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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

smallspy said:
Richmond Hill almost had limited mid-day service in 2019 and again in 2020. A single trainset is all that would be needed to run an every-2-hours schedule from Union to Old Cummer. It's not much, but it's enough to keep buses from having to come downtown, and wouldn't interfere with CN's operations at all.
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smallspy said:
From what I can recall of the plans, it wasn't just the Richmond Hill buses that would connect to the service though.

401 buses would also stop at Oriole Station to connect to the trains - when the trains were running, that is.
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I don't think a 2-hourly midday service from Old Cummer to Union would make any sense. The southern segment of the Richmond Hill line is notoriously slow, so it is only really competitive with the alternatives during peak periods when the DVP is jammed and the Yonge subway is overcrowded. The GO train takes 25 minutes to get from Oriole to Union, which is exactly the same time as the subway from York Mills. Currently half of the 401 GO bus routes go to York Mills, while the other half go to Finch via Sheppard-Yonge, which is 28 minutes from Union.

Even if you incorrectly assume that everyone is going specifically to Union Station you'd still be better off dropping Richmond Hill and 401 East GO bus passengers at York Mills than at Oriole.

Capture0.JPG


Line 1 runs every 4 minutes, so including 0 to 4 minutes waiting and 2 minutes walking between the platorms, it would take 27 to 31 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at York Mills.
Timed transfers from GO buses to GO trains are scheduled with a 15-minute transfer time to minimise the risk of missing a very infrequent train. So it would take 40 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at Oriole.

Even though it would take 401 East and Richmond Hill buses 7 minutes longer to drive to York Mills than to Oriole, York Mills would still be 2 to 6 minutes faster for the passengers headed to Union, and much much faster for passengers headed anywhere else. Sure, some passengers might still choose to take the GO train for its superior comfort, but that small benefit definitely wouldn't justify the 5 minute-delay that serving Oriole would incur for 401 East GO bus customers.
 
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ShonTron said:
I wish they weren’t so tight-lipped about restoring bus and train trips.
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This is totally a function of politics. Ml is explicitly forbidden to announce service changes until the Minister has had their kick at photo ops.

Ml is a performing arts company that runs trains and buses on the side. Only Mirvish fills as many seats in Toronto every day.

- Paul
 
They're coming April 2 since they usually start on the Saturday and GO Transit's schedule finder doesn't go past April 1.

I'm expecting them to be posted by the end of the week.
 
Felix An said:
I did not see that! That's perfect! Hopefully that's not an April Fool's prank! :)
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They are still very subtle about it. The schedule changes in 10 days yet they still have nothing on the website as of now. Usually they would give us at least 2-3 weeks in advance if its a big one, but not this time so I'm just hoping they don't do minor changes and technically "troll" us after waiting this long for an answer with the increased service concerns. As of what I think could happen if we get a big update, I already answered to that below.

anb said:
The service changes might come either April 1/2. For then, I'm expecting them to give us August 2021 service, just with Lakeshore being 15 mins all day added on with having some of the previously added Niagara trips, and Routes 41/56 spanning across the 407 corridor being at a 15 min or better combined service.

Express services on LSW and Kitchener are 50/50 right now on making a return but I'm not 100% sure if they would. It’s definitely preferred for the latter because i took the worst train to travel short distance (aka the 4:34PM London train with all stops included and also on a Friday). You basically had 3 different service patterns in 1 overstuffed train which obviously creates chaos. The local/express peak setup worked perfectly fine for what it did with the crowding control.

There also was a mistake they made adding 30 min all day service from Union-Bramalea to the schedules back in November, but i’m sure they’re probably planning to do that later on in the year if things keep going in the direction that we’re in right now. I can say in my own experience that it’s definitely preferred as mid day trips on the line is actually getting rather busy. It will probably continue to get more traffic as more offices open and more students (with more cheaper fares now), get back to school fully in person (and those gas prices add on to a definite reasonable option too).
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They keep on tweeting that they would go back to pre pandemic levels of service, but I think its safe to say they wouldn't do it all at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1505982965389606916
 
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anb said:
They are still very subtle about it. The schedule changes in 10 days yet they still have nothing on the website as of now. Usually they would give us at least 2-3 weeks in advance if its a big one, but not this time so I'm just hoping they don't do minor changes and technically "troll" us after waiting this long for an answer with the increased service concerns. As of what I think could happen if we get a big update, I already answered to that below.



They keep on tweeting that they would go back to pre pandemic levels of service, but I think its safe to say they wouldn't do it all at once.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1505982965389606916
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For the September service increase, schedules were posted on the Thursday, 9 days before they went into effect.
 
I just noticed a 10 car train on the Milton line. They've been 6 car trains during the pandemic. Is the increase happening on all the lines that were reduced?
 
jsjaker said:
I just noticed a 10 car train on the Milton line. They've been 6 car trains during the pandemic. Is the increase happening on all the lines that were reduced?
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It’s a lot of work to shunt cars around to shorten/lengthen trains, so it’s probably happening in stages, with some trains already up to the new 10-car lengths.

I’d expect that most trains that had 10 or 12 cars will be restored to those lengths.

What I’d really like to see is GO Transit do is have train car length information at all stations, so passengers know in advance whether to spread out or head towards one end of the platform.
 
reaperexpress said:
I don't think a 2-hourly midday service from Old Cummer to Union would make any sense. The southern segment of the Richmond Hill line is notoriously slow, so it is only really competitive with the alternatives during peak periods when the DVP is jammed and the Yonge subway is overcrowded. The GO train takes 25 minutes to get from Oriole to Union, which is exactly the same time as the subway from York Mills. Currently half of the 401 GO bus routes go to York Mills, while the other half go to Finch via Sheppard-Yonge, which is 28 minutes from Union.
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Unfortunately, this is not a situation where "making sense" enters into the equation - at least, not in the sense that you are thinking.

Prior to COVID, planning staff were tasked with increasing the number of weekly rail trips by something like 25% year-over-year. This is why we saw such silly exercises such as the conversion of some deadhead trips to express trips ostensibly going from nowhere to nowhere at times that were useless for most (and in some cases, all). It didn't make sense from a system-planning point-of-view, and it didn't even make sense from a staffing or payroll point-of-view - but they added trips to the weekly/monthly/annual totals, and so they went forward with them.

In this case, however, another of GO's long-stated internal goals has been to reduce the number of bus trips to Union Station. The portion of routes on the Gardiner Expressway and especially the DVP have long been held as the biggest causes of delays to bus timetables, so getting the various bus routes to link to trains - where GO has the ability to create their own timetables and not have to worry about traffic - would go a long way towards this.

reaperexpress said:
Even if you incorrectly assume that everyone is going specifically to Union Station you'd still be better off dropping Richmond Hill and 401 East GO bus passengers at York Mills than at Oriole.

View attachment 387019

Line 1 runs every 4 minutes, so including 0 to 4 minutes waiting and 2 minutes walking between the platorms, it would take 27 to 31 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at York Mills.
Timed transfers from GO buses to GO trains are scheduled with a 15-minute transfer time to minimise the risk of missing a very infrequent train. So it would take 40 minutes to get to Union after being dropped off at Oriole.

Even though it would take 401 East and Richmond Hill buses 7 minutes longer to drive to York Mills than to Oriole, York Mills would still be 2 to 6 minutes faster for the passengers headed to Union, and much much faster for passengers headed anywhere else. Sure, some passengers might still choose to take the GO train for its superior comfort, but that small benefit definitely wouldn't justify the 5 minute-delay that serving Oriole would incur for 401 East GO bus customers.
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You've forgotten about one small but important manner.

Transferring to GO would incur a fare penalty. Staying on GO would not. In spite of all of the improvements that have been made to connectivity between systems, this is still a huge concern.

crs1026 said:
This is totally a function of politics. Ml is explicitly forbidden to announce service changes until the Minister has had their kick at photo ops.

Ml is a performing arts company that runs trains and buses on the side. Only Mirvish fills as many seats in Toronto every day.

- Paul
Click to expand...
Absolutely and totally correct. GO and Metrolinx no longer share even the news of impending service changes or improvements with the connecting transit services until the public release. This means that frequently those services are left trying to figure out how to make the required changes on their ends within their own restrictive frameworks. And in some cases, they can't for weeks or months after GO has made the changes - meaning that the rider suffers.

Dan
 
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