Everyday there’s a bus bringing Google employees from Toronto, where they live, to work in Waterloo. And you can bet that there’s hundreds or thousands more entrepreneurs making the daily trek between the two cities that seem to produce a lot of startups.
Good news came to those people yesterday as Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne was in Waterloo to announce planned upgrades to GO Train service between Waterloo and Toronto. The provincial government said its going to add four new trips before the end of 2016.
Two new morning trips and two new afternoon rush-hour train trips will begin at the Kitchener station in the next two years. A new layover facility and unspecified improvements to the rail line are also planned, which could cut up to 30 minutes off the trip. It currently takes two hours, and the Waterloo Record reported that a third of the trips this winter have been 15 minutes late.
“This is a very important initiative for this region,” Wynne told reporters. “This is a hub of innovation and creativity and what we need is an ability to move in and out of the region in a much more efficient way.”
Currently, two trains depart Kitchener for Toronto in the morning and return in the afternoon.
While the costs of the trip will be announced in the Ontario government’s new budget for 2014, the cities of Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo anticipate the cost to be around $600 million.
“This will greatly enhance economic activity in our region, reduce commute times for families, and create new jobs,” said Kitchener Centre MPP John Milloy in the release.
CTV News Kitchener explained in a news segment that Cambridge startups are feeling left out once again. The mayor of Cambridge is currently working on plans to have GO Trains in his city by 2016, specifically with service to Milton (which has several morning trains on to Toronto).