Rail crossing study

Transport Canada regulates rail crossings. The 'Grade Crossing Regulations' provides "minimum" requirements with regards to mainly train operations of an at-grade crossing. However, Transport Canada Grade Crossing Standards (January 2019) outlines grade crossing requirements with regard to long term safety and operations of an at-grade crossing. This feasibility study was launched exclusively to deal with road operations at rail the crossings, therefore, Transport Canada Grade Separation Assessment Guidelines were used to determine if a grade separation is warranted at the Edinburgh Road rail crossing. Grade separation assessment considers traffic and safety related criteria including Annual Average Daily Traffic Volumes, posted speeds, vehicle queuing, vehicle delays, level of service of the subject roadways as well as average train volumes, maximum speed, and cross product for the railway. These Grade Separation Assessment Guidelines outline criteria with thresholds that help determine if grade separation is justified. A number of criteria were met from the Guidelines, indicating that the potential grade separation should be studied further.  With regards to data collection and assumptions used to evaluate the different scenarios in the feasibility study, this can be found in the Draft Future Traffic Conditions memo Section 6.3 posted on haveyoursay. ‘Grade Crossings Regulations’ SOR/2014-275 mainly deals with train operations at the grade crossings which was not part of this feasibility study.  

All questions from the Comments section have been transferred to the Questions sections and have been answered. In order to see Q&A from the public information centers, please see the detailed meeting minutes that have been posted on haveyoursay in the documents section.

In the Future Conditions Memo posted on the have your say website under Section 6.3 it was stated that cargo/freight trains are also using the Metrolinx rail corridor but do not follow any schedule. It was assumed that the freight trains will use this corridor in the future but will not operate during the AM and PM peak hours. Therefore freight trains exclusively were not considered during the analysis of the data. However, train speed of 20km/h (approximately equivalent to cargo/freight train) was also used in the analysis assuming GO trains stopping at the Guelph Station. 

This potential for a conflict was declared by Parsons at the outset of the project and a mitigation plan was implemented. The following measures have been implemented to avoid the conflict of interest: 

1. The project team that works on the Level Rail Crossing Study for Guelph does not work on the Metrolinx 4Transit Joint Venture project or any other Metrolinx project 

2. The scope of work for the Guelph study intentionally avoids any design, study or analysis of the grade crossing design itself and only considers work pertaining to the City's road Right of Way. All matters related to the crossing design within Metrolinx Right of Way is out of scope. 

3 The City has written confirmation of this and a signed declaration expressing no conflict of interest with Parsons.

Previons involvement in a City-led study does not constitute a conflict of interest. In some cases, it can be seen as an advantage, if the study team already has local knowledge of the relevant issues. The procurement process does require all candidates to declare any potential conflicts of interest prior to engaging in paid work by the City.

For this study we sent out direct mail to addresses within 300m of the rail crossings in the Study Area. We also posted temporary signs at all crossings and posted a public notice over our news and social media channels. Information is posted and updated regularly on the project website and on the project HaveYourSay page.

This study is to deal with assessing options of road crossing over or under the existing level rail crossing. Assessment of raising the rail tracks is not part of this study scope. During the grade separation options assessment, it was assumed that the exisitng tracks property has sufficient right of way to accommodate two tracks.

Since this study was initiated due to proposed changes to the Metrolinx corridor the scope of the feasibility study was limited to the Metrolinx Corridor.  

Grade separation of the CN crossing at Paisley is not likely possible due to its proximity to two major roads (Paisley and Edinburgh). City Council recently approved $1.3 million toward cost sharing rail crossing improvements.  

Traffic data including vehicular and non-vehicular collected in Sept 2021 at all of the rail crossing locations was compared with the historical (Pre-Covid) traffic data and it was found appropriate to be used in the traffic assessment. The transportation feasibility study utilized the Transport Canada operation guidelines to undertake the grade separation warrant and level rail crossing operation  analyses. It was concluded that grade separation is warranted at the Edinburgh Road rail crossing based on the product of future volumes and train frequencies in addition to queuing estimated at both the north and south of the rail crossing. This study findings are to be further validated through an Enviromenmental Assessment study and traffic analysis is to be revisited if needed.   

For these reasons, the City recommends further study of all alternatives to the Edinburgh Road rail crossing in order to find solution that best manages safety risks and traffic impacts for the community.

Environmental Assessments are usually awarded to a consultant through a competitive process based on detailed proposals that are evaluated by staff.

The study is considering connectivity on the basis of maintaining existing north-south crossings of the rail corridor. To fully understand connectivity impacts of the underpass option, we will complete an Environmental Assessment, and also consider east-west connections across Edinburgh.