GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[rbt]

Nope........all that is planned is a few more trips on weekdays and no weekend trains. Relative to the service levels before the construction started it is 5 new return trips per weekday.

Many things will change if Metrolinx has a predictable $1.5B/year funding stream in 2015; perhaps not quickly (engineer training and the like) but eventually.

If they promised it now they'd have to talk Brampton, Kitchener, ... into paying the bill.

 

[TOareaFan]

Many things will change if Metrolinx has a predictable $1.5B/year funding stream in 2015; perhaps not quickly (engineer training and the like) but eventually.

If they promised it now they'd have to talk Brampton, Kitchener, ... into paying the bill.

Why would those municipalities pay the bill? Are residents in Oakville (to pick one) paying some special GO Transit tax to pay for their current service level?

They may be....but I have not heard that municipalities have contributed financially to GO service expansions.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Why would those municipalities pay the bill? Are residents in Oakville (to pick one) paying some special GO Transit tax to pay for their current service level?

They may be....but I have not heard that municipalities have contributed financially to GO service expansions.

Oakville is getting half hour service so no.

 

[rbt]

Why would those municipalities pay the bill? Are residents in Oakville (to pick one) paying some special GO Transit tax to pay for their current service level?

They may be....but I have not heard that municipalities have contributed financially to GO service expansions.

All municipalities contribute and those contributions are based in part on the subsidy required for their service level.

Kitchener, for example, does not currently make a contribution equal to their population size.

 

[TOareaFan]

All municipalities contribute and those contributions are based in part on the subsidy required for their service level.

Kitchener, for example, does not currently make a contribution equal to their population size.

Thanks...that is news to me....so, to pick an example, Oakville paid a portion of the cost of the new parking structure at their station? I really did not know that.

Is there anywhere you can point me to read on this funding formula. I would be very interested in how "the subsidy required for their service level" is calculated/determined.

Any link/direction would be appreciated.

 

[pnwtraveler]

The Cooksville Station current parking lot seems to be a perfect location for underground parking with development on top. Just south of the station the T. L. Kennedy School site is proposed to be developed with Condos, a community centre, local library branch, renewed high school with additional amenities, and presumably some public parking. I think that this development might take a long time to get planned and underway. In the meantime the existing rental buildings right beside the Go parking lot, enjoy very low vacancy rates. With this area intensifying it would seem a good time to go underground in the parking lot and perhaps with pay parking. Once the City Centre area is developed out there will be a huge amount of people in the immediate area of this station. The proposed LRT is also supposed to join with the station so will bring people in from south Hurontario and Square One/City Centre to this station. The last thing you want is people driving down from City Centre and parking at the GO Station rather than take the bus or future LRT. They can drive from the City Centre to the Erindale station where the above ground parking is just finishing. I also think a pedestrian bridge should be build over Hurontario to avoid the people trying to cross the road midway between lights. Perhaps from the parking lot to the new temporary parking lot. Someone is going to get killed there soon otherwise.

 

[drum118]

The Cooksville Station current parking lot seems to be a perfect location for underground parking with development on top. Just south of the station the T. L. Kennedy School site is proposed to be developed with Condos, a community centre, local library branch, renewed high school with additional amenities, and presumably some public parking. I think that this development might take a long time to get planned and underway. In the meantime the existing rental buildings right beside the Go parking lot, enjoy very low vacancy rates. With this area intensifying it would seem a good time to go underground in the parking lot and perhaps with pay parking. Once the City Centre area is developed out there will be a huge amount of people in the immediate area of this station. The proposed LRT is also supposed to join with the station so will bring people in from south Hurontario and Square One/City Centre to this station. The last thing you want is people driving down from City Centre and parking at the GO Station rather than take the bus or future LRT. They can drive from the City Centre to the Erindale station where the above ground parking is just finishing. I also think a pedestrian bridge should be build over Hurontario to avoid the people trying to cross the road midway between lights. Perhaps from the parking lot to the new temporary parking lot. Someone is going to get killed there soon otherwise.

The pedestrian bridge was supposed to be built 2 years ago and was put on hold due to expanding the station to 4 tracks. I believe it is to happen next year.

I pushed for a stop for John St for the old 202 before it hit the road as well the 103. 103 got the stop after traffic lights were installed. People will cross the road between light at their choice and you can't stop them even if this bridge is in place today.

Underground parking is a ""MUST" for most stations to help develop the mobility hub that part of the Big Move. It will take decades to build this hub if design correctly from Day One.

T.L Kennedy lands offer a great development opportune. In fact that whole block needs to be totally redevelop. As the ward Councillor has said time after time, Cooksville will be the real downtown with more residents then the hole at Sq One and I agree with that statement.

As for parking, you will always have people driving there as the ring roads and low density prevent transit from being a feeder line into the LRT as well the quality of service.

It is faster for me to take the #3 in to Islington than try to get to Cooksville. Its a 12 minute walk to Hurontario vs. a 5 minute walk to the #3 stop. 5 minute ride to John St. It takes me 10 minutes to walk to where I am going once at Union vs. 2 minutes from the subway. Therefore Cooksville is useless for me 99% of the time.

Don't forget you got #28 servicing the station. #91 offer no real service to the station. Then you have 67 that is poorly used.

There is enough room in the area to put in temporary parking while the underground parking garage is built first, with towers following later. You got 2 across the street now, with one only haft full that just open up this year.

Again, this whole area needs to be part of the station development including the plaza.

 

[DavidJamesTO]

T.L Kennedy lands offer a great development opportune. In fact that whole block needs to be totally redevelop. As the ward Councillor has said time after time, Cooksville will be the real downtown with more residents then the hole at Sq One and I agree with that statement.

Done properly there's no reason why one shouldn't be an extension of the other. Cooksville is the closest "old town" to City Centre, and the station/Kennedy redevelopment is a good opportunity to build its profile within Mississauga.

 

[rbt]

Thanks...that is news to me....so, to pick an example, Oakville paid a portion of the cost of the new parking structure at their station? I really did not know that.

The parking structure is capital, not operations.

Is there anywhere you can point me to read on this funding formula. I would be very interested in how "the subsidy required for their service level" is calculated/determined.

You won't find anything other than "Contributions due from Municipalities" line item in Metrolinx finances. You remember the big todo about Toronto kicking in $20M per year to GO transit? This is the line item it appeared under within GO.

If you look today, you will see the total contributions from all municipalities is about $2 Million in total thanks to GO increasing farebox revenue but not equally increasing system capacity. This is a result of municipalities requesting a reduction in their contributions. The province has not shown an interest in taking up the slack beyond existing contributions. Capital investment (purchasing the tracks) has also significantly decreased the requirement for operations contributions, but I have no idea how those purchases were recorded in their finances (capital purchase against future operations revenue, or not?).

Municipalities didn't make a whole lot of noise about losing their GO voting rights because their dollars put into it have been decreased to about 2% of what they used to be, and yet, those old Harris era agreements requiring municipal contributions have not been torn up as the province isn't in a position to take on a large shortfall.


For GO to make large operations service promise they need to cover the expense somehow. The province contribution to operations is static, fares could be increased faster than usual which is not real popular riders, or municipal contributions under the old Harris era agreements can be boosted again which is very unpopular with municipalities particularaly now that their voice has been removed.



GO is actually worse off than the TTC operating revenue wise. If TTC makes cuts then we know who to complain to but if GO makes cuts it's not really the provinces problem despite being entirely the provinces problem.

 

[TOareaFan]

The parking structure is capital, not operations.

Ok....perhaps I misread/misunderstood your original comment about asking Brampton and KW to pay for the increase in service....thought you were suggesting that any capital investment required to bring that about would have to be paid for by those municipalities.....guess I should have asked that question rather than assuming...sorry

You won't find anything other than "Contributions due from Municipalities" line item in Metrolinx finances. You remember the big todo about Toronto kicking in $20M per year to GO transit? This is the line item it appeared under within GO.

If you look today, you will see the total contributions from all municipalities is about $2 Million in total thanks to GO increasing farebox revenue but not equally increasing system capacity. This is a result of municipalities requesting a reduction in their contributions. The province has not shown an interest in taking up the slack beyond existing contributions. Capital investment (purchasing the tracks) has also significantly decreased the requirement for operations contributions, but I have no idea how those purchases were recorded in their finances (capital purchase against future operations revenue, or not?).

Municipalities didn't make a whole lot of noise about losing their GO voting rights because their dollars put into it have been decreased to about 2% of what they used to be, and yet, those old Harris era agreements requiring municipal contributions have not been torn up as the province isn't in a position to take on a large shortfall.


For GO to make large operations service promise they need to cover the expense somehow. The province contribution to operations is static, fares could be increased faster than usual which is not real popular riders, or municipal contributions under the old Harris era agreements can be boosted again which is very unpopular with municipalities particularaly now that their voice has been removed.

So (to make sure that I am not misunderstanding again) in total the municipalities subsidize GO's operations by $2 million a year? Spread over all of the municipalities that does not seem like much.

It would also (to go back to another comment you made on this) would interesting to see which services require the most subsidy. What I am saying is that we often hear that GO recovers, what, 85% of their operating cost from the farebox. (I think that is right +/-).......without a breakdown line by line or train by train or bus by bus it is probably reasonable to assume that all of those peak time trains that are full to standing room only (on all lines) are at least breaking even and that the service that is bringing about the need to subsidize are the less used (still valuable but less used) off peak services to some locations.....so the seasonal service to Niagara probably......or (to continue my earlier example) a train from Oakville to Union on a Tuesday night at 10:28?......so, (if I understand you correctly when you say "contributions are based in part on the subsidy required for their service level.") are the municipalities that benefit from those extra service levels paying a disproportionate chunk of that $2 million annual subsidy?

 

[muller877]

It would also (to go back to another comment you made on this) would interesting to see which services require the most subsidy. What I am saying is that we often hear that GO recovers, what, 85% of their operating cost from the farebox. (I think that is right +/-).......without a breakdown line by line or train by train or bus by bus it is probably reasonable to assume that all of those peak time trains that are full to standing room only (on all lines) are at least breaking even and that the service that is bringing about the need to subsidize are the less used (still valuable but less used) off peak services to some locations.....so the seasonal service to Niagara probably......or (to continue my earlier example) a train from Oakville to Union on a Tuesday night at 10:28?......so, (if I understand you correctly when you say "contributions are based in part on the subsidy required for their service level.") are the municipalities that benefit from those extra service levels paying a disproportionate chunk of that $2 million annual subsidy?

You assume that all the costs are variable by line. A significant portion will also be fixed. For example, the rent to CN/CP, fuel and engineers are all variable costs. But the maintenance of the owned track, maintenance of buildings & parking, heat, ticket vendors, etc are mostly fixed costs.

Having too infrequent of service (or too few customers) will lead to the fixed costs eating up all the profit. And empty trains will do the same for variable costs.

Unless someone knows the portion of fixed to variable, it is hard to determine if adding a 1/2 empty train on the Lakeshore line at night is profitable or not. But probably more profitable than adding a late night train to a line that currently does not have late night service (will have additional fixed costs that were previously not there).

Also there are of course "loss leaders". Having a late night train or frequent service may lead to more people using the service during busy times (since they know that they can catch a late train...just in case).

Given all of these uncertainties, the only easy computation for GO would be the profitability by line (with or without allocating central overhead to all lines). My guess is that the 2 Lakeshore lines (including the late night service) make a LOT of money. The rest are all losing money.

Is this fair to the customers on the Lakeshore Lines? (no) Is this one reason why their service is being upgraded first? (most likely yes)

 

[TOareaFan]

You assume that all the costs are variable by line. A significant portion will also be fixed. For example, the rent to CN/CP, fuel and engineers are all variable costs. But the maintenance of the owned track, maintenance of buildings & parking, heat, ticket vendors, etc are mostly fixed costs.

Having too infrequent of service (or too few customers) will lead to the fixed costs eating up all the profit. And empty trains will do the same for variable costs.

Unless someone knows the portion of fixed to variable, it is hard to determine if adding a 1/2 empty train on the Lakeshore line at night is profitable or not. But probably more profitable than adding a late night train to a line that currently does not have late night service (will have additional fixed costs that were previously not there).

Also there are of course "loss leaders". Having a late night train or frequent service may lead to more people using the service during busy times (since they know that they can catch a late train...just in case).

Given all of these uncertainties, the only easy computation for GO would be the profitability by line (with or without allocating central overhead to all lines). My guess is that the 2 Lakeshore lines (including the late night service) make a LOT of money. The rest are all losing money.

Is this fair to the customers on the Lakeshore Lines? (no) Is this one reason why their service is being upgraded first? (most likely yes)

I am not sure your totally right on the profitabilty of the lines.....not suggesting there is not a great demand on the Lakeshore lines...I am sure their trains are full during peak just as the other lines are....but the other lines don't have trains that are less full deducting from the cost recovery/profitability of their peak service.

Sure, they have bus service off peak...and if the answer is that (due to labour, etc) it costs more per passenger to move people by bus than by train, there is a solution to that.

....that said, if I understand your conclusion properly, the lakeshore is more profitable because it has more service, therefore it should get even more service first........so, essentially, those wishing to bring full (and by that they generally mean the same level of service the Lakeshore line currently has) are, in fact, chasing an unattainable dream as, by that measure, the Lakeshore line will always make more sense to increase service as...it has more trains and is therefore more profitable.

Of course it misses the point that at some point you reach the point that, at the margin, increasing service will not generate much more ridership. Are there more, net new, customers to be had (and cost recovery from same) by increasing Lakeshore service to 30 minutes than there is by increasing the service (to current Lakeshore levels) on any of the other lines.

 

[muller877]

Yes, it is all a big assumption. And I agree that other lines need service as well. I think there will be a tipping point for all lines that once you have enough volume they will be profitable. The question is whether there is demand along the entire line to become profitable (and whether we can afford the subsidies to these lines until they become profitable).

I disagree with the initial assumption by any government organization to exclude capex from this computation (or the amortization of the costs). Some lines pay rent (which effects their current profitability) while they have bought other tracks which increase the profitability of those line.

How GO should grow their business model is to get the Ontario Government to change the labour code to require offices downtown to have flex time (mandatory work from 10-3 and the other 3 hours a day employees have flexibility). With Presto adopted, introduce time-based fares for arrivals between 8:00 to 9:00 (and departures from 4:30 to 5:30). Use the additional funds from this fare increase to increase services that are off-peak. (similar to what the UK does)

 

[rbt]

Ok....perhaps I misread/misunderstood your original comment about asking Brampton and KW to pay for the increase in service....thought you were suggesting that any capital investment required to bring that about would have to be paid for by those municipalities.....guess I should have asked that question rather than assuming...sorry

So (to make sure that I am not misunderstanding again) in total the municipalities subsidize GO's operations by $2 million a year? Spread over all of the municipalities that does not seem like much.

2011 to 2012 report:

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/docs/pdf/presentations/BoardMtgJune212012_MX201112AnnualReport-EN.pdf

Contributions due from Province of Ontario ($96M in 2012, $21M in 2011: 20% of 2012's went to Presto)
Contributions due from Municipalities ($750,000 in 2012, $2.7M in 2011: phased out this revenue stream)
Contributions due from Government of Canada ($28M in 2012, $49M in 2011)

"due from" is tricky because it's a bill due for prior years too. For the province, it's that years contribution. For the other 2, it is mostly non-payment from previous years. Only the province is making a noticeable operating budget contribution at this time. I think the feds kick in $100K or so.


Capital contributions below:

Province of Ontario ($1.4B in 2012, $904M in 2011)
Municipalities ($30M in 2012, $29M in 2011)
Government of Canada ($10M in 2012, $24M in 2011)

Metrolinx does not provide a breakdown of the capital contribution on a per municipality basis. A large portion of the provinces contribution flows through to jobs being completed for TTC, York Region, Mississauga, etc.

The province is picking up many mega projects by itself (Eglinton LRT for example). I believe municipality capital contributions are directly mostly at rolling stock.


Metrolinx operations includes office expenses which would include some overhead for staff on capital projects.

It would also (to go back to another comment you made on this) would interesting to see which services require the most subsidy. What I am saying is that we often hear that GO recovers, what, 85% of their operating cost from the farebox. (I think that is right +/-).

78% operating cost from the farebox, which includes fare integration revenue/payments (discounted 905 bus fares) in 2011/2012.

I am also interested in per route breakdowns.

 

[nfitz]

78% operating cost from the farebox, which includes fare integration revenue/payments (discounted 905 bus fares) in 2011/2012.

78% of the GO Transit operating cost, or of the Metrolinx operating cost?