Transport: Metrolinx Open House on Air Link

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Yesterday, I attended an open house in my neighborhood run by Metrolinx, the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority, about the plans for the so-called Georgetown South Rail Corridor, including the inclusion of an Air Rail Link between Pearson Airport and Union Station on the route. The open house included people from Metrolinx and GO Transit, the agency that will operate the commuter rail service on the route.

Many of the nuts and bolts of the proposal are better covered, as usual, on transit advocate Steve Munro's web site, so those interested in more extensive analysis and debate are encouraged to visit that site.

My impression from the room full of displays is that Metrolinx seems to be doing its assigned task of coordinating various levels of service across the region with their work on the Georgetown South corridor. As it was clear that infrastructure upgrades were going to be required to expand the existing GO commuter rail service in the corridor, they went through and tried to include all of the foreseen uses of the line as part of the upgrade. In this case, that meant adding capacity for GO service branching off to Bolton as well as accommodating local and express trains to Bramalea, doubling VIA Rail Canada intercity service to Kitchener/Waterloo and beyond, and allowing for every 15 minute express Air Rail Link service.

The amazing thing to me was how well the role of private company SNC Lavalin, which will operate the Air Rail Link service, was completely hidden in the open house. It wasn't being denied; anyone answering questions would mention "the private operator" (I never heard SNC Lavalin mentioned by name) and talk about how it was their role to build the infrastructure between the GO corridor and the airport. However, none of the Metrolinx materials mentioned that a private operator was involved. Someone passing through the open house and just reading the materials would never know about the private involvement. I found that to be incredibly dishonest and quite disappointing.

If GO Transit were operating that service, the fare between Union Station and the airport could be expected to be similar to its commuter rail fares and hence reasonable, perhaps $5-$7. SNC Lavalin intends to charge $20--and that's $20 that will go into the private company's hands, not to improving regional mobility. While SNC Lavalin may be paying for the track construction on the airport branch, the bulk of the infrastructure expense involved in their project will be for the capacity expansion on the rail corridor between Woodbine and Union Station, which will be paid for by the province as part of the Georgetown South project. That seems like a pretty good deal for the company to me. Nowhere in any of the Metrolinx open house displays was anything mentioned about this fare, which I think would change public perception of the project.

While I commend a Metrolinx representative at the Open House for pointing to the multiple layers of service on Japanese long-distance routes as a guide, an arguably more relevant model for airport service are the airport stations in Europe at places like Zurich, Paris, Frankfurt, and Geneva. In these locations, one can catch a train on regional services to many destinations, not just the local "main" station (though that is available as well). I would like to see a station established at Pearson that someday could be the terminus or at least an intermediate stop for VIA trains to Ottawa, London, and Windsor. If not that, it should at least be capable of handling standard GO commuter rail trains.

By instead accommodating only two-car trains run by SNC Lavalin, the proposed station precludes these possibilities, and the original "alignment 1" included grades and curves that would preclude running anything other than these short trains to the airport station, even if it were upgraded in the future. An "alignment 2" looked more promising at least in terms of gradients, though the representatives at the open house stated that it was intended only for the self-propelled trains as well.

In light of all that, it was hard not to view the Georgetown South Open House as a sales job designed to build public support for spending that will benefit a private company without even revealing that the private company existed. I included such opinions, highlighting the aspects of the plan that benefited the private company and did not keep better options open, in my submitted comments. We'll see if they make any difference.

For those interested in seeing the open house for themselves, a number of additional open house dates on the project remain; refer to the on-line schedule provided by Metrolinx for details. There is also a virtual open house on-line.