Toronto Union Pearson Express | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | MMM Group Limited

230 comments on that star article and it's only been up for a few hours. If that serves as a gauge for how angry people are... Well then they're pretty damn angry. It's very, very rare that they Star articles get so many comments.
 
How do they know it will be completely empty? And, given the size of the trains, their complaints about current "crowded" transit options would just be replicated if the fare was as low as they suggest...so we would have an overcrowded train that is losing money based on those fares....what would they complain about then.

The article stated that the projected ridership will be only 5000 riders per day. With 4 trains per hour, that would be about 52 people per train on average. Sure it's not completely empty, but it's way under capacity at best.
 
They really lost me at this line:



How do they know it will be completely empty? And, given the size of the trains, their complaints about current "crowded" transit options would just be replicated if the fare was as low as they suggest...so we would have an overcrowded train that is losing money based on those fares....what would they complain about then.

Well at least they'd have a way to work.
 
The article stated that the projected ridership will be only 5000 riders per day. With 4 trains per hour, that would be about 52 people per train on average. Sure it's not completely empty, but it's way under capacity at best.

Wow I didn't know it was that low. Did Metrolinx do a cost:benefit for this thing?
 
The article stated that the projected ridership will be only 5000 riders per day. With 4 trains per hour, that would be about 52 people per train on average. Sure it's not completely empty, but it's way under capacity at best.

Your math is a bit off.....5,000 a day leading to 52 people per train assumes 24 hour operation and only 4 trains per hour....there will be 8 trains per hour (4 in each direction) and it is going to operate somewhere less than 24 hours a day. I had thought 18 hours but lately I have been hearing 20. So that would be 160 trains a day for an average of 31 people per train. Not sure what % capacity that is but it is above 0%.

Now...to get away from averages.......that 5k/day is based on a 7 day week.....the bulk of its use will be M-F....so, yes, you may see much lower usage on the weekends and higher usage during the week.
 
Honestly, they will be doing their own analysis. Their plan is to run this thing at a profit (which, as a publicly owned asset, I don't mind), so let's look at some numbers

The Capital investment is $456M
Assuming they want to pay off the capital in 20 years, they need to pay $22.8M / year, or $63K /day.

Pearson has 36M passengers a year, or 100K /day.

They seem to expect to carry ~5000 passengers a day, or 5% of all people flying in/out of Pearson.
That works out to about 50 passengers per train, assuming 12 productive hours of train service a day, 4 trips an hour, both directions.

Dividing $63K by 5000 passengers
That means a $12.65 fare, to cover the Capital expense amortization alone.

Add on to this:
Operating expenses (???)
GTAA parking fee ($1.85)

If operating expenses work out to ~$5 per passenger ($9M/year in salaries, maintenance, fuel), then that gives a final, break-even fare of:

$19.50


Wow, it's almost like they already did this calculation when they estimated that the fare would be "$20-$30".
If you want a lower fare, you need to increase the number of passengers to match. A halving of the fare means a doubling of passengers. $10 fare means 10,000 passengers, or 10% of travelers. What % of all airport traffic does one think is possible to capture by this service?
 
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Now...to get away from averages.......that 5k/day is based on a 7 day week.....the bulk of its use will be M-F....so, yes, you may see much lower usage on the weekends and higher usage during the week.
And this is effectively why I cut my "productive" hours down to 12. There will be a lot of very empty evening trains, I suspect.
 
As predicted, here is the public outrage over UPX. This is just the beginning:

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...yees_outraged_at_steep_airportlink_fares.html

I wish people would at least wait for Metrolinx to release fare details before getting so upset over UPX.
Metrolinx has already said fares will be in the $20 to $30 range. Why wait until fares are finalized in that range to complain?

Surely, now is the appropriate time to be putting pressure on the GTAA, Metrolinx, and the Provincial Government. Have you seen the motions in front of council next week? http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.MM55.23 and http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.MM55.30

A very strong council vote could help push the province to rethink the $20 to $30 range. Or go the Vancouver solution, and a good deal to locals, and hit the ones from out of town.
 
Metrolinx has already said fares will be in the $20 to $30 range. Why wait until fares are finalized in that range to complain?

Surely, now is the appropriate time to be putting pressure on the GTAA, Metrolinx, and the Provincial Government. Have you seen the motions in front of council next week? http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.MM55.23 and http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2014.MM55.30

A very strong council vote could help push the province to rethink the $20 to $30 range. Or go the Vancouver solution, and a good deal to locals, and hit the ones from out of town.

Agreed. For many people, this is their first time hearing about what the proposed fare will be. Raise a stink about it now before it's too late.

If the UPX does open at the current fare price, hopefully supply and demand will eventually kick in and the price will be lowered due to lack of demand. It was also mentioned on here previously that the price could be artificially high due to the Pan Am Games, when the line will see the most usage. After the influx of tourists has gone through, the price can be lowered to a more reasonable rate.
 
It was also mentioned on here previously that the price could be artificially high due to the Pan Am Games, when the line will see the most usage. After the influx of tourists has gone through, the price can be lowered to a more reasonable rate.
I'm not sure why one would think the most usage would be around the Pan Am Games. Athletes and delegations won't be using it. Do we expect THAT many tourists? The city is pretty much completely booked in the middle of the summer. It's not like there's going to be that much extra capacity. Other cities routinely report that lots of people avoid cities during events like this, so there'll be much less regular tourist, and conventions, etc.

I can't imagine that a public agency is even worrying about a couple of weeks income, in the greater scheme of things!
 
Since the GTAA will be collecting a "parking fee", why doesn't the City of Toronto collect a "parking fee" from everyone who currently parks "free" at shopping malls, plazas, and strip malls?

Do you mean the person parking pays?

Because any politician who proposes something like that would not get votes. I think they looked at that when looking at transit revenue tools.
 
The article stated that the projected ridership will be only 5000 riders per day. With 4 trains per hour, that would be about 52 people per train on average. Sure it's not completely empty, but it's way under capacity at best.

Lets do the math for our busiest section of our busiest subway line.

35,000 spaces per hour * 18 hours * 2 legs (Yonge and University lead to downtown) * 2 directions; means capacity for 2.4 million trips into/out of downtown.

Yet, station entry/exit counts** only total 517,430.

That means the busiest sections (Bloor to Wellesley, and St. George to Museum) are only at 25% capacity for the Yonge University line. Average people per train is not a reasonable way of looking at crowding for a service with a large peak period; and the airport train will have a peak period in the morning and evening.

FYI, Your UPX passenger per train number may be too high as it should be 4 trains per direction per hour.


** Counts from 2011/2012 below:
Union: 102,540
King: 54,120
Queen: 58,070
College: 54,180
Dundas: 67,620
Wellesley: 22,640
St. Andrew: 49,930
Osgoode: 20,960
St. Patrick: 31,670
Queen's Park: 47,200
Musuem: 8,590
 
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