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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

ssiguy2 said:
First you build the transit then you build the garages if required not the other way around.

Building garages is also very short sighted. Increasingly, whether we like it or not, transit buses will become self-driving. It will take a long time before they are transferred on long haul and very busy urban routes but not so for the dreaded 'last mile' which is exactly what these garages are built for. In short Metrolinx is pouring all their resources into the first thing that will become obsolete. These huge garages also eat up a lot of potential revenue by taking away transit oriented development.
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It's a catch 22. Say Metrolinx builds a GO station without a parking garage. On day 1, nobody will use the station since people can't find parking (ie, it's unusable). Then, everyone will start pointing to the low ridership ("why spend so much money on a station if nobody uses it?").
On the other hand, if a parking garage is built, we get criticism such as yours.
Bottom line, can't please everybody.
 
lead82 said:
Uber would be good for this.
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people are free to uber to any GO station at present. Not sure you or I should be paying part or all of that fare/fee just so they can avoid using public transit.

lead82 said:
It's worked in Innisfil and other low density places.
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Has it worked in Innisfil? Has it operated long enough to know that it has "worked"? What other low density places have we tried this and know that it works?

lead82 said:
Otherwise, GO stations need to become hubs of activity with lots of services/shops nearby to allow people to get errands done as part of their trip. Lots of GO stations have absolutely nothing around them or if they do there is no way to easily walk there.
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This might have something to do with the fact that we have built our GO system out of an already existing network of largely freight lines....freight lines, not surprisingly, tend to cut through and service a lot of industrial lands. Aside from the obvious zoning issues, outside of major cities, there is not a lot of desire for people to shop/dine/live in active (or even former) industrial areas.


lead82 said:
Think of what's happening with the new VMC subway. Each GO station should be encouraged to have similar level of development nearby (maybe not as dense) but the idea is that we should try to make use of the infrastructure.
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Same issue, really, no one is discouraging what you suggest....but there is no demand (from developers or public) to develop retail or residential uses around train stations in suburban industrial districts.
 
TOareaFan said:
This might have something to do with the fact that we have built our GO system out of an already existing network of largely freight lines....freight lines, not surprisingly, tend to cut through and service a lot of industrial lands. Aside from the obvious zoning issues, outside of major cities, there is not a lot of desire for people to shop/dine/live in active (or even former) industrial areas.
Same issue, really, no one is discouraging what you suggest....but there is no demand (from developers or public) to develop retail or residential uses around train stations in suburban industrial districts.
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In terms of the feeder lines (i.e. not Lakeshore) the original rail lines were built to connect regions of Canada and Ontario and either wound through communities or communities coalesced around them. Given the age of the original lines, the concept of 'industrial lands' largely didn't exist. Over time, land use around the lines may have become more commercial, but there remained a passenger component as these lines pre-dated automobile travel.

The term 'last mile' has to be considered in the suburban and near-rural context of the GO branch lines. While there has been no doubt urban sprawl in the relatively recently-built suburbia, many riders may come to the station from many kilometers away and live on rural roads or in even smaller communities not on the lines.
 
lenaitch said:
In terms of the feeder lines (i.e. not Lakeshore) the original rail lines were built to connect regions of Canada and Ontario and either wound through communities or communities coalesced around them. Given the age of the original lines, the concept of 'industrial lands' largely didn't exist. Over time, land use around the lines may have become more commercial, but there remained a passenger component as these lines pre-dated automobile travel.
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Thanks for the history lesson....but you missed the part that I said "we have built our GO system out of an already existing network of largely freight lines....freight lines, not surprisingly, tend to cut through and service a lot of industrial lands." Since we built GO from the late 60s onward the "concept" of industrial lands very much existed and those industrial lands tended to congregate around rail corridors.

lenaitch said:
The term 'last mile' has to be considered in the suburban and near-rural context of the GO branch lines. While there has been no doubt urban sprawl in the relatively recently-built suburbia, many riders may come to the station from many kilometers away and live on rural roads or in even smaller communities not on the lines.
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The vast majority of GO riders come from the communities in which the stations are built....so, yes, there may be the odd person getting on the GO at Brampton that came down from Orangeville....but most of the riders came from somewhere in Brampton....I think subsidizing uber is a bad/expensive idea....it only gets worse if you are subsidizing rides from far off rural areas for a few people.
 
I would also like to see robust cycling infrastructure to get people from low density communities to their local GO station safely and quickly.
 
Neutrino said:
I would also like to see robust cycling infrastructure to get people from low density communities to their local GO station safely and quickly.
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Some GO stations like Long Branch needs better pedestrian facilities Long Branch doesn't even have a sidewalk -- unlike Aldershot GO station.

Imagine that, Aldershot's South Parking Lot is technically more pedestrian-friendly than the Long Branch GO Parking Lot. (Despite being in the middle of suburbia)

For the majority of stations (e.g. all stations in Lakeshore East/West) -- there should be a 100 or 200 meter section of Multi-Use trail at least, to allow both pedestrians and cyclists to walk to the station without walking through a sea of parking.

For some stations that is easy, simply by modifying an already-wide sidewalk (e.g. Aldershot GO station's South Parking Lot sidewalk -- which can be a connection to ongoing Aldershot densification plan) -- is wide enough to be converted to a Multi-Use trail -- but for some stations it looks like designed-into-a-corner with no cheap way to retrofit a safe connection for both pedestrians and cyclists.
 
crs1026 said:
Totally agree, but the strategy should not be "Provide an abundant supply of parking and then see if adding any transit would help".

The strategy needs to be "Provide an abundant supply of attractive transit (and by that I am not limiting the scope to 45-foot low floor transit vehicles or artics) and provide economic levers to manage supply/demand and cost recovery of parking (fancy way of saying....charge for parking)".

There needs to be balance - and some directional carrots and sticks. As noted above, parking may be necessary, but it's not a sustainable silver bullet.

- Paul
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If US cities, even in Texas, car loving cities, can do it, so can we:

A Bus-Shunning Texas Town's Big Leap to Microtransit
  1. LAURA BLISS
NOV 20, 2017
Arlington used to be the largest city in the U.S. without any buses at all. Now it’s going all in on on-demand shuttles.
Arlington used to be the largest city in the U.S. without any buses at all. Now it’s going all in on on-demand shuttles. Sandwiched between Fort Worth and Dallas, the Texas city of Arlington would seem an obvious candidate for commuter rail or rapid buses. Yet voters have turned down transit bond measures three times since 1979, preferring to fund stadium revamps instead. Until a few years ago, Arlington was largest city in the country with no mass transit at all.

Now it will be the first to run solely on microtransit. Earlier this month, Arlington announced a partnership with Via, a New York-based startup that offers on-demand minibus rides. Its vehicles will soon replace the Max, the single, fixed-route bus line that has run between UT Arlington and a commuter rail station near Dallas-Fort Worth airport since 2013. Once the Max contract expires in December, passengers will be able to secure pick-ups in six-seater Mercedes shuttles from nearby corners, using the Via app or by dialing a call center for a $3 fare.

The city’s primary goal is to provide more coverage for less money. Because the Max’s service area has been so constrained, and offers virtually no connections within the city, ridership has hovered between 250 and 300 trips per day—just five full buses, roughly speaking. Reviewing options for renewing service, the city’s transportation advisory committee was intrigued by microtransit’s offer of flexible, “right-sized” service. [...]
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https://www.citylab.com/transportat...-texas-towns-big-leap-to-microtransit/546134/
 
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