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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

asher__jo said:
Or investing in better transit to GO stations.
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Not really possible when the existing housing stock in the suburbs is like this. A bus that picks up people on each street like these would have forever to get to the station.

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Instead, build massive vertical parking garages near the GO Stations.
 
^I am convinced that the solution may be to expropriate some of those houses and punch through connecting "roadways" (maybe restricted to transit and active transport) that restore connectivity.

A bigger issue is how the core infrastructure in our suburbs is consistently laid out so that travel (and by car) is needed just to get from one life need to another. Notice how the school is on one side of the development and other community facilities are somewhere else. Just getting kids from school to piano lessons to dentist and then drug store and home for dinner requires transportation. To make that circuit in a single evening, bike or walking or transit is just too slow. We need to start laying out communities so that one doesn't have to go hither and yon.

If you look at how much of that infrastructure in the GTA is still early in its life cycle, you realise how expensive the change will be and how long it will take. That school is almost brand new. Can't afford to just tear it down and move it. The people who wax poetic about bikes and such replacing the car are dreaming, if you consider life west of Jane, north of Lawrence, or east of Vic Park.

All the same, we shouldn't ring GO stations with parking lots, or parking towers. We really need to see how far we can push the envelope on shuttles. Maybe self driving electric vehicles that run fixed routes at very modest speeds could fill the gap some day.

- Paul
 
Admiral Beez said:
Not really possible when the existing housing stock in the suburbs is like this. A bus that picks up people on each street like these would have forever to get to the station.

3525529428_b8df5feb45.jpg


Instead, build massive vertical parking garages near the GO Stations.
Click to expand...

That is what is wrong with the suburbs.

II would see many looking for other options than paying for parking. Some may drive, but most likely would take local transit. The ones that will be forced to drive likely live far away from a bus stop.
 
Since the free parking is paid for by GO fares, the solution is obvious. Charge for parking and reduce fares by a corresponding amount. That way non-drivers get a break. And of course better local transit is needed, but that will come with improved service as GO becomes an RER system. It's not rocket science.
 
MisterF said:
Since the free parking is paid for by GO fares, the solution is obvious. Charge for parking and reduce fares by a corresponding amount. That way non-drivers get a break. And of course better local transit is needed, but that will come with improved service as GO becomes an RER system. It's not rocket science.
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Everything with GO is a vast mix of revenue streams which include fares, but also all simply general government revenue sources, and borrowing. There's no direct connection to better local transit here. People will just pay to park and demand more parking since they are paying for it. That's not rocket science either.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
If the economics demonstrates charging for parking has no impact on demand for lot spaces, then Metrolinx should be building more lots and spaces. Otherwise we're leaving money on the table.
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Charging for parking is not going to see a 50% decline in people parking. It may however see a decline of 10-20%, which is enough to free up spaces.

We already went through this whole thing with TTC parking a decade ago when it went paid. Use dropped significantly at first, then promptly returned to near full levels again. Difference is now that the lots aren't ridiculously over-rammed like they once were and parking is charged at a rate so that the lots never get much more full than 90%.
 
Jonny5 said:
Everything with GO is a vast mix of revenue streams which include fares, but also all simply general government revenue sources, and borrowing. There's no copnneciton to better local transit here. People will just pay to park and demand more parking since they are paying for it. That's not rocket science.
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What's wrong with this font?
 
Admiral Beez said:
If we disincentivize GO Train use by charging for parking, won’t more people drive to Toronto?

Outline.com

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Seems the solution is larger car parks, including large lots away from the rails, with shuttles to and from the station.
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We need to disincentivize people from driving to Toronto by tolling the Gardiner, Don Valley Parkway and QEW, and investing that money into GO.

How come people have to pay for mass transit, but other than some small car tax and registration fees, highways are free? Makes no sense.
 
robmausser said:
We need to disincentivize people from driving to Toronto by tolling the Gardiner, Don Valley Parkway and QEW, and investing that money into GO.

How come people have to pay for mass transit, but other than some small car tax and registration fees, highways are free? Makes no sense.
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I do hate how we encourage the desired behaviour by making the preferred behaviour worse. If you want more people to take transit, make transit better, more convenient. Only then should we use punitive fees to push people to transit. Instead we do it backwards, enact puntive or coercive fees to push people onto sh#tty transit and then maybe use some of those fees to make small improvements, but really most just goes into general revenue.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I do hate how we encourage the desired behaviour by making the preferred behaviour worse. If you want more people to take transit, make transit better, more convenient. Only then should we use punitive fees to push people to transit. Instead we do it backwards, enact puntive or coercive fees to push people onto sh#tty transit and then maybe use some of those fees to make small improvements, but really most just goes into general revenue.
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Such fees can and should be directly reinvested in 'improved service' and in lower priced service. Though we must be mindful that many transit services are currently close to or at capacity and investments in rolling stock, signalling, surface vehicles, storage capacity for said vehicles and priority measures are needed, above and beyond operating budgets for service, and these do have a lag time.
 
Jonny5 said:
Everything with GO is a vast mix of revenue streams which include fares, but also all simply general government revenue sources, and borrowing. There's no direct connection to better local transit here. People will just pay to park and demand more parking since they are paying for it. That's not rocket science either.
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For clarity, I didn't say that there's a direct link. But with GO expansion and a dramatic rise in expected ridership, better local transit is going to be needed with or without free parking. Paid parking combined with better transit will shift the modal share more towards transit than it is now.
 
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robmausser said:
We need to disincentivize people from driving to Toronto by tolling the Gardiner, Don Valley Parkway and QEW, and investing that money into GO.

How come people have to pay for mass transit, but other than some small car tax and registration fees, highways are free? Makes no sense.
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It's painfully overdue to toll these roads and direct the money to transit.
 
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