Metrolinx: New GO and/or Regional Bus Terminal at 45 Bay

[Neil]

If its all private money building a bus terminal, I'd say fill your boots and build it any place you want. I don't think your clients want to sit in rush hour traffic in a bus anymore they do in a car though. Multiple perimeter bus stations and an all-day GO rail network make more sense. I would direct regional buses to Pickering, Aldershot and Rutherford Go stations. And with all-day rail the downtown GO bus terminal would also be redundant.

 

[Dan416]

If its all private money building a bus terminal, I'd say fill your boots and build it any place you want. I don't think your clients want to sit in rush hour traffic in a bus anymore they do in a car though. Multiple perimeter bus stations and an all-day GO rail network make more sense. I would direct regional buses to Pickering, Aldershot and Rutherford Go stations. And with all-day rail the downtown GO bus terminal would also be redundant.

Why impose an additional transfer? I can understand serving regional terminals as well, but it has to travel downtown too. Greyhound serves downtown Toronto, downtown Chicago, downtown Detroit, downtown Montreal. Taking the buses out of the downtown core is frankly a stupid idea.

 

[Neil]

Why impose an additional transfer? I can understand serving regional terminals as well, but it has to travel downtown too. Greyhound serves downtown Toronto, downtown Chicago, downtown Detroit, downtown Montreal. Taking the buses out of the downtown core is frankly a stupid idea.

Well I can think of few reasons. First would be speed, cost reduction is in there, trip flexibilty as well. And unless this prototypical bus traveller's destination is the actual bus station, there will always be transfers to other modes of transportation. But hey, I don't want to impose anything. If a company like Greyhound want to build a downtown bus station to have their buses sit in Don Valley or Gardiner gridlock, by all means. You can't unteach stupid but you don't have to subsidize it.

 

[Jonny5]

Why do you say that they wouldn't want to be downtown? Business commuters, UofT/Ryerson students, regional tourists, and hospital and government visitors are their bread-and-butter business, and those folks all want to go downtown. There are bus terminals at Yorkdale and Scarborough Centre with coach service and I haven't seen any companies abandon downtown for those yet.

I have never been to the other two bus terminals you mentioned, but from what I can find on-line, they have a tiny fraction of the service that goes to the Bay Street terminal and they have no ability to support the serivce that terminates there.

I based my guess on the fact that their customers are generally captive riders with no better option to reach Toronto. New bus lines replacing their direct to downtown service are very unlikely given regulations and the fact it is a barely profitable business to begin with. This means they have little to lose by forcing a TTC trip on their passengers to complete their journeys, which is already a necessity for some anyway. I am anticipating that they will want to build a new terminal of their own near a subway station on the 401 or in Vaughan near the subway extension. It will be on cheap land and cheaply built and will cut travel times, which cuts costs. Cutting costs is what their executives care more about than the passenger experience.

 

[Dan416]

Well I can think of few reasons. First would be speed, cost reduction is in there, trip flexibilty as well. And unless this prototypical bus traveller's destination is the actual bus station, there will always be transfers to other modes of transportation. But hey, I don't want to impose anything. If a company like Greyhound want to build a downtown bus station to have their buses sit in Don Valley or Gardiner gridlock, by all means. You can't unteach stupid but you don't have to subsidize it.

I guess speed is relative. I took a Greyhound to Chicago and the bus didn't idle on the Gardiner by any means. Imposing a transfer, however, makes things slower for a lot of people. So you #fail on the speed argument. Cost reduction is a real issue, but I think instead of having one central terminal, they'd have to have several smaller ones on the fringes, and that could cost just as much. Trip flexibility would be best with additional stops, e.g. my Greyhound to Chicago did stop at Yorkdale, at least on the way back.

 

[DavidJamesTO]

Greyhound tried to abandon their service to downtown Kitchener in favour of a suburban stop, but changed their plans after massive protests. Nobody wants to change buses if they can help it. It isn't really a big deal when you think about it, but it can make a difference.

 

[EnviroTO]

They would probably better off mandating that buses using the downtown bus terminal must stop at a Lakeshore line GO station other than Union and Exhibition or a subway station such as Kipling, Yorkdale, VCC, York Mills, or Kennedy before coming downtown or when leaving downtown and that getting off at those locations cannot be more expensive than getting off downtown. After that let the market decide. If people who are given an option to get off at a convenient subway connection or GO connection which will take them to the core transfer free choose not to take it then the downtown bus terminal is obviously valuable.

 

[EnviroTO]

By the above I am referring to intercity buses. GO should be looking for maximum efficiency regardless and their schedules where buses are timed to meet trains is optimal for that.

 

[CDL.TO]

Well I can think of few reasons. First would be speed, cost reduction is in there, trip flexibilty as well. And unless this prototypical bus traveller's destination is the actual bus station, there will always be transfers to other modes of transportation. But hey, I don't want to impose anything. If a company like Greyhound want to build a downtown bus station to have their buses sit in Don Valley or Gardiner gridlock, by all means. You can't unteach stupid but you don't have to subsidize it.

Believe it or not, but traffic tends to flow just fine on the DVP or Gardiner most of the time! That's a large part of why GO continues to run buses on most of their lines outside of rush hour. If the only explanation you have for something is that people are stupid (never mind companies spending millions of dollars), you need to try harder!

I have never been to the other two bus terminals you mentioned, but from what I can find on-line, they have a tiny fraction of the service that goes to the Bay Street terminal and they have no ability to support the serivce that terminates there.

Yes, that's right. A fraction of service terminates at those locations compared to downtown because downtown is where people want to get to. Though I have no idea what "they have no ability to support the service that terminates there" means. They have facilities, waiting rooms, and ticket counters at those locations. Buses heading north stop at Yorkdale on their way out of town, and buses heading east stop at Scarborough Centre. But customers still demand that the buses head downtown because that's where they need to go and don't want to be forced into an unnecessary transfer.

And another point people are missing... yes, not everyone is heading to downtown Toronto. Many of them are heading THROUGH town and need to transfer buses. That's a major part of why a centralized bus terminal is necessary.

 

[Neil]

EnviroTO: "Let the market decide." I agree, but lets not create a false market by building a bus terminal that promotes an ineffecient mode of operation.

CDL.TO: Yes everything moves find outside of rush hour. Rush hour is on my list of favourite oxymorons and moving up! And if people are moving though Toronto, lets not delay their journey by a downtown detour. For those people, I think a Yorkdale transfer would fit the bill.

DH: Use to live in Waterloo. Where do the Kitchener suburbs start?

I enjoy the debate people.

 

[EnviroTO]

I hope the Presto Card takes off soon and we could use this fare mechanism on the TTC, GO, Coach Canada and maybe even VIA transit systems all at this one multi-modal transit hub. Hope the PATH system gets a bit of an investment as well- it compliments our transit system well.

What do people think this Presto Card is going to do for them? Why on earth would I transfer $60 onto Presto using a credit card and then present Presto to pay for VIA? Why not book your trip with your credit card on the VIA website and then tap the credit card on the conductors device to have your reservation be displayed and used? Optionally you could print a proof of payment on your computer. I can do this right now at the airport. I go to the American Airlines website, I book a trip, I go to a kiosk and feed it my credit card and (if international) scan the passport text into the kiosk... viola... I didn't need to convert anything to Presto. I'm pretty sure Oyster, Suica, etc are for unreserved trips.

 

[EnviroTO]

EnviroTO: "Let the market decide." I agree, but lets not create a false market by building a bus terminal that promotes an ineffecient mode of operation.

To avoid the false market we need to completely remove government involvement and funding from the bus terminal. That means not "building a bus terminal that promotes an ineffecient mode of operation" or building any bus terminal for that matter.

 

[rbt]

To avoid the false market we need to completely remove government involvement and funding from the bus terminal. That means not "building a bus terminal that promotes an ineffecient mode of operation" or building any bus terminal for that matter.

Or subsidizing by the tens of millions in the operation of a bus terminal.

 

[EnviroTO]

Or subsidizing by the tens of millions in the operation of a bus terminal.

Exactly. Complete removal of all involvement and funding.

 

[dunkalunk]

Greyhound tried to abandon their service to downtown Kitchener in favour of a suburban stop, but changed their plans after massive protests. Nobody wants to change buses if they can help it. It isn't really a big deal when you think about it, but it can make a difference.

This was also compounded by the fact that Sportsworld was only served by one transit route which most people had to transfer to and ran hourly on Sundays until 6pm. Unless you had a car to drive out to Sportsworld, you couldn't practically get there, at which point, if you're in a car, you may as well drive the rest of the way.

There is no reason why GO transit should not be competing directly with Greyhound on the same routes. GO already has the capacity to provide a better service than Greyhound ever could within GO's service area.

If I ever have to go to Toronto from Kitchener, I take the GO bus despite the fact that I have to transfer at Square One. I know exactly what time the bus will arrive at my stop instead of waiting on the Charles Street platform for 2 hours. I also have enough legroom, the bus doesn't give me sever allergies, and I can comfortably read AND the bus doesn't smell like urine.

In any case, an intercity coach bus terminal closer to Union would be an excellent addition to the network, in addition to stops on the fringe of an all-day GO network made mandatory. As long as the coach stops are made easily accessible to a highway, there should be little issue with those additional stops, although keep in mind that imposing transfers between two different companies would cause serious headaches.