GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Richard White]

The $40 yearly Niagara Parks parking pass is also one hell of a subsidy.

Not to mention the WEGO-GO Transit Pass

 

[reaperexpress]

The question is not whether transit should be subsidized. The question is whether the best use of transit subsidies is to provide absurdly cheap weekend getaways to Niagara Falls, rather than making GO Transit actually affordable for travel within the GTA and for travel between cities near each other, like Kitchener and Guelph.

The issue is the use of a flat rate regardless of distance. $10 for a 260 km round trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls is $0.04/km, which is absurdly cheap. $10 for a 34 km round trip from Downsview Park to Union is $0.29/km, which is just as expensive per km as driving your own personal vehicle (excluding parking).

 

[Northern Light]

The question is not whether transit should be subsidized. The question is whether the best use of transit subsidies is to provide absurdly cheap weekend getaways to Niagara Falls, rather than making GO Transit actually affordable for travel within the GTA and for travel between cities near each other, like Kitchener and Guelph.

The issue is the use of a flat rate regardless of distance. $10 for a 260 km round trip from Toronto to Niagara Falls is $0.04/km, which is absurdly cheap. $10 for a 34 km round trip from Downsview Park to Union is $0.29/km, which is just as expensive per km as driving your own personal vehicle (excluding parking).

Essentially agree with you; though would add........

I think it depends on which budget the Niagara subsidy comes from; if it comes from the Ministry of Tourism, then I think that works fine.

Its a comparatively cheap investment in total dollars, and the spin off in sales tax revenue and/or casino earnings, on average, more than covers that cost.

By contrast, a weekday commute, in most cases, occurs whether or not the fare is reasonable; which means there is not the same net economic spinoff and revenue recovery.

Of course, this is not entirely true, as expensive daily commutes can determine where people live and what jobs they obtain, and therefore can carry benefits and consequences both personal and social. These, however, are probably more challenging to measure.

 

[reaperexpress]

Essentially agree with you; though would add........

I think it depends on which budget the Niagara subsidy comes from; if it comes from the Ministry of Tourism, then I think that works fine.

Its a comparatively cheap investment in total dollars, and the spin off in sales tax revenue and/or casino earnings, on average, more than covers that cost.

Sure, if the Ministry of Tourism wants to subsidize Niagara trips from their own budget that's wonderful, as long as that subsidy actually gets used to address the catastrophic overcrowding that WEGO faces everytime a train dumps 1700 people at Niagara Falls station. For example, trains to Niagara should be limited to 8 coaches max, and to provide the necessary capacity during the summer additional round trips will be required (notably a second trip from Toronto to NF in the morning).

Personally I doubt there would be enough economic benefit to justify that level of subsidy, given that even if they doubled the cost of the train it would still be cheaper than any of the alternatives, and the ridership loss would likely be quite modest. I suspect that there was some form of tourism subsidy for the GO+WEGO packages people used to use before the $10 weekend pass and eliminating that double-fare seems like a good use of tourism-supporting funds.

By contrast, a weekday commute, in most cases, occurs whether or not the fare is reasonable; which means there is not the same net economic spinoff and revenue recovery.

Of course, this is not entirely true, as expensive daily commutes can determine where people live and what jobs they obtain, and therefore can carry benefits and consequences both personal and social. These, however, are probably more challenging to measure.

The question of weekday commutes is irrelevant to the discussion of a weekend day pass.

 

[Northern Light]

Sure, if the Ministry of Tourism wants to subsidize Niagara trips from their own budget that's wonderful, as long as that subsidy actually gets used to address the catastrophic overcrowding that WEGO faces everytime a train dumps 1700 people at Niagara Falls station. For example, trains to Niagara should be limited to 8 coaches max, and to provide the necessary capacity during the summer additional round trips will be required (notably a second trip from Toronto to NF in the morning).

We're not in disagreement.

The question of weekday commutes is irrelevant to the discussion of a weekend day pass.

I was specifically addressing your comparison to a less subsidized, shorter, 'commuter route' as alternative way to spend subsidy.

And again, I agree with you; I was simply pointing out that the specific benefit lowering the cost of that alternate route may harder to define. (hotel occupancy, and retail sales in NF are by comparison easy to quantify)

 

[reaperexpress]

I was specifically addressing your comparison to a less subsidized, shorter, 'commuter route' as alternative way to spend subsidy.

And again, I agree with you; I was simply pointing out that the specific benefit lowering the cost of that alternate route may harder to define. (hotel occupancy, and retail sales in NF are by comparison easy to quantify)

And I'm pointing out that trips within the GTA are not 'commuter routes' on the weekend, they have a major recreational function just like the trip to Niagara Falls. People head to downtown Toronto to see sports games, theatres, go shopping, visit friends, go to the pub, etc.

For clear evidence of how important fares are to intra-GTA ridership, just look at the weekend ridership from the inner 905 to downtown via the subway, compared to GO Transit. Sure, the subway is more frequent, but it's also much slower and less comfortable, so that doesn't explain the entire discrepancy. The remainder of the difference is attributable to the high cost of riding GO Transit, especially when you need to connect to the TTC for your last mile. On those trips, taking the GO train is more than double the cost of taking the subway.

 

[Northern Light]

And I'm pointing out that trips within the GTA are not 'commuter routes' on the weekend, they have a major recreational function just like the trip to Niagara Falls. People head to downtown Toronto to see sports games, theatres, go shopping, visit friends, go to the pub, etc.

Fair.

I think its probably still much harder to measure the impact.

For argument's sake, we cut the cost of weekend service on the GO Barrie Corridor from Downsview Park to Union (which I'm all in favour of)......

Can we measure the tangible impact on retail sales or restaurant sales or sales of Jays tickets?

I suspect the data would be very hard to pull out.

One would have to show a net uptick; which also presumes that people willing/able to go to these things are currently taking a pass due to the price of said fare, as opposed to driving or taking TTC.

That's not a suggestion that we shouldn't lower than fare/increase that subsidy; just that it would be harder to pull that from a tourism envelope.

 

[anb]

GO has sneakily removed the $15 weekend pass from their website. That's too bad...sometimes I'd get the weekend pass even though I only needed a day pass, so that I could go to more places on the 2nd/3rd day.

Weekend Passes with GO

Travelling on a weekend? Buy your $10 One-Day Weekend travel pass now!

www.gotransit.com

First of all they made it mandatory to use the passes 7 days from when you purchased it, to now doing this.

This is kind of shady but at least weekend passes are 24 hours from when you activate it and not just end of day. So if you activated the pass at 6PM on Saturday, it expires 6PM on Sunday.

 

[anb]

As soon as there are tolls on the QEW, you will have a point.

Level playing field.

There probably will never be tolls on the QEW. Keep in mind that this serves as a multi purpose highway. Yes there is the popular demand from the GTA to Niagara Falls itself, but then you have people going elsewhere and/or travelling locally in NR, then crossing the border into the US, and this is one of the 3 big highways along the way connecting Toronto to NYC.

 

[rbt]

Car drivers still pay for operational costs.

That's arguably true for provincial costs on provincially maintained highways but it's not true for municipal maintained highways or local roads. Snow clearing costs alone are higher than the direct roadways revenues, like fuel tax, municipalities typically receive in Ontario.

Also, provincial highways operations costs ignores indirect municipal costs like police, fire, healthcare though traffic enforcement fines often cover some policing costs.

 

[Jonny5]

It was probably a loss leader. Get's people in seats but they lose money on it per capita.

As I said before, they really need to restrict the usage of the pass to exclude Niagara Falls. When they first started the Niagara Services in 2013 it was $20 each way (approximately) with Pesto. I cannot see how they are making a profit with for only $10 return.

Going down that road, it may have vanished in anticipation of Christmas which is on a weekend this year where there will likely be a lot of long distance GO travel on Saturday morning with return trips Sunday. Maybe they think the $15 will be an extra large loss for the weekend.

I can't recall 100%, but weren't those "weekend" passes good for long weekend holidays too? So would it have been good for the holidays in lieu on Monday and Tuesday? They would have lost a lot of money there.

 

[LNahid2000]

Going down that road, it may have vanished in anticipation of Christmas which is on a weekend this year where there will likely be a lot of long distance GO travel on Saturday morning with return trips Sunday. Maybe they think the $15 will be an extra large loss for the weekend.

I can't recall 100%, but weren't those "weekend" passes good for long weekend holidays too? So would it have been good for the holidays in lieu on Monday and Tuesday? They would have lost a lot of money there.

Yes, it was valid for 4 days in 2021 and 2022.

 

[WB62]

I used it basically every weekend from 2021-present, I’ve never seen it valid for 4 days straight, only up to 3

 

[T3G]

The death spiral of Milton service continues.

Service adjustments for Milton customers.
If you're travelling eastbound to Union Station:

• Two additional weekday early morning route 21 trips will travel from Milton all the way to Union Station Bus Terminal.

GO Transit is operating additional GO Bus Route 27A service between Milton and Meadowvale GO. From this route, you can also connect to TTC Line 1 service at Yorkdale Bus Terminal and Finch Bus Terminal.
In response to changing customer patterns on GO Bus Route 21, service frequency on this route has been adjusted.
On weekdays:

• Most 21A trips between Oakville and Milton will now run hourly instead of every 30 minutes.

On weekday evenings:

• 21B trips between Clarkson and Lisgar GO will run hourly instead of every 30 minutes.

On weekends:

• 21B service will run hourly instead of every 30 minutes.
• Most 21C trips between Port Credit and Erindale GO on weekdays and weekends will run hourly instead of every 30 minutes.

Service Related Updates

Check this page to see if there are any current delays on GO Transit.

www.gotransit.com

The fact that the Gardiner is not going anywhere is a VERY good thing.

 

[afransen]

And I'm pointing out that trips within the GTA are not 'commuter routes' on the weekend, they have a major recreational function just like the trip to Niagara Falls. People head to downtown Toronto to see sports games, theatres, go shopping, visit friends, go to the pub, etc.

For clear evidence of how important fares are to intra-GTA ridership, just look at the weekend ridership from the inner 905 to downtown via the subway, compared to GO Transit. Sure, the subway is more frequent, but it's also much slower and less comfortable, so that doesn't explain the entire discrepancy. The remainder of the difference is attributable to the high cost of riding GO Transit, especially when you need to connect to the TTC for your last mile. On those trips, taking the GO train is more than double the cost of taking the subway.

View attachment 523925

Shouldn't we just have fare discounts outside of peak travel times? Mid-day and evenings on weekdays plus weekends.