Doug Craig says Cambridge GO train would be quicker, cost less

Cambridge Mayor Doug Craig is "quite pleased" with Premier Kathleen Wynne's pledge to bring two-way, all day GO train service to Waterloo Region, but maintains that extending the GO Milton line to Cambridge would be cheaper to build and the quickest way to get to downtown Toronto. 

"The majority of people that are coming in every day, into the Region of Waterloo, the majority of them are coming to the City of Cambridge," said Doug Craig in an interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition on Wednesday.

"The majority of the people leaving the region of Waterloo, over 42 per cent of them are coming from the City of Cambridge and going out every morning to other destinations in the GTA."

According to a news release, the province will make improvements to GO's Kitchener line in order to bring the increased train service to the region. 

That would entail building a new train layover facility, as well as upgrading the rail corridor so travel times are faster, and by the end of 2016, adding two more morning and afternoon trips to the schedule

Craig says extending the Milton line into Cambridge would cost substantially less than making improvements to the tracks heading into Kitchener. In December, a consortium including the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph, the Region of Waterloo and Communitech estimated that building second track along the Kitchener line would cost about $396 million, based on a 2009 environmental assessment. 

"I need anywhere from $25 to maybe 50 [million] at the top in terms of the money that we need to extend the service from Cambridge to Milton," said Craig. 

Craig also claims that the Kitchener GO line would be slower than the Cambridge line. He says that Cambridge hasn't been fully considered as an option because of politics.

"We don't get the advocacy from the region whatsoever," said Craig. "We don't have a minster in the government sitting in our riding."

Click to the left to listen to Doug Craig's entire interview.