GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Dan416]

I highly doubt it to be true. Mississauga's stations in Port Credit and Clarkson are in developed, stable, not really growing communities, whereas stations on the Milton line are in fast-growing communities. You need only look at the ward map or riding map to see this.

That's only for Mississauga, but I suspect there's other parts of the Lakeshore line that haven't substantially grown in years either.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Oakville, Burlington, Whitby?? Hamilton? Lakeshore is bigger end to end and the ridership reflects that. What about the electrification of the KW line, a waste of money but no one seems to complain about that.

 

[CDL.TO]

Total number of people along the line is a questionable metric as it says that all Lakeshore improvements are justified, ad infinitum. How about the total population along each line divided by the number of train trips per day?

 

[TOareaFan]

Oakville, Burlington, Whitby?? Hamilton? Lakeshore is bigger end to end and the ridership reflects that. What about the electrification of the KW line, a waste of money but no one seems to complain about that.

The electrification of KW is interesting. I think all along people who follow this stuff believe the future (when money is available) for GO is to electrify all the lines and, I believe, there had been general consensus that the order should be 1) Lakeshore East or West 2) Lakeshore - whichever did not happen first 3) Milton or KW 4) Milton or KW whichever did not happen at #3 ...then the others. The actions of the the CTC seem to have forced the hand and made them announce the KW electrification first (although I think that is more of a PR move than anything and won't happen in that order).

Comparing the size of population around lines can lead to a silly discussion sometimes and things like re-combining the Lakeshore E and W lines to "win" the battle. If we "re-split" and focus on, say, Lakeshore West......

The municipalities that are uniquely served by this line are Oakville Burlington and Hamilton......combined 2011 census populations of 878,248. Using my favourite line (KW) the uniquely served municipalities (Brampton, Georgetown, Guelph, K-W) have combined populations of 1,003,682.

Then you are left debating/wondering what parts of the populations of Toronto and Mississauga to include in each's "catchment" area. That sort of difficulty is why the people who get paid to plan these things rely more often on density (combined population/residential and commercial I think) than raw population numbers and I believe one of Metrolinx' own reports identified the then GTown line as the transit corridor with the second highest density in the region (2nd to the B-D subway I believe).

It is all difficult to figure out but I doubt you end up at a conclusion to support one line "deserving" only rush hour one way service 5 days a week while the other's population warrants 7 day a week two way 30 minute service which is further augmented at rush hours.

There may be other reasons to have that disparity of service that are not clear to me but your statement that it is warranted because "there are simply more people along that line" is not likely supportable.

 

[Markster]

Oakville, Burlington, Whitby?? Hamilton? Lakeshore is bigger end to end and the ridership reflects that. What about the electrification of the KW line, a waste of money but no one seems to complain about that.

I feel this post needs to be brought up for this debate.

 

[TOareaFan]

Total number of people along the line is a questionable metric as it says that all Lakeshore improvements are justified, ad infinitum. How about the total population along each line divided by the number of train trips per day?

Not sure the population figures need to be divided by the number of train trips....not sure what that shows. However, a frequent answer to "why is the service so much greater on Lakeshore and why does it need expanded" is people trotting out the GO ridership figures which show (far) more people on those Lakeshore trains than any other line.

(assuming I have uploaded that pic properly) it would be interesting to see if anyone has ever done a "per trip" calculation on those numbers for each line and, taken even further, a "per car" calculation as some lines are still generating their numbers with fewer trips by 10 car trains.

 

[CDL.TO]

Not sure the population figures need to be divided by the number of train trips....not sure what that shows. However, a frequent answer to "why is the service so much greater on Lakeshore and why does it need expanded" is people trotting out the GO ridership figures which show (far) more people on those Lakeshore trains than any other line.

It's measuring the level of service for population. You'd probably discover that the Kitchener line has (pulling numbers out of the air), one train trip per 100,000 people while the Lakeshore line has one train trip per 40,000 people. As such, the Kitchener line is relatively underserved.

Ridership is higher on Lakeshore, sure, but how much of that is because per-person demand is higher and how much of that is because service on the Lakeshore is better so people are more likely to use it?

 

[nfitz]

Ridership is higher on Lakeshore, sure, but how much of that is because per-person demand is higher and how much of that is because service on the Lakeshore is better so people are more likely to use it?

And how much of it is because people along the Lakeshore line are simply more likely to use transit. Some have moved to where they live explicitly to use GO, and they've had 45 years to do so on Lakeshore East, and for well over a century on Lakeshore West.

Compare for example the use of weekend trains on the Lakeshore line, where it can be difficult to find a seat on some trips, even though the service is hourly, compared to the Barrie line this summer, where the usage was so low, that the trial weekend service was ended.

That being said, I'm sure there'd be demand now for hourly off-peak service on the Milton and Georgetown lines. However neither is an option at the moment, because of the CP ownership and lack of track on the Milton line, and the heavy construction underway on the Georgetown line.

 

[rbt]

Ridership is higher on Lakeshore, sure, but how much of that is because per-person demand is higher and how much of that is because service on the Lakeshore is better so people are more likely to use it?

Determining where priority is relatively straight forward. Which line is currently full (most seats taken, some standees)? Add an additional run adjacent to that time slot.

If there is a restriction which prevents adding a time slot, then 1) can riders be diverted to a different line? If not then 2) spend the money to fix the corridor to add the time slot (extra track, electrification, etc.).

Add in an adjustment for benefit ($1,000,000 requires a bigger ridership bump than $200,000 would); and you get your priority list.


I buy electrification of Lake Shore as top priority IF it includes a new corridor independent of Union Station (underground tunnel). This would allow every other line to have ~4 additional rush-hour trains too.

I think a Milton fix would take priority based on actual train ridership (riders per car).


None of GO's bus routes warrant a conversion to rail. None are close to the 3 minute frequency mark.

 

[jamincan]

Using the GO Electrification report from 2010, the ridership per train for one year is:

Lakeshore West: 234392
Lakeshore East: 191114
Milton: 479114
Georgetown: 331985
Barrie: 385613
Richmond Hill: 252133
Stouffville: 329910

The major caveat is that the number of trains per line listed by the report is from 2010, while the ridership figures are from 2008. Does anyone have more recent numbers?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The electrification of KW is interesting. I think all along people who follow this stuff believe the future (when money is available) for GO is to electrify all the lines and, I believe, there had been general consensus that the order should be 1) Lakeshore East or West 2) Lakeshore - whichever did not happen first 3) Milton or KW 4) Milton or KW whichever did not happen at #3 ...then the others. The actions of the the CTC seem to have forced the hand and made them announce the KW electrification first (although I think that is more of a PR move than anything and won't happen in that order).

Comparing the size of population around lines can lead to a silly discussion sometimes and things like re-combining the Lakeshore E and W lines to "win" the battle. If we "re-split" and focus on, say, Lakeshore West......

The municipalities that are uniquely served by this line are Oakville Burlington and Hamilton......combined 2011 census populations of 878,248. Using my favourite line (KW) the uniquely served municipalities (Brampton, Georgetown, Guelph, K-W) have combined populations of 1,003,682.

Then you are left debating/wondering what parts of the populations of Toronto and Mississauga to include in each's "catchment" area. That sort of difficulty is why the people who get paid to plan these things rely more often on density (combined population/residential and commercial I think) than raw population numbers and I believe one of Metrolinx' own reports identified the then GTown line as the transit corridor with the second highest density in the region (2nd to the B-D subway I believe).

It is all difficult to figure out but I doubt you end up at a conclusion to support one line "deserving" only rush hour one way service 5 days a week while the other's population warrants 7 day a week two way 30 minute service which is further augmented at rush hours.

There may be other reasons to have that disparity of service that are not clear to me but your statement that it is warranted because "there are simply more people along that line" is not likely supportable.

The Lakeshore line is one line. A through line from Hamilton to Oshawa. You can't just change the numbers around to suit you. The thing is, Lakeshore won't get more express on rush hours, and it does not deserve it. Milton, Kitchener and Barrie need more express trains. The peak hour trips on the other lines are more important then rush hour on Lakeshore. This is off peak trips. Are the buses full during off peak hours? Probably not, but then again I just rode a half empty train from union to bronte so I guess GO wants to say there is more people along the entire lakeshore from oshawa to hamilton (which there is) so I guess we just wait. For the record I support more service, just that for you to say the delay is illegitimate is unfair, considering the most important factor is CP.

 

[DKsan]

In terms of KW itself, there are many employers, etc, who while want more service, want something different: reverse service.

As in, maybe two trains from the GTA pulling into KW in the morning, and two leave in the evening.

Communitech, a group that represents Waterloo’s tech sector, estimates that 12,000 to 15,000 people commute into Waterloo from the Greater Toronto Area every day – double the rate clocked in 2006. “Our best estimate is that there are more people coming in to Waterloo Region from the GTA than the other way around,” says chief executive officer Iain Klugman, who notes that there are currently about 1,200 unfilled positions in the region. As Waterloo Region chair Ken Seiling points out, some local firms have taken to running private shuttle buses down to the GTA to collect employees each morning.

Relevant article

 

[canarob]

The Lakeshore line is one line. A through line from Hamilton to Oshawa. You can't just change the numbers around to suit you.

I don't see why you can't separate Lakeshore East from Lakeshore West? If enough grade separations and passing track were completed, a train could head from Hamilton to Stouffville just as easily as from Hamilton to Oshawa, and the population along either of those routes would be comparable.

 

[nfitz]

I don't see why you can't separate Lakeshore East from Lakeshore West? If enough grade separations and passing track were completed, a train could head from Hamilton to Stouffville just as easily as from Hamilton to Oshawa, and the population along either of those routes would be comparable.

I don't think you'd need any new track or separations. The tracks the Lakeshore West train come in from are the natural ones to go to Stouffville anyways. And there is the occasional Stouffville train that starts at Exhibition station.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

And how much of it is because people along the Lakeshore line are simply more likely to use transit. Some have moved to where they live explicitly to use GO, and they've had 45 years to do so on Lakeshore East, and for well over a century on Lakeshore West.

Compare for example the use of weekend trains on the Lakeshore line, where it can be difficult to find a seat on some trips, even though the service is hourly, compared to the Barrie line this summer, where the usage was so low, that the trial weekend service was ended.

That being said, I'm sure there'd be demand now for hourly off-peak service on the Milton and Georgetown lines. However neither is an option at the moment, because of the CP ownership and lack of track on the Milton line, and the heavy construction underway on the Georgetown line.

Unfair comparison. There really is nothing between Barrie and Toronto other than a nearly 2 hr train ride. Lakeshore OTOH collects passengers at nearly every station stop and a full run from Hamilton can't be anywhere near the 2 hrs that it is from Barrie.

Looking at it from another perspective, leaving from Allendale the Barrie line serves only 9 station stops. Many of which are located in fairly rural suburban areas (one in fact, York, is basically in the middle of nowhere) leaving little ridership potential. Lakeshore west coming from Hamilton serves 10 stations most of which are located in built up residential areas. The Barrie line is not suited (at least for service from Barrie) for anything more than hourly all day service.