Cambridge LRT route planning includes space for GO train station

In Cambridge, one future train could meet another From CTV Kitchener’s Max Wark: Plans for an LRT extension into Cambridge include a new station for unplanned GO trains.

Right now, Cambridge doesn’t have an LRT line or a GO train route hitting the city.

There’s no commitment suggesting GO trains will ever be a reality for Cambridge, and no formally approved route or timetable for an extension of the Ion LRT.

But thought has already been given to ensuring that, if those two projects ever get off the ground, there will be an easy way for passengers to connect from one service to the other.

Regional transportation planners are working to develop the route for LRT to run through Cambridge if the project is approved and funded.

Their preliminary preferred route – which will be adjusted this spring based on public feedback – would see light rail vehicles connect from Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener to the Ainslie Street transit terminal via existing rail corridors and roads such as the yet-to-be-built River Road extension, King Street East, Eagle Street, Hespeler Road and Beverly Street.

That route would not take light rail vehicles past the existing train station on Water Street, which is currently used as a CP rail yard and would otherwise be a logical possible location for a GO train station.

Planning documents show that the region has considered three locations along the route where a train station could be built. Two of them are near the intersection of Dundas and Samuelson streets, with the third being off Beverly north of Main Street.

If the route is moved off of its current path, allowances for possible future GO train connections will be a strongly considered factor.

“No matter what route is chosen, there will be at least one location … where a GO station could be possibly located,” Coun. Tom Galloway, who chairs the region’s planning and works committee, said in an interview.

“We want to make sure that we are planning for that.”

There have not been any formal negotiations between the region and Metrolinx about building a GO train station in Cambridge.

Galloway says he doesn’t expect any talks to happen until the LRT extension is formally approved by the region. Even then, he says, it would only be for “if and when” Metrolinx decides to run GO trains to the city.

While Cambridge GO trains remain officially off the books, Metrolinx did add daily GO bus trips between Cambridge and Milton in 2016.

Coun. Karl Kiefer, who represents Cambridge at regional council, says the city is often left out of the conversation when it comes to regional transit.

“It’s fine that we have a GO train coming to Kitchener, but the residents of Cambridge will either go to Aldershot or to Milton to get the GO train, rather than drive to Kitchener,” he said.

“The province and the federal government both, when they’re talking about the Region of Waterloo, they’re talking about KW.”

With reporting by Max Wark