Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

GO Transit says it will invest an undetermined amount of money in expanding and improving its rail service in southern Ontario over the next decade.

A new expansion plan called GO 2020, released Friday morning, maps out a capital plan that calls for more train track to be built and owned by the GO Transit.

Right now GO relies heavily on leasing track time from CN and CP Rail.

GO chairman Peter Smith said that is the principal cause of GO train delays.

"This is a big step forward for GO Transit and its customers," Smith said in a news release.

"We're committed to creating more responsive and sustainable transit service for customers. GO 2020 is proof of that commitment and represents a clear step in the right direction for the future of transit."

Just how much it will actually cost to acquire the track lines is not clear. GO said it will have a better idea after meeting with the railways.

GO Transit also said it has made improvements to its on-time performance in the past year.

GO officials said 92 per cent of its trains and buses arrive within five minutes of their scheduled times — that's a six per cent improvement over September 2007.

GO Transit, or the Greater Toronto Transit Authority, is an interregional train and bus service that serves a population of six million people in southern Ontario.

Currently GO carries 55 million passengers per year on its train and bus services. It expects its ridership to double within Toronto, and to triple outside Toronto, by 2020, it said.