GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[UrbanJon]

I think it's also unfair to dismiss the Fergus sub in of itself.

I think it is perfectly fair. For the service profile they propose, a bus is a substantially better option. There would be much more frequent and possibly faster service. Busses would be much cheaper to set up, provide the same quality service and on a route between Cambridge and Guelph, getting stuck in traffic isn't a huge concern.

The Fergus Sub is a slow and curvy right of way and the location they plan to put can best be described as poor.

and support the rebuilding of the Ontario rail network while also preserving the Fergus sub from potential abandonment and redevelopment in the way that's happened with so many branch lines.

I think the massive push to preserve branch lines is driven more by nostalgia than any practical need. The reason they are abandoned is that they are not viable or needed in the modern world and they won't be again. Any use for them specifically in regards to transit could be achieved with proper bus service. Unfortunately, the nostalgics in the transit community mess up the debate and make it to be rail or nothing.

I cringe particularly hard at the folks who oppose the abandonment of the OBRY. For freight, it isn't viable and the amount of trucks needed to substitute for it are barely even noticeable. For transit, GO has studied it before and found it would require a massive investment for little to no ridership. People need to let things go. A rail network is a core system that provides connections only between the densest cities. Rail service to smaller towns isn't viable or worth it.

 

[Northern Light]

I think the massive push to preserve branch lines is driven more by nostalgia than any practical need. The reason they are abandoned is that they are not viable or needed in the modern world and they won't be again. Any use for them specifically in regards to transit could be achieved with proper bus service. Unfortunately, the nostalgics in the transit community mess up the debate and make it to be rail or nothing.

This statement is too extreme.

1) Yes, many branch lines have borderline viability for the time being for freight, and many may be poor candidates for inter-city or public transit services if taken in whole.
However, that doesn't preclude a host of future uses, including rail, on portions of the corridor.

2) One compelling reason to retain branch lines; particularly if this does not require extraordinary subsidy, is that setting up entirely new rights-of-way can be near impossible, especially in urban/suburban areas. There is both a political prohibitiveness (inconveniencing home owners/businesses etc; but also the none too small matter of cost.)

3) Its easy to imagine those ROWs have no future application...........but if nothing else, they could often serve as linear parks/trails, as many do.
Take a look the VIA HFR proposal, and you see the use of a formerly abandoned ROW, which would have been unavailable but for its preservation.
I would argue it only survived as an ROW because of relatively cheap real estate prices along the bulk of the route; and because the very borderline freight service to Ptbo/Havelock was maintained.

4) As with above, the former Barrie-Collingwood ROW could form the basis of an economically justifiable service linking Barrie (and by extension Toronto) to Blue Mountain and to Wasaga. Some new ROW would be required; but having that ROW intact makes the idea viable, where it probably would not be if it had to be acquired 100% new.

5) ROWs may also serve local public transit in future as well.

6) Ontario remains a (diminished) industrial player; and there is utility in being able to service new build factories or logistics facilities.
OBRY/Fergus may not make the grade as rail in contemporaneous times but could certainly serve a range of other purposes.
Portions may also be extremely useful to current or future rail needs.

7) Redundancy is also important to network operations.

I cringe particularly hard at the folks who oppose the abandonment of the OBRY. For freight, it isn't viable and the amount of trucks needed to substitute for it are barely even noticeable. For transit, GO has studied it before and found it would require a massive investment for little to no ridership. People need to let things go. A rail network is a core system that provides connections only between the densest cities. Rail service to smaller towns isn't viable or worth it.

 

[reaperexpress]

Like the direction noted above.

Would add though; I feel like GO should not be only hub and spoke to Toronto-Union.

I think it should be hub-and spoke anywhere in Ontario where the type of service described above (150km or less, regional train/bus travel) makes sense.

So, GO should be hubbed out of Hamilton (service to Niagara/Brantford/Toronto, and ideally, K-W or Guelph); hubbed out of London (service to Windsor, K-W, Sarnia, St. Thomas); hubbed out of K-W (London, Toronto, ideally Hamilton; and buses north to Owen Sound); Oshawa (Toronto, Belleville, Ptbo) etc.

The portions that overlap the corridor can and should still be served by VIA for express, long-distance/luxury service

Yes that is exactly what I had in mind.

Here's a map I made last night while brainstorming how public bus services might be organized. (Note: this is just a thought experiment, I'm not necessarily saying we should organize services in this way).

Green=GO (and other operators using GO fare system, such as Niagara Region Transit and Simcoe County Lynx)
Yellow = Ontario Northland
Black = VIA
Maroon = Megabus
Orange = other public intercity operator(s), maybe using Ontario Northland fare system?

Most of these routes already exist, but they're operated by a hodgepodge of unrelated public and private companies, which makes trip planning and fare payment a nuisance.

 

[ARG1]

I don’t understand the notion on here and in Twitter that Metrolinx is the hammer and every outside-GTA transit gap is a nail. GO is optimized for GTA and near-GTA travel and should continue to be so. ONTC should be required by their MTO masters to institute an Ottawa-Toronto Highway 7 public service route to replace Greyhound forthwith.

Another thing I don't think many of mentioned is that you're looking at these suggestions as if we're just adding more bus routes to the existing GO Map. What we're, or at least I am proposing is that this is a brand new opportunity for GO to invest in a completely new market, that being proper intercity travel. GO as it currently is is extremely successful. The business case for GO RER suggests complete profitability for the system meaning for the first time, the provincial government and metrolinx will have a completely viable source of income that they can use to expand into other areas of service. Investing into proper intercity services seems like the logical next step. Ottawa is building a massive metro (I refuse to call it LRT) system and is going to be a massive city in Ontario's eastern end. We are getting a ton of strong metropolitan rapid transit here in Toronto, however one thing Ontario is lacking is strong national rail, and unfortunately it really seems like VIA isn't up to the task. Who would be better than the Government of Ontario, who has the resources and will have the funding from its existing networks to create a competent and cost effective intercity service, especially now that Greyhound is gone and there is a massive hole in the market.

 

[UrbanJon]

I don't want to go much further with this on this thread so maybe we could move this to the General Railway Discussions or OBRY. Anyhow:

1) Yes, many branch lines have borderline viability for the time being for freight, and many may be poor candidates for inter-city or public transit services if taken in whole.
However, that doesn't preclude a host of future uses, including rail, on portions of the corridor.

I struggle to think of any branch line not around today that would be of much use. Take for example the lines to Grey/Bruce, what uses would they be of today or in the future, transit or otherwise? What about Lindsay?

3) Its easy to imagine those ROWs have no future application...........but if nothing else, they could often serve as linear parks/trails, as many do.
Take a look the VIA HFR proposal, and you see the use of a formerly abandoned ROW, which would have been unavailable but for its preservation.
I would argue it only survived as an ROW because of relatively cheap real estate prices along the bulk of the route; and because the very borderline freight service to Ptbo/Havelock was maintained.

It could be argued that the alignment chosen for HFR is a poor one, existing only because of a lack of political will to build a proper intercity right of way. Also, the lines like the OBRY will be turned into trails, so the new usage aspect is certainly covered.

4) As with above, the former Barrie-Collingwood ROW could form the basis of an economically justifiable service linking Barrie (and by extension Toronto) to Blue Mountain and to Wasaga. Some new ROW would be required; but having that ROW intact makes the idea viable, where it probably would not be if it had to be acquired 100% new.

While the BCRY is often brought up in Barrie Line discussions, an extension to Collingwood is the furthest thing from viable and will never happen. Its population and potential travel market is very small, and given the state of the RoW, trying to resume service would probably cost the same as establishing a brand new corridor.

6) Ontario remains a (diminished) industrial player; and there is utility in being able to service new build factories or logistics facilities.
OBRY/Fergus may not make the grade as rail in contemporaneous times but could certainly serve a range of other purposes.
Portions may also be extremely useful to current or future rail needs.

This could be solved with good planning. Ontario has lots of underused land near rail corridors. An easy solutuon could be to zone more land adjacent to rail corridors for industrial useage and help to relocate industries to rail served site if requested.

7) Redundancy is also important to network operations.

Branch lines aren't redundancy, they are auxilliary. Advocates of better bus service should be wary of efforts to preserve branch lines for the purposes of GO service as these efforts will ultimately expend resources for what will ultimately be an inferior service, as seen between Cambridge and Guelph.

 

[tmlittle]

I don’t understand the notion on here and in Twitter that Metrolinx is the hammer and every outside-GTA transit gap is a nail. GO is optimized for GTA and near-GTA travel and should continue to be so. ONTC should be required by their MTO masters to institute an Ottawa-Toronto Highway 7 public service route to replace Greyhound forthwith.

As a longtime Northland rider I've been an advocate that especially if the Northlander is resumed, the trigger needs to be pulled on fare/ticketing modernization. You can't have a Greyhound-like ticketing process and still maintain a functional system in the 21st century. I don't blame ONTC for this as they certainly don't seem to have had the most ambitious or visionary leadership and they only just (relatively speaking) came back from the brink of oblivion. I also think that trying to expand GO endlessly throughout the province just isn't the solution, it doesn't empower governments other than the province to have a meaningful role in transit, and I'd much rather see a partnership-type system as with projects like PC Connect. But I think there should be a general trend to make these systems more "GO-like" both for familiarity and just as best practices. I believe Northland would grow ridership considerably if it ran GO-like midrange commuter services with tap cards and the ability to just walk on, for example. GO should be the example for the rest of the province and not the hammer for every nail. I think the mentality is often to define territorial limits for GO, which frustrates communities on the fridge who want access to the network and have no other real alternative. Instead we should do as was suggested in the thread and develop GO-like nodes around cities like London, which can then overlap/meet in the middle with GO.

 

[lenaitch]

I would think ONTC would be quite happy to institute any new service the government is willing to fund. Each new 'run' requires fleet, crews, storage, maintenance, etc. Services remote from their traditional service areas adds exponentially to the costs. I know they are still sorting out how best to manage their extensions to Winnipeg because it is so remote from the rest of their infrastructure and personnel structure (contract vs in-house yards and maintenance, etc.).

 

[DirectionNorth]

I don't want to go much further with this on this thread so maybe we could move this to the General Railway Discussions or OBRY. Anyhow:



I struggle to think of any branch line not around today that would be of much use. Take for example the lines to Grey/Bruce, what uses would they be of today or in the future, transit or otherwise? What about Lindsay?



It could be argued that the alignment chosen for HFR is a poor one, existing only because of a lack of political will to build a proper intercity right of way. Also, the lines like the OBRY will be turned into trails, so the new usage aspect is certainly covered.



While the BCRY is often brought up in Barrie Line discussions, an extension to Collingwood is the furthest thing from viable and will never happen. Its population and potential travel market is very small, and given the state of the RoW, trying to resume service would probably cost the same as establishing a brand new corridor.



This could be solved with good planning. Ontario has lots of underused land near rail corridors. An easy solutuon could be to zone more land adjacent to rail corridors for industrial useage and help to relocate industries to rail served site if requested.



Branch lines aren't redundancy, they are auxilliary. Advocates of better bus service should be wary of efforts to preserve branch lines for the purposes of GO service as these efforts will ultimately expend resources for what will ultimately be an inferior service, as seen between Cambridge and Guelph.

Replied to in General Railway Discussions.

 

[dowlingm]

Another thing I don't think many of mentioned is that you're looking at these suggestions as if we're just adding more bus routes to the existing GO Map. What we're, or at least I am proposing is that this is a brand new opportunity for GO to invest in a completely new market, that being proper intercity travel. GO as it currently is is extremely successful. The business case for GO RER suggests complete profitability for the system meaning for the first time, the provincial government and metrolinx will have a completely viable source of income that they can use to expand into other areas of service. Investing into proper intercity services seems like the logical next step. Ottawa is building a massive metro (I refuse to call it LRT) system and is going to be a massive city in Ontario's eastern end. We are getting a ton of strong metropolitan rapid transit here in Toronto, however one thing Ontario is lacking is strong national rail, and unfortunately it really seems like VIA isn't up to the task. Who would be better than the Government of Ontario, who has the resources and will have the funding from its existing networks to create a competent and cost effective intercity service, especially now that Greyhound is gone and there is a massive hole in the market.

I don't know where to start here.

The pressing issue here is Greyhound, not rail service, especially where there simply is no rail to substitute service for, as is currently the case along much of the Hwy 7 route.
GO has been successful, yes, but off the back of massive population growth and a lot of public money to build Garage Mahals to feed it. Metrolinx also has notorious transparency and public accountability problems.
The Government of Ontario also owns Ontario Northland, it's even in the same ministry now! Why should they send GO out on a parallel mission, when what the GO-ONTC setup needs is division of labour and ease of transfer between modes?
VIA isn't up to the task of building interregional / intraprovincial rail because it isn't in its mandate to do so - it has no access to the funding sources that Amtrak does on intrastate service in states like Michigan, North Carolina and California.

In other posts it's been noted that ONTC doesn't have Presto, has a different fare structure, isn't good at public outreach. I myself have complained about how long it took them to engage with Google Maps. Given their move into MTO it might get Presto rammed down their throat some day, but they have to have a system that works in Markham, Muskoka, Moosonee and Manitoba. Maybe Starlink could make that work in a few years. Is their fare structure worth a look - perhaps, but look how much GO has been criticized over fare by distance, about inconsistent fares between routes, and how Metrolinx has tried to prod TTC into abandoning flat fares. Makes me wonder if there are two GO Transits/Metrolinxes or something.

This is ONTC's bus service map - which has already significantly expanded west since 2018. What makes people think they are not the people to replace the needs that Greyhound fulfilled, and instead put it in the hands of the people who run a tiny square of service territory in the lower right corner?

 

[ARG1]

I don't know where to start here.

The pressing issue here is Greyhound, not rail service, especially where there simply is no rail to substitute service for, as is currently the case along much of the Hwy 7 route.

I'm not sure I ever brought up rail. You do know that GO has a massive network of busses right? Its not just rail.

GO has been successful, yes, but off the back of massive population growth and a lot of public money to build Garage Mahals to feed it. Metrolinx also has notorious transparency and public accountability problems.

Off the back of those things? I feel like you have it backwards. Massive Garage Mahals are a result of the massive success GO has been for the past several decades, not the other way around. GO has done a fantastic job transporting people to downtown during rush hours, and with a miniscule capital cost. It has grown in popularity and in ridership over the past several decades, and that success has brought the attention of politicians who are now interested in modernizing the network, upgrading stations from single track asphalt curbs with bus shelters to large concrete stations with built out platform canopies and large station structures, frequent all day service, and electrification.

The Government of Ontario also owns Ontario Northland, it's even in the same ministry now! Why should they send GO out on a parallel mission, when what the GO-ONTC setup needs is division of labour and ease of transfer between modes?
VIA isn't up to the task of building interregional / intraprovincial rail because it isn't in its mandate to do so - it has no access to the funding sources that Amtrak does on intrastate service in states like Michigan, North Carolina and California.

VIA's mandate is to provide strong intercity rail service. Since its establishment in the 1970s it has received nothing but budget cuts which subsequently resulted in service cuts. I'm not blaming the company, I'm blaming the feds, and at this point the provincial government is arguably at a stronger position to start offering longer distance intercity travel.

In other posts it's been noted that ONTC doesn't have Presto, has a different fare structure, isn't good at public outreach. I myself have complained about how long it took them to engage with Google Maps. Given their move into MTO it might get Presto rammed down their throat some day, but they have to have a system that works in Markham, Muskoka, Moosonee and Manitoba. Maybe Starlink could make that work in a few years. Is their fare structure worth a look - perhaps, but look how much GO has been criticized over fare by distance, about inconsistent fares between routes, and how Metrolinx has tried to prod TTC into abandoning flat fares. Makes me wonder if there are two GO Transits/Metrolinxes or something.

This is ONTC's bus service map - which has already significantly expanded west since 2018. What makes people think they are not the people to replace the needs that Greyhound fulfilled, and instead put it in the hands of the people who run a tiny square of service territory in the lower right corner?
View attachment 320492

The reason I put it onto GO is because they are generally more interested in inter-urban services, going from one large urban area to another, and so far they have also established themselves as the primary transport presence in Southern Ontario with routes going outside the GTHA, and if the rumours about GO Transit to London are true, outside the GGHA as well. This is in stark contrast with Ontario Northland which is more about serving the more rural towns and municipalities of Ontario, while also sticking exclusively in Northern Ontario with the exception of the 2 routes going to Toronto and Ottawa respectively. As I have said previously, GO RER/GO Expansion is slated to become profitable some time after opening, which means there is now a lot of money in the budget that can be used to invest into new service areas and markets. If Ontario Northland is what it takes to get the province into longer distance rails and busses which serve southern Ontario, then so be it.

 

[reaperexpress]

I don't know where to start here.

The pressing issue here is Greyhound, not rail service, especially where there simply is no rail to substitute service for, as is currently the case along much of the Hwy 7 route.
GO has been successful, yes, but off the back of massive population growth and a lot of public money to build Garage Mahals to feed it. Metrolinx also has notorious transparency and public accountability problems.
The Government of Ontario also owns Ontario Northland, it's even in the same ministry now! Why should they send GO out on a parallel mission, when what the GO-ONTC setup needs is division of labour and ease of transfer between modes?
VIA isn't up to the task of building interregional / intraprovincial rail because it isn't in its mandate to do so - it has no access to the funding sources that Amtrak does on intrastate service in states like Michigan, North Carolina and California.

In other posts it's been noted that ONTC doesn't have Presto, has a different fare structure, isn't good at public outreach. I myself have complained about how long it took them to engage with Google Maps. Given their move into MTO it might get Presto rammed down their throat some day, but they have to have a system that works in Markham, Muskoka, Moosonee and Manitoba. Maybe Starlink could make that work in a few years. Is their fare structure worth a look - perhaps, but look how much GO has been criticized over fare by distance, about inconsistent fares between routes, and how Metrolinx has tried to prod TTC into abandoning flat fares. Makes me wonder if there are two GO Transits/Metrolinxes or something.

This is ONTC's bus service map - which has already significantly expanded west since 2018. What makes people think they are not the people to replace the needs that Greyhound fulfilled, and instead put it in the hands of the people who run a tiny square of service territory in the lower right corner?

None of us is suggesting that GO take over Greyhound's long-distance services, so I don't see why you're trying to argue against that.

What is being said, however, is that GO is well-suited for longer-distance trips than they currently serve, in Southern and Southwestern Ontario where settlements are much closer together than in Northern Ontario. It all comes back to my point about the tradeoffs of intercity-style operation versus transit-style operations. In Northern Ontario, pretty much all trips are intercity trips. The only roads are highways, and it is commonly over a hundred kilometres just to the nearest major town, let alone a decent sized city. Bus routes are hundreds of kilometres long and take all day to drive one-way. In southern Ontario we have not only this type of long-distance trip, but also many medium-distance trips, which I've been calling "regional" trips. The sorts of trips ranging from Stratford - Kitchener, to London - Pearson. The main point is that these trips need to be served in a more customer-friendly way than the current hodgepodge of intercommunity bus grant startups and small private bus companies. Those companies can continue to exist, but they need to be united under a framework of centralized trip planning and fare payment.

Here's my latest take at classifying services into Intercity (yellow) and Regional (green). Note again that the green lines are not necessarily actually operated by GO, but the point is that they operate as part of an integrated network with GO. Similarly the yellow lines may be actually rolled into Ontario Northland (Owen Sound - Toronto seems like a good fit, for example), or they may be a separate operator as a part of the same network (maybe Can-Ar would actually be the operator for a Guelph - Port Elgin route, for example).

Also note that all of the routes which I describe as "regional", are in Southwestern Ontario where towns are much closer together. It's not a question of turning GO into a cross-provincial bus carrier, it's a question of expanding the reach of integrated regional services beyond the current GO service area.

Thankfully it seems that the bus companies are finally mobilizing on this front, by creating a cross-country coallition to centralize trip planning and logistics. An interesting point they make in the linked article is that a centralized logistics system would vastly improve the competitiveness of bus-based parcel services - a welcome source of additional revenue for bus companies. Given that ONTC has become such a massive player in Ontario's intercity bus network, I would hope they would be a big part of such an alliance.

 

[Richard White]

Does anyone here know if the Niagara Excursion trains will be running this summer?

I get that there is still a stay at home order but with higher rates of vaccination and a gradual reopening underway it had me thinking. I mean if nothing else, it will take people to the Niagara Escarpment for biking or to St Cats.

 

[ARG1]

Does anyone here know if the Niagara Excursion trains will be running this summer?

I get that there is still a stay at home order but with higher rates of vaccination and a gradual reopening underway it had me thinking. I mean if nothing else, it will take people to the Niagara Escarpment for biking or to St Cats.

The reason the trains ran last year was because the GO Busses were so full that they had to run them so that people could properly distance themselves. I don't see why if the same thing happened again that they wouldn't run trains this year either.

 

[Richard White]

The reason the trains ran last year was because the GO Busses were so full that they had to run them so that people could properly distance themselves. I don't see why if the same thing happened again that they wouldn't run trains this year either.

I thought as much but given everything and the fact there has been no announcement of them.. I figured I would ask.

 

[innsertnamehere]

given the lifting of restrictions coming soon, I would be surprised if they aren't. I imagine we will start to see a slow restoration of GO service starting in July or August and going into the fall as the pandemic wanes.