GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[crs1026]

My work is just off the 401 between Mississauga Rd. and Winston Churchill, and I live in Kitchener. When I started working there, the options for using GO were simply not tenable for me, but I noticed that Rt 30 stops at the Meadowvale Business Park, which makes the route actually plausible to use. Out of curiousity, I checked how much it would cost... and it would be $460/mo. I know GO is more expensive than local transit and I was familiar with single ride fares being substantially higher than local transit, but that monthly cost seems astronomical to me.

Numbers always sound impressive in the absolute, but I wonder (rhetorically, I’m not meaning to pry) what the cost of maintaining a vehicle for that commute would be. Easily 100kms per day, let’s say 20 days per month… that’s a goodly amount of gas, oil changes, and tire wear. GO may be the more expensive and less efficient option, but I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic. Long range commutes have their cost.

- Paul

 

[allengeorge]

Numbers always sound impressive in the absolute, but I wonder (rhetorically, I’m not meaning to pry) what the cost of maintaining a vehicle for that commute would be. Easily 100kms per day, let’s say 20 days per month… that’s a goodly amount of gas, oil changes, and tire wear. GO may be the more expensive and less efficient option, but I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic. Long range commutes have their cost.

While I’m sympathetic to this argument, the issue for most is that they can’t give up their car in the GTA, and the costs you’ve highlighted are seen as sunk costs, or, not associated directly with long-distance commutes (the last two points are why I’m so invested in pushing for tolls as a way to change behavior, because they immediately associate action with cost - just like what we do with transit). At any rate, what many are really trading off is that $460 vs. the perceived cost of their time and aggravation.

The cost comparison is way different and easier in cities like NYC where you can easily live your life without a car, and can compare the cost of a Metrocard ($127) with the financing, insurance and gas for a car as well as the parking hassles.

 

[Northern Light]

While I’m sympathetic to this argument, the issue for most is that they can’t give up their car in the GTA, and the costs you’ve highlighted are seen as sunk costs, or, not associated directly with long-distance commutes (the last two points are why I’m so invested in pushing for tolls as a way to change behavior, because they immediately associate action with cost - just like what we do with transit). At any rate, what many are really trading off is that $460 vs. the perceived cost of their time and aggravation.

The cost comparison is way different and easier in cities like NYC where you can easily live your life without a car, and can compare the cost of a Metrocard ($127) with the financing, insurance and gas for a car as well as the parking hassles.

Great statement.

I think if we a society deem that a higher modal shift to transit is desirable for a host of reasons (as most here, myself included do) then we need to think of people shifting by looking at benchmarks.
Benchmarks are comparing first and foremost, travel time and price between modes and understanding that both should be competitive and one should be better for transit if you want people to shift.

Which of those two is better may differ by route.

But if you want me to take an extra 30 minutes to get to work........I'd better be saving some serious $$
If I'm paying extra $$ to commute by transit, I'd better by flying by that traffic on the highway.

*****

In Toronto, I look at that and think the minimum toll for using a highway should be the lowest GO transit fare ($3.70, I believe)
You then apply additional distance charges.

At the same time, parking needs to have a cost, no matter where you park.

But it can't be all stick, cross-boarder trips (Regional) by rail, GO Bus or 2 or more local systems needs to cost less.
Service needs to be more frequent/convenient and trip times lower.

 

[Tristen]

At the same time, parking needs to have a cost, no matter where you park.

If Toronto tax all parking space at $1/day, that is enough for TTC to breakeven plus more infrastructure spendings.

 

[sixrings]

If Toronto tax all parking space at $1/day, that is enough for TTC to breakeven plus more infrastructure spendings.

Even at my home?

 

[Tristen]

Even at my home?

There could be, but I think taxing public (commercial) parking is enough for this time.

 

[smallspy]

Do they hook the train up to power overnight?

Yes. Not only does this help with fuel use, but plugging into the wayside also activates a security system onboard the equipment.

It appears that way from Google satellite view, but I could be mistaken. Would they be able to do that with 2 six car trains in one storage track?

Shirley Yard was designed with 12-car trainsets in mind, and can store 4 of them.

But as several of the tracks are longer than strictly needed for a 12-car train. yes, they can double up a pair of 6-car trains on at least one of the tracks.

Dan

 

[innsertnamehere]

Numbers always sound impressive in the absolute, but I wonder (rhetorically, I’m not meaning to pry) what the cost of maintaining a vehicle for that commute would be. Easily 100kms per day, let’s say 20 days per month… that’s a goodly amount of gas, oil changes, and tire wear. GO may be the more expensive and less efficient option, but I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic. Long range commutes have their cost.

- Paul

GO costs work out if you have to pay for parking at your destination - i.e. downtown, but not in the suburbs where parking is free.

I've done the math on commutes into downtown and if you were to go from, say, Burlington, to downtown, costs work out as such, roughly:

CAR:

$15 - park (optimistic, though possible depending on exact place of work, or if you have a monthly parking pass)
$10 - Gas (assumes 30mpg, 100km commute, $1.30/l gas)
$5 - basic maintenance (includes oil change every 10k km, regular brakes, tire replacement, etc.)

Total: $30

Vs.

GO

$20.70 - Fare
$2 - high assumption for vehicle to travel a few km to GO station

Total: $23


Now remove that $15 parking charge, and driving works out cheaper. I'm not including things like increased depreciation for a vehicle to drive either, which would raise driving's cost, but that's more difficult to calculate as the vehicle would depreciate regardless of if you took GO or drove all the way, just at a slower rate.

GO really isn't cheap - but driving isn't either, so it generally works as a wash.

Now if you could carpool, that's how you can really save money..

 

[jamincan]

But as several of the tracks are longer than strictly needed for a 12-car train. yes, they can double up a pair of 6-car trains on at least one of the tracks.

Dan

Do they not plug in the second train, then? Or do they just have a really long extension cord?


Re: cost of GO, I spend about $250/mo on gas now, for commuting and all other driving. I would therefore need to save about $5000/year in maintenance costs/depreciation of my vehicle in order to make it financially worthwhile. I'm not convinced I would personally save that amount, but even if I did, it's not a very compelling sell. To be clear, I'm not presenting an argument about fares or anything, I was just surprised at how high it is.

 

[EnviroTO]

GO costs work out if you have to pay for parking at your destination - i.e. downtown, but not in the suburbs where parking is free.

I think for many the equation is about two household vehicles vs one. Having at least one on the GO means the choice of a single car is feasible.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I think for many the equation is about two household vehicles vs one. Having at least one on the GO means the choice of a single car is feasible.

Even if you take GO, functionally it's challenging to live on one car in the suburbs, especially if both parents work.

 

[afransen]

There could be, but I think taxing public (commercial) parking is enough for this time.

Seems a little unreasonable to tax parking, while requiring a minimum amount of it. I'm not opposed to taxing parking, but we need to eliminate parking minimums first!

 

[afransen]

Now if you could carpool, that's how you can really save money..

When you choice is the inconvenience of taking GO (with bad last mile choices and relatively slow, infrequent service) or the inconvenience of having a carpool buddy, the latter seems to make sense. I found that GO was consistently as slow as bad commutes into downtown. Except I experienced a couple 45-60 minute delays just before pulling into Union. Not sure how unlucky I am or if those are a regular occurrence. You tend not to be massively late when you drive unless the highway is completely closed. If you drive leaving at the same time you would have to to make the train, most of the time you will be early.

 

[anb]

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.

I remember my experience last summer when the only option I had to get to KW was the 25 and the 25 only at Square One mid day. This was so infuriating and then they added the Meadowvale Business Park stops for the 30 which means i can just take 1 or 2 Miway buses there, but the problem with that is… they’re Miway buses. Hopefully we could get the 25C back at least for the weekends and the 30 running also during the isolation period of the week as well.

For the weekdays however, having the 30 act as 80% of a weekday all day 25F thanks to the extension is really nice to have for the GTA connection as a whole but if we really need to transfer at Bramalea just to get down fast to Square One, on top of the 407 buses using *STEELES* to get from Bramalea-410 instead of the 407 and it’s atrocious during rush hour on this stretch. I don’t know what ML was going through when they made this routing considering that pre pandemic they just went down dixie and used the 407 to get to the 410.

 

[Tristen]

I will just not go home from Waterloo if there is no express services.