, high-priced diesel service designed for the downtown business class, with only two stops in communities along the 25 kms between the airport and Union Station.
Members of the Clean Train Coalition have been advocating for electrification for more than 10 years. The EA is a step in the right direction, but electrification likely remains many years away.
Make electrification an election issue in spring 2014, as an Ontario general election is highly likely. Make sure your candidates support electrification.
2 comments
Please electrify the trains.
If we are ever to be a world class city, we need to start now, not in 10 or 20 years.
I live along the rail line, I would like to know that it is safe, that I won’t spend my senior years with a cancer from the diesel, or needing an O2 tank due to the llung damage that the diesel will cause.
It makes sense that a clean and cheap power source would be the way to go. And the cost to keep the engines going would be less in long run.
Why do we always have to go cheap to start but with rising fuel costs the cost to taxpayers to use the train will keep jumping. We can better control the cost with power from Ontario suppliers.