Visual elements and aesthetics are important, especially when GO is competing.
There is a
world of difference between neglecting aesthetics and updating one's "brand" to keep up with the joneses.
What people care about is that their vehicle looks clean and presentable, is not dilapidated or rusty, not whether the brand is sufficiently up to date. Have you registered a noticable uptick in GO ridership since their rebranding in 2013? Or the TTC as their fleet has moved away from the kinder egg colours of the 1990s?
Yes, it competes with cars
And as I already said, the people who are choosing to use the car are doing so because they either perceive GO to be inconvenient, not financially competitive, not time competitive, or because they're asocial and don't want to share their space with the plebs. It has
nothing to do with whether they find the logo or the livery up to date or not. NO rational, self sufficient adult is making decisions about which form of transport to use based on criteria like this.
It really doesn't. GO and the TTC serve completely different markets; there are very few routes within the city that could be done both by GO or TTC. And when it comes to deciding between those routes, any sane, rational adult will weigh their options not on how ancient they find GO's brand to be, but on real, tangible things that people actually care about: how much will it cost them, in terms of money and time? Is it tenable to spend more money on GO to save time, or to waste more time on the TTC to save money? Are they in danger of getting shanked or pushed into the tracks? Will they get bedbugs if they sit down?
Fare integration with GO will change the balance a little bit, but again, the livery and logo of the transit system will not figure into that at all. The only people who care about such things are foamers and Metrolinx consultants.
By that logic, we should be okay with bare concrete walls in our new subway stations as long as trains are clean, we should be okay with the jersey barriers outside Union as long as they are protecting the pedestrians, we should be okay with spandrel filled condos as long as they are providing housing to people.
This is a really bizarre comparison to draw. All of the examples you cited are makeshift or incomplete states. GO's branding is neither makeshift nor incomplete. It is your opinion, nothing more, that it is outdated and in need of replacement. You would draw a more accurate comparison by saying that the colours of your local station are purple, but you don't like purple, you think it is outdated, so to move with the times we should adopt blue, or, red, or, in keeping with the general tone of 21st century industrial design, anthracite (see also: the colours chosen for the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRTs). It is your opinion, nothing more.
But since you feel the need to make this comparison, no, I don't think GO's ridership would be materially impacted if they ran all their buses ghost white. New York's MTA basically did just that - their old livery was pitifully bland - for many years. Was there a big increase in ridership when they introduced the dark blue Cuomo buses? Do you see people avoiding the TTC or New York subways in favour of buses because they are not painted colours?
We don't want people to think ugly vehicles must be for poor people who don't have any other option (New York's subway stations do give that vibe).
And yet, New York has a very high subway ridership, and even the rich and famous can be counted among its users, which many other cities can't claim.
People have preference on the colour of their car and some even pay extra for having a different colour, even if that doesn't do anything to car's comfort or fuel efficiency. If people care about the aesthetics of their personal vehicles, they would also care about aesthetics of the public vehicles even if to not that extent.
That's a nice theory, but it again only goes so far. The people who pay extra for having a different colour are in no way a majority - if you care to look outside your window, you will see that an
overwhelming majority of the cars on the road are white, gray, or black. At the same time, you will also note that most people's cars are in good shape - not rusty, dirty, scratched up etc. What this tells me is that people do not find the colour of their car, largely, to be so important as to justify shelling out extra for it, but they think it is important that their personal vehicle looks clean and well maintained.
