Blue22

Blue22 is a proposed airport link railway service in Toronto, Canada, which will run between the downtown Union Station and Toronto Pearson International Airport, about 30 km away. It is so named because of its planned 22-minute trip time and the suggested cost of service. The trains are to run every fifteen minutes, seven days a week, and are expected to eliminate 1.5 million car trips annually.

Since discussion began in the mid-1990s, the railway line was originally expected to be opened by 2008, and would be built, operated, and maintained by SNC-Lavalin subsidiary Union Pearson AirLink Group using four refurbished Rail Diesel Cars, and will require the construction of a branch track to the airport from an existing Canadian National railway corridor that passes near the airport, a station at the airport, and various upgrades to the existing track to handle the increased traffic.

It has been suggested that the trains will make flights to Toronto’s island-based City Centre Airport unnecessary, as their main appeal is their quick and reliable access to the downtown core, although the island airport is already principally dedicated to general aviation and emergency services.

Alternatives

The Toronto Transit Commission’s planned Eglinton West subway under Eglinton Avenue West would have eventually connected with Pearson Airport, although it would not have provided an express connection to downtown as Blue22 is to do. The line’s construction was halted by the provincial government in the mid-1990s, and it is no longer a priority for the TTC.

While the subway line has been cancelled, in March 2007, the City of Toronto and the TTC issued the Transit City proposal which includes an Eglinton Crosstown LRT, with the possibility of an underground subway portion mid-route running across the middle of Toronto from Kennedy Station in the east to Renforth Drive at the southern boundary of Pearson, making for a possible short connection to the terminals. This idea has also been touted as way to possibly continue the line west into Mississauga.

The current Blue22 diesel train project however, remains highly controversial. While downtown Toronto is a hub for regional railway and bus services, it is currently the destination of only 17% of the airport’s users, and the regional services there are much less frequent than Blue22’s trains, leading to fears that the new service will not appeal to most airport users, even tourists. It has been suggested that this problem could be mitigated by having Blue22 trains also stop mid-route at GO Transit’s Bloor station in west Toronto, which is adjacent to the TTC’s Dundas West station on the Toronto subway.

It has also been argued that better service could have been provided at a lower cost if the federal government had followed GO Transit’s proposal to build a new station on their Georgetown railway line next to Woodbine Racetrack, which could be connected to an extended people mover, already servicing the airport terminals and then just increase the service frequency on the Georgetown line. This would have cost significantly less than running Blue22’s dedicated express trains and tracks, provided access to the airport from multiple locations in and around Toronto rather than just downtown, and improved service for commuters travelling to other destinations on the Georgetown line; on the other hand, it would have meant a longer trip to Union Station and the airport, as the proposed station would have been approximately 4 km distant from the airport. Either way, the Blue22 would require also require a 4 km spur track and an extension of the current Automated People Mover (APM) serving airport terminals/parking lots.

Another possible benefit of the Blue22 project is the additional rail capacity made available to VIA rail which serves Kitchener/Waterloo, London and Windsor along the Blue22 corridor. The additional passenger rail capacity holds out the promise of faster and more frequent inter-city service along this busy corridor. Under the second round of funding under the Chretien Liberal government, VIA rail had proposed track improvements of this sort as a prelude to a high-speed rail network, however, these plans were cancelled under the Martin government.

Residents’ complaints

Residents living along one section of the proposed route have objected about the alterations being made to accommodate the trains, which involve closing some level crossings and may make access to Weston Road from the surrounding neighbourhoods more difficult (although the removal of these crossings has been suggested for years because of the risks they pose for the already-operational GO Transit services). They are also concerned about the effects frequent trains running through their neighbourhoods may have on noise levels and property values.

Political reaction

On January 10, 2007, Laura Albanese the Liberal candidate in the provincial by-election in York South—Weston wrote an [http://www.votealbanese.ca/news_01102007.aspx Open letter to the Minister of Transportation] asking for Blue22 to be cancelled.

On June 15, 2007, Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty announced "MoveOntario 2020", a plan to fund 52 transit projects in Ontario to improve transit services provided in southern Ontario. In this funding plan Blue22 is among the recipents of funding along with the Toronto Transit Commission, York Region Transit's Viva bus rapid transit system, Durham Region Transit, Mississauga Transit, Brampton Transit and the Hamilton Street Railway and GO Transit.

Recent discussion

With the Ontario Government's move in June 2008 to shorten its environmental assessment process from the required three-year period to six-months, and the high speed link has received recent public statements of strong support from McGuinty, Mayor David Miller and the federal government, the timeline to green-light the project might be closer to being realized. The overseeing Greater Toronto Area regional transit authority, Metrolinx, has also recently indicated that the project is a priority. There has been discussion about changes to initial proposal, which could include more stops integrating it with the existing and future TTC streetcar/subway network and possibly using electric cars, rather than diesel as originally proposed. Others have forwarded such ideas as extending the Bloor subway north from Kipling station or perhaps the cheapest solution, tying it into the existing GO train network and increasing frequency along the Georgetown rail corridor [ [http://www.thestar.com/article/472255 "High-speed rail link to airport on fast track", "The Toronto Star", August 5, 2008] ] [ [http://www.thestar.com/article/473531] ]

ee also

*Union Station (Toronto)
*Toronto Pearson International Airport
*Toronto City Centre Airport
*MoveOntario 2020

External links

* [http://transit.toronto.on.ca/archives/data/200006071924.shtml Union-airport rail link on way] (17 June 2000)
* [http://www.tc.gc.ca/mediaroom/releases/nat/2003/03-h132e.htm Transport Minister Announces Winning Proposal for Toronto Air-Rail Link] (13 November 2003), with [http://www.tc.gc.ca/mediaroom/images/bigmap.jpgincluded map]
* [http://westoncommunitycoalition.ca/ Weston Community Coalition]
* [http://www.georgetownpearsonstudy.ca Georgetown Pearson Study] (website for Individual Environmental Assessment)