GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[robmausser]

The Express option 5-6 mintues for K-W passengers inbound to Toronto.

That's a modest, but helpful step.

Biggest help will come from track improvements from Kitchener to Brampton, but the express service will be a perceptual help more than anything; the passenger will feel good that GO is attempting to get them to Union as fast as possible, after a rather slow ride.

 

[anb]

The new September schedules are up.

Many train and bus trips cut in 2020 have returned, including express trains on the Lakeshore and Kitchener lines.

A few interesting changes, including route 18K, which operates weekdays between West Harbour GO, St. Catharines GO, and Brock University. This provides the direct Hamilton-St. Catharines bus service that has been missing since Coach Canada/Megabus cancelled its route between Niagara Falls, Grimsby, and Hamilton.

Route 29 only (the Mississauga-Guelph bus) is extended to Kipling, but not Route 25 (Mississauga-Waterloo).

Route 30 (the Bramalea-Kitchener express) is being extended to stop at WLU and UW.

Right now, some of the new PDFs are not loading (Kitchener Corridor, for example) but most train trips between Kitchener and Toronto will run express between Union and Bramalea:

• Kitchener GO at 6:02 a.m., 6:32 a.m., 7:02 a.m., 7:32 a.m., and 8:02 a.m., will make all stops to Bramalea GO then run express to Union Station, arriving at 7:43 a.m., 8:13 a.m., 8:43 a.m., 9:13 a.m. and 9:43 a.m.
• Weekday evening westbound trips departing Union Station at 4:49 p.m., 5:19 p.m., and 6:19 p.m., will run express to Bramalea GO, then make all stops to Kitchener GO, arriving at 6:35 p.m., 7:05 p.m., and 8:05 p.m.

Now this is how a September service change should be done! GO really over delivered this year and this really makes up for all the terrible local transit agency changes. 29 going to Kipling and a branch of the 18 going to Brock University really made me excited for the direction they are going in. The new cross regional 407 buses that we got earlier is now getting 30 min service means we’re going to get 15 min service at Bramalea and Erin Mills again which is really exciting for Peel Region.
25 and 30 both now going to the universities in Waterloo is amazing. The former returning with 30 min service again and combined with the 29 we get 15 min service on all stops between Square One and Aberfoyle during rush hours. But that’s just the buses

The train service is of course the highlight of these changes. They even had something for the commuter only Milton and RH lines getting 15-30 min peak service like you just can’t go wrong with that. We all wish the Kitchener line would get 30 min all day/weekend service but after the tunnel at 401/409 is completed i guarantee they might jump immediately on board and enhance the Union-Bramalea corridor as they did with the rush hour service being practically every 15 min despite every other trip being express. With them also teasing a London extension, this line would probably be looked at with a whole new perspective.

 

[Tristen]

Anyone have access to the new route 25 schedule?

 

[reaperexpress]

My comments on the new service changes:

Lakeshore West
The weekday AM Niagara train now departs Niagara Falls at 06:39, which is far more reasonable than the old 05:23 departure time. Now it actually runs during a time of day when there is congestion on the QEW. The trip now is scheduled for 2h21, a slight improvement from the 2h27 pre-pandemic. For some reason these trip is completely missing from the Lakeshore West timetables. The weekend trains had already been missing from the tables for a few years now, but now the weekday ones are missing too, despite clearly following the same clockface stopping pattern for express trains:

September 2021 AM Peak schedule, I have filled in the unlisted train trip in green:

looking at the Lakeshore Express services - the morning trips generally make sense, running on 30 minute frequencies arriving at Union between 7am and 8:30am, but the evening service runs surprisingly early, with departures at 3:47, 4:17, 4:47, then 5:47.

Generally I'm surprised they don't have a 5:17 train, which I figured would be one of the more popular departure times.

There is a 5:17 Lakeshore West train, but it's not shown in the Lakeshore West timetable. It is only shown in the Route 12 timetable:

It's also great to see the Hamilton Centre trips running express again. As I expected, peak period service is now 4 tph local + 2 tph express, rather than the 2 tph local + 4 tph express we had pre-pandemic.

Unfortunately, evening service continues to only run hourly on weekdays, which is a huge drop after the 6 tph peak and 4 tph counterpeak service. On weekends, service maintains 2 tph until about midnight.

I'm very pleased to see the new Route 18K which runs every 2 hours between Hamilton Centre to St Catharines, including a timed connection to trains at West Harbour. I'd previously suggested that Route 12 be rerouted along this exact routing to downtown, but this new route achieves a similar effect. There is a 6 minute transfer at Grimsby P&R for eastbound passengers from Burlington on Route 12 transfering to Route 18K toward downtown St Catharines or Brock, but this unfortunately means nearly an hour transfer for passengers heading from Hamilton on Route 18K to Niagara Falls on Route 12. Westbound, the transfers from Niagara Falls (route 12) to Hamilton (route 18K) and from St Cathrines/Brock (route 18K) to Burlington (route 12) are both about 30 minutes.

I think that they should have taken this opportunity to drop Beamsville (Ontario St. @ QEW) P&R from route 12. That would cut about 7 minutes off the travel time, allowing Route 12 to provide more competitive travel times between Toronto and Niagara Falls, while route 18K provides local service in between. Beamsville P&R generally annoys me since it's only accessible by car anyway, so "local access" is not a valid justification for wasting everyone's time getting off the highway and driving around in circles, often without dropping anyone off or picking anyone up.

I also would have used St Catherines Bus Terminal as the downtown St Catharines stop rather than St Catharines Station, since it has far better bus connections and far more destinations nearby. I suppose they wanted to provide more options for people who parked at St Catharines Station to take the peak-period GO train.

Kitchener Line
There are now 11 daily round trips between Kitchener and Toronto (10 GO + 1 VIA), which is more than there has ever been before. The AM peak service from Kitchener now extends until 8:39, compared to 7:57 pre-pandemic. This is very helpful since buses leaving Kitchener or Guelph around 8:00-8:30 would still get stuck in rush hour traffic.

My marked-up version of the September 2021 AM Peak timetable, highlighting changes relative to August 2021.

The new trips also make a totally practical commuter schedule for people living in Kitchener and working in Guelph.

The travel time for express trips is now 1:41 eastbound, which is the fastest it has ever been. It is 4 minutes faster than pre-pandemic, and 9 minutes faster than before Metrolinx started the current track upgrade project. This nearly achieves the 10 minutes which were promised as part of that project. However, the travel time between Kitchener and Georgetown is still the same as in the September 2020 schedule, so I don't think the recent work in Guelph has been accounted for yet.

With an average speed of 61.2 km/h, the Kitchener express is now the fastest peak-period train service in the GO network. It is also slightly faster than the fastest AM peak service pre-pandemic, which was the Lakeshore East express.

There is now regular counter-peak service between Union and Bramalea, operating every 30 minutes in the AM Peak, and every 60 minutes in the PM Peak, though there's a 90-minute gap between the hourly midday and counterpeak services.

 

[jamincan]

Does anyone know why GO has train 3937 (final train of the night departing at 10:34 from Union) terminating at Guelph Central instead of Kitchener GO? Presumably since they have 10 trains per day Kitchener-Union and only 9 per day Union-Kitchener, this train ends up continuing to Kitchener to overnight there, so it seems a bit odd that they wouldn't just continue service there too. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps there is interference with the freight train to Elmira that runs overnight on the Spur Line.

 

[Garuda]

Does anyone know why GO has train 3937 (final train of the night departing at 10:34 from Union) terminating at Guelph Central instead of Kitchener GO? Presumably since they have 10 trains per day Kitchener-Union and only 9 per day Union-Kitchener, this train ends up continuing to Kitchener to overnight there, so it seems a bit odd that they wouldn't just continue service there too. Only thing I can think of is that perhaps there is interference with the freight train to Elmira that runs overnight on the Spur Line.

Small spy mentioned this years back when service started (fall 2019) and its for the reason you describe - CN switching in Kitchener to serve Elmira. So if the GO train is held up it’s no big deal.

 

[Haydenpoon]

My comments on the new service changes:

Lakeshore West
The weekday AM Niagara train now departs Niagara Falls at 06:39, which is far more reasonable than the old 05:23 departure time. Now it actually runs during a time of day when there is congestion on the QEW. The trip now is scheduled for 2h21, a slight improvement from the 2h27 pre-pandemic. For some reason these trip is completely missing from the Lakeshore West timetables. The weekend trains had already been missing from the tables for a few years now, but now the weekday ones are missing too, despite clearly following the same clockface stopping pattern for express trains:

September 2021 AM Peak schedule, I have filled in the unlisted train trip in green:
View attachment 344196

It's also great to see the Hamilton Centre trips running express again. As I expected, peak period service is now 4 tph local + 2 tph express, rather than the 2 tph local + 4 tph express we had pre-pandemic.

Unfortunately, evening service continues to only run hourly on weekdays, which is a huge drop after the 6 tph peak and 4 tph counterpeak service. On weekends, service maintains 2 tph until about midnight.

I'm very pleased to see the new Route 18K which runs every 2 hours between Hamilton Centre to St Catharines, including a timed connection to trains at West Harbour. I'd previously suggested that Route 12 be rerouted along this exact routing to downtown, but this new route achieves a similar effect. There is a 6 minute transfer at Grimsby P&R for eastbound passengers from Burlington on Route 12 transfering to Route 18K toward downtown St Catharines or Brock, but this unfortunately means nearly an hour transfer for passengers heading from Hamilton on Route 18K to Niagara Falls on Route 12. Westbound, the transfers from Niagara Falls (route 12) to Hamilton (route 18K) and from St Cathrines/Brock (route 18K) to Burlington (route 12) are both about 30 minutes.
View attachment 344263
I think that they should have taken this opportunity to drop Beamsville (Ontario St. @ QEW) P&R from route 12. That would cut about 7 minutes off the travel time, allowing Route 12 to provide more competitive travel times between Toronto and Niagara Falls, while route 18K provides local service in between. Beamsville P&R generally annoys me since it's only accessible by car anyway, so "local access" is not a valid justification for wasting everyone's time getting off the highway and driving around in circles, often without dropping anyone off or picking anyone up.

I also would have used St Catherines Bus Terminal as the downtown St Catharines stop rather than St Catharines Station, since it has far better bus connections and far more destinations nearby. I suppose they wanted to provide more options for people who parked at St Catharines Station to take the peak-period GO train.

Kitchener Line
There are now 11 daily round trips between Kitchener and Toronto (10 GO + 1 VIA), which is more than there has ever been before. The AM peak service from Kitchener now extends until 8:39, compared to 7:57 pre-pandemic. This is very helpful since buses leaving Kitchener or Guelph around 8:00-8:30 would still get stuck in rush hour traffic.

My marked-up version of the September 2021 AM Peak timetable, highlighting changes relative to August 2021.
View attachment 344262

The new trips also make a totally practical commuter schedule for people living in Kitchener and working in Guelph.
View attachment 344259

The travel time for express trips is now 1:41 eastbound, which is the fastest it has ever been. It is 4 minutes faster than pre-pandemic, and 9 minutes faster than before Metrolinx started the current track upgrade project. This nearly achieves the 10 minutes which were promised as part of that project. However, the travel time between Kitchener and Georgetown is still the same as in the September 2020 schedule, so I'm not sure if the recent work in Guelph has been accounted for yet.

With an average speed of 61.2 km/h, the Kitchener express is now the fastest peak-period train service in the GO network. It is also slightly faster than the fastest AM peak service pre-pandemic, which was the Lakeshore East express.

There is now regular counter-peak service between Union and Bramalea, operating every 30 minutes in the AM Peak, and every 60 minutes in the PM Peak.
View attachment 344261
View attachment 344260

Looking at the digital schedule, the 7:59 am train from Malton to Union actually starts from Bramalea at 7:52 am, making it a truly 15 mins(4tph) service to Union from 6:53 am to 9:22 am. GO Transit made another error again in creating pdf schedules. The westbound train arrives at Bramalea at 7:40 am before turning back so there is no reason not to start at Bramalea for the eastbound 7:52 am train.

 

[reaperexpress]

Small spy mentioned this years back when service started (fall 2019) and its for the reason you describe - CN switching in Kitchener to serve Elmira. So if the GO train is held up it’s no big deal.

I assume that train is one of the ones stored at Shirley yard in the east end of Kitchener, so going out of service in Guelph allows it to avoid going into downtown Kitchener at all.

It's also interesting to note that there are 7 morning departures from Kitchener even though there are only 6 overnight storage spots (2 west of the station and 4 east). I assume that some of the trains are committed to remain 6-car sets so they can double up in a single 12-car storage track.

 

[ShonTron]

Anyone have access to the new route 25 schedule?

It’s finally up.

https://www.gotransit.com/static_files/gotransit/assets/pdf/TripPlanning/FullSchedules/FS04092021/Table25.pdf

There are more bus trips, but every bus trip is an all-stops local 25. Route 25C, which offered a much faster trip direct to UW and WLU, is nowhere to be seen.

Route 30 via Bramalea offers this faster trip, but it only runs weekdays and from Mississauga, it requires backtracking from Square One to Bramalea or getting to the Meadowvale Business Park.

 

[reaperexpress]

It’s finally up.

https://www.gotransit.com/static_files/gotransit/assets/pdf/TripPlanning/FullSchedules/FS04092021/Table25.pdf

There are more bus trips, but every bus trip is an all-stops local 25. Route 25F, which offered a much faster trip.

Route 30 via Bramalea offers this faster trip, but it only runs weekdays and from Mississauga, it requires backtracking from Square One to Bramalea or getting to the Meadowvale Business Park.

When I lived in Waterloo I avoided the 25 local at all costs, and most other people seemed to as well. The express services, on the other hand, were great. On Fridays all the express services would be packed (every 15 minutes to Square One, and every 30 minutes to Bramalea/York) while the hourly local buses were fairly empty.

It is excruciating how slow the local branch is. I literally had a nightmare one time where I dreamed that I had mistakenly gotten on a local bus at square one and started panicking about how I was going to be trapped for two hours before the bus would get to Waterloo. Thankfully I woke up and found that I was in my bed, not the route 25 local bus.

If GO thinks that students are captive clients who will take the bus no matter how slow it is, they are sorely mistaken. From my experience, if there weren't any GO express buses running, students would seek other options like Greyhound or carpooling, or simply not travel because it would be too much of a hassle.

I can accept that the newly-extended Route 30 (UW-Kitchener-Bramalea) replaces the old Route 25F (UW-Bramalea-407) given that there's frequent service from Bramalea to Highway 407 station anyway. But they really need to bring back the 25C express from UW to Square One. I guarantee that running 1 bus per hour each on the 25 local and 25C express would generate more ridership than their current schedule with 2 local buses per hour. All while requiring fewer buses and operators thanks to the massively reduced round trip times.

 

[LNahid2000]

Pretty bummed out that there are no express trips on the 25. The pre-COVID schedule was way better:

https://www.gotransit.com/static_files/gotransit/assets/pdf/TripPlanning/FullSchedules/FS31082019/Table25_MI.pdf

 

[ShonTron]

The Aberfoyle stop is such a time suck. Cutting that stop alone would save 8-10 minutes each way.

I’d also argue that there’s no need for both a Cambridge DumbCentres stop and a Sportsworld stop. Pick one, and eliminate the other.

There. I just saved 15 minutes off the Route 25.

The Milton park-and-ride location isn’t great, especially as the local transit connection is quite poor (just the Route 1, which serves employment lands). But I see its utility. The two Transitway stops at Erin Mills and WCB are not an easy on and off Highway 403, thanks largely to it being value-engineered to the point of near-uselessness.

 

[reaperexpress]

The Aberfoyle stop is such a time suck. Cutting that stop alone would save 8-10 minutes each way.

Yeah I timed it. It took dead on 10 minutes from getting off the highway eastbound to getting back on in the same location.

 

[nfitz]

Looking at the schedules. An odd service cut for Lakeshore West on weekday evenings (unless there is yet another typo in the schedules).

Currently there's eastbound runs arriving at Union at 8 pm, 8:30 pm, 9:30 pm, 10:30 pm, 11:30 pm, and 12:30 am (would bringing back the half-hourly service kill them?) But with the September schedule it actually gets worse as the last 4 trains are replaced with only 3 trains, at 9:15 pm, 10:15 pm, and 11:15 pm ending 75 minutes earlier (though there is a late bus, which skips all the stations I frequently use)!

But then it gets odder, when you look at Lakeshore East. There the eastbound trains remain on the old half-hour schedule (even though the West train is only arriving hourly). But instead of the trains arriving on the hour at 9:30, 10:30, etc., and leaving at 9:35, 10:35, etc. .... how the train arrives 15 minutes earlier, with no change in departure time! continuing eastbound!.

When you look at Lakeshore East, there is no change, with the full half-hourly service until almost midnight, and then a final hourly train arriving at 12:45 AM - 90 minutes after the last Lakeshore West arrives!

Another issue (which was there in the last schedule as well), is on weekdays, the westbound Lakeshore East arrives Union at 8:50 pm, 9:20 pm, 9:50 pm, 10:20 pm ... etc. But the westbound Lakeshore West not only departing 5 minutes earlier - but is only hourly! Meaning a 55-minute wait at Union!!

There's certainly some improvements ... but some oddities.

 

[nfitz]

Looking at the other schedules.

So after years of construction of that massive behemoth for GO Buses at Kipling GO - the entire Kipling GO bus service consists of a once per hour bus up to the Transitway to Square One (and Guelph). That's it?

Did I miss something?