Toronto is getting four new GO train stations in the west end, the province announced Tuesday, giving a jump start to Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack plan.
The four stations will be built along the Barrie and Kitchener GO transit line and will be located at Bloor Street and Lansdowne Avenue, St. Clair W. and Keele Street, Spadina Avenue and Front Street, and in Liberty Village where the provincial transport minister and the mayor announced the news.
An announcement for an additional two stations in Toronto’s east end is expected to be made on Wednesday, bringing the total of new GO train stations to six. According to a staff report released Tuesday, the stations in the east would be Portland and Gerrard.
Transport Minister Steven Del Duca said he met with dozens of people who lived in Liberty Village who “expressed challenges faced by moving around the city.”
Tory said the new stations, part of Metrolinx’s Regional Express Rail (RER) program, is expected to provide residents in the GTHA with better, faster transit. Eventually, the new trains will operate every 10 minutes or less in 2024, when the tracks are electrified.
“This rail corridor will be a vital part of Toronto’s transportation network,” Tory said.
The new stations will go before the Metrolinx Board of Directors on June 28. They are expected to discuss funding, environmental assessment processes, engineering and design.
Two of the four stations – Liberty Village and St. Clair and Keele – were originally proposed in Tory’s SmartTrack plan – an initiative that became the cornerstone of his mayoral campaign.
The SmartTrack plan has been scaled down since Tory became mayor.
“In 25 years, I don’t think anybody will be debating the decision I know we are going to take to move ahead with SmartTrack,” Tory said. “They will say, ‘Thank goodness these governments got together and did something.’”
The GO stations and trains running within Toronto will eventually be rebranded as RER/SmartTrack as part of the mayor’s plan.
Initially, a staff report said SmartTrack could attract more than 300,000 daily riders -- but that number would be cut down by two-thirds by commuters who could not afford to pay GO transit fares.
Tory said staff are working to offer better fares, similar to what TTC offers.
The city released a transit network plan Tuesday afternoon that explained the next step for SmartTrack, including negotiations on cost-sharing and fare policy as well as how the new stations would be integrated into the existing system.
The report offered recommendations for SmartTrack, Scarborough Transit Network and the Relief Line. There was a request to remove a three-stop McCowan Scarborough Subway Extension and another to develop more options for extending the Eglinton West LRT between Renforth Gateway and Pearson International Airport.
