Southern Ontario is a fun place because you can see so many of the world’s transportation problems, but for far too long we haven’t used many of the world’s transit solutions.
A great example is the case of Waterloo region and Guelph: two sizeable urban areas of ~500,000 and ~150,000 respectively that have major universities and people travelling between them regularly, with Guelph being separated from Kitchener in the centre of Waterloo region by about 10 kilometres of farm fields.
And this is of course not a development pattern unique to this corner of Canada: having small-to-medium cities thatg have managed to contain their sprawl and sit a moderate distance apart is fairly typical across North America and much of Europe.
The status quo for transit between Guelph and Waterloo is very bad. Both urban areas have their own transit systems, and Waterloo even has its ION light rail line (making it the smallest urban region on the continent to have electric rail). However, these systems do not connect, and this sort of makes sense from both a jurisdictional and geographical point of view, even if there’s a clear case to be made for a collaborative funding and service model.
What’s perhaps more concerning is that when discussing the lack of service between these two regions that will probably have a million people between them in the not so distant future, the plans seem quite questionable. It’s suggested that it will be at least three years before a standard transit service exists between the cities, and a proper GO transit bus service is around a decade away — assuming we follow plans, which we have a history of not following.
Now, GO transit is slowly improving service to Kitchener with both bus and long-discussed rail, but there isn’t a clear publicly available plan that details the barriers to service today and the solutions being pursued to enable it in the future. This isn’t because it’s not clear what the showstoppers are — interactions with freight rail as well as limited track and station infrastructure and a lack of clarity regarding the status of Kitchener Central Station in Waterloo are all major problems.
But, based on recent conversations, I think that perhaps a much bigger part of the problem is the underestimation of the value and volume of non-commute travel in the Toronto region broadly. GO transit’s service and future plans for this part of the region have long been stubbornly commuter-focused, despite the long travel time between Guelph, Waterloo, and Toronto — which is simply not a natural or healthy commute pattern with todays transit. This is made even more shocking in the wake of Covid-19 and work-from-home trends that had transit planners, agencies, and publications all singing about the importance of off peak travel — something that already isn’t being reflected by the actual service transit agencies are operating.
And this is a real problem today. Trains and buses are packed during off-peak periods where we are deploying less service than we could. In particular, I’m frequently reminded of the extreme congestion on buses headed to universities in Waterloo and Guelph, which are often standing room only (something that won’t be allowed much longer as long-distance buses with seatbelts are supposedly not allowed to take standees) and regularly leave passengers behind. While better connections between Waterloo and Guelph will not fix all of these problems, they are certainly part of the puzzle.
It’s also worth noting that better local connections should allow the whole regional transit system to operate more efficiently, by combining and to an extent balancing capacity on links between Waterloo, Guelph, and the rest of the region. This is because riders headed to Waterloo or Guelph could take buses or trains to either, and then travel between if necessary, *if* a high quality local connection existed.
I do think it’s important to note that while connecting the two cities is important, how the connection is made is also critical. A slow, infrequent, city transit bus operating between the train stations would need to fight hard to gain ridership, as it would likely provide a rather uncomfortable and inconvenient trip.
There is good news though, Waterloo Region and Guelph are both getting nice upgraded rail stations and are connected well by a straight stretch of Metrolinx-owned track that has room for expansion. As it turns out, limitations to rail service are actually mostly between Guelph and Toronto. I and others sort of believe these mostly unrelated issues are likely putting blinders on planners and making them miss the opportunity presented by rail service between only Guelph and Waterloo that does not continue onwards to Toronto.
The idea of a Waterloo-Guelph rail service has long interested me, but of course the question arises: What would it look like?
GO trains might be the simplest solution, but the economics and performance of their operation on a relatively short and more moderately used route present issues. The natural alternative then is probably a more frequent service operated by smaller more performant trains such as Stadler Flirt or Alstom Lint diesel multiple units (though given Metrolinx’s corridor ownership, electrification seems like a reasonable long term plan).
While at first blush the diesel multiple unit idea seems attractive, there is a bit of an issue, and that’s that the universities — possibly the biggest trip generators in the two towns — are not near the mainline rail stations. And this seems like as good a time as any to introduce the concept of a tram train.
A tram train is, at its simplest, an operating concept where trams utilize mainline tracks or corridors, which is rather novel as trams are usually associated with rather dense urban areas. This rough definition seems to have expanded over the years to also describe trams that operate in corridors with mainline-like properties even when not mixed in with other train traffic. To be clear, a regular tram going down a wide boulevard on ballasted tracks would *not* be called a tram train: tram trains have mainline rail routes with high speeds, mainline electrification, wide station spacings and the like. One way of putting it could be that while the RER and S-Bahn concepts take suburban and regional trains into the city, tram trains as a concept take urban transit into the suburbs and regional transit.
So why tram trains? Well, the concept of tram trains was originated in the German city of Karlsruhe, which had traditional trams and mainline rail, relatively limited funding, and a desire for high quality links to neighbouring cities. One solution or creating the desired links would be to create cross city tunnels, but this would’ve been expensive and disruptive. So, instead, tram networks from Karlsruhe and surrounding cities and towns were connected into mainlines, and special trams were developed to operate seamlessly from urban tram systems onto the German national railway network. This was no simple feat, and required faster trams that could accept higher voltage mainline overhead power. Of course, tram trains also often have to feature seating comfortable for mainline travel, and sometimes other amenities like space for luggage and restrooms. Once operating, this mode proved very attractive, as passengers could board a tram in one urban area, ride it onto a fast mainline to the next city, and then get off at a stop close to their final destination. Additional connections could be made to more towns and the compatibility with tram infrastructure meant service could instantly operate to key destinations. In the decades since this innovation, tram trains have taken off across Europe, and Karlsruhe even ended up building a city centre tunnel, albeit for trams!
As you might imagine, this model could transfer exceptionally well to Guelph and Waterloo. Waterloo already has a tram line that runs directly past the future location of the mainline rail station — permitting a rather simple connection, and which also goes to its university (though I would extend a service one stop to the north to enable access to jobs at the Research and Technology Park). Guelph by comparison does not have local tracks such a service could use, but given the short distance between Guelph Central station and the University of Guelph — < 3km — building some would be trivial.
There is the issue of sharing track with big North American mainline trains, but this is actually not unprecedented even in the local area! In fact, the ION system in Waterloo shares a portion of its right of way with very infrequent freight trains which are enabled by temporal separation. A more sophisticated system could provably guarantee no tram train collisions could be deployed on the Metrolinx line between Waterloo and Guelph, perhaps with additional separation between tracks travelling in both directions. If this option is seen as infeasible, there are other options such as lighter trains for the Kitchener line, but a surefire solution would be building a new parallel track for trams adjacent to, but sufficiently separated from, the mainline. With this solution, approaches to the central stations could be made on surface streets (this would add about 9 km of additional track on top of the connection in Guelph, and would slow trips, but it would also provide more local transit coverage in both cities) and the line could generally be made single track initially, enabling a reasonable 30 minute takt that could be coordinated with mainline services and regional buses. This would be plenty convenient for the many one-seat rides it would offer. This level of service could be accommodated on existing ION infrastructure, and incremental improvements could happen with growing demand.
What’s even more interesting is that a tram train solution for Guelph and Waterloo could even grow to serve another critical and oft requested regional connection: from Waterloo Region to Hamilton. Once the planned ION extension to Cambridge is completed (or potentially in parallel), a new corridor could be constructed — probably mostly paralleling highways 6 and 5 to Hamilton via Dundas. This connection would be nearly 30 kilometres long, but could win local support by providing some inexpensive intermediate stops, and would again mostly be able to consist of single track for a 30 minute takt. Of course, what’s great is that given another 5-kilometre set of tram tracks that could provide additional local transit, this line would be able to connect into and run along Hamilton’s in-development LRT route, perhaps even including a short spur to West Harbour GO station for additional connectivity. This would mean that both Waterloo and Hamilton could see substantial additional service between their respective universities and regional rail services.
[citadis spirit]
A natural question to ask would be — given the *relatively* new nature of modern tramways in Canada, do we actually have a tram vehicle here that could run such a service? The answer is a surprising yes, because the Alstom Citadis Spirit — now in use on Ottawa’s O-Train and soon to be in use in Toronto and Peel — is actually derivative of Alstom tram train product, the aptly named Citadis Dualis. The Spirit has all the features we would want, from a high top speed for long straight rural sections of track (allowing a travel time from edge to edge of 30 minutes between Waterloo and Hamilton, and of 15 minutes between Waterloo and Guelph), a spacious interior for fit out with nice amenities, and infrastructure compatibility with the Toronto region’s new tram routes. Now, while we shouldn’t dismiss problems faced with this vehicle in Ottawa, it’s worth noting that the modifications that were requested for operation there, as well as the extremely high service intensity would not apply here. It’s also been said that design changes have been made for the vehicles being delivered to Toronto and Peel region, which are even assembled in Brampton!
With this concept, we’d gain a lot of things: Better, more extensive tram infrastructure and service in Waterloo, Guelph and Hamilton; Much needed regional connections including a western GTHA orbital rail route, long before mainline rail would ever be seriously considered; And enhanced connectivity to rural areas between growing urban nodes. Essentially, tram trains seem to be a pretty obvious solution and a win-win-win for the western GTHA.
Got a little confused with this
“ Waterloo already has a tram line that runs directly past the future location of the mainline rail station — permitting a rather simple connection, and which also goes to its university (though I would extend a service one stop to the north to enable access to jobs at the Research and Technology Park)” because I think there is a stop at the research park already
This reminds me a lot of the old interurban railways that existed across many parts of North America between about 50-100 years ago. Chicago and Milwaukee used to be connected via trains that would use the Loop L tracks in Chicago, trolley tracks in Milwaukee, but then run along a mix of city streets and dedicated rights of way in between.