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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

Except this guy's goal is to help travel between Kingston and Toronto... and to draw Torontonian tourists to Kingston. Both things that VIA currently does decently well.

This guy, Rick Downes, is a perennial loser in Kingston politics. He's a councillor but is always trying to move up, he's run for mayor, MP, and MPP before and failed. His base is the low-income neighbourhoods of Kingston's north end. He's extraordinarily popular among those people, but the rest of the city sees him as a bit of a loony. He has very little understanding of Kingston beyond that home group, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he honestly thought that commuter service to Toronto would appeal to suburban Kingstonians for whatever reason.
 
1overcosc said:
Except this guy's goal is to help travel between Kingston and Toronto... and to draw Torontonian tourists to Kingston. Both things that VIA currently does decently well.

This guy, Rick Downes, is a perennial loser in Kingston politics. He's a councillor but is always trying to move up, he's run for mayor, MP, and MPP before and failed. His base is the low-income neighbourhoods of Kingston's north end. He's extraordinarily popular among those people, but the rest of the city sees him as a bit of a loony. He has very little understanding of Kingston beyond that home group, too. I wouldn't be surprised if he honestly thought that commuter service to Toronto would appeal to suburban Kingstonians for whatever reason.
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The other thing he may not understand is the level/frequency of service that GO offers outside of the core of the Lakeshore lines.

Tomorrow, there are 12 Via trains to Toronto from Kingston and 11 from Toronto to Kingston........by GO standards that is pretty much a gold plated level of service....doubt they would replicate that to Kingston.
 
If Ontario partnered with the Feds/VIA, we could have a high frequency corridor service London-Toronto-Kingston right in the sweet spot of rail (2.5hrs). We should be looking at a vehicle the 125mph regional bilevels being ordered by Illinois, Michigan, California, since at present (though seemingly not at Union eventually) Ontario is low platform territory.

instead there is no legal framework for provincial - federal cooperation and all proposed projects are ridiculously grandiose (high speed Quebec-Windsor)
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Why not? GO Transit should be used outside the GTHA more to provide local transportation. It's a lower operating cost that VIA (I would assume), why can't they take over local service (e.g. Stratford, Brantford, Port Hope, Belleville, Brockville) from VIA and make VIA express to major centres only (e.g. London, K-W, Aldershot, Toronto, Oshawa, Kingston, Ottawa)?
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This is the model that I see when HSR gets implemented. There would be 3 levels of service: HSR would run between major centres, GO+ would run milk runs for long haul trips, and GO REX would run frequent urban/regional trips.

VIA HSR:

Pearson-Toronto Union-Oshawa-Kingston-Dorval-Montreal

Pearson-Toronto Union-Oshawa-Kingston-Ottawa Airport-Ottawa

Toronto Union-Pearson-Kitchener-London-Windsor

Ottawa-Ottawa Airport-Dorval-Montreal


GO+:

Toronto Union-Danforth Main-Pickering-Oshawa-Port Hope-Cobourg-Trenton-Belleville-Napanee-Kingston

Toronto Union-Long Branch-Oakville-Aldershot-Hamilton James-Kenilworth-Stoney Creek-Grimsby-St. Catharines-Niagara Falls

Toronto Union-Long Branch-Oakville-Aldershot-Brantford-Woodstock-Ingersoll-London

Toronto Union-Dundas West-Woodbine-Brampton-Acton-Guelph-Kitchener Centre-Kitchener West

Toronto Union-Dupont-Caledonia-Wilson-Downsview Park-Concord-Rutherford-Maple-King City-Aurora-Newmarket-East Gwillimbury-Bradford-Barrie South-Barrie Waterfront

London-St. Mary's-Stratford-New Hamburg-Kitchener West-Kitchener Centre

London-Glencoe-Thamesville-Chatham-Tecumseh-Windsor

Ottawa-Fallowfield-Smiths Falls-Brockville-Gananoque-Kingston

Ottawa-Vars-Casselman-Maxville-Alexandria

Ontario Northlander (Barrie to Cochrane, connection in Barrie to Toronto)


GO REX:

Lakeshore
Milton-Richmond Hill
Pearson-Seaton
Brampton-Markham
 
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gweed123 said:
This is the model that I see when HSR gets implemented.
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You lost me there cause as far as I know there is no plan to implement any HSR other than the London-KW-Pearson-Union "plan" that the OLP promised prior to the last provincial election.
 
nfitz said:
Why VIA run HSR? Why not, for example, Bombardier? Or Air Canada (for example).
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Well they run rail service now. It would make the most sense for them to run the HSR service as well. Also, corridors that won't get HSR will still be with VIA. If someone is going from Ottawa to say Moncton, why would they take 2 separate companies for that trip? (HSR to Montreal, the Ocean to Moncton)

TOareaFan said:
You lost me there cause as far as I know there is no plan to implement any HSR other than the London-KW-Pearson-Union "plan" that the OLP promised prior to the last provincial election.
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I honestly believe that the Ontario HSR plan is just a piece of the puzzle. I can really see the federal Liberals proposing HSR on the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor in the 2015 election. The Toronto-London corridor is an Ontario-specific corridor, but the T-O-M route is an interprovincial corridor.
 
nfitz said:
Why VIA run HSR? Why not, for example, Bombardier? Or Air Canada (for example).
Click to expand...

Well it seems to me to be a logical decentralization of public transit.

Currently, in the GTHA, you have:

* VIA running longer-distance service to a limited amount of stops (I'll call it "inter-regional travel")
* GO running medium-distance service to quite a few stops within multiple community ("regional travel" or 'the milk run')
* Local transit (e.g. TTC, YRT, MiWay etc.) running short-distance serving many stops within a community ("local travel")

Outside of the GTHA, you don't even have that. You have VIA running "inter-regional travel" and "regional travel", and local transit doing its thing, but nothing rapid I might add (except Ottawa).

All I am proposing is to further decentalize it inside and outside of the GTHA. In the GTHA, VIA would be even more "inter-regional travel" by only serving 3 stops along the Corridor (Union, GTA West aka Aldershot area, and GTA East aka Oshawa area), and "regional travel" would be strictly GO (so VIA wouldn't serve Guildwood, Brampton, or Oakville). Outside the GTHA, GO service would take over the "regional travel".

The benefits here are that:

* VIA service is immediately faster without any capital investment, because the time lost decelerating, dwelling at the station, and accelerating is eliminated at regional stops.
* VIA stations can have their title transferred from the federal to the provincial government at little cost (if the federal government wants to be sensible and consider it their 'investment' in better public transit)
* GO can serve the smaller "regional" communities at a lower fare, increasing the travel demand.
* Rail service could be increased to these smaller communities, because now the travel demand is increased, the operating cost is lower, and providing the service is more sustainable.
* There is added benefit from having convenient connections between VIA and GO.
* The benefits of decentralization: VIA (a federal agency) can now focus their energy on further, fewer and more major travel points across Ontario. GO (a division of a provincial agency) can focus on the smaller communities in Ontario.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm convinced this is a good idea.
 
gweed123 said:
Well they run rail service now. It would make the most sense for them to run the HSR service as well.



I honestly believe that the Ontario HSR plan is just a piece of the puzzle. I can really see the federal Liberals proposing HSR on the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal corridor in the 2015 election. The Toronto-London corridor is an Ontario-specific corridor, but the T-O-M route is an interprovincial corridor.
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There has been absolutely no hint that they are gonna do that though....right?
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
I've been thinking about this for a long time. I'm convinced this is a good idea.
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Agreed 100% with everything you said. That type of system isn't exactly new either. Many countries in Europe use that model. HSR to link major urban centres, regional rail lines (DB in Germany for example) linking far-flung smaller communities with regional hubs, and urban rail lines (S-Bahn for example) serving the urban and suburban areas of major metropolitan regions.

We don't need to re-invent the wheel, we just need to apply the same principle to Ontario. Ontario is already well set up for this because we already have a Provincial transit authority, although we don't explicitly think of it as such. GO's mandate is to cover the GGH right now because that's all it's been required to do. But there's no reason why its mandate can't be expanded to provide regional/inter-regional rail service across the Province.

TOareaFan said:
There has been absolutely no hint that they are gonna do that though....right?
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No hints as of yet, but the Liberals have been more willing to talk transportation than the Conservatives have. The whole "Toronto to London HSR" thing makes very little bloody sense on its own, but it makes plenty of sense when combined with a T-O-M HSR route. It's too convenient that the Province completely ignored anything east of Union Station in the last election. It's too big of an oversight for that to be an accident. That makes me strongly believe that there's something hiding behind the Federal Liberal curtain that they don't want to reveal just yet, for obvious political reasons (theft being the primary one).

In any case, we'll know by the middle of next year if I'm right or not. If it's in the Liberal election platform, then all the pieces of the puzzle fall nicely together. If it isn't, then Ontario has some strange corridor prioritizing going on.
 
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High Speed Rail does not fit VIA's brand image. Citing some examples:

via-rail-canada.png

rail10.jpg

via_rail_dome_car_canada.jpg.size.xxlarge.promo.jpg

New_990x600_10dollars_AN.jpg

New_990x600_Berg_AN.jpg


I wholly expect VIA rail to give me an excellent cross-country travel experience when I'm on vacation and want to go on expedition and see some Canadian wilderness from the comfort of the panorama car. It's essentially a cruise line on rails. Good luck trying to modernize VIA into a modern intercity rail carrier, it's overloaded with nostalgia. I do not expect VIA to get me anywhere on-time; I may as well take Porter or Greyhound or rent a Dodge Charger for the weekend.

VIA's focus has shifted away from the destination and more on the journey. I'd pin this just as much on lack of federal funding driving up ticket prices as much as VIA's notoriously unreliable and infrequent scheduling, as much as VIA's lack of vision.

VIA's goals of being a more comfortable and more human way to travel run counter to providing frequent, fast, reliable service and as such, VIA should be the last corporation to be running HSR service. Give the regional stuff to GO in Ontario, AMT in Quebec, Translink in BC, ect as provincially-run agencies and let VIA keep their Canadian hinterland journey service that has no chance of competing with air travel. Set up a new inter-provincial agency to run HSR service in The Corridor.
 
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Except turning VIA into a full-on land cruise service is exactly what Rocky Mountaineer pays lobbyists to prevent, no?
 
gweed123 said:
No hints as of yet, but the Liberals have been more willing to talk transportation than the Conservatives have. The whole "Toronto to London HSR" thing makes very little bloody sense on its own, but it makes plenty of sense when combined with a T-O-M HSR route. It's too convenient that the Province completely ignored anything east of Union Station in the last election. It's too big of an oversight for that to be an accident. That makes me strongly believe that there's something hiding behind the Federal Liberal curtain that they don't want to reveal just yet, for obvious political reasons (theft being the primary one).
Click to expand...

You find it more believable that Wynne and Trudeau cooked up a secret way to roll out HSR........and Wynne, fighting for her political life, agreed with this instruction from Justin "you use the election to roll out just one part of it, the part that makes the least sense, as a stand alone stretch of HSR......and you are not to defend it by saying 'the federal liberals will fix it by announcing the good parts next year' "

i don't think so, i think the L-KW-P-U HSR was, simply, crass politics buying votes in London and KW....simple as that.....and that is how it makes sense.
 
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