Stuck at a Train Station in Brampton
Stuck at a Train Station in Brampton
Waiting for the future of GO Transit.
I was standing on the platform of the Innovation District GO Train station in Brampton. The 3:47pm Kitchener line train to Toronto was due soon. That was my guess, anyways. My phone had died, and there wasn't anywhere apparent to plug it in. And there was no clock at the station.
I didn't want to hassle my fellow passengers, who were clearly as impatient as I was. So, I just stared periodically down the somewhat straight tracks out into the distance. West, I presumed. The sun was going down, so it had to be.
A train appeared in the distance. Finally.
"Excuse me," a young woman said in what I presumed to be a Ukrainian accent. "Is this train to Union?"
I chuckled. "I hope so." Hopefully I didn't sound like a jerk, but I was tired. In and out of Brampton isn't exactly a quick jaunt. Not from my place in East Toronto. Not yet.
The young lady and her boyfriend jockeyed to get a spot on the train, which blew right through the station.
We looked at each other, and I shrugged. We weren't getting off that easy.
Five minutes later, maybe ten. The crowd had grown. Several restless young men on bikes were now hanging around. The train was scheduled to arrive at Union at 4:28pm, just in time to start the dinner time delivery rush. Or that was the plan. Time is money in their line of business, and the clock was ticking.
A friendly looking man who appeared to be in his 30s sidled up to me. He casually titled his phone towards me as he looked at the train schedule.
"Hi there, are you waiting for the train to Union."
Once again, with slightly less patience: "I hope so."
The man laughed. I felt bad for not having an answer, so I turned to the increasingly agitated crowd I'd tried to avoid disturbing.
“Yes…”
There's my good deed for the day.
The man was looking for a conversation. He took note of what he assumed was a corporate badge tucked in my breast pocket.
"Do you work in Brampton."
"No, just here for a meeting."
I wasn't in the mood to chat, but he seemed nice. Besides, he wasn't going anywhere.
"How about you?"
He had a pretty classic Brampton story. Arrived three months ago from Punjab. Brampton was his landing spot since he had friends there. He was heading to Toronto for a job interview. Seemed extremely prepared and polished. Hope he got it.
As time dragged on, he casually moved on, knowing that me and my dead phone weren't going to answer his most pressing question: would he make it on time for his interview?
Every now and then I'd see a flicker of light in the distance. Or at least it seemed that way. When your brain is looking for patterns, it finds them. After my false hope had been exhausted, I finally saw what was, in fact, the train.
We all piled on and got into Union about at 5:12 - 44 minutes late. So Brampton to Union in 1:25 rather than the posted 41 minutes. That’s the difference between being much faster and much slower than driving at rush hour (Google’s estimate at 4:31pm is 1:07). It’s an appealing service, if it’s on time. That’s a huge caveat, as I found out.
I’m optimistic things will improve as GO rolls out two-way all day trains every fifteen minutes, eventually. But when? I was in Brampton to find out. The badge in my pocket was from the Mayor’s State of the City address. I hoped I’d get some clues there.
I became fixated on the Kitchener Line out of annoyance. I’ve had to cancel two trips out to conferences in Waterloo because the morning train schedule wouldn’t get me there in time. I happened to vent about this to a rail advocate in my network, and as we went back and forth I started to realize that this is also an issue for (and in) Brampton. So I went out to meet him to discuss the project, and to see if I could tease some answers out of local pols. I still have more questions than answers.
Here's what I know. The Kitchener line, like most North American commuter rail, has to navigate tracks owned by freight companies. We’re a big country that exports to global markets. The best way to move most goods to the coasts is by rail. Canada needs our freight rail companies to be fast and efficient to get our products to market. That presents a challenge for passenger rail, since freight rail gets priority over passenger trains when they conflict.
That’s a big problem for Brampton GO riders. Some of the major pinch points for the Kitchener line are in and around Brampton. They’ll cost money to resolve. We’ll have no choice but to resolve those issues if we’re going to achieve the government’s goal of two-way all-day service every 15 minutes on the Kitchener line.
The challenges aren’t insurmountable. We need an extra track segment, and a tunnel outside the city core. That’s not earth shattering. It will cost money, but nothing too serious. The Government has allocated $1.4 billion to improve travel times (and frequency) on the Kitchener line. For a project that enhances connectivity between Toronto and several large (and small) GTA cities including Kitchener, Guelph, and Brampton, that’s not bad. We should do it sooner rather than later.
Two-way all-day service every 15 minute would be a game changer for Brampton commuters. No more showing up at the station, hoping the once an hour train doesn’t get stuck behind a freight train. And with increased frequency, there’s less need to arrive early since you can always catch the next train. That would make a tangible difference in the lives of the people I was stuck on the train platform with, and the many people who would prefer to use the train, but are stuck in traffic instead. For now, they wait. And wait.