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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

innsertnamehere said:
I presume that MTO has done some basic feasibility studies.
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You also presume that there'd be no stopping in Guelph, so I don't think your presumptions count for much!

I'm not aware of any MTO studies. VIA has studied on and off since it's creation in the 1970s. This generally included a stop in Guelph.

There's still going to be a station in Guelph. Even if this were to happen, we are years away from knowing what trains are stopping where.

innsertnamehere said:
In general I think ware just going to have to wait it out another 2 weeks until the full budget comes out and we can see exactly what is going on.
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Exactly what is going on? There will likely be a sentence or two in the budget. It's a document that lays out $ spending, not timetables for service in the mid-2020s. What exactly is going on, is a minority government, quite possibly on it's way out in a year or two, is making promises that none of it's successors have much chance of keeping.
 
innsertnamehere said:
ignore the healthcare thing, but it shows manufacturing sector employment. Big name closures occur sure, but there are other plants opening up that are offsetting it. 500 jobs may sound like a lot, but in the schemes of a province of 14 million people and a sector with ~800,000 employees, its not. each one of those closures will see a small blip on that graph, but the next month a new plant opens and it jumps up again by a roughly equal amount. Compare this with the 2003 - 2008 period where job losses were one after another, and it is fine. Markets are constantly in flux, closures are to be expected. A good example directly visible on the graph is the first large jump after it stabilizes in late 2010, that is likely the opening of the Toyota plant in Woodstock.
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It should be noted it's only stable as a gross number, and not as a percent of the labour force where it's still going down, which is a much more useful and relevant statistic.
 
of course, but it contradicts this sentiment that there are huge job losses occuring in the sector, while in reality it is stable with growth occurring elsewhere.
 
Ontario is in dire need of a fed prov agreement on regional and inter regional rail similar to those between the US and states like VA and IL. Instead we get this god damned kite flying. Am embarrassed to have thought back in 2009-10 Murray would have made a good mayoral candidate for Toronto, before he slid into Smitherman's seat.
 
innsertnamehere said:
it would just under double it (twice the service, but faster travel times requiring less trains), but given the planned extensions to Niagara, Hamilton, and Bowmanville, I think you would be looking at well more than doubling of service. Introducing 15 minute service on all lines would require a HUGE hiring spree.
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The Liberal spending spree is the precursor to a huge cancellation by whichever government takes over (either this year or if the Liberal's survive, in a year or two). I can see the almost exact resemblance to the early '90s where they bought votes by expanding GO (Guelph and Barrie) without costing out the subsidy to run an empty train (or to be more cynical they didn't care since it'd be the next group of MPP's that would have to cancel it).

- Liberals promised with no revenue plan and the NDP had to cancel GO Train Service
- NDP promised with no revenue plan and the Conservatives had to cancel a subway (we are only now building a lower-volume LRT)
- Conservatives promised and spent on Sheppard (Toronto is subsidizing the cost of the opex)
- Liberals are promising and ???

GO transit improvements should be incremental. Just like they have been doing on Lakeshore for the last 40 years. Rush-hour trains, then hourly off-peak, then half-hourly. Finally electrify for quarter-hourly or more often. But each of these only when demand warrants the growth.

Here are my guesses at when the lines should be more frequent:

Rush-hour only, no express - 0 to 3.5 million (Richmond Hill. Barrie at top end so maybe express)
Rush hour and express - 3.5 million to 7.5 million (Stouffville, Kitchener)
Hourly all-day - 7.5 million to 10 million (Milton)
Half-hourly all-day - 10 million to 15 million (Lakeshore East)
Half hourly with electrification (which makes it faster) - 15 million to 17.5 million (Lakeshore West)
Quarter-hourly - 17.5M + (NONE YET)

Other threads people are saying LRT's and not subways because there is no demand and then the supporters here (plus the MPP's) want to throw billions at a bunch of projects where there is not enough demand (yet). The Liberals are promising way too much capex for untested demand that will be a drain on public resources if the supply doesn't show up.
 
The silver standard for Federal-State rail operations in the US (there is no gold standard to speak of) is Amtrak California.

New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, even Texas, Oklahoma, and Vermont, fund regional/intercity train service which isn't great, but isn't not terrible either. Some states do it on their own, such as New Mexico, which runs the Rail Runner Albuquerque-Santa Fe service, which is a hybrid of commuter and regional rail.
 
muller877 said:
The Liberal spending spree is the precursor to a huge cancellation by whichever government takes over (either this year or if the Liberal's survive, in a year or two). I can see the almost exact resemblance to the early '90s where they bought votes by expanding GO (Guelph and Barrie) without costing out the subsidy to run an empty train (or to be more cynical they didn't care since it'd be the next group of MPP's that would have to cancel it).

- Liberals promised with no revenue plan and the NDP had to cancel GO Train Service
- NDP promised with no revenue plan and the Conservatives had to cancel a subway (we are only now building a lower-volume LRT)
- Conservatives promised and spent on Sheppard (Toronto is subsidizing the cost of the opex)
- Liberals are promising and ???

GO transit improvements should be incremental. Just like they have been doing on Lakeshore for the last 40 years. Rush-hour trains, then hourly off-peak, then half-hourly. Finally electrify for quarter-hourly or more often. But each of these only when demand warrants the growth.

Here are my guesses at when the lines should be more frequent:

Rush-hour only, no express - 0 to 3.5 million (Richmond Hill. Barrie at top end so maybe express)
Rush hour and express - 3.5 million to 7.5 million (Stouffville, Kitchener)
Hourly all-day - 7.5 million to 10 million (Milton)
Half-hourly all-day - 10 million to 15 million (Lakeshore East)
Half hourly with electrification (which makes it faster) - 15 million to 17.5 million (Lakeshore West)
Quarter-hourly - 17.5M + (NONE YET)

Other threads people are saying LRT's and not subways because there is no demand and then the supporters here (plus the MPP's) want to throw billions at a bunch of projects where there is not enough demand (yet). The Liberals are promising way too much capex for untested demand that will be a drain on public resources if the supply doesn't show up.
Click to expand...

Overall travel volumes, IMO, are a flawed way of looking at where to service. Since you can have a short line like Richmond Hill which is hindered by capacity, thus reducing it's overall travel volume, whereas other, longer lines, with much larger capacity have the ability to take-on more riders. A better approach is to use hour Passengers Per Hour Per Direction to gauge the need for service. Is it really no wonder Richmond Hill volumes are 3.5m when only a handful of trips are made each day in one direction no less.
 
muller877 said:
GO transit improvements should be incremental. Just like they have been doing on Lakeshore for the last 40 years. Rush-hour trains, then hourly off-peak, then half-hourly. Finally electrify for quarter-hourly or more often. But each of these only when demand warrants the growth.
Click to expand...

What represents demand warranting the expansion? When Lakeshore went from hourly off peak to half-hourly off peak the average passenger count on the off peak trains was 350 (at last public statement that had dropped to 270 or so per train with the increase in service levels)....so, what, about 18% utilization on average......if you tally up the bus usage on the other lines in off peak are you far from that number of people per hour?

Also, that 350 is heavily skewed by the full trains that service TFC matches, the Indy race and (I presume because I don't attend) Jays games. Part of that skewing is drawing people from other lines (eg. personal example, I am on the KW line but often drive to the Lakeshore for TFC matches).

Also, the Lakeshore line gets a bump in its ridership from people who would more normally get service from the Milton line but drive/commute to the Lakeshore to use the trains because the service is so much better.
 
TOareaFan said:
What represents demand warranting the expansion? When Lakeshore went from hourly off peak to half-hourly off peak the average passenger count on the off peak trains was 350 (at last public statement that had dropped to 270 or so per train with the increase in service levels)....so, what, about 18% utilization on average......if you tally up the bus usage on the other lines in off peak are you far from that number of people per hour?

Also, that 350 is heavily skewed by the full trains that service TFC matches, the Indy race and (I presume because I don't attend) Jays games. Part of that skewing is drawing people from other lines (eg. personal example, I am on the KW line but often drive to the Lakeshore for TFC matches).
Click to expand...

Those numbers also cut both ways - the 350/average also took into account the 500+ average ridership in the middle of the day versus the 100 or so on the last couple of trains of the night.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
Those numbers also cut both ways - the 350/average also took into account the 500+ average ridership in the middle of the day versus the 100 or so on the last couple of trains of the night.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Click to expand...

Yes...but the point is while passengers on other lines are historically told to wait until demand justifies service expansion....no one ever tells them what that actually means....and since the only concrete recent expansion of off peak service seems to have been predicated on an average usage of 350 passengers per train...is that what it means? And if that usage is what warrants a move to 30 minute rail frequencies...what is the number that warrants hourly? And would it be that hard to imagine getting there on any of the other lines?
 
muller877 said:
GO transit improvements should be incremental. Just like they have been doing on Lakeshore for the last 40 years. Rush-hour trains, then hourly off-peak, then half-hourly.
Click to expand...
What do you mean? They started hourly off-peak service in 1967, the same year GO started service. There was very little change to the off-peak schedule from September 1967 to June 2013, other than extending to Oshawa and Aldershot.
 
muller877 said:
Rush-hour only, no express - 0 to 3.5 million (Richmond Hill. Barrie at top end so maybe express)
Rush hour and express - 3.5 million to 7.5 million (Stouffville, Kitchener)
Hourly all-day - 7.5 million to 10 million (Milton)
Half-hourly all-day - 10 million to 15 million (Lakeshore East)
Half hourly with electrification (which makes it faster) - 15 million to 17.5 million (Lakeshore West)
Quarter-hourly - 17.5M + (NONE YET)
Click to expand...

Do you have updated ridership stats? The last we've seen here broken down by line was from back in 2010.
 
TOareaFan said:
What represents demand warranting the expansion? When Lakeshore went from hourly off peak to half-hourly off peak the average passenger count on the off peak trains was 350 (at last public statement that had dropped to 270 or so per train with the increase in service levels)....so, what, about 18% utilization on average......if you tally up the bus usage on the other lines in off peak are you far from that number of people per hour?

Also, that 350 is heavily skewed by the full trains that service TFC matches, the Indy race and (I presume because I don't attend) Jays games. Part of that skewing is drawing people from other lines (eg. personal example, I am on the KW line but often drive to the Lakeshore for TFC matches).

Also, the Lakeshore line gets a bump in its ridership from people who would more normally get service from the Milton line but drive/commute to the Lakeshore to use the trains because the service is so much better.
Click to expand...

There will always be bus travel on routes with or without all-day service. GO Buses serve both off-peak travel and travel not to Union Station (i.e. from Oakville to North York). So there will not be a complete depletion of the bus system on a route when the trains take over...they will fill in another need.

The key point is that we should not have a cookie cutter solution for each line. If we do, we will have a huge operating deficit for a long time. Look at each line independently, inform the public how you are doing so and then execute on your strategy. If Metrolinx/Ontario government sets a policy that is EASY for people to understand and executes on it, everyone will understand what they are doing (they may not be happy but at least they will understand).

The WORST thing for transit is to overbuild in areas where this is no demand and then there will be cutbacks which will set back transit policy for years.
 
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