Kathleen Wynne admits no 'specific dates' for all day, 2-way GO service
Liberal government would now have to survive summer vote in order to implement plan
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who promised to introduce all-day, two-way GO service between Kitchener and Toronto, admitted her government has no timeline for when trains would come to Kitchener from Toronto on a regular basis in the morning.
"We're making the two-way, all-day GO a priority because I know people want to go back and forth. I can't give you the specific dates but we want to get going on this right away," she told Craig Norris in an interview that aired on The Morning Edition Friday.
"It's just something we know is going to be a game changer in terms of business in the province," she said.
The Ontario Liberals made transportation a key plank of her $130.4-billion budget tabled Thursday.
Wynne will likely have to wait and see whether Ontarians will give her the mandate to work on improved GO service after NDP leader Andrea Horwath announced Friday the party wouldn't support the Liberal budget.
The Progressive Conservatives have already declared publicly they would vote against the budget, and the minority Liberals don't have enough votes to pass it, making an election likely.
- Liberals promise high speed rail in Kitchener within 10 years
- Liberals to study 71-minute Toronto, Kitchener, London rail trip
- GO: No firm plans for a.m. Toronto to Kitchener trains by 2016
Wynne's comments on GO come as provincial transportation agency Metrolinx announced it had reached an agreement in principle to buy 53 kilometres of track between Kitchener and Georgetown to make improvements to service. The transit agency says the purchase adds "significantly" to the track it already owns along the Kitchener corridor.
Liberals push for high-speed rail
Ontario Transportation Minister Glen Murray announced on Wednesday the Liberal government intended to begin an environmental assessment in the fall to study a high speed rail line that would see train trips from London to Kitchener to Toronto with a travel time of 71 minutes, at a top speed of 320 km/hr.
The trains would stop at Pearson Airport and downtown Toronto, with 28 trains a day making the trip.
According to a report on high-speed transit in the region from a British consulting firm, First Class Partnerships, it would cost $2-3 billion dollars to build that high speed rail line. That estimate doesn't include the cost of the upgrades to the track between Kitchener and Toronto.