Bending the Rails with the Clean Train Coalition
Clean Train Coalition held its annual Railbender this past May to celebrate 2 years of community involvement in advocating for electrification of the Air Rail Link and GO service expansion. The event was held at the Gladstone, one of Toronto’s historic railway hotels, and it was packed with people from communities along the corridor who enjoyed an evening of great music and speakers.
Although the McGuinty Liberal Government is still not committed to electrification called for by CTC, Metrolinx has done a planning study on electrification which announced its results earlier this year. The study recommends that the ARL be converted to electric only after it is operational. Metrolinx also recommends that the entire Georgetown Line from Union Station to Kitchener, on the rail corridor that runs through our community, and Lakeshore line from Oshawa to Hamilton, be electrified by 2032.
The CTC thinks the province should make the commitment to fund the $457M Air Rail Link electrification project immediately and to build it to run with electric trains from its opening day.
This year’s Railbender featured the release of “No Little Plan: Electrifying GO Transit” by Greg Gormick, rail policy expert and CTC Research Coordinator . The report makes the case that further delay of electrified rail corridors in the greater Toronto Hamilton Area is a costly mistake. It proposes and exciting revolution of transit in Toronto, the first step being electrifying the Georgetown Corridor.
For more information, please see www.cleantrain.ca or email info@cleantrain.ca. They are also on Facebook.
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