A university student has some big ideas for the Greater Toronto Area's rapid transit network, mapping out new lines that could serve millions across the region with minimal need for costly tunnelling and land acquisition.

Khalil Heron, a 20-year-old urban planning student and transit technician, has envisioned several possible transit expansions for the region, including a pair of east-west GO lines that would span much of the GTA.

Heron looks to infrastructure already in use to move people and freight as a cost-effective solution for getting transit built, telling blogTO that "Toronto has so many under-utilized rail and highway corridors that can be put to better use."

"In an era where construction costs, especially for transit, are increasing so dramatically, it makes perfect sense to me to put these corridors to better use," Heron explained.

Heron sees Highway 407 as a prime example of a corridor that could move passengers at much lower construction costs than the many transit expansions currently underway, picturing a GO line running all the way from Pickering in the east to Oakville in the west.

Today, transit it the GTA is centred around getting to and from Toronto. Connecting the suburban cities of the GTA should be a fast rail network built for speed and reliability. The 407 corridor offers an excellent opportunity to give the 905 the rail transit it deserves. pic.twitter.com/LORHmDuKJm

— khalil heron (@HeronKhalil) November 25, 2023

Highway 407 was originally planned to be accompanied by a bus corridor running along its right of way, however, the plan has not been mentioned in official government plans for years.

Heron notes how the highway and unbuilt bus rapid corridor "runs right by York Region's three biggest downtowns and connects to cities in Peel, Halton, and Durham as well."

"While bus rapid transit would certainly be an improvement over today, we have the opportunity to turn such a massive corridor into something more with rail."

The current plan (seemingly forgotten by government) is to build a busway along the 407. While this is better than nothing, connecting the downtowns of 6 cities across almost 100 km should not be the role of busses as in the current plan. We need the speed of rail. pic.twitter.com/dJm8dmyBkb

— khalil heron (@HeronKhalil) November 25, 2023

He believes that "tolls on the 407 mean it's severely underutilized" and sees the highway corridor as an opportunity to "improve the status quo and provide a service that will attract riders and development to actually make Toronto a sustainable city ready to fight against climate change."

In addition to moving people across the region, such a line could also solve local challenges. Heron explains that "if built, the 407 rail line could add freight tracks through Brampton to build the missing link that Mississauga has been clamouring for to get freight off the Milton line."

Heron shared another recent design for an east-west GO line — one that already has tracks in place, for the most part.

For decades, transit enthusiasts have campaigned for a Midtown GO line operating on the Canadian Pacific tracks running north of Dupont, currently operating primarily as a freight corridor. Heron's proposal expands on that vision, mapping out how such a service could look with frequent stops spanning all the way from Burlington to Oshawa.

Another one
My vision for the midtown Toronto line. Serving as an express alternative to TTC lines 2 and 5, and spurring transit oriented development in some of the last developable land in Halton and Durham, this line could transform how we get around the GTA. pic.twitter.com/nYa4UoDAop

— khalil heron (@HeronKhalil) November 26, 2023

"The government is spending so much on transit right now, but, at least from the province, there seems to be very little vision of what could happen next after the current round of construction," he says.

He notes how cities like Los Angeles are planning their infrastructure investments two decades in advance, suggesting Ontario transit planners could be doing more to secure the future needs of a growing region.

"So really, I created these to try and provide some vision and get people thinking about how GO can be expanded post-GO expansion."

Transit planning often takes years and sometimes even decades, however, Heron says that he only spent about an hour or two making each of these maps — a workflow he has been refining through several similar creations that he has only just begun to share with the masses.

He tells blogTO that these dream routes "are certainly not the first iterations and won't be the last."