ssiguy2
Senior Member
I most certainly agree that having excellent bus connection to the GO stations is paramount but that won't do any good if people simply can't afford to take the GO.
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GO Transit Electrification | Metrolinx
- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
MisterF
Senior Member
The province isn't going to spend $16 billion building a modern regional rapid transit system just to hobble it by keeping the fare structure from the 1960s.
ARG1
Senior Member
The thing is an economic recession is the perfect time to be taking on debt, because that's when government funding is the most needed in terms of revitalizing the economy and making sure the economy doesn't take too bad of a nasty hit. One of the best things you can do is create a ton of low skill jobs specifically for public good projects such as highways or railroads so that not only do you come out of the recession with a ton of infrastructure that benefits your citizen during a time of economic prosperity, but that you offered a ton of unemployed people a way to make money during a time of low unemployment that they can then spend on goods in services, which in turn let's those business hire new people and create a positive reinforcement effect. Unfortunately Ontario and Canada have arguably spent too much money over the past decade during economic prosperity so now getting into even further debt is a massive concern.
Yes and no. GO's ridership is mostly made up of people that have cars and that park and ride at GO station, that much is true, but that's only true because the market GO currently serves is the middle to upper middle class commuter that works at Bay Street or some tech company in the CBD. GO in its current form is still primarily a commuter rail system that gets people into the CBD at morning rush hour, and out of the CBD into the suburbs during afternoon rush hour.
The thing with GO RER however is that with frequent all day service, you're now serving a market that is much larger than "middle to upper middle class commuter that works at the CBD", you're now opening up metro level service to anyone that lives on the GO corridors, and to have them use it for trips that are much more than "go to downtown in the morning and leave downtown in the afternoon". GO RER is effectively the construction of 5 brand new subway lines in Toronto (granted they have much larger station spacing than the subway but its a similar idea), and we should treat them as such. Nobody would make the argument that the Subway doesn't need fare integration with the busses since the only people it serves are people with cars so they can pay for it, and the only thing that matters is that the busses interchange with the station. If that were true then the most popular transit route in the city would be the Yonge bus that parallels the subway.
Amare
Senior Member
You would be surprised of the sheer amount of stupid things that's on this government's mind. Remember how they removed TTC-GO fare integration at select GO stations?
ARG1
Senior Member
He is talking about the TRBOT fare zone proposal which would divide the GTHA into several different fare zones roughly matching the municipal boundaries of today. You can read about it here:https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2020/12/board-trade-proposes-regional-transit-fare-integration
Its definitely not the "same fare structure from the 1960s".
MisterF
Senior Member
We're still years away from RER being completed. Just because it hasn't happened yet that doesn't mean it won't when the system is open.
Yes, and something along those lines will happen.
Coolstar
Senior Member
Another thing GO/Metrolinx should do is that they should have through-running of the existing GO lines shown on official maps. That way people won't have to see Union as the end-point of every GO line. They already through-run both Lakeshore Lines and to a lesser extent Stouffville and Kitchener. Not sure if they currently or used to through-run Milton and Richmond Hill.
generalcanada
Senior Member
Someone please correct me if im wrong, but This seems like actual news here.
People have proposed this before including TRBOT but this is the most definitive answer right now from metrolinx on "through-running" of the lines
rbt
Senior Member
The 2020 GO Expansion EA update (linked in the GO construction projects thread) shows clear frequencies for each of the 5 electrified lines will be (both peak and off-peak) starting at page 11.
No two lines have identical schedules. Some trains could run through (like the Stouffville and Kitchener 10 minute frequency portion) and LakeShore East/West 15 minute frequency portion, but many trains would still not be through service at union.
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smallspy
Senior Member
Once the new signalling system at Union Station is completed and operational, through-running of the lines will be a far greater hindrance to service reliability than many other factors that currently affect the lines - especially at peak times. The only lines that will continue to operate through the station at most times will be the Lakeshore Lines.
Dan
allengeorge
Senior Member
I thought through-running reduced dwell times and reduced operational complexity. It seems my understanding was wrong. Why would it hinder service reliability?
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Thanks for the report.
The thing that REALLY stood out for me is that Metrolinx is hoping to have 200 million passengers a year by 2055. That is shockingly unambitious basically expecting just triple the ridership in 35 years. This really concerns me as such a low forcast makes one think that using GO will still require an extra fare and limited integration between different systems.
With high frequency and a Board of Trade proposed fare policy, the MINIMUM standard should be 200 million by 2030, 500 million by 2040, and 800 by 2055. This is, potentially, a 250 km {350 with Mid-town & current/planned extensions } subway system and expecting just 600,000 passengers a day on such a massive system is a complete failure. Even many US cities would cringe at such a poor return on investment. Many cities in the world, including contemporary European ones like Paris & Berlin, have RER/S-Bahn systems that carry millions of passengers a day and far more than their subway systems. There is absolutely NO reason why Toronto can't do the same.
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smallspy
Senior Member
Even with the new signalling, there are some basic constraints with the station that are due to things like the physical setup of the station and the various rules that the railways run by - not to mention some that are self-imposed by Metrolinx.
Because of this, it's been calculated that if a train is to run through the station that it will occupy a platform for about 10 minutes. This means that the throughput will be 6 trains per hour.
With double-berthing - having a train arrive at a platform from each direction, something that the new signal system is expressly designed to allow but is not capable today - the station will be able to handle 4 trains per hour per direction, for a total of 8 trains per hour on those platforms. And most of the tracks through the station will be configured to allow this.
Dan
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I'm still generally confused by the Lakeshore West schedules in that document.
They propose a variety of off peak "super express" services - including a likely sub 1 hour service to Hamilton, but don't run those services in peak hour when they would be most useful? Is it a track capacity issue as to why the Hamilton bound trains can't run super express at rush hour?
I would love to see updated estimated travel times from the IBC as well. The IBC also had issues where stations outside of the RER area were assumed to have 0 time savings (i.e. the fastest travel time to Burlington GO dropped from 56 to 45 minutes but Aldershot's fastest travel time was 61 minutes, down only 1 minute from 2018). They also assumed far, far greater time savings on the LSE line for some reason than on other lines, without any real explanation.
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sacred
Active Member
Isn’t this why we’d want more doors per car and single-level cars?