Ever-so-slowly, the UPX fare boxes are improving. You can now use your credit card to tap on and off.
I’m sure these things are massively complicated, but it seems a bit bonkers that a train designed for airport passengers didn’t have this in the first place. Nobody wants to struggle with tickets in a foreign language while juggling luggage and fighting jetlag. Add it to the list.
While you’re considering UPX fares, be sure avoid a scam. Your correspondent saw $120 “unlimited” Presto cards advertised on a social network. They are allegedly good for three years.
UPX and GO service will be temporarily reduced as a result of the pandemic. Trains will run twice-hourly at peak periods and hourly in off-peak periods.
The last train to Weston will also leave downtown earlier—at 10 pm. The cuts begin today.
GO Train service to Weston will also be cut. There will be no weekday evening service. The last train will leave downtown at 6:34 pm.
GO ridership is less than 10% of what it was before the pandemic.
Influential Toronto transit blogger Steve Munro is reporting a significant development in construction of the Eglinton Crosstown Line. Metrolinx has consistently stated that the line will not open until all stations are ready. Now it seems that thanks to various factors, Eglinton Station (at Yonge) might not be ready until May 2022 and a direct connection to the subway will be delayed until fall of that year.
Why the change in plans? Steve points out that, “The expected June 2022 provincial election will bring considerable pressure to provide a ribbon cutting for Premier Ford at whatever cost is necessary.”.
View an interesting take on the line from Reece Martin below:
Update: Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster has called talk of a partial opening as a ‘distraction’. Verster seems unhappy with builders of the line, Crosslink Transit Solutions.
Lions Park’s soccer field was undergoing extensive preparations before being covered in artificial turf – it has proved to be an incredibly popular year-round attraction.
Urban Arts had completed a new mural and Toronto Council looked as if it would do something for Weston cyclists. Sadly a golden opportunity to build a path along the rail tracks was lost and ten years later the dangerous ‘Supercentre’ gap in the trail is still there.
Finally, speaking of rail tracks, the Clean Train Coalition (who successfully lobbied for an airport express station in Weston) was rallying in support of electric locomotives for the then unbuilt and unnamed UP Express. That dream is still a few years away although GO electrification plans will allegedly be developed by next year.
Walkers in Weston’s 2010 Pink Parade participate in the seventh annual Weekend to End Women’s Cancers. (file) Click to enlarge.
Here’s the latest drone footage of the Mount Dennis Eglinton Crosstown station showing the latest progress in building the structures needed to connect Mount Dennis to the rest of the line. The Kodak building features prominently and the scale of the project can be appreciated from the air. An impressive entrance is shaping up on Eglinton. Let’s hope we actually get to use the line one day!
The video shows Mount Dennis station as it currently exists for a future when mass travel is once more possible. The old Kodak Building looks good! Stations down the line are also featured.
