History of GO Transit
GO began as a three-year experiment on May 23, 1967,[2] with single deck push pull coaches built by Hawker-Siddeley Canada.
The proposal died in 1985 when long time Ontario Progressive Conservative premier Bill Davis was replaced by Frank Miller, who served only a few months in office.
The tracks between Pickering and Whitby had been built for the GO ALRT system but were soon converted to handle conventional GO Trains.
In spite of this, GO extended limited rush hour GO Train service to Barrie, Guelph, Acton and Oshawa in 1990.
In the same year, GO also introduced off-peak train service on the Milton line, much of which only operated as far west as Erindale.
In May 1992, while GO Transit celebrated its 25th birthday, all-day GO Train service was extended to Burlington with the building of a new station at Aldershot.
However, in 1993 Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae announced his Social Contract program, which would see a "temporary" reduction in spending on services.
With the election of Mike Harris as Ontario premier in June 1995, plans for expanding GO Transit were put on hold as part of an overall reduction in government spending.
A year later, on 1 January 1998, the GTA municipalities and Hamilton-Wentworth (now the city of Hamilton) began to fund GO Transit, cost-sharing all of GO's capital expenses and any operating costs that are not recovered through passenger fares and other revenue.
GO has returned to provincial responsibility as a Crown Corporation, and the Greater Toronto Services Board no longer exists.
GO TRIP was a jointly-funded plan, with the federal, provincial, and municipal governments contributing to the costs on a one-third/one-third/one-third cost-sharing basis.
GO TRIP's priority was augmenting the capacity and reliability of the existing GO rail network, but not substantively expanding the catchment area or adding new corridors.
Other capital projects included adding increased track capacity on the CN and CP-owned railway lines so that more GO train trips would be possible.
Track upgrades on the Milton line to run more peak and off-peak trains were planned, but remain uninitiated.
New train layover facilities were built in Milton, Barrie and Hamilton; one proposed for immediately west of Mount Pleasant station is on hold.
[12] On 14 May 2009 transportation minister Jim Bradley announced that GO Transit would provide weekend and holiday train service from Toronto to Niagara Falls, with four trains per day per direction stopping at St. Catharines, Burlington, Oakville and Port Credit stations en route to Union.
In 2014, the Ontario Provincial Government unveiled the GO Regional Express Rail project (GO RER) as part of a $15 Billion 10-year transit investment plan for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area.
