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Liberty Village Crowd-funded bus?

^yep...as I said in the other threads this is being discussed....during the time this bus is scheduled to provide 4 trips to Union, there are 6 trains......so GO is more frequent. this bus seems to cost $5 per trip - with a Presto card GO is $4.60....so GO is cheaper. This bus seems to take 20 minutes to Union while GO is around 10....so GO is faster.

Since there is already a faster, cheaper more frequent option you have to assume that the people signing up for this simply have no idea where those big green and white trains stopping at the foot of Atlantic are headed to.
 
^yep...as I said in the other threads this is being discussed....during the time this bus is scheduled to provide 4 trips to Union, there are 6 trains......so GO is more frequent. this bus seems to cost $5 per trip - with a Presto card GO is $4.60....so GO is cheaper. This bus seems to take 20 minutes to Union while GO is around 10....so GO is faster.

Since there is already a faster, cheaper more frequent option you have to assume that the people signing up for this simply have no idea where those big green and white trains stopping at the foot of Atlantic are headed to.
20 minutes sounds optimistic. Before Liberty Street was quite as developed as it is now, occasionally I would use it westbound to Dufferin in AM peak, if there was a Gardiner/Lakeshore problem. And eastbound looked slow even then. I've taken 20 minutes to get downtown from there on a Saturday ... surely the drive could be worse in AM peak.
 
The 504 King is scheduled to get the new low-floor streetcars by 2017. In the meantime, the CLRV's will be kept around to add additional service on all streetcar routes. Once the TTC and the new city council approves it, an additional order for 60 new streetcars to be added to the existing 204 order.
 
20 minutes sounds optimistic. Before Liberty Street was quite as developed as it is now, occasionally I would use it westbound to Dufferin in AM peak, if there was a Gardiner/Lakeshore problem. And eastbound looked slow even then. I've taken 20 minutes to get downtown from there on a Saturday ... surely the drive could be worse in AM peak.

your right...but their schedule (according to the star) seems to suggest the time they are budgeting is 20 minutes....even if they accomplish that they are asking people to pay more for one of 4 buses than they would pay for 1 of 6 trains...with the trains taking half as long (at least)....it is a strange business model.
 
your right...but their schedule (according to the star) seems to suggest the time they are budgeting is 20 minutes....even if they accomplish that they are asking people to pay more for one of 4 buses than they would pay for 1 of 6 trains...with the trains taking half as long (at least)....it is a strange business model.
Hmm, I wonder if they are planning instead of trying to fight the surface roads into downtown, that they'd instead go west on Liberty, south on Dufferin, and then come down the Gardiner, and head to the south entrace to Union Station at Bremner at Maple Leaf Square - that might be a faster drive in AM peak ... though I'm normally heading west at that hour, not east.

Either way, I do wonder ... there's certainly demand, but what's the best way of meeting it? Would they be better off with a destination at Queen and Bay rather than Union station?
 
Hmm, I wonder if they are planning instead of trying to fight the surface roads into downtown, that they'd instead go west on Liberty, south on Dufferin, and then come down the Gardiner, and head to the south entrace to Union Station at Bremner at Maple Leaf Square - that might be a faster drive in AM peak ... though I'm normally heading west at that hour, not east.

Either way, I do wonder ... there's certainly demand, but what's the best way of meeting it? Would they be better off with a destination at Queen and Bay rather than Union station?

I've been meaning to draw up a map where a bus route connects Union Station (via Maple Leaf Square), Cityplace, and Liberty Village together.
 
I've been meaning to draw up a map where a bus route connects Union Station (via Maple Leaf Square), Cityplace, and Liberty Village together.
That one Waterfront West scheme streetcar scheme would have pretty much done this. Streetcar out of the existing 509 streetcar platform at Union, but turns right between Union and ACC, coming up in a portal in Bremner, and then running along Bremner and Fort York, and entering into a new access to the existing Exhibition GO loop (yes, there's still space with the new visitor centre) and then keep going across Dufferin, and then crossing the GO ROW onto King Street, onto Queensway, and out to Humber.

Though even the existing streetcar go Exhibition Loop to Union would serve much of Liberty Village, particularly if they were to improve the north-south connections. I expect that much if not most of the Liberty Village residents have moved in since last time that ran. It only took 18 minutes from Exhibition loop to Union.

One thought I was suggesting years ago, was putting streetcar from Dufferin, along the old Front Street right-of-way, connecting to new ROW on Front Street from Bathurst all the way to a new loop at Bayview. That would both solve much of the transit issues from the west-end, deal with the ever increasing shuttle buses we see on Front East connecting to Union Station, and put transit into the West Donlands, rather than only on the edge of it.
 
That one Waterfront West scheme streetcar scheme would have pretty much done this. Streetcar out of the existing 509 streetcar platform at Union, but turns right between Union and ACC, coming up in a portal in Bremner, and then running along Bremner and Fort York, and entering into a new access to the existing Exhibition GO loop (yes, there's still space with the new visitor centre) and then keep going across Dufferin, and then crossing the GO ROW onto King Street, onto Queensway, and out to Humber.

Though even the existing streetcar go Exhibition Loop to Union would serve much of Liberty Village, particularly if they were to improve the north-south connections. I expect that much if not most of the Liberty Village residents have moved in since last time that ran. It only took 18 minutes from Exhibition loop to Union.

In my experience, Exhibition loop to Union on 509 is about 25 min. King streetcar actually gets from Dufferin to Yonge faster than 509 gets from Exhibition to Union. Running in mixed traffic on a straight line appears to be faster than running in a ROW but making several turns.

The Bremner route could be faster.
 
In my experience, Exhibition loop to Union on 509 is about 25 min. King streetcar actually gets from Dufferin to Yonge faster than 509 gets from Exhibition to Union. Running in mixed traffic on a straight line appears to be faster than running in a ROW but making several turns.
18 minutes was the scheduled time. I haven't got much experience in peak though, particularly AM peak. Seemed fast enough mid-day on a weekday. Hopefully it will be a bit faster now it's on the side of the road, instead of the middle - and with the all-door loading - particularly at the busier stops and Queens Quay station.
 
^yep...as I said in the other threads this is being discussed....during the time this bus is scheduled to provide 4 trips to Union, there are 6 trains......so GO is more frequent. this bus seems to cost $5 per trip - with a Presto card GO is $4.60....so GO is cheaper. This bus seems to take 20 minutes to Union while GO is around 10....so GO is faster.

Since there is already a faster, cheaper more frequent option you have to assume that the people signing up for this simply have no idea where those big green and white trains stopping at the foot of Atlantic are headed to.

It's more a matter of people in Liberty Village having ridden the big green and white trains and finding reality is nothing like a combination of a real estate ad.

The trains are not at their doorstep. Platform 27 is not Union Station. From liberty Village, GO is garbage.
 
It's a little bit sad that transit has come to this in Toronto; where crowd-funded buses need to supplant the streetcar system.

I'm fully in support of the "just get on the damn GO train" mentality. Furthermore, if Waterfront West hadn't been absurdly cancelled, the situation wouldn't be nearly so bad.
 
It's more a matter of people in Liberty Village having ridden the big green and white trains and finding reality is nothing like a combination of a real estate ad.

The trains are not at their doorstep. Platform 27 is not Union Station. From liberty Village, GO is garbage.
The way this bus sounds.....it will have 1 pickup stop.....so by definition can't be at everyone's doorstep and will have one stop at union....so convenience will depend on where you are going.

That said....even if that relative inconvenience uses up all of the 10 minute speed advantage......you still have a more expensive bus that has lower frequency than the cheaper train.
 
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It's a little bit sad that transit has come to this in Toronto; where crowd-funded buses need to supplant the streetcar system.

I'm fully in support of the "just get on the damn GO train" mentality. Furthermore, if Waterfront West hadn't been absurdly cancelled, the situation wouldn't be nearly so bad.

Pretty sad, isn't it?
 

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