Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina has been bad mouthing the proposed East West LRT in favour of his pet project, all day GO service from the new James North station. Bratina has gone on and on about all day GO and it looked to be a near certainty.
However we now know that things haven't gone as Bratina had hoped. This Spectator article has the basic info, namely that rather than all day GO to the new James North station there will be two trains to Toronto in the morning and two back in the evening. That's a massive difference from the all day service that Bratina has been promising and saying was a much better project than LRT for Hamilton. Bratina has failed to deliver what was promised and he deserves scorn for not being able to bring in his pet project.
Some scorn is also due for GO. It would seem that with the new station being built, GO decided what was the minimum level of service they could offer to Hamilton (two trains) and went with that and then tried to paint it as a great thing.
One has to wonder how much use these trains will get. Transit wise they link in OK with the Barton bus going East and there's some parking. But I'm guessing most will prefer Hunter for its more transit accessible location, the fact there's four trains rather than two and maybe lost in the discussion, the fact there's bus service directly to Toronto and the Aldershot GO station so that if you miss your train you're not totally screwed.
I can't see how this isn't a total defeat for Bratina and his brand. His obfuscating and obstruction on LRT seemed at least premised on trading LRT for all day GO. Instead Hamilton received as close to nothing as possible as GO could do without doing nothing.
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