The Ontario government says it is adding 300 weekly GO train trips to routes throughout the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), a service expansion Metrolinx is billing as the largest in more than a decade.
The additional trips on the Lakeshore West, Lakeshore East, Milton, Stouffville and Kitchener lines will begin April 28, Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference Monday.
Changes riders can expect include:
- Weekend train service increased from every 30 minutes to every 15 minutes in the afternoon and evening on the Lakeshore west and east lines between Oakville GO, Union and Durham College Oshawa GO stations.
- One additional train trip during both the morning and evening weekday rush hours between Milton GO and Union Station.
- Every second UP Express train will be non-stop between Union Station and Pearson Airport seven days a week.
- Evening train service seven days a week on the Stouffville Line.
- Thirty-minute weekday service during midday and evenings on the Kitchener Line between Bramalea GO and Union Station.
Premier Doug Ford announced Monday the province will soon add GO train trips on the Milton, Lakeshore West, Lakeshore East, Kitchener and Stouffville lines.
Ford speaks in Milton, where byelection looms
Ford announced the impending GO service expansion at a rail yard in Milton, where voters will choose a new MPP in a byelection on May 2.
The seat has been empty since former Ford cabinet minister Parm Gill resigned to run for the federal Conservative Party.
During his remarks, Ford said his government remains “1,000 per cent committed” to bringing all-day, two-way GO service to Milton, something local leaders in the growing suburb have long called for.
Ford said the province needs federal funding help to build a fully separated passenger rail line to make the service expansion possible.
“We’re going to keep urging the federal government to join us in a true cost-sharing partnership,” Ford said.
In 2021, the federal Liberal government said it would cover a share of the costs to make all-day, two-way service to Milton a reality, but the province has argued that a larger commitment would be necessary for such a massive project.
The Milton corridor is the fourth-busiest line in the GO rail network.
Opposition casts announcement as electioneering
In a statement released by the provincial Liberal party, byelection candidate Galen Naidoo Harris cast Ford as an opponent of improved GO service in Milton and attributed his “abrupt change of heart” to next month’s vote.
“This riding has had a Conservative MPP since 2018 and it’s only now, when this seat is at risk, that Doug Ford has managed to find Milton on the map,” said Naidoo Harris, who is also the manager of community affairs for federal Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden.
Naidoo Harris also pointed out that Ford’s government cancelled a planned expansion of Milton GO Station in 2020, and that a promise to build a second station in the area has gone unfulfilled.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles also said the byelection was likely a motivator for the announcement, arguing that both Conservative and Liberal governments are quick to make promises, but they don’t always deliver.
“Like in the case of the Kitchener-Waterloo two-way all-day GO, we wait for 12 years or more sometimes to actually see results,” Stiles told reporters at Queen’s Park.
“I don’t think those kinds of announcements hold a lot of weight. I think it’s a little bit of fluff. But we will certainly continue to hold the government to account and look for more details.”
Stiles said the changes to the UP Express will mean commuters will have to wait longer to board trains at Dundas West and Weston stations.
Green Party MPP Aislinn Clancy, who represents the riding of Kitchener Centre, slammed the Ford government for excluding the Kitchener area from the GO expansion.
“How is it that out of the hundreds of trips being added to the weekly GO schedule, none of them are going to bring relief to residents of Kitchener, Georgetown, Acton and Guelph who have been under-served for years?” Clancy said in a statement.
“The time for all-day, two-way go on the Kitchener line was 10 years ago. Already, the GO buses that run between Kitchener and Bramalea are so popular that they regularly fill up and have to leave people behind on the platform.”