Kitchener to Toronto train service & the tech sector

[reaperexpress]

Most of the express options I have heard have the DT station being the one most likely skipped. GO's recent ReR update showed they are leaning towards Mt. Pleasant being the meeting point of express and local service and, in the past, Bramalea (with its #1 ridership and important bus connections) is often suggested as a good spot (also has more platforms/track capacity and is not limited by the track ownership issues as everything east of there is owned by ML).

I expect that skipping Brampton is based on the track capacity limitations (2 tracks there compared to 3 at Mt Pleasant and Bramalea), not ridership demand.

I am just as skeptical as you regarding ML's proposed stopping pattern with all stops to Mt. Pleasant and non-stop to Union. It is ridiculous, not just from a ridership perspective but also from a network perspective.

Having said that, I am not sure how charging for parking offsets a shift in stations by people looking for service? They are not going to say "there are no trains at X, but parking is free so I will go there". A shift would occur if people were looking for service. Anecdotal warning: My neighbourhood is about a 12 minute drive to Brampton GO....is about 16 minutes to Mt. Pleasant and (depending on 410 traffic) 20 - 30 minutes from Bramalea. I have neighbours who drive to Bramalea every day because there are already slightly more travel options......there were more of them when the 6:50 pm WB train terminated there...but there are still some.....if, say, Brampton stn. had way less service than either/both of Mt Pleasant/Bramalea I think you would see a fairly significant shift in people's choice of stations.....they would search out the station that had the best/most frequent service. Using my 'hood as an example, unfortunately the longer trip to Bramalea would win out over the shorter trip to Mt. P because the next variable would be cost of fare....people do very quick and informal calculations and a 25 minute drive to a frequent service station with lower fares would win out over a 16 minute drive to a station with frequent service and higher fares.

No one on this planet is proposing that we eliminate GO train service from Mount Pleasant or Bramalea. But it is conceivable that there be slightly fewer daily trips from Mount Pleasant than from Brampton Central given that the latter has considerably greater network importance. Charging for parking at Brampton provides a cost to offset the benefit of more travel options. Some people would switch from Mount Pleasant to Brampton to take advantage of the increased travel options, while others would switch from Brampton to Mount Pleasant or Bramalea to save on parking.

No that is not what I said at all. I said no existing trains should be converted to express at the expense of those current stations. I think we agree that if new trains are added they can be express. I also said that if new trains are added in off peak or shoulder that should not result in any peak trains being converted because that is a defacto reduction in utility at the skipped stations. If, however, new peak trains are added sure we can (and likely should) look at some of them being some sort of express service.

Ah I see, thanks.

 

[TOareaFan]

I expect that skipping Brampton is based on the track capacity limitations (2 tracks there compared to 3 at Mt Pleasant and Bramalea), not ridership demand.

I am just as skeptical as you regarding ML's proposed stopping pattern with all stops to Mt. Pleasant and non-stop to Union. It is ridiculous, not just from a ridership perspective but also from a network perspective.

I assumed it had more to do with the planned train yard/storage facility (not sure of the right words/name) just west of Mt. Pleasant.

No one on this planet is proposing that we eliminate GO train service from Mount Pleasant or Bramalea. But it is conceivable that there be slightly fewer daily trips from Mount Pleasant than from Brampton Central given that the latter has considerably greater network importance. Charging for parking at Brampton provides a cost to offset the benefit of more travel options. Some people would switch from Mount Pleasant to Brampton to take advantage of the increased travel options, while others would switch from Brampton to Mount Pleasant or Bramalea to save on parking.

Got a bit lazy in my wording there with my wording (use of "no trains")...I meant if someone is headed to Toronto at a particular time and there is no train at that time at station A but there is at B and/or C....the cost of parking is not going to sway their decision to go to A. I will say, though, that unless GO is (as some suggest) moving towards charging for parking generally at their stations any move to selectively charge at certain stations would be met by anger by those people using those stations...rightfully so IMO.

 

[reaperexpress]

I assumed it had more to do with the planned train yard/storage facility (not sure of the right words/name) just west of Mt. Pleasant.

I agree with Mount Pleasant being the start of the local service (consistent with the yard location), I don't agree with the express service being all stops till there and no stops after.

Got a bit lazy in my wording there with my wording (use of "no trains")...I meant if someone is headed to Toronto at a particular time and there is no train at that time at station A but there is at B and/or C....the cost of parking is not going to sway their decision to go to A. I will say, though, that unless GO is (as some suggest) moving towards charging for parking generally at their stations any move to selectively charge at certain stations would be met by anger by those people using those stations...rightfully so IMO.

Yes, that person will drive to wherever they can catch the service at that time. Meanwhile someone else, who doesn't have to be at Union at that exact minute (we're not taking about very long headways here) will drive to where the parking is free. It all balances out.

 

[mdrejhon]

I am just as skeptical as you regarding ML's proposed stopping pattern with all stops to Mt. Pleasant and non-stop to Union. It is ridiculous, not just from a ridership perspective but also from a network perspective.

Evaluating ridership at stations, it now makes sense that an express service doesn't have to be continuous. It could be scheduled to selectively stop at the busiest stations only, skipping the sparse stations in bewteen. Paris RER does this, too. And they have large number of express trains that do different kinds of stopping patterns on the same rail lines! So it can get very confusing if not prepared-for properly.

For routes having frequent trains (imagine subway style all day service with confusingly mixed-station express trains), ugpraded videoboards or dotmatrix boards at all stations and platforms will be even more important to simplify this. These boards show a list of all upcoming stations, and checkmarks next to them whether the next train will be stopping at them. So you can make a determination whether to hop onto the train or wait for the next one. This is how several Paris RER routes work.

Also, the Kitchener share of passengers could actually go up dramatically (e.g. more than double) if it grabbed a large share of the bus services and some of the bus services shut down following the LRT completion. And if/when high speed comes, the trainsets will probably be single-level and contain just 400-800 seats. It is in Ontario's interest to build up Kitchener train traffic as much as possible as a prelude to high speed service, encouraging development of train station, transit connections, and more.

The service time reductions would be worth it, especially when combined with ION LRT. The 1.5 hour would just be an interim step, to the further massive increases made possible by 1-hour high performance service (upgraded existing corridor) or 40-minute high speed service (Guelph bypass, 300kph trainsets). 1.5 hour is faster than driving by car during most parts of the day, and these are far faster driving by bus.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

I wonder if there would be any demand for a Kitchener-Guelph rail shuttle service - if the one way travel time is only 15 minutes, a single DMU could run back and forth all day on an approx. 30 minute headway.

 

[mdrejhon]

Current GO timetable shows 26 minutes to Guelph and 30 minutes to Kitchener That's pretty damn slow, and work needs to be made to speed up the transit time between Kitchener and Guelph. I think a primary culprit is a slow order on some rails, that really needs to be eliminated through future upgrades.

 

[nfitz]

I wonder if there would be any demand for a Kitchener-Guelph rail shuttle service - if the one way travel time is only 15 minutes, a single DMU could run back and forth all day on an approx. 30 minute headway.

Though how many years will it be to get the travel time down to only 15 minutes? It currently ranges from 24 to 32 minutes.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

Oops, I must have misread something. That being said, according to Google the driving time is 25 minutes with no traffic, or 31 minutes right now so the train is competitive. Buy two DMUs then! There appears to be a passing siding at Shantz, whatever that is.

 

[TOareaFan]

Oops, I must have misread something. That being said, according to Google the driving time is 25 minutes with no traffic, or 31 minutes right now so the train is competitive. Buy two DMUs then! There appears to be a passing siding at Shantz, whatever that is.

The travel time is competitive if the goal is go from one train station to another train station. But, presuming someone does not live in one station and work at the other station, those competitive minutes can get eaten up pretty fast. Given the lack of flexibility ("stuck to the train schedule") I would bet a significant number of people would need to see a significant time advantage on the train side to switch over.

 

[RandomBusGuy]

The travel time is competitive if the goal is go from one train station to another train station. But, presuming someone does not live in one station and work at the other station, those competitive minutes can get eaten up pretty fast. Given the lack of flexibility ("stuck to the train schedule") I would bet a significant number of people would need to see a significant time advantage on the train side to switch over.

Exactly. That's why I think a bus would be the best solution right now. Run University of Waterloo > Downtown Kitchener > Downtown Guelph > University of Guelph.

There's also the issue of fare integration between GRT and Guelph transit. A rail shuttle could mean paying two or even three fares, unless a rail ticket also included free or heavily discounted local transit.

 

[reaperexpress]

Though how many years will it be to get the travel time down to only 15 minutes? It currently ranges from 24 to 32 minutes.

The province is planning to double track the line, and given that they bought GEXR out of their lease rather than waiting till 2017 when it expired, I'm guessing they're doing it soon too. I'd certainly hope that at the same time they upgrade it to get the speed up at least to the level we see elsewhere in the province.

Kitchener to Guelph stations is 23km, which takes 30 minutes by VIA or 24 minutes by GO (46 and 57 km/h average).

Meanwhile in the rest of the province,

Trenton to Belleville is 20km, which takes 13 to 14 minutes by VIA (86 to 92 km/h)
Oakville to Aldershot is 22km, which takes 12 to 14 minutes by VIA (94 to 110 km/h)
Bradford to Barrie South is 29km, which takes 19 minutes by GO (92 km/h)
Guildwood to Oshawa is 31km, which takes 15 to 16 minutes by VIA (116 to 124 km/h)

The travel time is competitive if the goal is go from one train station to another train station. But, presuming someone does not live in one station and work at the other station, those competitive minutes can get eaten up pretty fast. Given the lack of flexibility ("stuck to the train schedule") I would bet a significant number of people would need to see a significant time advantage on the train side to switch over.

Guelph Central station is the central hub of Guelph Transit, meaning that you can get pretty much anywhere in the city directly from the station. Similarly the new Kitchener station will be a major transit hub notably featuring the new LRT.

Many people still take transit even when it is slower than driving. I can assure you that not all 600 million TTC trips each year are faster than the equivalent auto trip. In fact I'd guess that only a very small proportion are.

The train being twice as fast as a bus or car between the cities at least makes up some of the time lost transfering at either end. And let's not forget that both stations are also in their respective downtowns, with a large and increasing amount of stuff nearby.

 

[mdrejhon]

The province is planning to double track the line, and given that they bought GEXR out of their lease rather than waiting till 2017 when it expired, I'm guessing they're doing it soon too.

If they can reduce the trip to Guelph to 15 minutes (or less), demand goes up dramatically. I wonder if a sort of an intercity express could even be feasible, even if it's an hourly GOtrain doing a one-stop back-and-fourth before returning back to Union. That would give Kitchener-Guelph half-hourly service, while giving hourly to Union. Budget-wise, might not be cost-effective with the diesel trains, but may be cost-effective with EMUs.

 

[reaperexpress]

If they can reduce the trip to Guelph to 15 minutes (or less), demand goes up dramatically. I wonder if a sort of an intercity express could even be feasible, even if it's an hourly GOtrain doing a one-stop back-and-fourth before returning back to Union. That would give Kitchener-Guelph half-hourly service, while giving hourly to Union. Budget-wise, might not be cost-effective with the diesel trains, but may be cost-effective with EMUs.

It's half hour service if the train immediately turns around and comes back. For short lines like this (i.e. UPX) Metrolinx seems to operate layovers about 50% the travel time, so a 15 minute trip would be followed by at least 7.5 min layover. A single train running back and forth would be every 45 minutes. Given that that's a bit of an awkward frequency, maybe the service could stop at an intermediate station in east Kitchener, bringing the round trip and headway up to 60 minutes, with the local DMU/EMUs slotting in between the regional trains to provide 2tph frequency between Kitchener and Guelph:

EMUs sound pretty reasonable, given that we're talking after the line has been double-tracked and had its speed limit raised, which is at least five years down the road. The Georgetown corridor is decided to be the first to be electrified, we might as well electrify at the same time as those upgrades.

 

[nfitz]

The train being twice as fast as a bus or car between the cities at least makes up some of the time lost transfering at either end. And let's not forget that both stations are also in their respective downtowns, with a large and increasing amount of stuff nearby.

Oh, it would get used, and both would have good transit networks. I just wonder how long it would be to get the service as fast as 15 minutes - especially once Breslau station opens, which would slow things down. It's about the same distance as from Union to Pearson, and though it would be nice to see that take 15 minutes, it's going to take 25 minutes.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

If they can reduce the trip to Guelph to 15 minutes (or less), demand goes up dramatically. I wonder if a sort of an intercity express could even be feasible, even if it's an hourly GOtrain doing a one-stop back-and-fourth before returning back to Union. That would give Kitchener-Guelph half-hourly service, while giving hourly to Union. Budget-wise, might not be cost-effective with the diesel trains, but may be cost-effective with EMUs.

I'm also thinking of it as a low-cost way to get people in those cities used to the idea of taking the train, and make better use of the corridor. Almost as much a PR move as anything else.