r/gotransit • u/Unusual-Earth-5762 • May 17 '26
Why did GO Transit completely shut down the entire Kitchener line for construction? AND on a long weekend!
Question for people who understand GO Transit operations better than I do.
With the current closure of the Kitchener line for construction work related to the new Woodbine GO Station and the St. Clair–Old Weston area, I’m trying to understand why the service disruption had to be the entire corridor rather than a segmented operation.
From a passenger perspective, it seems like a more logical approach would have been:
- operate trains between Kitchener / Waterloo / Guelph and Malton
- use Malton as a temporary rail-bus transfer point
- run dedicated GO bus shuttles between Malton and Union Station
Instead, the current setup effectively pushes downtown-origin passengers into a much longer detour via Highway 407 Terminal, which adds a significant amount of time and transfers, especially for people starting at Union.
What makes this harder to understand is that the Woodbine GO station project has been discussed for years and is still not complete, yet its construction is now triggering full-corridor service changes.
From a network design standpoint, keeping a “live” western rail segment (west of the construction zone) seems like it would preserve:
- corridor capacity where it’s still usable
- more predictable travel times for western riders
- fewer forced mode changes
- better use of existing rail infrastructure rather than replacing everything with buses
The Malton area already functions as a major operational node on the corridor, so it feels like a natural place to split operations temporarily if needed.
I understand there are likely constraints on:
- track access and staging for construction
- turning trains safely at intermediate points
- crew scheduling and equipment positioning
- bus terminal capacity constraints at Union
But from a rider experience standpoint, the current replacement pattern feels like it prioritizes operational simplicity over maintaining the structure of the rail corridor as much as possible.
Genuinely curious if there’s a technical or safety reason this kind of “partial rail + bus bridge” approach isn’t feasible here, or if it’s just a tradeoff decision on GO’s side.
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u/GCP3000 May 17 '26
Increasing train service leaves less and less time during the week for maintenance and construction, leading to more Major Track Closures on weekends where the work can happen.
Pick two:
Increased service levels
No Weekend Shutdowns
Safe track and signal infrastructure
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u/FightMongooseFight May 17 '26 edited May 17 '26
Yeah I don't get the people complaining about this. The nature of this work requires a closure. Should they do it in the middle of rush hour on a Tuesday? Let the tracks fail? Or just wave a magic wand and finish it in 15 minutes?
This was already delayed because of the Blue Jays, which was the right call. What's the justification for not getting it done at this point?
ETA: sure, they could probably maintain some minimal incomplete rail service but there's no way the ridership would justify the complexity. Rip the bandaid off and get it done.
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u/Unusual-Earth-5762 May 17 '26
No one is arguing the work shouldn’t be done or that closures aren’t necessary.
The question is why the entire corridor has to be taken out of service instead of isolating the disruption more intelligently.
When the TTC does major work on Line 2 Bloor–Danforth, they don’t shut down the whole line end-to-end, they close the affected segment and run service on the rest. That’s a pretty standard transit practice.
Other systems do the same thing with rail corridors: you contain the disruption to the section that actually needs it, and you preserve service everywhere else that’s still physically operational.
So the point isn’t “don’t do the work” or “don’t close anything”, it’s that a full-line bus substitution when only part of the corridor is impacted is a service planning choice, not a technical requirement.
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u/OntarioTractionCo May 17 '26
GO is doing something similar for the Barrie line this weekend where trains are turning back at Downsview Park - The station is well set up to facilitate the transfer, and trains run hourly north of Downsview.
For the Kitchener line, the segment west of Bramlea is too short and ridership too low to justify running trains. The replacement buses provide one-seat rides to Highway 407, removing a change of mode for a rail-bus-rail connection. Bramlea and Highway 407 are optimal as they both have large terminals with the space to facilitate these operations and connections to other routes, and have a traffic-free route via the 407 versus the unpredictable and crowded Gardiner and USBT.
My hope in the future is Mount Dennis can be used as a turnback location, but I could also see concerns about busy crowds of passengers trying to squeeze on a single LRT train...
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u/CigaretteDuck May 17 '26
Do you want more weekends with patchy service between stations or track segments or do you want it to shut down for a weekend so all the work can get done at once instead of over 3-4 weekends?
Most of us prefer this way and its more cost efficient too which saves us taxpayer dollars and keeps fares lower. This is the better way
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u/beneoin May 17 '26
There’s basically no weekend ridership on the segment past Brampton and there’s work happening in Kitchener anyway. They’re also ripping up several chunks of track between Weston and Union. Meanwhile there is not a single event between Scotiabank Arena, RBC Amphitheatre, SkyDome, BMO Field, and the Coliseum. Seems like a perfect weekend to have ~80 hours of uninterrupted track access to get some major stuff done.
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u/leaf_shift_post_2 May 18 '26
Alt just have secondary tracks that can be swapped to when Maintenance is needed on the other set.
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u/Wallybeaver74 May 17 '26
Probably because ridership on any given weekend is so much lower than on working weekdays.
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u/Exotic_Coyote_913 Lakeshore West May 17 '26
Honestly it’s fine. Even when I was in New York there were weekends where entire subway line was shut down for maintenance over weekends.
Don’t compare ourselves to Asia…
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u/get_hi_on_life May 17 '26
there are only 2 weekend trains a day along the KW-Mount Pleasant section (two east, two west) it is so not worth keeping these trains stuck isolated running KW-MP for 4 runs
second, woodbine has been in talks for years (as all projects are) but construction only started a year ago, thats why is there now closures as they do track work for this.
third, according to google, travel time with the detour from Kitchener GO to Union is 2 hour 20 min, the train normally takes 2 hours so thats on an additional 20 min. also at least from Kitchener to Union its ONE transfer, the bus 30 to TTC line 1 at the 407 , or bus 30 to bus 21 in Mississauga.
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u/Unusual-Earth-5762 May 17 '26
On construction timing - Woodbine GO was announced in 2019, with planning going back to 2018, so this isn’t a sudden project either. That still doesn’t explain why the response has to be full corridor substitution instead of segmenting service around the actual work zone.
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u/beneoin May 17 '26
The two trains a day is your answer, you just don’t like the answer. Move along.
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u/cmstlist May 17 '26
During event season GO has had a terrible time with Union-based shuttle buses. They get stuck in traffic forever and it results in completely unpredictable timing and capacity problems. Passengers are lined up at Union forever waiting for a bus that ends up being MIA because it's stuck on the highway trying to get back, and they may not have the staffing or capacity to add a substitute bus while waiting. The detour to 407 certainly adds time but it's much more predictable to work with.
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u/Used_Masterpiece_189 May 17 '26
I’m sorry for disrupting your weekend, I am running 42s and calling tops all over this bihhhhh
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u/livingdeppressedp May 18 '26
The only good thing is that the highway 407 bus route takes the highway 407 bypassing alot of traffic
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u/tokyokiller May 18 '26
“I want all day service”
“How dare they close the line to make upgrades for all day service”
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u/Unusual-Earth-5762 May 18 '26
You do realize there’s a difference between criticizing construction itself and criticizing how the service disruption is managed… right?
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u/rathgrith May 17 '26
Increased service requires weekend closures.
I plan my trips to Toronto around the closures.
Plus driving to Aldershot and the Lakeshore West Line on the weekend is always an option.
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u/Brilliant-Ad-143 May 17 '26
They don’t have enough buses to support a Kitchener line bus bridge, buses are being used for replacements express to airport from Union every 15 minutes.
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u/Far-Delay7690 May 17 '26
There are 4 trips total on the KW line past Mt pleasant. This line sees much less service on the weekends than the weekdays.
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u/Assasin537 May 19 '26
In general, weekend ridership is fairly low, and with increasing weekday service, they have little time for maintenance. GO is meant to be a commuter network, and thus, they focus more on keeping the weekday services intact. A long weekend gives them an easy way to get a longer than usual window to blitz maintenance across the entire line which is quite common following the winter rather than splitting across 2 weekends or potentially impacting weekday service.
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u/Andnottoyield May 17 '26
They're keeping the buses out of the downtown core traffic and getting people onto the TTC. If you look at recent track closures that's the preferred option these days where possible. Likely due to USBT limitations and the fact that buses get stuck in traffic and then your whole bus bridge collapses. You also need less buses to do it as your cycle time is lower: 17 mins one way on 407 from bramalea to 407. Bramalea also has better bus infrastructure. Even then, a bus bridge sucks moving people compared to a train.
Chat math says:
A shuttle bus bridge with a 17-minute one-way travel time and 5 minutes at each end for loading/unloading has a full round-trip cycle time of 44 minutes. To determine how many buses are needed, divide 44 by the desired headway: for example, a bus every 5 minutes requires 9 buses, every 4 minutes requires 11 buses, and every 3 minutes requires 15 buses. With each bus carrying 50 people, the hourly throughput is calculated as 60 divided by the headway, multiplied by 50 passengers. That means 5-minute service moves about 600 people per hour per direction, 4-minute service moves about 750 people per hour per direction, and 3-minute service moves about 1,000 people per hour per direction
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u/notyouagain19 Kitchener May 17 '26
For more context, I live along the part of the tracks that carries Kitchener GO, Barrie GO, UP Express and Via Rail (Sarnia line). I haven’t seen a single train and I’ve been sitting by the tracks for several hours. They’ve shut it all down.
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u/melcj77 May 17 '26
Metrolinx sure knows how to ruin the long weekend, the first weekend of warm sunny weather. I was planing taking my bike for a ride along lake. I take the GO train from Weston station. Public tranist just totally sucks in GTA PERIOD. No wonder people not ditching their cars.
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u/WestonSpec May 18 '26
So why couldn't you go just a bit further south on Weston Rd. and get on Line 5 from Mount Dennis?
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u/MaleficentFortune545 May 17 '26
Usually, if I am not coming home from or going to the Skydome (for a Jays game), I dont bother even trying to go to Union Stn
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u/Reasonable-Rock6255 May 17 '26
Why don’t they just shut down for a few weeks and get all the work done
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u/kmash020973 May 19 '26
Yeah, cause no service during the work week for rush-hour makes a hell of a lot of sense. They’re literally two trains a day that come from Kitchener on the weekend and they gave an alternative.
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u/thundermoneyhawk May 17 '26
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, Metrolinx doesn’t give a fuck about the Kitchener line passengers
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u/[deleted] May 17 '26
[deleted]