GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Northern Light]

The more I think about it, the more its like they were like "hey we're going to cut huge chunks of train service on Barrie and Stouffville, but here's a list of massive changes we'll make to other parts of the region that has nothing to do with the area that will severely affect you to compensate for this circumstance". Its still nice to see these changes be mostly positive, even if its mostly on the west end of the GTA that will see a bigger benefit to all this however. But then we have to be reminded that this is Metrolinx and with every win they have, there most always has to be a compromise.

My first thought on the reductions is that if these were to happen in order to advance construction speed on improvements, they ought to have been done at the height of the pandemic for six weeks or w/e and then finished (at least to the point of permitting substantial improvements in service thereafter.

***

My second thought if that if these reductions are to serve advancing construction Metrolinx ought to be explicit about that and identify:

1) What improvement will be achieved as a result of this inconvenience?

2) When will that improvement begin?

3) They really ought to keep that inconvenience as short as possible and again be clear on exactly why its needed (ie. to achieve 'x' km of new track, or a new tie-in or 2 new signal gantries or new platform at 'y' station etc.

Delivering the reductions in the way that they have seems like a sloppy after thought that disregards the difficulty they are imposing on many riders.

 

[Bordercollie]

My first thought on the reductions is that if these were to happen in order to advance construction speed on improvements, they ought to have been done at the height of the pandemic for six weeks or w/e and then finished (at least the point of permitting substantial improvements in service thereafter.

***

My second thought if that if these reductions are to serve advancing construction Metrolinx ought to be explicit about that and identify:

1) What improvement will be achieved as a result of this inconvenience?

2) When will that improvement begin?

3) They really ought to keep that inconvenience as short as possible and again be clear on exactly why its needed (ie. to achieve 'x' km of new track, or a new tie-in or 2 new signal gantries or new platform at 'y' station etc.

Delivering the reductions in the way that they have seems like a sloppy after thought that disregards the difficulty they are imposing on many riders.

For the Stouffville corridor a lot of the track has been laid for years. They could have opened it in sections but they never did. The section from Kennedy to Steeles could have been opened a long time ago.

 

[awaterwell]

Look what GO did to Route 25:

View attachment 463900

This really bothers me. If GO really wanted to speed up Route 25, they should have cut the Sportsworld and Aberfoyle stops, not the stops within Kitchener itself.

Unless the 17 starts running on weekends, the Aberfoyle stop is still needed to connect K-W and Guelph. The stops at College and Queen usually had a fair number of people waiting, it's too bad they couldn't have kept at least one.

 

[reaperexpress]

The kitchener - Hamilton bus is great, but damn is it slow. Over 2 hours for Hamilton to Kitchener. If heading from Hamilton Centre you'd be better off taking Burlington Transit and catching the bus at Aldershot. Similarly it may be faster for some trips to transfer at Aberfoyle to the 25 if going to Waterloo..

edit: example:

6:50am departure from waterloo gets you to Hamilton Centre at 9:20. If you take the 7:10 Route 25 departure instead, you can connect to the same bus in Aberfoyle. Then get off at Aldershot at 8:43 and connect to the 8:51 train to West Harbour, arriving at 9:05. Comparatively, the 17 bus would arrive downtown at 9:20.

That would make the trip a total of 35 minutes faster than just sitting on the bus the whole time.

Agreed - it's fantastic that they're finally adding this route, but the brutal travel times will be a challenge for generating ridership.

On the Kitchener end the bus is indeed slower than the 25, but it does take the fastest route from Waterloo to Guelph, and from Guelph to Highway 6. The route will be very valuable for Kitchener-Guelph trips and Guelph-Hamilton trips, even if it fails to attract many Kitchener-Hamilton trips.

The real issue is on the Hamilton end, where it tries to do too many things at once:

This is not three branches of a route, this is a single bus which does a solid half hour of deviations before going to Hamilton Centre.

Rather than serving 3 destinations poorly, we ought to serve one or two destinations well. Especially since there is already regular bus service from McMaster to Aldershot, McMaster to Hamilton Centre, and Aldershot to Hamilton Centre.

I would cut Aldershot off the route, saving 15 minutes per direction (half hour round trip) for people heading to McMaster of Hamilton Centre. People heading from Kitchener, Guelph or Aberfoyle to the GTA can just as easily take the buses via Highway 7 or Highway 401. The more valuable connection on this end is to the City of Hamilton itself, as well as GO Route 18K from Hamilton Centre to St Catharines and Route 15 from McMaster to Brantford.

 

[anb]

I’m a little bit disappointed that they are discontinuing the 81 Beaverton-Port Perry-Whitby bus but at the same time it does see low ridership

It got discontinued because DRT already has pretty much took over service to those points now, except for Beaverton. 88A also got discontinued for a similar reason as well.

 

[T3G]

WTF were they smoking with the 21 changes?! So someone who wants to travel from Milton to Meadowvale can... go all the way down to the lake and then back up???? Or are these bozos going to institute all day service to Milton on the 27???

What a shockingly terrible organization. Get these fucking people away from our transit projects.

 

[jys]

WTF were they smoking with the 21 changes?! So someone who wants to travel from Milton to Meadowvale can... go all the way down to the lake and then back up???? Or are these bozos going to institute all day service to Milton on the 27???

What a shockingly terrible organization. Get these fucking people away from our transit projects.

To be fair, there is Milton Transit's new Steeles bus. https://www.milton.ca/en/living-in-milton/route_21_steeles.aspx
Although it doesn't run on Sundays. There is also 25/29 to Erin Mills and then Square One from Regional Road 25 @ 401, which can be accessed via Milton Transit on-demand (also no Sunday service).

 

[Reecemartin]

That's what I thought the last several times trains have been cancelled.

The fact that the massive service cuts on Barrie and Stouffville were only announced with 2 weeks notice is shocking. This isn't a few trains here and there or a pandemic lockdown, it's a return to the 2018 days (on Stouffville at least) of rush hour only service. It's a cut of 20 train trips per weekday and 60 trips per weekend on Stouffville alone. And the only justification they give normal riders (not UT followers) is a vague "construction". This flies in the face of the bragging ML News does about carefully scheduling track work to minimize disruptions. I guess it's not a disruption if they just pull the service? Finally, for a timeline all we get is "temporarily". How are people suppose to plan their lives and trips? This is transparency and accountability at its worst. Despite the politics of ML with various projects, they've given me reason to remain hopeful because of the tangible benefits that have gradually come to me on the Stouffville line. This is a gut punch and vindicates all the hatred towards ML.

I concur with @Northern Light that these could have been done better and should be done more quickly but, it's pretty clear the rationale behind it - Stouffville new track and platforms should be able to be cut in and then you have double track except for the West Highland Creek crossing and south of Kennedy. That seems like enough that when service is restored they should be able to through run all services between Kitchener and Stouffville, and potentially also start offering counterpeak and all day 30 minute service - which would be huge.

The other nice thing is hopefully as we get more track disruptions like this will be more like a weekend of hourly service as opposed to no service at all.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

I concur with @Northern Light that these could have been done better and should be done more quickly but, it's pretty clear the rationale behind it - Stouffville new track and platforms should be able to be cut in and then you have double track except for the West Highland Creek crossing and south of Kennedy. That seems like enough that when service is restored they should be able to through run all services between Kitchener and Stouffville, and potentially also start offering counterpeak and all day 30 minute service - which would be huge.

The other nice thing is hopefully as we get more track disruptions like this will be more like a weekend of hourly service as opposed to no service at all.

If the upgrades to the Stouffville Line indeed allow 30 min service, it would be great to launch that alongside the rumoured 30 min Bramalea service on the Kitchener Line.

 

[11th]

Relocation of Oriole GO Station Offers New Connections at The Residences at Central Park | UrbanToronto

Delivering a project that enjoys convenient connections to the rest of the City was paramount to Amexon's approach developing The Residences at Central Park community. With the planned relocation of Oriole GO Station, the community will benefit further from the existing transit infrastructure.

urbantoronto.ca

So will they need to widen the bridge? The bridge is built for two tracks and if they build the platform on the current ROW there will be no space for a second track.

I believe the platform will be on a separate structure.

Source: Supporting Documentation > Architectural Plans, page 31

http://app.toronto.ca/AIC/index.do?folderRsn=WixraPvgtUg7OHPSO0eIvA==

 

[ShonTron]

WTF were they smoking with the 21 changes?! So someone who wants to travel from Milton to Meadowvale can... go all the way down to the lake and then back up???? Or are these bozos going to institute all day service to Milton on the 27???

What a shockingly terrible organization. Get these fucking people away from our transit projects.

I guess you can also transfer at the 407/403. All the new Route 21 services stop at the 407 bus corridor, which is more frequent on weekends now.

And, as mentioned above, there’s the new Milton Transit route to Lisgar, but there’s no Sunday service on that route.

 

[smallspy]

For the Stouffville corridor a lot of the track has been laid for years. They could have opened it in sections but they never did. The section from Kennedy to Steeles could have been opened a long time ago.

No, they couldn't.

WTF were they smoking with the 21 changes?! So someone who wants to travel from Milton to Meadowvale can... go all the way down to the lake and then back up???? Or are these bozos going to institute all day service to Milton on the 27???

What a shockingly terrible organization. Get these fucking people away from our transit projects.

And what is the ratio of people who travel from Milton to Meadowvale, versus those from Milton that head to downtown?

There is one organization who has those numbers, and its Metrolinx. If they are making the change, it's not to get fewer people onto the buses, it's to get the maximum that they can.

Dan

 

[gophojo]

WTF were they smoking with the 21 changes?! So someone who wants to travel from Milton to Meadowvale can... go all the way down to the lake and then back up???? Or are these bozos going to institute all day service to Milton on the 27???

What a shockingly terrible organization. Get these fucking people away from our transit projects.

What was a 30 minute max bus ride from Milton to Meadowvale GO (21B) is now at least an hour or more with 2 decently unreliable bus transfers compared to the 1 bus... And of course the stops before Meadowvale GO station, such as the ones on Derry up to Meadowvale Town Ctr/GO aren't directly passed/serviced without a transfer to local or GO (Milton 21->GO 21B). What bothers me most was the removal of the seamless connection from a 21B to a 27F, which gave Milton customers more off-peak freedom to head to major Toronto terminals without having to go through downtown and pay TTC fares. This of course is much more tedious to access now.

Not sure if this was a complete oversight by them, but extending most, if not all 27Fs into 27As on both weekdays/weekends would completely alleviate this issue, and ensure this corridor remans intact. Would even be more beneficial since the previous transfer from a 21B->27F, or a 27F->21B, would no longer be needed.

 

[T3G]

And what is the ratio of people who travel from Milton to Meadowvale, versus those from Milton that head to downtown?

There is one organization who has those numbers, and its Metrolinx. If they are making the change, it's not to get fewer people onto the buses, it's to get the maximum that they can.

Fair enough, but the redirecting of the Milton service to Oakville is just a quasi-revival of the old route 20 which was discontinued due to "low ridership" 4 years ago.

What's changed now that we've gone from axing the service, to having all service from the station in that form? According to Triplinx, those services are going to run every half an hour during weekday midday. For a service that ran only every hour at the best of times, and every 2 hours off-peak pre-2019, that seems like a staggering change of course.

I was against the discontinuation of the 20 when it happened, for the same reason I'm against discontinuing through service on Derry Road now. Not everyone who has the misfortune of living up here has a car, or more than one car. A bus that runs every hour is better than no bus at all.

 

[crs1026]

For the Stouffville corridor a lot of the track has been laid for years. They could have opened it in sections but they never did. The section from Kennedy to Steeles could have been opened a long time ago.

Not without the West Highland Creek bridge and the stations, it couldn't.

The work was oddly sequenced, since the track contract was placed first and is largely complete - but without the platforms being ready at Milliken and Agincourt, and the bridgework at West Highland Creek, all that new track and sound walls and grading have not led to any new capacity.....yet.

Something had to be finished first, I suppose... not good planning nor good cash flow to delay it all until the last critical path item gets done.

I'm sure there is a back story to why the creek bridge has taken this long, but with the station work plodding along perhaps it has always been moot. There was talk that the contractor wanted work windows for the bridge, but ML was not in agreement - it's likely proven to be a pay me now, pay me later proposition with ML having no choice at this point but to allow them. Let's hope that last bridge now gets done promptly, as the stations appear to be close to completion. Oh, and let's hope that the added service doesn't have to wait for track capacity west of Scarborough Jct is restored as the Ontario Line work gets done.

I especially agree with @Northern Light that regardless of the past, at this point there ought to be a detailed and transparent explanation of the timelines and milestones towards 30 minute or less service.

- Paul