Improved transit links to the GTA was top of mind for those who attended a town hall meeting with the management team from Metrolinx in Kitchener Monday night
Metrolinx, who operate GO Transit, have been under heavy scrutiny for several years for their inability to provide better train service to Waterloo Region.
The topic of the night was two-way-all-day-go service.
Metrolinx says they’re acquiring the track from Georgetown to Kitchener needed to increase GO Train capacity and spending around $75 million to get that done.
“This infrastructure (track and signaling) is really important because it'll create passing point for us on the single track line, that’ll allow trains to pass each other and therefore enable the two-way directional service,” said Phil Verster, Metrolinx CEO.
According to Verster this will help with a gradual build up to full two-way-all-day GO.
"We will achieve the first sort-of two-way service long before the original date that was coined a couple of years ago as 2025 or 2027.”
Kitchener’s Mayor Berry Vrbanovic was in attendance and pleased with what he heard.
“One thing that is clear to me is that this is a priority both for Mertrolinx and the provincial government and hopefully we're going to see that come forward in the budget and other announcements in the coming months,” said Vrbanovic.
“The news that there's been progress in the discussions with CN is an incredibly important issue because without that seeing additional progress would be extremely difficult,” he added.
Metrolinx say there will be more town halls in the future, and they will post the answers to Monday night’s meeting to their website.
With reporting by Virginia Wright.
