Toronto Union Pearson Express | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | MMM Group Limited

Do we know the number of airport employees who live so close to Union Station as to make a 22 minute ride to the airport worthwhile - versus the number who live in Mississauga, or Vaughan, or other parts of Toronto where it would be quicker to take an express bus?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Do we know the number of airport employees who live so close to Union Station as to make a 22 minute ride to the airport worthwhile - versus the number who live in Mississauga, or Vaughan, or other parts of Toronto where it would be quicker to take an express bus?
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It was never designed for airport employees, as CSW2424 stated. It was designed for businesspeople who are so busy that they can only take the flight that arrives 22 minutes before their meeting in downtown Toronto.

High speed rail in the corridor would be better, me thinks.
 
I think that high speed rail would be great, but it's hardly a substitute for a system like blue 22. I really just don't get the opposition, other than Weston NIMBYism and instinctive reacton against PPPs. Sure, many people, likely including me, won't use the service. So what? Many people will, including business people and tourists. The airport route is the bread and butter for many cabbies and the downtown-airport bus can charge over $20 for a route that can take over an hour. I'd say that's more than enough of a market. There's also something to be said for GO service (at the very least, a people mover to the Georgetown line is a no-brainer) but cities all around the world are introducing express, premium services to their airports. I'm not just talking about London and Paris, either. Look at Oslo, Stockholm, Munich, Chicago.
 
unimaginative2 said:
I think that high speed rail would be great, but it's hardly a substitute for a system like blue 22. I really just don't get the opposition, other than Weston NIMBYism and instinctive reacton against PPPs. Sure, many people, likely including me, won't use the service. So what? Many people will, including business people and tourists. The airport route is the bread and butter for many cabbies and the downtown-airport bus can charge over $20 for a route that can take over an hour. I'd say that's more than enough of a market. There's also something to be said for GO service (at the very least, a people mover to the Georgetown line is a no-brainer) but cities all around the world are introducing express, premium services to their airports. I'm not just talking about London and Paris, either. Look at Oslo, Stockholm, Munich, Chicago.
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We do need a rapid transit link between the city centre and the airport - there is no question...

But I believe that a high speed rail line between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal would better serve travellers heading between those three cities than scamming your friends/family into driving you to the airport, having unspeakable acts performed on you by security, being crammed into an airplane, getting lost at your destination, and paying exorbitant taxi fees to get to the downtown core.

Such a line could reduce the demand for a Union-Pearson link to the point where less expensive, less disruptive options can be explored.

This past summer I took Greyhound to Ottawa and spent five hours on a bus one way. I could have upgraded to Air Canada (I wanted to try Porter, but it was Canada Day weekend and their seat sale did not apply), for 25% more and only spent 45 minutes in the air, but the fact that I choose Greyhound should show you how much I want high speed rail as an option to flying.
 
How common is it for an airport to be served by a non-stop express train but no local alternative? That tells you whether there is a well-developed regional public transit system which is an important question as to the ability of travellers to change on to other modes and continue their trip.

The downtown-airport bus is $16 and it takes people straight to their hotel with their baggage. Their market will certainly be effected, but I would be surprised to see the airport bus disappear. The bus often runs far from full and has a much smaller capacity than a train.

Honestly, I still can't understand why a line with 1 intermediate stop is peachy when a line with 4 intermediate stops isn't viable... "22 minutes, okay! 26 minutes, never!"
 
It's more than that, though. You have to maintain a whole station setup at Weston. You would have to abandon through-checked baggage. How many people do you think would get on at Weston for an express trip to the airport? Five a day?

I completely agree with you about a local service. We should without question have a GO connection as well, perhaps with a people mover, as soon as they have all day service on Georgetown. A 22 minute express service with through-checked baggage would still be very attractive from downtown.

I also fiercely support high speed rail. I've been harassing politicians about high speed rail since I was eight years old. I don't know if it would elminate the need for express transit to the airport, though. If anything, I'd like to see a station built right under the terminal with a diversion of the Georgetown line that could be served by local, express, and high-speed intercity trains, using Schiphol, among others, as a model.
 
unimaginative2 said:
It's more than that, though. You have to maintain a whole station setup at Weston. You would have to abandon through-checked baggage. How many people do you think would get on at Weston for an express trip to the airport? Five a day?
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It has been explained many times why Weston residents are against it. The plan was horrible, with a private sector partner that was doing the EA for its own project, a neighbourhood that was to get zero benefit but all the inconvenience, a $20-25 trip that would exclude thousands of airport employees, and a business model that I am sure would fail.

The project has been rumoured to be dead for over a year now, but an EA is still going ahead. I hope that this EA concludes a semi-local service, taking 26-30 minutes, three to six intermediate stations, is the best solution to the airport rail link "problem". And I hope the GTTA, not the GTAA, is the agency responsible for it. And an additional stop or two would certainly not exclude checked baggage at Union, would it? There were provisions for a stop at Bloor (a minimalist station without checked baggage services) anyway.

Of course Weston residents would not be big patrons of a premium airport express. They want a service that they would find useful - either a real regional rail link or a semi-local rail transit service to the airport and downtown. SNC Lavalin promised nothing like that, at most a few extra GO Trains on weekdays. I'm surprised that Weston people are seen as the villains here.
 
Who wouldn't be annoyed with a 90-minute trip downtown on the slow-as-hell Weston bus when express trains go through your neighbourhood every 20 minutes making the same trip in 15 minutes, but not stopping because you're not rich businessmen?
 
Believe me, I know Weston transit. I've made countless trips on the Weston bus and it's a nightmare. It's an obvious place for fare and service integration between TTC and GO. I just don't see why Blue 22 and GO improvements are seen to be mutually exclusive. The city isn't paying for Blue 22. It's not taking any money away from anyone. I just don't get why it's somehow a bad thing that Lavalin is investing money in providing a transit service that will get people off the roads and make downtown a more competitive place for business and a more accessible place for tourists.
 
But is infrastructure happening for those other local services? Do you disagree with the sentiment that there is greater interest and action in serving international travellers over the needs of the people of the city? The two shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but all signs, plans, and progress so far seem to show that they are exclusive from one another in reality. Yes, it's better than nothing, but what type of a comparison is that?

As for taking money away from anyone, who's paying for the EA? Is Lavalin paying for all the level crossing replacements and other line upgrades? And what if it ends up requiring a subsidy, who's on the hook for that?

And you still haven't mentioned why adding a couple stops would be such a big deal, why Weston passengers couldn't ride downtown, or why stops would prevent baggage from being checked.
 
Would Weston passengers be willing to spend $15 to ride downtown? Otherwise they're taking away a seat from someone paying $20, a price which is necessary to make the service cover its purpose. As people endlessly berated MikeToronto, you can't run an premium express service without charging a premium fare.

It's not like Lavalin is going to own these track improvements. The government will indeed be building them for free -- but for CN. They'll simply be operating a transit service, and will have to make a profit from it, too.

The EA is shared between GO and the airport link. GO will be able to use the many track improvements and level crossing projects that will be built as part of the airport link project.

If the Lavalin project doesn't work, the only loser in the whole thing will be Lavalin. The airport express will be gone, and we'll be left with a massively-improved Weston sub, all federally funded.

Extra stops on an express train to the airport would clearly not be economically viable. Why would they stop at Weston (or anywhere else) when there will only be a half-dozen people a day getting on?

A private company with the profit motive will almost certainly do a much better job of providing an attractive airport express service.
 
why stops would prevent baggage from being checked.
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Security is one reason, probably the primary reason. The only way an operator could ensure that bags are not tampered with would be to ensure that the only points the could be handled or intercepted are at a Union and Pearson terminal. As unlikely as it is, adding more stops would be a reasonable security concern.

The idea of rail connections between Union and Pearson (and other points in the GTA to Pearson) really is not all that complicated. All uses, HSR, commuter rail, and specialty business class services are all valid and viable options. None really compete with each other, since HSR is likely to serve travellers coming from the edges of the GTA or futher (Kitchener-Waterloo being a good example), commuter will serve those who live in the GTA and are either employees in the area or those who don't want to pay business class fares, and an express service will cater to those who want ultimate comfort and services with money not being an issue.

The only issue I have is that the rail corridor itself and the lines should be publicly owned, and that passenger service have its own tracks to ensure that it can meet capacity needs and not be subject to the whims of freigh companies. As long as that happens, then whomever wants to operate whatever service they desire in that corridor should be more than welcome. I don't have an issue with a private company operating business class service so long as it is not public money for private profit scam like the original Blue 22 service was.

I don't even care who starts operating improved services first. So long as in 15 years time (and it will take that long to create a rail station at Pearson and upgrade all the infrastructure to create a high capacity passenger rail corridor) the end result is HSR, commuter rail, and business class service (if it is viable) operating in the same corridor, efficiently and taking all peoples needs, from local to regional, poor or rich, into consideration.
 
unimaginative2 said:
Would Weston passengers be willing to spend $15 to ride downtown? Otherwise they're taking away a seat from someone paying $20, a price which is necessary to make the service cover its purpose. As people endlessly berated MikeToronto, you can't run an premium express service without charging a premium fare.

It's not like Lavalin is going to own these track improvements. The government will indeed be building them for free -- but for CN. They'll simply be operating a transit service, and will have to make a profit from it, too.
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I'll be fine if a private express service operates under these conditions:
- That a slightly slower transit service also provides a reasonable and frequent serviceto the airport and the communities along the route.
- That the transit service is given the same access to the rails as the private express service, and not excluded because of some deal between SNC Lavalin and the GTAA or CN
- That the private service pays its own share of the costs of the upgrades to the tracks (say pay into an infrastructure fund for GO track improvements that it is already benefiting from)
- That GO/GTTA is able to provide a regional rail service to Brampton or Georgetown along the tracks, either as part of the transit service to Pearson, or as a separate service.
- That VIA can also provide additional service on the corridor

If the private service is able to operate under these conditions (similar to those as say the Heathrow Express or other airport express services), all the power to it. Blue 22/Georgetown South EA did not have any accommodations for anyone but the small market that would pay the premium for airport-downtown service. They didn't even promise hourly GO service in the original EA consultations, just the 20 minute frequency Blue22 and a few additional GO trains. It was a private sector boondoggle that promised little for Weston, Brampton or anywhere else for that matter.
 
SeanTrans provides a nice summary of the situation. Is it so much to ask that some thought be given to those of us who aren't part of the "premium market" but still have places and jobs to get to but are simply ignored because we're not profitable enough?

AnarchoSocialist said:
Security is one reason, probably the primary reason. The only way an operator could ensure that bags are not tampered with would be to ensure that the only points the could be handled or intercepted are at a Union and Pearson terminal. As unlikely as it is, adding more stops would be a reasonable security concern.
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That simply doesn't make any sense. Even if there are no stops all baggage would still have to be secured in a separate area on the train to prevent any tampering by other passengers on the train. What you're saying is like claiming that non-stop flights are less secure because those getting on or off at intermediate stops can tamper with other pasengers' bags.

unimaginative2 said:
Would Weston passengers be willing to spend $15 to ride downtown? Otherwise they're taking away a seat from someone paying $20, a price which is necessary to make the service cover its purpose. As people endlessly berated MikeToronto, you can't run an premium express service without charging a premium fare.
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The common approach to this in most cities in the world is to charge a premium fare to the Airport while regular fares to intermediate stops. Examples include New York, San Francisco, London, Rome, future Vancouver (IIRC), and many others.

I never claimed that local service should be covering its costs. I don't expect any sort of local transit to cover its costs... what's important is providing that transit in the first place. I'm sure more than a half-dozen Weston passengers would be willing to ride such a service. As for "taking seats"... trains can be extended, I don't think we have to worry about packed 8 car trains running to the airport. Heck, reserve as many carriages as you need for premium airport travellers and let local travellers use the rest.

The government will indeed be building them for free
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Okay, so it will be costing taxpayers money.
 
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