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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

EnviroTO said:
I'm not sure what he said that was incorrect.
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I don't want to be too hard on the guy, because I know how hard it is to make youtube videos and succeed, but I'll lay a few things out if you're asking.

There are a lot of things he says that, while they might be true in some parts of the GO system are not indicative of the real experience. He says the entire network is park and rides that only work at rush hour, and that its a huge, insane waste of money to have a heavy rail network that only runs a few trains per day. This is a huge mischaracterization. The majority of the network has frequent service and a minority of lines have rush hour train service. There is something like 400 daily train trips per weekday.

There is no defence for Bloomington, but, again, this is a bit of a narrow characterization of GOs expansion. There are 5 new stations planned in urban settings. I could go on but this is peeling petty.

EnviroTO said:
The GTA has more cranes than anywhere else in North America supposedly, but not a single one that I can think of is building something (garages and locations within the city of Toronto excluded) next to the GO station.
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I don't understand why stations within the city of Toronto would be excluded. There are many stations in Toronto that exist in a suburban context, and many of the are undergoing changes in their built form. They represent a huge chunk of the system. Then, in the outer suburbs, there are the aforementioned Brampton stations, Maple has cranes in the sky (though a very imperfect development that preserves parking), construction has started in Pickering (link below) and as I stated before, Oakville is 10 years in to a multi generational project to redevelop the parking lots.

Denigrating these areas as "insane" and "wastelands" without mentioning the ongoing work is, in my opinion, an error of omission on his part.

Pickering City Centre | 174m | 55s | CentreCourt | Diamond Schmitt

Agreed
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca
 
ARG1 said:

Reece has responded!
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Reece is good guy; a bit prone to boosterism........but his response here is essentially on point, and a solid rebuttal.

Its only real weakness is again some lack of specificity in places; but he exceeds the standard set by his debate opponent, which is all that's really required.
 
Why thank you! I will say, I was pretty determined to be concise with this video - even though it was 18 minutes. My original script was three times as long and I sort of painstakingly took details out! Someone mentioned on Twitter but you really do need like an hour to cover the scope!

Thanks for watching!
 
Another great video Reece and I agree with it.

Despite some of the flaws in the process, GO has a solid future. Yes there are too many parking spots but all this money on the garages may actually benefit the system ridership if the remaining surface parking lots are sold off. By doing so they have increased the parking thru these huge garages but actually decreased the amount of dead space of the surface parking which is ripe for redevelopment.

GO's future is bright and the money spent and long timetable will eventually pay off. The issue is whether the system will grow it's ridership incrementally or exponentially and that will all come down to fares and , unfortunately, that is something ML seems not to want to discuss.
 
Ward8 said:
I don't understand why stations within the city of Toronto would be excluded. There are many stations in Toronto that exist in a suburban context, and many of the are undergoing changes in their built form. They represent a huge chunk of the system.
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The old city of Toronto always had transit hubs done right with the focus on convenient bus transfers versus parking. The pre-amalgamation suburban stations for GO and the TTC came with parking lots while the old Toronto stations did not.

Post amalgamation many of Toronto's urban planning principles have applied to the old burbs. I don't really see anything happening in Toronto as a result of a Metrolinx driven change. The "SmartTrack" urban station push is coming from Toronto. Metrolinx hasn't built parking garages in Toronto but I would expect the pushback from city council to be significant if they tried.
 
EnviroTO said:
I don't know if Metrolinx or Brampton City Council can take any credit for making downtown Brampton transit oriented... it was already a downtown. Now there are some plans to make it better but then again they also leveled a bunch of houses recently south of the station and I think the plan is a new parking lot. I think that new south lot would be the first new lot in a decades at Brampton station since most of the parking around the station predates GO. If the plan is a parking lot then that is a bad sign for progress.

Mount Pleasant is actually one of the rare examples where a suburban station was surrounded by development that created a town like environment including walkable streets, and a town center like environment (retail and services). Yay! Mount Pleasant GO is one example where the creation of a GO station was coupled with a walkable environment, mixed use developments, and no parking garage that dwarfs everything near it.
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Mount Pleasant is one of those rare occasions where the infrastructure and location benefits from what's around it. If I miss a train, there's actual amenities and attractions around that actually can keep you busy, or I could just reroute myself using buses. Brampton Transit (and GO) themselves built a neat bus terminal full of life, albeit plain but still gets the job done connecting you to essentially all corners of Brampton, including *direct* connections to BCC, Shoppers World, DT Brampton, Trinity Common, Westwood Mall, and the Airport (soon I hope) to name a few. There's even a mini bus terminal (or strip I should say) on the north side of the tracks where you can connect with buses that serve the local Mount Pleasant Village, and even then there is another bus that takes literally takes you to the other end of the Brampton border. ML should build more stations like these in growing urban communities, and actually give life to a train station, and the other aspects I mentioned will come. The amazing quality of this station makes me wish they did push 15 min service to here. Brampton GO is alright, but there's just a lot more room for development thanks to the open space and connections.
 
I think another important thing to note besides GO's often car centric focus, is that GO hasn't figured out in many locations that Canadian weather exists. The vast majority of bus transfers in the TTC network allow for people to stay indoors from the station to the platform and decide to step outside when the bus is visible, or not step outside at all because the bus entered a fully covered station.

Most of GO's bus loops are exposed to the elements and if there is a shelter you need to run through the weather to get to it or the shelter isn't really protecting you from the elements much at all unless the goal was to protect you from the sun.

They have a lot to do to catch up to the setup that made TTC successful. It will be hard for Metrolinx to get rid of the car dependent model without a lot of focus on making local transit or the pedestrian experience around the station more inviting.

I would like Metrolinx to employ test passengers really, similar to how GTAA tested the opening of T1, and similar to how some retailers and hotels test their product. It would give them feedback on wayfinding, the condition and emotion of passengers as they arrive at their destination, things that annoyed then along the route, etc.

To significantly improve isn't always expensive, it really relies on being very open to hearing and understanding as much feedback as possible. Planning and executive staff that take the rainy day transit challenge, or the coldest day of the winter transit challenge. Gather insights and improve.
 
EnviroTO said:
I think another important thing to note besides GO's often car centric focus, is that GO hasn't figured out in many locations that Canadian weather exists. The vast majority of bus transfers in the TTC network allow for people to stay indoors from the station to the platform and decide to step outside when the bus is visible, or not step outside at all because the bus entered a fully covered station.

Most of GO's bus loops are exposed to the elements and if there is a shelter you need to run through the weather to get to it or the shelter isn't really protecting you from the elements much at all unless the goal was to protect you from the sun.
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Ironically, the newest station. Bloomington, has a bus loop incorporated into the parking garage and sheltered from the elements. The only problem there is that there are zero connecting buses.

Bramalea, whose parking garage just opened, will get a TTC-style bus terminal once the station is fully complete.
 
Burlington GO also has a fairly effective bus terminal in that sense, and many terminals that don't at least have heated shelters.

I've stood many times in the little heated shelter at Lincolnville GO waiting for the connection to Uxbridge, or in heated shelters at Kennedy GO waiting for the train. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. And honestly, it's better than many TTC stations which while almost always covered are often outdoors.
 
We have to remember, when talking about these huge parking garages, that GO is transforming from just a standard commuter rail system to a real suburban rapid transit one. These huge garages may seem odd when trying to entice people to switch to transit but I I think where they will become far more palatable is during off-peak periods that GO is expanding service on.

GO wants to entice riders onto the system all day, all the time and these garages can help that. This is because local transit service off peak/weekend is always much worse {or even non-existent} than during regular hours so people may want to take GO at these times but are greatly inhibited by the fact that to get to the station by bus may not be an option. It helps get rid of the "last mile" problem in off-peak periods. Not getting drenched or having to clear the snow off your car adds to GO's appeal.

It is also far better for the urban landscape to have a 300 car parking garage built on a half acre than a 200 car surface parking lot on 2 acres. Not only is this more physically appealing and less of a blight on the urban landscape but also frees up huge amounts of land around the stations for residential development or civic infrastructure like schools, libraries, community centres etc.
 
ssiguy2 said:
It is also far better for the urban landscape to have a 300 car parking garage built on a half acre than a 200 car surface parking lot on 2 acres. Not only is this more physically appealing and less of a blight on the urban landscape but also frees up huge amounts of land around the stations for residential development or civic infrastructure like schools, libraries, community centres etc.
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There is some merit in that contention..................but just to get the scale correct...........The Pickering Station parking garage alone takes up 2 acres, and total parking there is 3,600 spaces.

Oakville's garage is 1.7 acres; the surface parking is another ~17+ acres on top! Over, 2,700 spaces total.

***

I'm not opposed to providing parking at GO Stations, but it does need to be paid parking.

Garages, where it make sense, need to support development over the top.

Surface spaces should be kept to a minimum and meet sound principles of ecological design (permeable paving, bio-retention etc.)
 
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innsertnamehere said:
Burlington GO also has a fairly effective bus terminal in that sense, and many terminals that don't at least have heated shelters.

I've stood many times in the little heated shelter at Lincolnville GO waiting for the connection to Uxbridge, or in heated shelters at Kennedy GO waiting for the train. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. And honestly, it's better than many TTC stations which while almost always covered are often outdoors.
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Burlington is great if your bus uses the north curb. I had the misfortune of being on route 1 and I almost missed the station because shockingly it doesn't even pull into the station. The rest of the curbs have sun shelters... just enough shelter to say they gave you one, but not enough shelter to feel sheltered.

I find the TTC stations far more sheltered. They are usually compact, most stations you can either stay in the heated area and see the bus when it arrives before stepping out, or a the very minimum while outdoors there is no wind because it is sheltered that well. I admit there are some bus platforms that you can't escape the cold, but I don't recall ever waiting in the wind or running through a downpour at any of them.
 
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