VIA Rail

[kEiThZ]

They did not prefer the bus. They preferred the local bus

You are really twisting yourself into a pretzel splitting hairs here.

In the Canadian context, given our abnormally high transit usage for developed new world countries, do you have actual evidence that there is a preference for rail over bus? If so, I'd love to see it.

Otherwise, Ottawa is a clear example that public transport users have zero issues with using buses when they perceive value and benefit from the service. A decent bus service is better than a poor rail service. And given fiscal reality, it's far easier to provide decent bus service than any rail service in most of the country.

 

[kEiThZ]

We could have a good intercity transportation network, but no politician really wants to run on it.

Because it's just not a priority for most voters.

And the way to build that priority is to encourage people to ditch their cars first. The only way to do that is improve local transit. There will be no demand for intercity transport without local transit that is good enough to replace a good chunk of driving. The reason the Corridor is at the point of major intercity rail investment is substantially because of all the urban transit investment made in Corridor cities over the last decade and the investment that will come online over the next decade. GO RER will do more to create demand for VIA than adding a few more trains to VIA's timetable ever will.

 

[crs1026]

Otherwise, Ottawa is a clear example that public transport users have zero issues with using buses when they perceive value and benefit from the service. A decent bus service is better than a poor rail service. And given fiscal reality, it's far easier to provide decent bus service than any rail service in most of the country.

Ottawa does buses right. You go a long way on the busways in a very short time, without being crammed in like sardines. Other transit operators don't always meet this standard. Stop-and-go on Dufferin Street in Toronto is not world class bus transit - it's understandable that people may not like it - but bus doesn't have to be this way.

Intercity bus is no different - it just needs to be done with the right minimum quality. That may imply subsidy, but a provincial bus subsidy program would be a fraction of the provincial roads budget, and the savings from reduced auto use justifies the expense.

- Paul

 

[reaperexpress]

Ottawa does buses right. You go a long way on the busways in a very short time, without being crammed in like sardines. Other transit operators don't always meet this standard. Stop-and-go on Dufferin Street in Toronto is not world class bus transit - it's understandable that people may not like it - but bus doesn't have to be this way.

Intercity bus is no different - it just needs to be done with the right minimum quality. That may imply subsidy, but a provincial bus subsidy program would be a fraction of the provincial roads budget, and the savings from reduced auto use justifies the expense.

- Paul

Correction: Ottawa used to do buses right. Nearly the entire transitway network has now been closed for the conversion to LRT (which would be fine except that the LRT is slower than a local bus in mixed traffic). Furthermore, in the past few years the bus service has collapsed into disarray with reduced frequency and unreliable service and unpredictable crowding. Even the remaining Southeast Transitway commonly has service gaps as long as 20 minutes. I've been a lifelong transit rider and advocate but it only took a few months of depending on OC Transpo for me to start avoiding it as much as possible. At this point the only OC Transpo buses I will take are the Transitway routes, since they're fast enough to offset the poor reliability.

 

[micheal_can]

You are really twisting yourself into a pretzel splitting hairs here.

In the Canadian context, given our abnormally high transit usage for developed new world countries, do you have actual evidence that there is a preference for rail over bus? If so, I'd love to see it.

Otherwise, Ottawa is a clear example that public transport users have zero issues with using buses when they perceive value and benefit from the service. A decent bus service is better than a poor rail service. And given fiscal reality, it's far easier to provide decent bus service than any rail service in most of the country.

Ok, lets spin this back to Via....

why is there no singular train between Windsor and QC? Using Ottawa's buses for context, shouldn't there be a W-L-T-O-M-QC train?

Because it's just not a priority for most voters.

And the way to build that priority is to encourage people to ditch their cars first. The only way to do that is improve local transit. There will be no demand for intercity transport without local transit that is good enough to replace a good chunk of driving. The reason the Corridor is at the point of major intercity rail investment is substantially because of all the urban transit investment made in Corridor cities over the last decade and the investment that will come online over the next decade. GO RER will do more to create demand for VIA than adding a few more trains to VIA's timetable ever will.

The way to have people ditch their cars is to make the long distance routes useful. Pick a major city along the Canadian or Ocean. Now, pick a smaller city or town within a reasonable drive to The bigger city. Try to do a weekend trip. It is not possible. Try it in the Corridor and except forgoing from the extreme ends to the extreme other end, it is very possible, and common. Have people leave their car in the station parking lot and take the long distance transit.

 

[Allandale25]

I believe this was posted today. cc @TerryJohnson

VIA Rail confirms added services from London and Ottawa to Toronto

VIA Rail has announced the reinstatement of trains 82 and 83 with a start date of October 24, 2023. Two round trips between Ottawa and Toronto are also being reinstated to help meet travel demand on weekends.

www.transportaction.ca

 

[Urban Sky]

Ok, lets spin this back to Via....

Oh god, help us!

why is there no singular train between Windsor and QC?

This might be incredulous for someone who has apparently never seen a train from the inside, but the possibility to transfer between two or more connecting rail services allows for far more city pairs to be connected than a single train ever would (or should).

Using Ottawa's buses for context, shouldn't there be a W-L-T-O-M-QC train?

No, absolutely not.

The way to have people ditch their cars is to make the long distance routes useful.

80% of all car trips in the United States are below 20 km and 96% are below 100%. The question whether people decide to own a car or not depends on how they plan to reach their work and groceries, not their holiday destinations…

Pick a major city along the Canadian or Ocean. Now, pick a smaller city or town within a reasonable drive to The bigger city. Try to do a weekend trip. It is not possible. Try it in the Corridor and except forgoing from the extreme ends to the extreme other end, it is very possible, and common.

Who would have possibly thought that the more people live along a rail corridor and the closer the respective population centers are to each other, the more frequent is the rail service offered and thus the more flexiblility allow the schedules offered…?

Have people leave their car in the station parking lot and take the long distance transit.

If you had even the most rudimentary level of expertise in the topics you spend hours on lecturing us, you would understand how oxymoronic the use of the term „long distance transit“ is (especially given the distances you are talking about) or how people travelling across the country for two weeks are the last people you‘d want to occupy precious car parking spaces at your local rail station…

 

[micheal_can]

I believe this was posted today. cc @TerryJohnson

VIA Rail confirms added services from London and Ottawa to Toronto

VIA Rail has announced the reinstatement of trains 82 and 83 with a start date of October 24, 2023. Two round trips between Ottawa and Toronto are also being reinstated to help meet travel demand on weekends.

www.transportaction.ca

As the Venture trains come online, hopefully Via can add all of it services that were cut along the Corridor that they can get back. These 2 are good examples of it.

 

[reaperexpress]

I believe this was posted today. cc @TerryJohnson

VIA Rail confirms added services from London and Ottawa to Toronto

VIA Rail has announced the reinstatement of trains 82 and 83 with a start date of October 24, 2023. Two round trips between Ottawa and Toronto are also being reinstated to help meet travel demand on weekends.

www.transportaction.ca

The article is dated 07 September.

Anyway I'm looking forward to tracking some of the new Ottawa express trains on Via Moving Maps, to see if they can actually achieve the scheduled travel times which are very ambitous in some places (e.g. Fallowfield to Brockville).

 

[Urban Sky]

As the Venture trains come online, hopefully Via can add all of it services that were cut along the Corridor that they can get back. These 2 are good examples of it.

Just out of interest (and this challenge is open to everyone): what percentage of train mileage scheduled pre-Covid in the Corridor do you estimate will VIA operate as of tomorrow?

The article is dated 07 September.

Anyway I'm looking forward to tracking some of the new Ottawa express trains on Via Moving Maps, to see if they can actually achieve some of the very ambitious travel times.

Revisit those trains with implausible travel times we previously identified and you should see that the departure times at some intermediary stations have been substantially modified to make them more realistic…

 

[MisterF]

In the Canadian context, given our abnormally high transit usage for developed new world countries, do you have actual evidence that there is a preference for rail over bus? If so, I'd love to see it.

On this one specific issue he has a point. Studies have shown that, all things being equal, people do prefer rail over buses. In Ottawa of course, all things are certainly not equal. The same principles apply in Canada. We're not fundamentally different from people in other countries.

Correction: Ottawa used to do buses right. Nearly the entire transitway network has now been closed for the conversion to LRT (which would be fine except that the LRT is slower than a local bus in mixed traffic).

LRT done properly doesn't have to be slower than a bus in mixed traffic. The Calgary LRT is very fast in most of the system.

 

[micheal_can]

On this one specific issue he has a point. Studies have shown that, all things being equal, people do prefer rail over buses. In Ottawa of course, all things are certainly not equal. The same principles apply in Canada. We're not fundamentally different from people in other countries.

Would Ottawa be due to the conversion and people dealing with that? Or is it due to the shutdowns of the LRT? Or is it the WFH that Covid created and has persisted there? My guess is a mix of all of these and more that we do not know.

LRT done properly doesn't have to be slower than a bus in mixed traffic. The Calgary LRT is very fast in most of the system.

LRT should be faster if it is in a reserve lane than a mixed traffic bus.

 

[Allandale25]

The article is dated 07 September.

Anyway I'm looking forward to tracking some of the new Ottawa express trains on Via Moving Maps, to see if they can actually achieve the scheduled travel times which are very ambitous in some places (e.g. Fallowfield to Brockville).

Apologies. Either I missed the date or it was hard to see.

 

[Urban Sky]

On this one specific issue he has a point. Studies have shown that, all things being equal, people do prefer rail over buses. In Ottawa of course, all things are certainly not equal. The same principles apply in Canada. We're not fundamentally different from people in other countries.

Neither you nor him seem to understand that the question is not whether a train draws more people out of their cars than a bus operating at the same speed and frequency, but whether the same taxpayer amount spent to fund the operation of a rail service draws the same number of people out of their cars than if invested in expanding Intercity bus services.

Even if we assume that a train is twice as popular as a bus, the operating cost of every train-km is approximately ten times that of a bus-km. Now assume that the bus operates with a cost-recovery of 50% and you‘ll nead each of these twice as many riders to pay 9.5 times as much for their fare to match the subsidy need of the bus:

Bus
$50 ticket price
20 passengers (assumed ridership)
$1,000 total revenues
$2,000 operating costs [$1,000/50%]
$1,000 operating subsidy

Train
Operating cost: $20,000 (i.e. 10 times that of the bus)
Desired subsidy need: $1,000 (i.e. same as bus)
Required revenues: $19,000
Assumed ridership: 40 passengers (i.e. twice that of bus)
Required average fare: $475 (i.e. 9.5 times the bus fare)

Attempting to replace a subsidized intercity bus service with an even more subsidized rail service is insane…

 

[kEiThZ]

why is there no singular train between Windsor and QC?

Because it's a terrible idea? Instead of a train from Toronto to Ottawa being 30-40 mins late, you'll end up with 2 hr delays when you create even more dependencies with a continuous route. A continuous service would only work if the entire Corridor is owned and operated by VIA. And that's not going to happen in our lifetime.

The way to have people ditch their cars is to make the long distance routes useful.

Nope. Most people have a car to get to work and to get groceries. They don't buy a car because they might need to take a trip once every 3-6 months. That's what car rentals, buses, trains and flights are for.

And you know this instinctively if you're being honest with yourself. You don't own a vehicle because you drive to Toronto every few months. You own one because you live very far from centre of town and you need a vehicle for basically everything.

Have people leave their car in the station parking lot and take the long distance transit.

What exactly is "long distance transit"?

And what percentage of the population is using this service given that StatsCan said the average commute was 24 mins and the average transit commute was 45 mins. We aren't wasting tax dollars build services catering to 0.001% of the population.