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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

David Brake said:
There's a story up about this now... http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2016/06/big-boost-kitchener-waterloo-brampton-go-transit-service
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The GO RER roadmap calls for:
  • 30-minute peak-period service from Kitchener to Union in the morning and from Union to Kitchener in the afternoon
  • 15-minute, two-way, all-day electrified service between Bramalea and Union, seven days a week
  • 15-minute service from Mount Pleasant to Union in the morning rush hour and from Union to Mount Pleasant in the afternoon rush hour from Monday to Friday
  • Express service on some morning trips from Kitchener between Bramalea and Union Station, and some afternoon trips between Union Station and Bramalea
Click to expand...

I'm hoping today's announcement will rewrite that list. RER has not specified two-direction service, but Del Duca was quoted by the CBC as saying it's coming as well.

Sure hope there will be a solid project timetable put forward

- Paul
 
innsertnamehere said:
407 won't be free flowing forever, though I admit it actually getting bad is a while off. The highway normally gets widened whenever it starts to congest.. but many portions of the highway are now at maximum width. Once those start to congest, they congest for good.
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407 just raises its tolls whenever it starts to get congested, so there is never going to be traffic congestion on the 407 as long as it remains a privately operated toll road. 407 tolls are outrageous and get even more so every year. The issue is whether the tolls get so high that it is cheaper for Metrolinx to build a bus only road than pay the tolls. My guess though is that 407 tolls are not that large a percentage of GO bus operating costs. It is much easier for Metrolinx to afford 407 tolls than for car drivers. Taking the 407 GO buses is much cheaper than driving on the 407.
 
I'm very dubious about the new express bus from Kitchener to Bramalea. To me, it's a backhanded admission that the 401 is congested east of Trafalgar so badly that 'express' service into Toronto isn't viable any more.

No one wants to be dumped at Bramalea to take a local train for another hour into Union.
If the idea is to connect with the Go Bus network, I would have thought that Square One would be a more effective transfer hub to connect to - Bramalea is a bit of a backwater hub for GO. But even that requires hitting the brake light zone of the 401. (The next 401 widening won't change that, it will just move the brake light zone a little further west)

What I read into this is that QP/ML have left improvements to the KW rail line for so long, and only now realise how much is ahead of them to get the job done, that they are grasping at straws. Considering that Georgetown South (and Georgetown North, which never happened) were promised to fix all this, it's not a success story.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
I'm very dubious about the new express bus from Kitchener to Bramalea. To me, it's a backhanded admission that the 401 is congested east of Trafalgar so badly that 'express' service into Toronto isn't viable any more.

No one wants to be dumped at Bramalea to take a local train for another hour into Union.
If the idea is to connect with the Go Bus network, I would have thought that Square One would be a more effective transfer hub to connect to - Bramalea is a bit of a backwater hub for GO. But even that requires hitting the brake light zone of the 401. (The next 401 widening won't change that, it will just move the brake light zone a little further west)

What I read into this is that QP/ML have left improvements to the KW rail line for so long, and only now realise how much is ahead of them to get the job done, that they are grasping at straws. Considering that Georgetown South (and Georgetown North, which never happened) were promised to fix all this, it's not a success story.

- Paul
Click to expand...

GO bus route 25 (Waterloo-Square One) is so popular that GO can easily justify another bus route to Bramalea. There are large numbers of extra buses on route 25 on Friday. I'm guessing that this means that all day train service to Bramalea will finally start in the fall, which would be a big improvement.

GO Transit is never going to run express bus service from Waterloo to Toronto because that would directly compete with Greyhound. The long term plan is to run all day trains from Kitchener to Toronto. Clearly this is a temporary solution. Express buses to Toronto are awful when there are road closures or during rush hour.
 
Just think how faster it would be if the buses didn't go to Bramalea, but to Milton for these express buses. Unless you have service every 15 minutes out of Bramalea using short train, Express Service is not Express.

Time QP/ML get off the pot and build the 4 tracks by 2020-22 that was part of Wynne 2014 Transit platform.
 
andrewpmk said:
GO bus route 25 (Waterloo-Square One) is so popular that GO can easily justify another bus route to Bramalea. There are large numbers of extra buses on route 25 on Friday.
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That's encouraging. The caveat is - a once-a-week peak (which I'm assuming is largely students coming home for the weekend) isn't a viable basis for a corridor service.

I'm guessing that this means that all day train service to Bramalea will finally start in the fall, which would be a big improvement.
Click to expand...

I'm hearing it won't happen until next April.... which is insane, IMHO. Why did this take so long? I don't buy equipment shortage, we are talking about late day and weekend service where trains are sitting idle.

BTW, I did some fantasy pencil noodling and found that there is currently enough track capacity (in theory) to add two daytime GO round trips to Kitchener and one evening trip without creating any conflicts to the existing schedule. (I'm ignoring the GEXR freight, however)

DP Toronto 0703, Ar Kit 0910 DP Kit 1249 Ar Toronto 1440 (run express inbound from Bramalea to avoid conflict with the hourly)
DP Toronto 1350, Ar Kit 1557 DP Kit 1649 Ar Toronto 1852
I would turn back one of the outbound Kitchener trains after the evening rush hour, come back into Toronto in time for a 23:00 departure back to Kitchener.

I know, CN would have to agree....but....that's not putting a huge hole in their capacity. Just saying.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
I'm very dubious about the new express bus from Kitchener to Bramalea. To me, it's a backhanded admission that the 401 is congested east of Trafalgar so badly that 'express' service into Toronto isn't viable any more.

No one wants to be dumped at Bramalea to take a local train for another hour into Union.
Click to expand...

Would it be better if those trains from Bramalea could cut their travel time to between 26 and 38 minutes?....oh, wait they already do.
 
When commuting from Guelph to Toronto for the last five years, the 29 bus to Square One was almost always fast and on-time, it was in effect, an express once it hit the 401, but the wait at Square One and then the convoluted route and time for the 21H bus to Union, and then the backtracking in Toronto to the west end was a *huge* disincentive.

My solution was to take Mi-Way Express from Cooksville station to Port Credit, and then the Lakeshore line to where I needed. (I had to buy a paper ticket on my Presto Card to do this, or be charged as two separate trips. The 85c co-fare for Mi-Way I accept as the cost of the much faster journey time)

With the mid-day service to Bramalea, the converse is true. The 33 bus from Guelph to Bramalea is a milk run, takes forever, but the train to Union (or Bloor West, where I usually get off) is very convenient.

K/W lends itself to express buses being far better accessed by controlled access highways. That being said, the now defunct 39 express that ran one run from Guelph to Bramalea in the morning, and one run back in the evening, *exactly matched* the journey time of the train from Bramalea to Guelph. It's a shame it was so severely underused. There was little choice but to cancel it. What little carriage there was is now handled by the 48 bus, albeit it terminates at Univ of Guelph, not Guelph Central.
 
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Bramalea isn't a great place for a transit hub, but it is a transit hub. Bramalea at least has connections to buses to/from York University, and I bet the Route 30-Route 45/46 will be, by far, the fastest way to get between York U and WLU/UW without a car.
 
I'd sooner spend 35 minutes on a train from Bramalea, rather than 60 minutes on a bus to Union.

And if I'm heading home, rather than back to the office, I can get off at Dundas West, jump on the subway to Woodbine, and be home even quicker!
 
Weekend service is coming to Brampton. We just don't know yet if it will be west of Bramalea (unless I missed something). Some here have said it will start in April 2017, which is one month outside Budget 2016's promise of fiscal 2016-2017. See here.

denfromoakvillemilton said:
I wish they said all day service, including weekends to mount pleasant instead of Bramalea.
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Is the weekend summer service coming back to Barrie again this year?

I don't understand why they don't just make this a permanent thing... apparently the trains are used by faeries and the tracks are covered with Unicorn poop during the rest of the year.
 
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