crs1026
Superstar
My observations are, obviously, anecdotal, but I am pretty sure the numbers are supportive of my observations because GO has purchased and is about to demolish an office building to provide more parking.....they know their audience and know their users...and they are people who want to drive and park before getting on a train.
You are bang on, today. This has to change. There isn't room or money to add all the parking garages we need. I will sound like a downtowner by saying this - but I believe it: the biggest urban myth is the belief of people in the hinterland that they have bought into the suburbs to leave all the issues of intensification behind, and they should be left in peace on their curvy low-density streets with their automobiles.
My contacts in 905 transit tell me they have hard data showing that every time GO builds a parking lot or garage, their modal share drops at that station. Don't build the parking lot, and more people do ride transit, perhaps not happily. 905 transit needs to look a whole lot different to solve the problem. High-capacity artic buses on main routes is the wrong way to build last-mile transit ridership out there. We need to take people to the door, which means low-cap vehicles that navigate the back crescents. Waiting for self-driving pool cars won't suffice, we need something sooner.
A start would be to have more services and commerce available within steps of the transit hub. Get off the GO train, pick up your dry cleaning, visit your dentist, buy what you need to take home for dinner. (I seem to be digressing into another thread)
Add in that, I imagine, the off peak user is probably even less likely to use transit (partly because they are likely less regular users and, therefore less familiar with it and partly because frequencies of local busses drop in off peak hours) and I bet the move to build garages is because they are investing billions to provide off peak service on the other rail lines and their only way to get any riders on those trains is to have somewhere for those off peak users to park their vehicle.
Students excepted, off-peak riders are likely going someplace that is not where peak riders go, and for different reasons. We need to understand where they are going. But yes, their service needs to be just as frequent and just as good as peak service.
- Paul