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

nfitz said:
That makes for a shorter walk to Dundas West station doesn't it?
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Depends if you want to risk jaywalking across Dundas :)
All of this also depends a bit on exactly where you get off the train, and I didn't include under-station zigzagging between stairwells/elevators, etc.
 
LNahid2000 said:
For American flights, you'd probably save more money (and time) just driving to Syracuse vs. driving to Toronto. I wouldn't even think about taking the train.
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1overcosc said:
A lot of people still drive of course. I'd say it's about half-half VIA-UPX and driving split judging from what I see around me.



Syracuse is a surprisingly unpopular option. Now with the dollar of course it makes little sense but even when the dollar was strong, not many went to Syracuse. The studies on our airport indicates that around 25% of air traffic originating from the city flew out of Kingston; about 40% out of Pearson; and the remaining 35% was more or less evenly distributed between Dorval, Ottawa, and Syracuse.
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Syracuse doesn't exactly have a large number of destinations:

Air Canada Express Toronto–Pearson A
Allegiant Air Fort Lauderdale, St. Petersburg/Clearwater
Seasonal: Myrtle Beach A
American Airlines Charlotte A
American Eagle Boston, Charlotte, Chicago–O'Hare, Philadelphia, Washington–National A
Delta Air Lines Atlanta
Seasonal: Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul B
Delta Connection Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York–JFK, New York–LaGuardia B
JetBlue Airways New York–JFK, Orlando
Seasonal: Fort Lauderdale A
United Express Chicago–O'Hare, Newark, Washington–Dulles B

For someone coming from Kingston, the same connection hubs (NY, Chi, Phi, Was) are available from Toronto Pearson and you can do customs clearing at Pearson vs at a land border crossing. You also have far more direct connections from Toronto over Syracuse.
 
nfitz said:
I seem to recall Metrolinx saying there'd have to be a crosswalk added on Dundas.
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I've only vaguely heard that there are plans to install a crosswalk or traffic light at Dundas and Edna, but nothing more.

Even without the GO/UP ped traffic, there's a constant stream of people crossing between The Crossways and TTC. Some even get hit or killed...

I wonder if they're just waiting it out at this point...... When an underground connection is made, that will negate most of the need for a crosswalk/light.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Syracuse doesn't exactly have a large number of destinations:

Air Canada Express Toronto–Pearson A
Allegiant Air Fort Lauderdale, St. Petersburg/Clearwater
Seasonal: Myrtle Beach A
American Airlines Charlotte A
American Eagle Boston, Charlotte, Chicago–O'Hare, Philadelphia, Washington–National A
Delta Air Lines Atlanta
Seasonal: Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul B
Delta Connection Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York–JFK, New York–LaGuardia B
JetBlue Airways New York–JFK, Orlando
Seasonal: Fort Lauderdale A
United Express Chicago–O'Hare, Newark, Washington–Dulles B

For someone coming from Kingston, the same connection hubs (NY, Chi, Phi, Was) are available from Toronto Pearson and you can do customs clearing at Pearson vs at a land border crossing. You also have far more direct connections from Toronto over Syracuse.
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Looks similar to the flights available out of Buffalo, where many Torontonians drive to save money, even with today's exchange rate. I've always found that a land border crossing is way faster than going through customs at Pearson, and smaller airports like Syracuse take no time to get through. Syracuse is also a shorter drive from Kingston than Toronto.
 
Frankly I don't care about the price; I just don't want to drag my luggage down several flights of stairs at College Station, through the generally crowded subway cars and then all the way to the terminal at Union. Who needs this?
 
Yikes:

upx_ridership_20160210.jpg


h/t Steve Munro
 
Not sure it's quite as bad as it looks. The ultimate low there (1086) is December 25th.

Meanwhile that 4093 peak on October 9th was that 14-inning 5-hour Blue Jay Game 2 playoff game at Skydome; as I suspected, much of the peak is post-game traffic. The preceding day was 3802 was Game 1. The other playoff games are higher than normal on those days. So that's much of the late-August hump. I wouldn't be surprised if much of the September hump was Blue-Jay related.

Shame we don't have the Pearson-only traffic from Union. That probably would easier to discern trends from.

It's not great - but I wouldn't read too much into this.
 
nfitz said:
I wouldn't read too much into this.
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It's half a year's worth of ridership data, and the very clear trend is at best flat, if not declining since October. It's certainly well off the projected ridership, and the actual is increasingly diverging from projected. That's not sustainable in the long term.
 
Tulse said:
It's half a year's worth of ridership data, and the very clear trend is at best flat, if not declining since October. It's certainly well off the projected ridership, and the actual is increasingly diverging from projected. That's not sustainable in the long term.
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Looks pretty flat to me by the time you take out Christmas, US Thanksgiving (less business travel), and the Blue Jays, averaging about 2300 or so from looking at the red line.

It's not growing as fast as it should, that's for sure. But I think the issue is being exaggerated by the media.

At the same time though, there's clearly some off-peak capacity available, and if they could price the non-Pearson travel, especially when there's no GO service, to take advantage of that.
 
nfitz said:
Looks pretty flat to me by the time you take out Christmas, US Thanksgiving (less business travel), and the Blue Jays, averaging about 2300 or so from looking at the red line.

It's not growing as fast as it should, that's for sure. But I think the issue is being exaggerated by the media.

At the same time though, there's clearly some off-peak capacity available, and if they could price the non-Pearson travel, especially when there's no GO service, to take advantage of that.
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I think there is a real opportunity here for them to seem to do a little something for everyone (something politicians love to do).

  1. For 416 residents announce that "temporarily" tapping onto UP at any of the 3 stops in Toronto (ie. all but Pearson) and tapping off at any other stop in Toronto would result in a $5.03 charge (ie. the same presto charge that they would see on GO). The "temporary" nature of this would be "in recognition that there is need for regular and frequent rail service in the corridor and recognizes that ReR is a few years away".
  2. For suburban 905/519 commuters that announcement can be accompanied with an announcement that GO trains in this corridor would temporarily cease serving the Weston station since that station now had 15 minute frequency all day 7 days a week via the new local fare structure on UP. "By skipping Weston station travel times from 'X' to Union are now 'Z' minutes shorter"
  3. Possibly, even, VIA can announce that with GO stations not stopping at Weston, their EB trains in the corridor would now serve Weston instead of Malton (on the same booking requirement Malton now has) "giving hundreds of thousands of people west of Pearson a more direct and efficient rail link to Pearson.
If all (or some) of that is possible, I think the politicos will see a lot of value for a lot of ridings (politicians, unfortunately, don't see us as living in communities...we live in ridings).
 
Yes, that sounds possible. Except perhaps for those at Weston who commute west to Brampton, and wouldn't be able to - wonder what those kind of numbers are ... perhaps higher than those going from Weston to Pearson!
 
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