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

crs1026 said:
From the Non-Pearson GO commuter’s perspective, a service that offered a stopping train every 15 minutes has become. Service offering two stopping UPE trains and two stopping GO trains. If the GO trains are scheduled appropriately, the impact is zero, other than perhaps having to watch the boards carefully at Union so one heads for the right platform.
The Pearson to Bloor market is adversely affected. I’m not so upset that the Weston to Pearson market is affected, Weston was never a desirable stop.
The other market is the Mount Pleasant to Pearson market - people do get off GO at Weston to backtrack to Pearson.

- Paul
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The final market affected is weekend service. Since Kitchener trains will still only be hourly, Bloor and Weston have now lost 2TPH with nothing to compensate for it.
 
Bojaxs said:
Or instead of adding another stop on the UP Express, you could just ride the Eglinton Crosstown all the way to Renforth, once the Western extension is complete, and take an express Airport bus from there.
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That's like 8 years from now...
 
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T3G said:
I'm sorry, but if you're timing your flight in such a way that one missed transit connection makes you in danger of missing your flight, that's on you.
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Im speaking conceptually. Sure, one could adapt to terrible service, but you'd eliminate it as an option before going because of that risk. At the end of the day if they wait between trains is longer than taking a cab the whole way I don't honestly see the point of the service.

robmausser said:
LOL, you do realize that you can still take a train from Union to Pearson and vice versa every 15 minutes still. Just, one is express and one isn't.
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Yeah, the problem is losing service to Bloor. Probably the 2nd most important transit node in Canada.
robmausser said:
Very few people take the train to the airport for the purpose of travel from Weston or Bloor. That's why they are doing this.
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Weston yes. I don't think you're correct about Bloor. Lots of people use Bloor to get to Pearson. Not Union numbers, but this is bad news for thousands of riders.

Bojaxs said:
Toronto urbanists are repulsed at the sight of express trains flying past train stations.

"The train must stop at every station!"
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So far the express train is scheduled to save 2 minutes. Doesn't seem worth the loss of ridership. Especially when there were already only 2 stops.
 
I wonder if the change is simply a stopgap because they can’t schedule the added GO trains without some leeway from UPX. As of this moment, the signals on the fourth track from Nickle to Humberview still aren’t cur in. In theory the corridor ought to have lots of capacity. But… ML.

- Paul
 
My theory -
  • Metrolinx doesn't want to stop at Bloor AND Mount Dennis AND Weston for (1) schedule adherence (2) abandoning the train to being a pure premium commuter service vs an airport train.
  • When Mount Dennis opens the "express" services will be changed to add a stop there
  • The question is whether they think they can make it work politically to add back Bloor at that point without an outrage explosion in Weston, or whether that will wait for completion of the tunnel when they will say "look we spent all this money, we have to make use, and Bloor doesn't have a secondary direct service like Weston does" (Lawrence West bus).
 
Bojaxs said:
Or instead of adding another stop on the UP Express, you could just ride the Eglinton Crosstown all the way to Renforth, once the Western extension is complete, and take an express Airport bus from there.
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If it's not on rails all the way to the airport, I'm not going to take it. I can't stand buses, and have no faith in non-enforced, courtesy-based bus lanes. If I'm going to sit in traffic I'd rather be in my own car, coffee in hand, chilling with my podcasts.

Pearson needs a central transit rail terminal, where either the subway or Crosstown is extended to meet both the UPE and Malton Go.
 
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T3G said:
I'm sorry, but if you're timing your flight in such a way that one missed transit connection makes you in danger of missing your flight, that's on you.
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I think this misses the point of what you quoted ("At 30 minutes, if you miss a train you're in danger of missing your flight and the service becomes useless and unreliable"). For many air travel is stressful and that results in people insisting on getting to the airport 3-4+ hours early; the perception that someone could be in danger of missing their flight is more at play than the real risk, and I'd bet for many people that perceived risk will be too much to rely on 30 minute service.
 
txlseries4 said:
I think this misses the point of what you quoted ("At 30 minutes, if you miss a train you're in danger of missing your flight and the service becomes useless and unreliable"). For many air travel is stressful and that results in people insisting on getting to the airport 3-4+ hours early; the perception that someone could be in danger of missing their flight is more at play than the real risk, and I'd bet for many people that perceived risk will be too much to rely on 30 minute service.
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Don't get me wrong, I think this is an awful service change, especially considering the near 0 time savings it actually delivers.

I just don't think that the possibility of missing a flight is the key thing here. If there was no danger of the flight being missed at all, it would still be a sucky service pattern.
 
Allandale25 said:
I wonder if this is permanent or if they would go back to stopping every 15 minutes at Bloor and Weston once the Kitchener Line/Weston Sub 4th track is fully operational, including (or excluding) the 409-401 tunnel? cc @crs1026 @smallspy
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Permanent-ish.

The non-stop trains will have Mount Dennis added to their schedules once that station opens.

Dan
 
I don’t think this change was supposed to be a “time savings” type of thing, but a crowding control situation. They were probably aiming for a similar thing that the express/local trains you see on the LSW or Kitchener lines during the PM peak. They kind of do pretty well with not getting both types of trains to be too overcrowded.

Most people that are at Union and their intention is just getting to the airport will take the non stop train, while the ones who go to Weston and Bloor will obviously take the “local” train and it probably won’t be as busy as it currently is. When you get to Bloor, passengers get off and a new set of them gets on. This might be the busiest that the train gets but then at Weston, passengers get off and there won’t be a whole lot getting on, which leaves the train to not be overcrowded as they head into Pearson.

This was probably Metrolinx’s mindset when deciding to do this, and in terms of if it’s a questionable one or not we will truly know when this goes into service.
 
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