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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

The bus issues on lake shore are because Lake shore is down to 1 lane from 4 right in its busiest stretch right before the York St on ramp. It’s causing total traffic pandemonium in an area that’s one of the slowest in the GTA on a normal day.

The issues will largely disappear once the work is done.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The bus issues on lake shore are because Lake shore is down to 1 lane from 4 right in its busiest stretch right before the York St on ramp. It’s causing total traffic pandemonium in an area that’s one of the slowest in the GTA on a normal day.

The issues will largely disappear once the work is done.
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Clearly, better planning of this project; and the mitigation measures required for GO were in order!
 
JasonParis said:
A good opportunity for the Premier to step-in and get a new bridge built! Get 'er done Doug!
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So long as you are okay with your tax dollars going to a private for-profit corporation (CN) and a federal non-profit (St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.) to support what amounts to a tourist train.
 
lenaitch said:
So long as you are okay with your tax dollars going to a private for-profit corporation (CN) and a federal non-profit (St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.) to support what amounts to a tourist train.
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If such a bridge was built, I can see the trackage being exclusive to GO transit while the current bridge remained commercial.
 
lenaitch said:
So long as you are okay with your tax dollars going to a private for-profit corporation (CN) and a federal non-profit (St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.) to support what amounts to a tourist train.
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CN doesn’t run much east of St. Catharines; they were even proposing to abandon the railway across the Niagara River, which is mostly used by the Amtrak/VIA service, and reroute its trains via Fort Erie/Black Rock.
 
Once again rode the Niagara train today, this will probably be my 6th round trip on it since it restarted, and only the very first train that reinstated the service after a 6 month hiatus was overloaded. The rest had plenty of space after the first 5 coaches.
These trains are not overloaded, especially if you walk the entire length of the train, like I have. The main issue is bunching near the cab car at Niagara VIA which is closest to the WEGO terminal, and Union Station which is where the York Concourse staircases are.
There’s no need to change the weekend passes, they just need better passenger dispersion.
 
Speaking of Niagara, gotta wonder if some just take the local transit coming off the train instead of just adding to the crowding to get a WEGO bus, as there is one route that touches the northern tip of Clifton Hill. Actually did this before but was just coming off the bus and it was really lowkey.
 
Willybru21 said:
Once again rode the Niagara train today, this will probably be my 6th round trip on it since it restarted, and only the very first train that reinstated the service after a 6 month hiatus was overloaded. The rest had plenty of space after the first 5 coaches.
These trains are not overloaded, especially if you walk the entire length of the train, like I have. The main issue is bunching near the cab car at Niagara VIA which is closest to the WEGO terminal, and Union Station which is where the York Concourse staircases are.
There’s no need to change the weekend passes, they just need better passenger dispersion.
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So one should board on the east (Bay) or west (York) side?
 
Willybru21 said:
There’s no need to change the weekend passes, they just need better passenger dispersion.
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Okay then what do you propose to do with the 1500 passengers when they arrive in Niagara Falls? WeGo can't muster up 30 buses, so there is always a large crowd stranded at the station after the last of WeGo's 2-3 extra buses has departed.

Part of the justification for the weekend passes has been to get people to try out GO Transit in the hopes of creating new regular riders. But getting stranded at Niagara Falls station for an hour while you've already bought a GO+WeGo ticket is not an experience which will convince anyone to ride transit more regularly. If anything it may confirm their impressions of delays and overcrowding.

Whether it be limiting demand using pricing, or dispersing demand among multiple morning trains (e.g. 2 trains with 800 passengers each), something needs to change. Dumping a full 12-car train at once is simply too much for the Niagara's last-mile options to handle.
 
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reaperexpress said:
Okay then what do you propose to do with the 1500 passengers when they arrive in Niagara Falls? WeGo can't muster up 30 buses, so there is always a large crowd stranded at the station after the last of WeGo's 2-3 extra buses has departed.

Part of the justification for the weekend passes has been to get people to try out GO Transit in the hopes of creating new regular riders. But getting stranded at Niagara Falls station for an hour while you've already bought a GO+WeGo ticket is not an experience which will convince anyone to ride transit more regularly. If anything it may confirm their impressions of delays and overcrowding.

Whether it be limiting demand using pricing, or dispersing demand among multiple morning trains (e.g. 2 trains with 800 passengers each), something needs to change. Dumping a full 12-car train at once is simply too much for the Niagara's last-mile options to handle.
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Like I said before, make it a full fare service and watch how quickly demand drops. 80 dollars return for 2 adults is not cheap.

Having kids ride for free isn't helping matters any either. People end up bringing 3-4 kids, strollers, etc with them causing even more crowding.

A nice idea, albeit impractical would be to make an exception to the kids ride free policy for Niagara trains. The policy was intended to increase ridership but it is being taken advantage of heading to Niagara. Again, if you had to pay 20 dollars return for each child, that would ease some of the crowding.

I am all for increased tourism but if GO cannot increase service, they have to be realistic.

I wonder how much money they are losing with all the discounts and limited service.
 
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Willybru21 said:
Once again rode the Niagara train today, this will probably be my 6th round trip on it since it restarted, and only the very first train that reinstated the service after a 6 month hiatus was overloaded. The rest had plenty of space after the first 5 coaches.
These trains are not overloaded, especially if you walk the entire length of the train, like I have. The main issue is bunching near the cab car at Niagara VIA which is closest to the WEGO terminal, and Union Station which is where the York Concourse staircases are.
There’s no need to change the weekend passes, they just need better passenger dispersion.
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When I went in June it was crammed end to end. I boarded at the eastern end of the train. As we arrived at Niagara I walked to the cab end.

Further to my point in another post, the sheer amount of SUV strollers is problematic on the train. In every car there had to be at least 2 massive strollers.

GO considers bikes to be a hazard requiring special storage but what about these strollers? 1500 people plus all these strollers.. no wonder WEGO has a tough time keeping up.

When the service first originated, before WEGO had dedicated shuttles I used to walk to the falls. It was a 45 minute walk but so much easier.

I hope at the end of the year Metrolinx does a service review for the Niagara trains. They really need to take a hard look at how they operate them. They are losing alot of money and bungled operations.
 
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reaperexpress said:
Good thing full fare and insanely cheap are not the only two options.
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True. There can't be a discount of any kind if you truly want to bring the crowding under control however.

You can't encourage ridership by offering free rides to kids and discount fares to adults if you want to make things more manageable.

I've said many times before, when the service originated in 2013 there were no discounted fares and kids paid a fare. The service was lightly used and the crowds were manageable. Back then you couldn't take the family there without spending around $150 return on transportation.

I'm all for tourism but there is a need for sustainable tourism. Right now, Niagara is a disaster in the summer and I look to avoid it. The local infrastructure simply cannot handle the amount of people that come in the summer.

This isn't a Niagara problem generally speaking however. Many European cities are having issues keeping up with the number of tourists due to cheap flights in the EU. Places like Venice are now charging tourists to enter the city.
 
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