Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[cfloryan]

There's no need to create a whole bureaucracy just for this... there are lots of companies with the resources and experience for running toll roads/toll collection. For instance, the London and Stockholm charges are operated by IBM. 407ETR or another similar company could do the toll collection here.

Like TOareafan said, whether you insource or outsource toll collection you still end up having to pay for a bunch of toll cameras and a room full of people to collect the bills.

And mostly irrelevant but I can't help pointing it out anyways: IBM designed and coded the Stockholm and London systems - they don't actually operate them.

 

[unimaginative2]

Fair enough.....I just wondered what "reasonable" is....it is a term that gets thrown around a lot and then when a service is introduced and the price announced we often get "holy cow that's expensive...might as well drive".

It may because I live there but it irks me that somewhat that there is general acceptance that K-W should have high speed express service to Toronto bypassing a more poplulated city like Brampton but people often (not saying you do/did this) dismiss the transit needs of Brampton itself. I think both cities will end up getting reasonably served by some higher level of GO service but not until 2015 - 2020.

Obviously the price should be studied to determine exactly where the tipping point is for people to choose the train. Right now, pricing appears to be quite random, perhaps based on a cost recovery formula. After the short strike last year, VIA offered big discounts on all their trains. There were literally multi-hour line-ups at every station. The late night train to Kitchener, for example, routinely fills half a car on a five or six car train. The entire train was sold out, night after night. They were clearly making far, far more money at the lower fare than at their regular fare. That should have told them something.

I completely agree that Brampton needs much better service. The Georgetown line should be every 15 minutes and an express train with one or two stops to Union should run at probably the same frequency. High speed trains that can run at 350 km/h don't really make much sense for a trip as short as Brampton-Toronto. For other destinations, Brampton would be served by the Pearson station, only a few stops from Brampton or Bramalea.

As for tolls, it seems to me that a collection apparatus is already established: the 407. Just use them.

 

[TOareaFan]

As for tolls, it seems to me that a collection apparatus is already established: the 407. Just use them.

Sure you can use them....but you will have to pay. I would bet that the owners of 407 would be happy to collect the tolls for the province/city on a cost + profit basis. That is they would pass on any additional cost to their operations (additional staff or infrastructure) plus, probably, a profit set as a percentage of the tolls collected.....10 - 15% is what I would ask for. So it would not be free.....by any stretch.

I doubt that, either, KW or Brampton will see "high speed" rail to Toronto. Both will end up with a level of GO service that combines milk runs with the odd express train.

 

[waterloowarrior]

Like TOareafan said, whether you insource or outsource toll collection you still end up having to pay for a bunch of toll cameras and a room full of people to collect the bills.

And mostly irrelevant but I can't help pointing it out anyways: IBM designed and coded the Stockholm and London systems - they don't actually operate them.

Yes, but the gas tax has its own problems that dunkalunk pointed out: Electric/hybrid cars and you can't have any kind of complex system of pricing/rationing (e.g. higher tolls during rush hour).

Are you sure, it says here that they won to contract to operate the London system, or at least their consortium did
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/media/newscentre/archive/6270.aspx

 

[unimaginative2]

I doubt that, either, KW or Brampton will see "high speed" rail to Toronto. Both will end up with a level of GO service that combines milk runs with the odd express train.

Yeah but that's a very bad thing... The Corridor desperately needs real high speed rail. It's massively overdue. Kitchener-Toronto would be one of the busiest pairs, along with London-Toronto and perhaps even a place like Port Hope-Toronto. High speed rail would be very successful in Canada.

Milk run GO service to Kitchener makes very little sense. It takes far too long. Kitchener should be served by some kind of regional express service that makes roughly the same number of stops as the existing VIA service (maybe also Bloor).

 

[TOareaFan]

Milk run GO service to Kitchener makes very little sense. It takes far too long. Kitchener should be served by some kind of regional express service that makes roughly the same number of stops as the existing VIA service (maybe also Bloor).

Shouldn't, then, VIA just run more of those trains? I would not add a Bloor stop but I would add a Malton one with connections to Pearson built.

 

[unimaginative2]

The problem with VIA is that their costs are too high. It's a wonderful service and very comfortable for longer trips, but it's not very cost-efficient. If we're going to provide the kind of hourly-or-better service we need to cities like Kitchener, Niagara, Barrie, we're going to need something in between VIA and GO.

A Pearson Airport connection is a given, though I'd much rather it be direct (i.e. a diversion of the rail line through the airport). I'd say so is a Bloor station both to relieve Union and to connect with the subway, a major benefit when regional rail tickets would allow for a direct transfer to the subway.

 

[TOareaFan]

The problem with VIA is that their costs are too high. It's a wonderful service and very comfortable for longer trips, but it's not very cost-efficient. If we're going to provide the kind of hourly-or-better service we need to cities like Kitchener, Niagara, Barrie, we're going to need something in between VIA and GO.

A Pearson Airport connection is a given, though I'd much rather it be direct (i.e. a diversion of the rail line through the airport). I'd say so is a Bloor station both to relieve Union and to connect with the subway, a major benefit when regional rail tickets would allow for a direct transfer to the subway.

Now we are back to me asking what you think a fair fare is for service from KW to Toronto.....earlier you said if it were priced right it would be jam packed...I said what is reasonable....you said it would have to be studied....now you are saying that VIA's prices are too high....you think that there is any economic model that gets you the sort of trains you are talking about (350 kph is what you suggested) for less than the current VIA fare (I just priced a return trip tomorrow for $52).

So, the question is what fare would pack those 350 kph trains from Kitchener to Union (with only a stop at Pearson)? I am starting to think your vision here is more like a dream

 

[unimaginative2]

If it's an unachievable dream to you, I'm afraid you need to travel to other parts of the world. France, Spain, and even Germany and Japan offer significantly lower fares than VIA on real high speed services at distances comparable to Kitchener or London. The Javelin/Southeastern High Speed service in Britain even provides a bit of a model (imagine Britain being a model for anything transport-related!). The point is attracting regular commuters with service levels in between a commuter train and a long distance train but that operate at high speed. While it extends the commuter belt, it also encourages more sustainable city-building: development would be centred on downtown stations in real cities rather than on giant parking lots next to the tracks built on farmers fields.

Prices would be kept reasonable through substantial discounts for frequent travelers and categories like students. You're asking me to pick a fare out of a hat and then claiming that if I can't, the model is impossible. That's not really reasonable... Teams of people with advanced educations in the field are typically used to price a particular product or service. Unfortunately it seems that right now VIA is picking prices out of a hat or at least basing them more on its costs divided by ridership than on maximizing revenues. If I were to hazard a guess, perhaps today's VIA base price might not be unreasonable when the far higher speeds are taken into account, though substantial frequent traveler discounts are essential.

There is a large number of cities around the world that play the role of Kitchener in this model. Tours, Ciudad Real, Puertollano, Ashford. The difference being that K-W and London are far bigger markets than all of those centres. Port Hope or Quinte would be more comparable, which suggests those markets also have a lot of potential.

Here's a quotation from a European report (link):

The most important intra-regional high speed link is without doubt that between Ciudad Real and Puertolano on the Madrid-Seville line. Before 1992, these two conurbations with similar populations 4 forty kilometres apart were isolated from the major infrastructures that link Madrid to Andalucia. As a result of the desire to create a short rail route between Madrid and Seville, they found themselves on the new line. The Region of Castile and la Mancha asked the central government to build stations where the AVEs would stop for these two towns. As soon as the line was opened, the estimated demand for trips to Madrid was considerably exceeded. The operator decided to segment the flows by creating two separate services: short ones between Ciudad Real and Puertolano on which short distance intra-regional services were permitted and long services between Madrid, Cordoba and Seville (with some trains continuing to stop in the small intermediate towns of Ciudad Real and Puertolano). Specific high speed rolling stock, the AVE 104 was constructed for these short links. These trainsets are less expensive than the AVEs used on long journeys and have a maximum speed of only 250 km/h and a lower capacity (237 seats).

 

[TOareaFan]

^ yeah...that's it.....I must never have travelled outside of the GTA if I don't think we will ever build 350kph trains with one stop between Toronto and Kitchener at a fare less than $25 each way.

or, perhaps, I have travelled and instead of just saying "it works there so we should/could have it in Toronto" I think, "what are the societal and historical and socialogical differences that allow that to work there but not in Toronto and how close to that can we get?"

I do think that what you are suggesting, for our area, is an unattainable dream and when we transit advocates become more realistic in our goal setting it will become less easy for people who oppose spending on transit to blindly oppose more realistic asks/wants/dreams/suggestions.

I guess we will just agree to disagree on this.....but I still think K-W's desiny as far as rail links to Toronto are some combination of VIA and GO as an extension to the Georgetown corridor.

 

[nfitz]

If it's an unachievable dream to you, I'm afraid you need to travel to other parts of the world. France, Spain, and even Germany and Japan offer significantly lower fares than VIA on real high speed services at distances comparable to Kitchener or London.

In my experience in Europe and Korea is that such fares are similiar or more expensive than here. An advance purchase VIA fare to Kitchener is only $21 ($23.73 with tax) . The GO Transit 10-ride price for this $13.50 and the monthly pass is $482.00. It's about 110 km.

Compare to England, where the 90-km high-speed trip from London to Ashford International on the new HS1 commuter service (38-minutes!) is a minimum of £26.60 off-peak. Which is over CAN$41.

Now you can get an annual pass for that route for £4,608 ($7,114). Which get's it down to only $14.82 if you use it 40 times a month. The VIA Rail monthly pass for Kitchener is $582 which is $14.55 for 40 trips.

 

[unimaginative2]

Like I said, the UK is pretty much never a model for anything transport-related, but you've proven my point: they have a reasonably priced commuter pass program. France is even cheaper. But again, it's not all about the cost if you offer a real high-speed service. People will pay a lot if it allows them to conveniently commute long distances from places where housing is much cheaper.

^ yeah...that's it.....I must never have travelled outside of the GTA if I don't think we will ever build 350kph trains with one stop between Toronto and Kitchener at a fare less than $25 each way.

or, perhaps, I have travelled and instead of just saying "it works there so we should/could have it in Toronto" I think, "what are the societal and historical and socialogical differences that allow that to work there but not in Toronto and how close to that can we get?"

I do think that what you are suggesting, for our area, is an unattainable dream and when we transit advocates become more realistic in our goal setting it will become less easy for people who oppose spending on transit to blindly oppose more realistic asks/wants/dreams/suggestions.

I guess we will just agree to disagree on this.....but I still think K-W's desiny as far as rail links to Toronto are some combination of VIA and GO as an extension to the Georgetown corridor.

Is it about Kitchener? Is that the issue here? Do you feel that Kitchener doesn't "deserve" high speed rail? Because if that's it, well, sure we can agree to disagree. But I really differ from your belief on transit. I think high speed rail has real potential for success in Canada and I support real, major transit improvements that would at least put us somewhere close to the same league as Europe (let alone Asia). I'm not the Minister of Finance. It's not my job to decide what "we" can or cannot afford. I'm a transit and rail advocate. I push for the best transit and rail possible. Governments fund what they can. I can tell you for a fact that no government will ever say "Oh! Look how moderate their requests are. Let's fund all of it."

 

[nfitz]

Like I said, the UK is pretty much never a model for anything transport-related, but you've proven my point: they have a reasonably priced commuter pass program.

How does that prove your point. Your point is that it's cheaper elsewhere. Yet the pass is similiar price to our passes for a shorter distance?

As for pricing, check other countries as well. High speed commuting isn't cheap.

 

[unimaginative2]

First of all, Ashford is pretty much the same distance from London as Toronto is from Kitchener. They're very comparable. And wow...that just goes to show a 38-minute travel time (or better) is achievable. That would just be wildly popular on a Toronto-Kitchener or even Toronto-Northumberland routing.

It's not cheap, but it's competitive. Right now, VIA is slower than the car and much more expensive. That's not competitive.

 

[TOareaFan]

Like I said, the UK is pretty much never a model for anything transport-related, but you've proven my point: they have a reasonably priced commuter pass program. France is even cheaper. But again, it's not all about the cost if you offer a real high-speed service. People will pay a lot if it allows them to conveniently commute long distances from places where housing is much cheaper.

Maybe I am misunderstanding but it sounds like a suggestion to use transit to promote/subsidize even wider urban sprawl?

Is it about Kitchener? Is that the issue here? Do you feel that Kitchener doesn't "deserve" high speed rail?

Nope, wrong again.....I quite like Kitchener and think it would be swell if the rail links between Toronto and Kitchener (and points between) were improved. I just can't envision that being anywhere near the top of our priorties if we were ever to build any rail line/route that ran at 350 kph. I can see more frequent VIA service being good and needed and I can see an extension of GO (serving people who want to travel the route, pay less than VIA and willing to sacrifice a bit of speed (due to more stops) and comfort.....but that would be it for many decades. To suggest that we can/should/will build a 350 kph train line between two stations that are, what, 90km apart....so we would have a train that takes 15 minutes....allow for your suggested Pearson station and what it is a 20 minute connection? Do you really think that providing a 20 minute link on that route should be some sort of transit priority? I agree that the current travel time of over 1.5 hours is a bit ridiculous but I would be focused on getting the VIA travel times down to about an hour....that seems reasonable, would certainly be comptetive with car travel and would be a hell of a lot cheaper than building some sort of super fast 350kph train.