nfitz
Superstar
Even though they are on track to meeting their ridership targets?
Toronto Union Pearson Express | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | MMM Group Limited
TOareaFan
Superstar
This, again?!?!?!
They built a spur that could easily and successfully handle the size of train that will fit in the space that was available to build a station.
How much more $ would you have been comfortable spending on an airport train link construction project to get 12 car (or even 10 car) GO trains to the airport?
Jonny5
Senior Member
Does the target have any value? Is it proof of a sustainable value added service, or is it just a number they pulled out of their ass to use as cover?
nfitz
Superstar
The 5,000 number was the same number that Metrolinx used in mid-June, shortly after opening. There's detailed pricing information with ridership forecasts, and this seems to be in line with it. Not sure all the fuss. Nothing new here ...
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Should the UPX fail, then the Finch LRT would have most of the infrastructure in place for an extension to the airport, when comes the time.
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The point is to run regular GO trains, so that workers in the area around the airport can use the trains, and so that people living in the area between Union and Pearson can use them, and charge regular fares. There are almost 300000 people working in that area and most of them currently drive causing massive traffic jams. The employment areas around Pearson are among the largest in the world. The design of the UP Express is really weird, being designed to accommodate tiny trains that are much smaller than what the rest of the GO train system uses. No one else in the world uses this strange design. It would have made far more sense to build a spur that can accommodate regular electric GO trains, even if the construction cost is higher, similar to the Heathrow Express spur in London. The Heathrow Express is a ripoff (even more expensive than the UP Express) but there is also the Heathrow Connect which is cheaper, and the Crossrail line will also use this spur in a few years replacing the Heathrow Connect. The RER B in Paris is also a good example, a new spur was built to CDG Airport in 1976 (it does not charge premium fares). Now there is the SmartTrack proposal (the alternative version, not the Eglinton route that John Tory originally proposed) which proposes to build exactly this, although this would cost several billion dollars and the $456 million spent on the UP Express would be wasted and the UP Express would be dismantled. Also it is really dumb that the regular GO trains which run on the Kitchener line only run a few times a day while the UP Express runs every 15 minutes, we will have to wait 10 years when GO electrification is finished for this to be fixed.
nfitz
Superstar
There's already GO Train service to the airport area at Malton, Etobicoke North, and Bramalea stations. One of the benefits of the work done for Union Pearson is that they will run full-day service to these stations. Surely those between Uion and Pearson are primarily going downtown and will use GO.
I'm amazed that there are complaints that both ridership is too low AND the trains are too small!
crs1026
Superstar
True, but if there were even three people around at that hour who would be willing to ride the train, at, say, $10 a head, what's the shame - or the poor business sense - in offering that opportunity to them?
Sarcasm duly noted. There will always be peaks and unused capacity and there should be some extra capacity, or no one would consider switching to the subway.
Time-of-ride pricing is a bit complicated for Toronto - just yet. But price/demand curves may have more than one optimal point. In principle, it's quite reasonable to challenge the next TTC fare increase to see if an equal change, in the other direction, might bring more revenue than the proposed increase. Same goes for the current UPX rate.
Amen. We don't want 12-car loads of commuters jamming onto UPX trains. The UPX fare is the salt, not the wound.
You mean some key honchos got pissy when their limo bogged down ? As opposed to a consensus of business strategists saying, hey, this city isn't serious about moving people effectively, and that makes the economics of investing in Toronto worse than investing in some other city? I'm guessing you are alluding to the latter. Surely they would have preferred that the first billion spent on transportation to the airport enhanced commuting for transit users more broadly.
Anyways, I'm sorry to cycle back through a topic that was beaten to death here, but I'm not the one behind the recent press coverage. I am pleased to see that some wider attention may be landing on the issue.
- Paul
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The regular GO train service only runs a few times a day and is pretty much useless right now. We will have to wait 10 years to have 15 minute electric GO service on this line.
The UP Express trains are empty because the fares are so outrageous. Few people want to pay $19-27.50 to go to the airport if they can take the subway and bus route 192 for a lot less. I'm sure that if you charged $2.80 then the demand would vastly exceed what the tiny UP Express trains can carry, and most of the users would be airport and airport area workers. We should have done what other cities have done, and built a line capable of running regular GO trains and charged the same fare as the TTC ($2.80). I think that these trains would be packed.
If you charge $19-27.50, you will have such low demand that it can't even fill the tiny UP Express trains most of the time. If you charge $2.80, the UP Express sized trains will be horribly overcrowded and you will need bigger trains. If you lower the fare to $10-15, you probably will fill up the UP Express trains but they will not be overcrowded most of the time.
nfitz
Superstar
The argument I've just seen is that the UPX isn't full in peak, so we should use it in peak for transit. GO is every 20-30 minutes in peak. If this is where people perceive there is the need, then how then is GO not useful?
And hardly fair to be looking at the current GO schedule. They haven't restored the mid-day service yet that they suspended for the construction. The test will be what the service is, when they introduce full-day service later this fiscal year.
Or longer. Lakeshore was very well used with only hourly service. And the source of power (electric over diesel) make little impact on it's usability.
$19 is outrageous? The cost for airport workers isn't much higher than GO from Union to Malton.
Ridership is as predicted. Not sure where this is coming from.
This faux outrage is outrageous!
rbt
Senior Member
This was a long time ago and obviously both very anecdotal and with an incomplete picture.
My employer was acquired by SBC about 14 months prior to this.
A few SBC executives (before they bought AT&T) took a trip up from Dallas and Virgina on company jets to Pearson to give us (and Amdocs) a rah-rah speech. They returned back same day as expected, though much later than anticipated. We were expecting expansion due to recently leasing ~3x additional space and ramping up HR at their direction about 2 months before their visit, this was mentioned during their speech. In a more private setting traffic was discussed at some length.
Within 3 weeks of the visit many employees began receiving offers to relocate to US locations, and the recently acquired space was put up to sublet. So, they kept the important staff, with increased pay, and the technology. They ditched Toronto/Canada at a loss of ~$2B due to the rapid exit from both my employer (since defunct having moved most operations to Virginia) and Amdocs.
I truly believe that a helicopter service from Pearson, similar to Hong Kong Sky Shuttle, to a downtown location would have had a very different outcome, though I can't know that for certain obviously. UPX is our bare minimum premium transportation option.
What I do know is Toronto regularly tops the "great cities to invest in" lists (excluding the transportation category) but we don't actually get a ton of foreign companies setting up shop here in a big way. I've not seen a public study on why Toronto isn't getting large-scale foreign investment, but I don't doubt that transportation is a big and highly visible part of the problem.
It's going to take several TTC, GO, and other options at Pearson to approach the modal splits we see at Domodedovo or Heathrow; and those options collectively need to cater to both the floor cleaning people and satisfy the people who chartered/owns a private jet.
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
Let's say we trust Metrolinx with it's ridership numbers for the UPX and it is currently coming in at around projections.............big deal. My god 5000 passengers a day between the 2 busiest transportation hubs in the country both of which are surrounding by hundreds of thousands of jobs is absolutely horrific. That is so pathetic it is almost unbelievable. The only thing that makes it even worse if that for these stellar 5000 passengers a day the province sunk %500,000,0000 into the project. When it comes to white elephants, Mirabel hasn't got anything on the UPX.
Assuming {or at least hoping} that this line is transferred over to either GO or the TTC, is the actual Pearson station at it's maximum length. I know it can currently only hold 3 cars but is it possible to extend it to even 5 car length bymaybe shifting some of the track over by a couple meters to allow for a longer platform? I know they can't extend it the one way but you would think they would be able to, it's not like this is underground.
Assuming {or at least hoping} that this line is transferred over to either GO or the TTC, is the actual Pearson station at it's maximum length. I know it can currently only hold 3 cars but is it possible to extend it to even 5 car length bymaybe shifting some of the track over by a couple meters to allow for a longer platform? I know they can't extend it the one way but you would think they would be able to, it's not like this is underground.
nfitz
Superstar
Pearson only has about 85,000 passengers a day. Many, if not most aren't heading to downtown Toronto. What would you expect the ridership would be?
TOareaFan
Superstar
Largest in the world? Really? That aside, last estimate I heard was that 75% of the workers at the airport live in Peel region....so largely unaffected (either way) by whether we are running large trains or small trains between Union and Pearson.
That aside, I understand when people (as you are) say we should run bigger trains (like regular GO trains) between Union and Pearson.....but as usual in these discussions you are choosing to ignore the significantly higher cost to get those bigger trains into the airport and the costs of building a station somewhere on the airport grounds that could accommodate those trains. It would not shock me at all if the figure to get GO Trains into the airport and building that station would have been 2 to 3 times the cost of UP.
If what you are talking about is increased GO service on the KW line with a shuttle/transfer from Malton to the terminals....I fully agree with that. But that has nothing to do with UP and is a totally separate discussion.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
But would you have to build a whole new station? Could they not move some of the track over and lengthen the current platform?