ShonTron
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- Joined
- Apr 24, 2007
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- Ward 13 - Toronto Centre
I'd like to hear anyone suggest a serious alternative.
The argument I most often hear is "Park and ride commuters should take local transit, bike, or walk instead! Let's charge a high parking fee so that fewer people drive to the GO station!" No, that's not what's going to happen; if you disincentivize parking at GO stations, most of those people will probably stop taking GO altogether and just drive downtown, which our roads simply don't have the capacity to support. I often then hear the rebuttal "who cares, let them get stuck in traffic!", but there are buses and streetcars that use the roads too, so disincentivizing GO parking will have serious negative effects on the whole region--plus, with less ridership and less fare revenue, there won't be much reason to expand and improve GO service.
Personally, for going downtown, I prefer to drive to my GO station and park there. Local transit comes very close to my home, but the bus takes a little over 10 minutes midday and about 20 minutes at peak vs 5 minutes either midday or peak by car to get to or from the station. Midday the bus comes hourly, there's no evening service and I believe no weekend service either, it doesn't connect with the GO bus schedule, and coming home in the evenings from the train I've waited anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes for the bus to even leave the GO station, which is absurd, so YRT is a rare thing for me. Cycling isn't feasible for me due to the extremely hilly terrain in the area, and the station is about a half hour walk, similarly not something I'm inclined towards 11.5/12 months of the year.
Also, I drive an Electric Vehicle, and there is at least one place downtown that offers completely free EV parking and charging in their otherwise paid parking garage, and many buildings right in the core have free charging with paid parking, so the case for me to drive downtown (plus one-person use of HOV lanes with my green plates) is much stronger than most. If they were to start charging even $1 for parking I'd most likely just drive--even now I drive a good percentage of the time since the Barrie line trains have such a limited schedule.
This argument made much more sense in the 1960s and 1970s when GO Transit was meant to attract drivers off the highways and when transit systems in most suburbs were non-existent. We've moved past the idea of building new highways in the City of Toronto or widening the existing ones, GO is now very successful at what it does and the free parking motivator is much less important.
Commuter systems in New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Boston charge for parking. The TTC Finch and Kipling lots are usually full. Why should non-drivers to GO stations subsidize those who park for free? Why should Metrolinx be tearing down a block of Downtown Brampton to build more "free parking?"