GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[asey20]

do you have any objective metrics to back up that car drivers pay for all operational costs? i don't own a car yet my taxes go towards paying for car infrastructure

i don't know why people have this simplistic idea that budgets on a municipal, state, and federal level are supposed to balanced like your personal chequing account; there's way more nuance and complexities to this..

I wouldn't call the entirety of car infrastructure as operational costs. Yes, there is a proportion of taxes that go towards car/road infrastructure, but not all of these are operational costs. The construction and maintenance of roads is not an operational costs, the same as how the construction and maintenance of tracks and stations is not operational costs. To be clear, I am specifically speaking of the operational costs of running a motor vehicle in comparison to the operational costs of running a train. Drivers pay majority of the costs for their own vehicle. There should be a fair proportion that passengers pay for running a train route. Paying cents on the dollar for a train route is not a great way of ensuring the longevity of that train route.

I never was trying to come across this being a simplistic idea. There is a lot of ambiguity in the amount that a passenger should have to subsidize operational costs of running a train in my statement. The keyword here is that it should be "reasonable". A loophole where passengers could use a weekend pass for a service that it was not meant for is not reasonable or fair. There is a balancing act to achieve here.

 

[adys123]

I wouldn't call the entirety of car infrastructure as operational costs. Yes, there is a proportion of taxes that go towards car/road infrastructure, but not all of these are operational costs. The construction and maintenance of roads is not an operational costs, the same as how the construction and maintenance of tracks and stations is not operational costs. To be clear, I am specifically speaking of the operational costs of running a motor vehicle in comparison to the operational costs of running a train. Drivers pay majority of the costs for their own vehicle. There should be a fair proportion that passengers pay for running a train route. Paying cents on the dollar for a train route is not a great way of ensuring the longevity of that train route.

I never was trying to come across this being a simplistic idea. There is a lot of ambiguity in the amount that a passenger should have to subsidize operational costs of running a train in my statement. The keyword here is that it should be "reasonable". A loophole where passengers could use a weekend pass for a service that it was not meant for is not reasonable or fair. There is a balancing act to achieve here.

I think this point does not recognize that driving has far more negative externalities than passengers riding a train. We must consider that when we do the calculations, and in that case, auto drivers often do not cover the operational costs of what they use.

 

[asey20]

I think this point does not recognize that driving has far more negative externalities than passengers riding a train. We must consider that when we do the calculations, and in that case, auto drivers often do not cover the operational costs of what they use.

I am completely fine with those considerations. That is not the problem I have here. If a GO train costs $20 dollars to Niagara Falls, and then $20 back to Toronto, but it is possible to go there and back with a $10 weekend pass then there is something wrong here. Either the standard fare is too high, and should be reduced, or the pass was not meant to be used for trips to Niagara Falls.

Consider if we only have a limited number of trains going to Niagara Falls and they are overcrowded but provide very little revenue, they are a huge loss and must be subsidized by the budget set for GO transit. This subsidy is not free and comes out of money that could be used to increase service frequency or expand service within the GO network. It is difficult to increase service if it will only lead to larger losses on that route.

On that note, I will leave it at that.

 

[anb]

They literally advertised it as a 4 day pass in 2021:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1473669957972111364

I think they removed the full weekend pass this year because they literally got too big in ridership on weekends.

Guessing they didn't want people to buy this and overstuff every corridor when service still isn't there, and for people to take full advantage of this with their families/friends.

 

[Willybru21]

I did my own little year-end summery thing, for someone that doesn’t commute to Toronto every weekday like a regular office worker, I personally think riding 756 services in a year is a lot:

(That last one also killed me when I calculated it)

 

[christiesplits]

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

Gaah, noticed this on the weekend. Too bad. I wonder how much longer the $10 day pass will remain?

 

[Fritter]

I think the $10 and $15 weekend passes were a good idea as a post covid way to rebuild ridership, however they should have always been just a one or two month promotion at most.

 

[Coolibop]

Another example of stellar journalism getting it completely wrong?

From this article, blogTo claims setting a default trip saves money... Am I missing something, I thought it was only to save you time by not having to tap off, but it charges less too?

 

[Jonny5]

Another example of stellar journalism getting it completely wrong?

From this article, blogTo claims setting a default trip saves money... Am I missing something, I thought it was only to save you time by not having to tap off, but it charges less too?

I've seen a few oddities like this over the years, and they don't necessarily require a default trip setup.

One example I found (and I haven't tried this since 2019) was when you travel to Hamilton, but you exit the train at Aldershot and transfer to the GO bus for the remainder of the trip to Hamilton; if you tap off and exit the bus at any of the bus stops before the terminus of the route (McMaster or Hamilton GO station) there was zero additional cost to travel beyond Aldershot. The fare deducted when you tapped to board the bus was refunded in full when you tapped off as long as it wasn't at the final stop.

The same worked in reverse too. You could board a bus heading to Aldershot on King or Main Street in Hamilton and you would pay slightly less (I think it was 50 cents) than someone who boarded the bus at the terminal. This worked from literally the first stop on King Street out of the terminal and you got 50 cents off for not going one block up the street.

 

[sixrings]

Another example of stellar journalism getting it completely wrong?

From this article, blogTo claims setting a default trip saves money... Am I missing something, I thought it was only to save you time by not having to tap off, but it charges less too?

View attachment 524852

Connor Mitchell deserves a savings simply for being subjected to the most pathetic GO route in service schedule wise.

 

[anb]

I've seen a few oddities like this over the years, and they don't necessarily require a default trip setup.

One example I found (and I haven't tried this since 2019) was when you travel to Hamilton, but you exit the train at Aldershot and transfer to the GO bus for the remainder of the trip to Hamilton; if you tap off and exit the bus at any of the bus stops before the terminus of the route (McMaster or Hamilton GO station) there was zero additional cost to travel beyond Aldershot. The fare deducted when you tapped to board the bus was refunded in full when you tapped off as long as it wasn't at the final stop.

The same worked in reverse too. You could board a bus heading to Aldershot on King or Main Street in Hamilton and you would pay slightly less (I think it was 50 cents) than someone who boarded the bus at the terminal. This worked from literally the first stop on King Street out of the terminal and you got 50 cents off for not going one block up the street.

This reminds me of another simple trick. If you're taking local transit and transferring at a GO station (Bramalea, Mt Pleasant, Port Credit, etc), you could set a default trip to the next station from where you're at, and tap at a GO presto machine.

You'll get 3 additional hours on top of your already timed fare no matter if its just beginning or near ending. This saves a lot of money in the end.

 

[RandomBusGuy]

There are also train trips that take more than the three hour presto window. I travel Guelph to Barrie often and the midday trains now make the entire trip so there's no need to even get off the train. My options are:

1. Set a default trip and get charged the correct fare.
2. Tap on and off, get charged for two "missed tap" trips, and have to fix it later.
3. Tap on but don't bother tapping off. You'll only get charged for the trip from the initial station to Union.

I've set a default trip, but it would save me money if I were to just not tap off.

Trips like this don't make a huge proportion of GO trips, but it would be nice if people didn't have to worry about this when making a valid GO trip.

 

[rbt]

2. Tap on and off, get charged for two "missed tap" trips, and have to fix it later.

To be clear, does this include the tap-off then tap-on during the transfer at Union? I don't think I've done a rail-rail transfer on GO, just rail-bus-bus. It's a lot of taps but even long duration trips don't seem to get confused if you tap-on/off for each vehicle.

 

[crs1026]

To be clear, does this include the tap-off then tap-on during the transfer at Union? I don't think I've done a rail-rail transfer on GO, just rail-bus-bus. It's a lot of taps but even long duration trips don't seem to get confused if you tap-on/off for each vehicle.

I have regularly transferred between trains at Union without tapping off and then on again. So long as you tap on at your originating station on the first route, and tap off at your final arriving station on the second route, the fare calc works fine. Have even been fare-checked and the fare inspector took no exception to my doing this.

- Paul

 

[Deadpool X]

Connor Mitchell deserves a savings simply for being subjected to the most pathetic GO route in service schedule wise.

Richmond Hill line would like to have a word with you.