GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Dan416]

Obviously my point was more that Burlington is 91.04% white, Oakville 81.2%, Whitby 83%, Oshawa 91.9%, etc. Places along Lakeshore like Pickering or Ajax are the exception. Politics is all about who gets what and how, and an unintended consequence of a "Lakeshore first, Barrie/Kitchener/etc second, and everyone else last" expansion policy is that communities/neighbourhoods/ridings with a high proportion of visible minorities are going to get shafted and eventually the electorate will take notice.

Mississauga is very mixed with no group dominating, yet it gets shafted any way you calculate it. So I'm afraid your theory falls apart. Try again.

 

[canarob]

Try again.

No need for that.

Most of Mississauga south of the QEW is very white, at least places like Clarkson, Lorne Park, etc., from my experience. The rest isn't dominated by one group, but I'm sure that's not always the case in individual ridings.

Anyway, my point is just that politics is played very differently in the "ethnic" 905 ridings with certain community leaders holding huge sway. I'm not personally a fan of divisive politics, but look at what Jason Kenney was able to accomplish by taking this approach in the last federal election.

 

[ShonTron]

Construction of Acton GO Station is starting. They have fenced off part of the Old Hide House Parking lot and have a trailer office and tractor out.

Thanks for the updates. I'm really glad to hear that work has started in Acton.

I seriously doubt we will see 30 minute service so soon on Lakeshore. Not for September, at least.

I also don't get the reasoning behind the "Mississauga gets screwed" rants we see here. Lakeshore comes first because
1) It already has full service
2) It has minimal interference with other rail traffic and is over 80% GO-owned
3) It serves more GTA municipalities than any other
4) There's little construction compared to Georgetown

Brampton was the city getting the screwjob with the lousy bus schedules until a few years back, once it went up better than every 3 hours, they keep adding more buses to the 31 evenings and weekends - totally putting the lie to GO's earlier claim there was no demand for direct Union Station service. Stop whining about Mississauga - it has three GO lines and one's Lakeshore.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Forget the politics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Transit#Ridership

So you canarob, TOareafan, CC are complaning that Brampton does not get more train service when there is onl 4 million riders with the most recent statistics? 25 million people road the Lakeshore, including Hamilton which is the same size as Brampton and gets the same service. I am sure Guelph-Toronto will become an all day route at some point (not Kitchener, 2 hours is too far for more then 3 trains per day.) But GO is expanding where the riders are. You should encourage more people to fill the Kitchener lines. Milton, however, is the busiest line not near lake ontario, but that is on CP.

 

[canarob]

3) It serves more GTA municipalities than any other

If you consider the Lakeshore to be a single line, but that's not really true for the Lakeshore East line. Would both the East and West have to go to a 30 minute schedule at the same time?

 

[canarob]

Forget the politics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Transit#Ridership

So you canarob, TOareafan, CC are complaning that Brampton does not get more train service when there is onl 4 million riders with the most recent statistics? 25 million people road the Lakeshore, including Hamilton which is the same size as Brampton and gets the same service. I am sure Guelph-Toronto will become an all day route at some point (not Kitchener, 2 hours is too far for more then 3 trains per day.) But GO is expanding where the riders are. You should encourage more people to fill the Kitchener lines. Milton, however, is the busiest line not near lake ontario, but that is on CP.

The Lakeshore lines grew at the slowest rate of all lines from 2001-2010 (sorry, I couldn't get comparable 2011 data), so I don't think demand is the issue.

2010 Figure (Change over 2009) | 2009 Figure (Change over 2008) | 2008 Figure | 2001 Figure (Change from 2001 to 2010)

Barrie: 3,462,500 (5.16%) | 3,292,600 (6.73%) | 3,084,900 | 1,153,500 (200.17%)
Stouffville: 3,597,900 (6.97%) | 3,363,600 (1.96%) | 3,299,100 | 1,384,500 (159.87%)
Richmond Hill: 2,330,700 (1.89%) | 2,287,500 (0.81%) | 2,269,200 | 1,774,500 (31.34%)
Georgetown: 4,634,200 (6.79%) | 4,339,700 (0.55%) | 4,315,800 | 3,030,000 (52.94%)
Milton: 7,348,200 (7.67%) | 6,824,900 (1.75%) | 6,707,600 | 4,766,500 (54.16%)
Lakeshore East: 11,818,800 (1.41%) | 11,654,800 (-3.20%) | 12,040,200 | 10,428,500 (13.33%)
Lakeshore West: 14,849,600 (1.96%) | 14,564,000 (-1.37%) | 14,766,700 | 12,468,500 (19.10%)

 

[TOareaFan]

Forget the politics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Transit#Ridership

So you canarob, TOareafan, CC are complaning that Brampton does not get more train service when there is onl 4 million riders with the most recent statistics? 25 million people road the Lakeshore, including Hamilton which is the same size as Brampton and gets the same service. I am sure Guelph-Toronto will become an all day route at some point (not Kitchener, 2 hours is too far for more then 3 trains per day.) But GO is expanding where the riders are. You should encourage more people to fill the Kitchener lines. Milton, however, is the busiest line not near lake ontario, but that is on CP.

I get your point.....but don't you think there is some relationship between the number of train trips and the number of riders? Is it not possible that the 25 million riders on Lakeshore is a result of having all day 7day service and the number of riders on the Kitchener line is, equally, negatively influenced by the lack of trains? Or do you have inside knowledge on why a line with such high populations (I believe "big move" identified it as the second highest density transit line intheir region}) would have so many people shunning transit?

If there is no relationship between number and frequency of trains, tell me what the value of doubling the number and frequency of the off peak service on Lakeshore is?

If there is no demand for service on the Kitchener line, why spend a billion increasing capacity?

As for Hamilton...yes it has a similar population to that of Brampton.....but is significantly farther from Union.

To be clear, I am not opposed to increased service on all lines. I just think that with so many customers (and potential customers) on the non-Lakeshore lines so severely underserved increasing frequency on off-peak service on those two lines to every 30 minutes should be well down the priority list when compared to adding any off peak service on the other lines. Partly out of "fairness" but, mostly, because the marginal increase in ridership (read: cost recovery) will be greater on the other lines. 30 minute service is likely going to see very small increases in ridership and will just spread people over more trains (not a bad long term goal....just not one that should be prioritzed).

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I get your point.....but don't you think there is some relationship between the number of train trips and the number of riders? Is it not possible that the 25 million riders on Lakeshore is a result of having all day 7day service and the number of riders on the Kitchener line is, equally, negatively influenced by the lack of trains? Or do you have inside knowledge on why a line with such high populations (I believe "big move" identified it as the second highest density transit line intheir region}) would have so many people shunning transit?

If there is no relationship between number and frequency of trains, tell me what the value of doubling the number and frequency of the off peak service on Lakeshore is?

If there is no demand for service on the Kitchener line, why spend a billion increasing capacity?

Possibly. Or the fact all these lines came in within 10(?) years of each other, and the numbers where not there until recently. Now it is there but GO is not ready, I guess. Like I said, the green line will get all day service soon. It is probably due to lack of conductors more than anything(yes, this is inside info) plus track construction. There is a relationship between frequency, but on the weekends, it is one hour, so in some cases it is a little easier to drive.

 

[TOareaFan]

Possibly. Or the fact all these lines came in within 10(?) years of each other, and the numbers where not there until recently.

Which numbers? Brampton's population was 1/4 million in 92....service commenced on the line in 1974.

Now it is there but GO is not ready, I guess. Like I said, the green line will get all day service soon.

When is "soon"? The quoted part in my earlier post (3208) was a direct quote from an April 2012 email I received from GO transit indicating they had no plans to provide all day, two way service once the construction was complete (2015).....so not only are they not recognizing the need and potential they are spending a lot of money building capacity which they have not plans to use.

It is probably due to lack of conductors more than anything(yes, this is inside info) plus track construction. There is a relationship between frequency, but on the weekends, it is one hour, so in some cases it is a little easier to drive.

I do not pretend to be an expert on running a railway. I do think though, since we know when the construction is scheduled to be completed and we know that the date for that is 3 years away they could plan on having conductors trained that far in advance if they had a will/desire to provide the full service. As stated, they sent me an email in April of this year indicating they had no such plans.

 

[ShonTron]

Well, I am happy to say that GO Transit responded back to me very openly and positively about my problems Saturday.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Which numbers? Brampton's population was 1/4 million in 92....service commenced on the line in 1974.

I mean when train service started back in the 1970's. Maybe GO felt the ridership was not enough.

When is "soon"? The quoted part in my earlier post (3208) was a direct quote from an April 2012 email I received from GO transit indicating they had no plans to provide all day, two way service once the construction was complete (2015).....so not only are they not recognizing the need and potential they are spending a lot of money building capacity which they have not plans to use.

These things change for year to year, that's all I can say.

I do not pretend to be an expert on running a railway. I do think though, since we know when the construction is scheduled to be completed and we know that the date for that is 3 years away they could plan on having conductors trained that far in advance if they had a will/desire to provide the full service. As stated, they sent me an email in April of this year indicating they had no such plans.

Right now, they want to achive 1/2 hour service on lakeshore and even that's a problem due to lack of engineers. It's take about 2 years(? smallspy help me out?) to train an engineer.

 

[TOareaFan]

Right now, they want to achive 1/2 hour service on lakeshore and even that's a problem due to lack of engineers. It's take about 2 years(? smallspy help me out?) to train an engineer.

I get that you seem to be from the Oakville area and are happy and supportive of this 30 minute move but the part of your post I have quoted shows why some of us on the "other" lines are a bit bitter about this new service level.

It says to us "there is a shortage of crews and we would rather use the few we have to provide 30 minute off peak service on Lakeshore than ANY off peak service on ANY other line. Wait in line, buddy, "soon" will come "soon enough"...thanks for contributing to the Oakville to Whitby subway fund".

As for the 2 year training period...again, it goes to my point. We now know that, in the case of the Kitchener line it is 3 years from construction completion (assuming schedule is met). So, if the will to implement all day service was there, there is sufficient time to not have crews be an issue preventing all day 7 day service. As they have communicated to me, however, there is no will to implement that service....so it is not crews (in the case of this line) it is a lack of desire to implement the service.

BTW....it is an interestingly funny exercise to take a look at the very first posting to this thread....in which a frequent and knowledgable poster announced all day service on one of the lines (Newmarket) would be in place soon....the definition of "soon" then was, apparantly 2008.

 

[TOareaFan]

Almost 3 actually.
First there's conductor training, then you need 2 years on the job as a conductor and finally throttle training which is 6 months min. But there's a lot of people who have there 2 years. Just can't train them all because their position needs to be replaced by CSA's moving up to be conductors. But they are only allowed to hire X amount of new CSA's at a time to replace the CSA's moving up. In the mean time at all level's there's XX amount of people off. Basically its an operational tug of war.

The tug of war, though, becomes irrelevant (to some) when "there has never been any plans to introduce all-day, two-way service on the Kitchener line".

 

[TOareaFan]

I mean when train service started back in the 1970's. Maybe GO felt the ridership was not enough.

Just out of curiosity....does anyone know what the ridership level was on Lakeshore (east or west or combined) when the decision was made to introduce all day 7 day service?

 

[canarob]

GO struggles to fill weekend trains on Barrie line

The GO Transit forecast was for 250 riders per train on weekends, but the trips are averaging around 50, Newmarket Mayor Tony Van Bynen said.

Well, this is certainly disappointing. I bet Stouffville buses carry more on the weekend, so if this "experiment" does end up being a failure, I hope it doesn't mean that they won't try it on other lines.