Raise the Hammer

A link to this article apparently showed up in a daily email sent to Metrolinx employees as part of a regular email newsalert of all daily articles about GO/Metrolinx.

Also, some city councillors has retweeted this article (Matthew Green and Aidan Johnson did), and I'm aware at least half of the city council has read this article.

I'm no city planner, but I know that Metrolinx only does two GO timetables changes a year. A one-week delay can result in a train schedule change being delayed by six months. So expediency becomes a matter.

So, for municipal/provincial stakeholders:

To the City of Hamilton

• Are you waiting for Metrolinx? Escalate.
• Is the storm drains in the railroad corridor, the responsibility of City of Hamilton? If so, can relocating these drains be expedited, say, a few weeks earlier, assuming it falls in the same-year budget anyway?
• Who manages the sewers/storm drains at City of Hamilton? Are they aware of the one in the way of the rail extension? What year budget does this fall in? Can storm drain work be re-staged at no cost?
• Is the railroad corridor storm drain CN responsibility, but needs downstream connection to the city system? Escalate.

To Metrolinx

• Are you waiting for anybody in City of Hamilton to complete work? Escalate.
• Are you waiting for CN to relocate equipment? Escalate. Convince them that the business case actually benefits them too (e.g. more efficient passing of trains).
• Is this on hold due to John St Overpass?
• Is the crew scheduling department aware of the possibility of stopping Niagara trains in West Harbour? Can the timetable be modified mid-year instead of the regular May/September timetable change? (Since it's such a simple change)

The limit of two timetable changes a year (May & September) for GO Transit, is probably due to a union agreement for consistent crew scheduling. I'm not sure if adding a new stop on an existing train route, is included as an exception that can be done anytime. But it's a good reason why we need to make sure work isn't delayed because of the complex inter-agency co-operation.

This is already funded infrastructure work.

Let's make sure a one-week delay doesn't cause a timetable six-month missed-opportunity.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-10-09 01:25:42