GO Schedule Anomoly?

[TOareaFan]

No need to reply, just venting.

Today was a train commute day (trying to avoid the chaos of the roads on the annual first snow day)...anyone who has read any of my posts before probably knows how much I hate that 6:45 train to Bramalea with the dumping of Brampton bound passengers onto a bus.....was desperately trying to get on the 5:45 train to avoid it.

Had to wait for an employee to finish something that I need to read tonight....unfortunately she didn't get it done till it was too late to make the 5:45....so, I figure, if I am gonna end up on a bus anyway, I will go down and get on a bus that leaves between the 5:45 and the 6:45.

Surprisingly, there is no bus from Union during that hour that goes to Brampton. There are, however, 2 different buses that leave 5 minutes apart and go express to Mount Pleasant.....does anyone else find that strange?

http://gotransit.com/publicroot/en/...&direction=1&day=1&page=3&New=&station=&zone=

The buses leave Union at 6:30 and 6:35....now you might say, shut up - stop whining what's the difference between leaving at 6:30 and waiting until 6:45.....well, it seems, that 6:30 bus gets to Mount Pleasant at 7:20....the 6:45 train gets to Brampton @ 7:47.....so that 15 minute way turns into a 27 minute difference in home arrival time (that is assuming it would take just as long to get to Brampton as Mount Pleasant).......could not one of those two buses stop in Brampton (I would think the one that is not going on to Georgetown would make sense)? Or am I missing something?

 

[CDL.TO]

Well, it's simple. They're forcing you onto the train to make use of the capacity that exists. It happens with much of the network.

I think the idea with the Mount Pleasant buses is a bit of inertia. A 6:30 bus express to Georgetown predates the existence of Mount Pleasant station. When they opened Mount Pleasant, they had it stop there since it was pretty much along the way anyway. Obviously a lot of people started using it to get to Mt. Pleasant, so rather than removing the stop at Mt. Pleasant and forcing people to use the 6:45 train with a bus connection (which would be a reduction in service, causing many complaints), they moved the Georgetown bus back to 6:35 and added a one-stop-wonder to Mt. Pleasant to fill the demand.

I actually was thinking about this yesterday. Until all service gets extended to Brampton, I think there should be a bus that meets the 6:45 train at Bramalea and runs non-stop to Brampton GO using the fastest route available, leaving the current bus to make the local stops along the way.

Which raises the question, how full is that 7:27 bus from Bramalea to Brampton?

Overall, I know this personally affects you, but there are many, many little oddities and frustrations in the GO schedules, affecting anyone who doesn't use the exact same bus or train day-in-day-out. Hopefully things will only get better.

 

[RedRocket191]

I actually was thinking about this yesterday. Until all service gets extended to Brampton, I think there should be a bus that meets the 6:45 train at Bramalea and runs non-stop to Brampton GO using the fastest route available, leaving the current bus to make the local stops along the way.

Which raises the question, how full is that 7:27 bus from Bramalea to Brampton?

There is, but at the same time there isn't.

Two buses leave Bramalea at 7:27. One is supposed to run express to Brampton and then local to Mount Pleasant, while the other runs local to Brampton. Somewhere around the time they rebuilt the bus terminal at Bramalea GO both buses began running local. In my experience, only a few people get off at Shoppers World, and not generally enough to delay the bus longer than the traffic light would. It's not officially an express, but it sure acts like one. Very rarely do people get off at any of the smaller stops.

Both buses are always full. Often it's standing room only.

 

[TOareaFan]

I get that there are lots of anomolies and that this one effects me personaly (but isn't that typically how things are raised?)

Since the 6:45 train/bus predated the Mt Pleasant Station, I don't get how forcing them onto the train could ever be perceived as a service reduction?

The part, though, that I really don't get is that there are two different buses that go express to Mt. Pleasant 5 minutes apart! The same logic that has the Georgetown bus stop @ that station could be applied to the bus that terminates @ Mt Pleasant and have it make a stop in Brampton.

Anyway, typing this from the bus...3/4 full...one person just got off @ Shopper's World!

 

[hwy7]

Could you leave from Mount Pleasant in the morning? Those evening express buses to Mount Pleasant are absolutely wonderful.

I don't think those buses could stop in Brampton. They're packed already. Personally, I've wondered why they don't run a separate Brampton express bus from Union. I suppose it's hard to get to Brampton terminal in any kind of "express" fashion, so GO transit figures it might as well go ahead and make every stop along Steeles and Highway 10.

 

[TOareaFan]

Of course the real question here is when will that 6:45 train (and the other ones that only serve as far as Bramalea) make it through to Brampton and beyond?

GO used to say that the issue was track congestion caused by the stretch of single track between Bramalea and Brampton......which, I think, has now been resolved and there is no single track there any more....yet, now, it seems to be awaiting the completion of the station improvements in Brampton.

While the station improvements are nice and will improve the overall transit experience, I don't see how they are needed just to allow this (and other) trains through.

As for how nice those express buses to Mt. Pleasant are and how full they are....it just shows if you improve service you get better ridership.....similarly the fact that the bus from Bramalea to Brampton was only 3/4 full tonight might also indicate people's displeasure with this service (small sample size but the last time I did this trip I remember two buses being full...tonight there seemed to be only one bus and it was not full).

Anyone know when the "stop at Bramalea" trains will be able to get through to Brampton and Mt. Pleasant?

 

[ShonTron]

All the existing trains that originate/terminate at Bramalea (and the one mid afternoon Brampton departure, except the single morning local from Bramalea) are supposed to go to Mount Pleasant as soon as work at Brampton is complete - part of the problem is that while there's now two tracks through Downtown Brampton and three tracks as far west as the old hospital site, CN wants to be able to send GO trains to whatever track. Brampton can only accommodate passenger trains on the north track right now. That's the hold up. It was supposed to be done in November.

 

[TOareaFan]

All the existing trains that originate/terminate at Bramalea (and the one mid afternoon Brampton departure, except the single morning local from Bramalea) are supposed to go to Mount Pleasant as soon as work at Brampton is complete - part of the problem is that while there's now two tracks through Downtown Brampton and three tracks as far west as the old hospital site, CN wants to be able to send GO trains to whatever track. Brampton can only accommodate passenger trains on the north track right now. That's the hold up. It was supposed to be done in November.

Thanks for the information? So February those trains will be extended through?

While that is not far off.....it is just rediculous that the public purse paid for additional track which, I am sure, will provide some benefit to CN and they could not agree (for the short period of time that the south platform is not ready) that freight trains use the south track going through Brampton station and passenger trains use the north......and that we rely on signals for the rare time when there are 2 trains of opposite types going in opposite directions.....Bizarre!....meanwhile we have the capacity to extend trains and we can't.

Ah well, February is not that far off considering how long it has been.

 

[Dan416]

Brampton does seem to get screwed by GO. Really the only line that isn't screwed by GO is Lakeshore. Every other line has its problems: that it doesn't have Lakeshore service. If they did, I think Toronto would look a lot different than it does today. And there'd be a lot less traffic on the roads.

 

[EnviroTO]

Yes, but the amount on money being spent or about to be spent in the Brampton (Georgetown/Guelph/Airport) corridor is likely to far exceed any amount spent on other corridors. So presently screwed but definitely not forgotten.

 

[Dan416]

Milton is the forgotten one. There don't seem to be any concrete plans for any all-day service on the line, which is the busiest line outside of Lakeshore, and certainly has the potential to be as busy as Lakeshore West through Mississauga.

 

[Platform 27]

Milton is the forgotten one. There don't seem to be any concrete plans for any all-day service on the line, which is the busiest line outside of Lakeshore, and certainly has the potential to be as busy as Lakeshore West through Mississauga.

I'd agree that Milton probably could make the best case for being the least-loved child in the litter at the moment.

There are plans, perhaps not "concrete" ones, for all-day service the whole way from Milton to Union. Per this GO Transit slide deck from July, a "Feasibility Study" has been done and the next step would be a full EA.

The first step towards getting things moving in that direction would be bypassing the three track to two track to three track bottleneck at the bridge over the Humber to the west of Lambton yard. Plans exist in some degree of detail for the "Lambton flyunder", although I don't believe they've ever been circulated publicly. From the way it's been described, I believe it'll involve taking two GO tracks on the south side of the CP line at Lambton, dropping them, and then curving them more gently through the bend such that they pass under the existing tracks and back parallel to them on the north side. There'd then be a new span across the Humber north of (and lower than) the existing bridge, and on the Etobicoke side they'd mesh back into a single corridor. This clears the bottleneck, and allows GO trains to move from the south side of the line (where they arrive after West Toronto Junction) to the north side of the line (where the rest of the stations are).

That project alone ought to permit bidirectional train movement as far as Cooksville. To go all the way to Milton bidirectionally, you'd need some extensive triple-tracking, and possibly spurts of quad-tracking through Mississauga.

 

[Dan416]

Cooksville isn't sufficient. That doesn't even serve half the stations in Mississauga, and Dixie barely even counts. It would miss Erindale, Streetsville, Meadowvale and Lisgar.

In the Peel-Halton Freeway pictures it mentions an additional GO station on the Milton line at Trafalgar Rd. I wonder when that will be added?

 

[GregWTravels]

Does anyone know if any thought has been put into another station in Toronto on the Milton line? The Dundas-Jane-St. Clair triangle seems to make sense, as you'd have a number of transit connections from there, including Jane RT and St. Clair RT.

I also think that if they ever build a cross-town service on the North Toronto CP tracks, linking it up with the Lakeshore line along the CANPA sub would make sense, allowing folks coming from the west to transfer at Long Branch to get to the cross-town line (as well as quick access to the B-D subway at Kipling).