GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[reaperexpress]

Great to see the improvements as expected. Indeed the 21 direct to Union is the only surprise, though I don't think we were confident that the skip-stop Union Pearson Express would be happening this month.

The timing of the Route 30 buses with the new Bramalea trains seems like a missed opportunity. The 30 is the single largest connecting route for Kitchener trains, with nearly a full double-decker bus load transferring to each Kitchener train. There are often two buses per hour (especially on Thurs/Fri), but rather than having one bus for each of the two trains per hour at Bramalea, they often have two Route 30 buses connecting to one train and no Route 30 bus connecting to the other. That seems like a recipe for terrible passenger distribution between the Bramalea trains and the Mount Pleasant/Kitchener trains, with the former being far less busy than the latter. And of course it means that the effective headway from Toronto to Kitchener is only hourly even though they're often running multiple buses and trains per hour.

For example:
There are two buses connecting to the 11:08 arrival at Bramalea on Fridays, but none connecting to the 11:40 arrival.
There are two buses connecting to the 13:09 arrival at Bramalea (which continues to Kitchener anyway) but none connecting to the 13:40 arrival (that terminates at Bramalea)
There are two buses connecting to the 15:09 arrival at Bramalea but none connecting to the 15:40 arrival.

It's also interesting to note that the new trains that turn back at Bramalea skip Etobicoke North. Again that's something I would swap, surely it should be the trains starting at Bramalea that serve a local stop like Etobicoke North rather than the trains coming all the way from Mount Pleasant or Kitchener. They haven't put any time savings in the schedule for the trains skipping Etobicoke North but in practice it should at least make them more reliable by increasing the padding relative to the schedule.

I agree that residents of Milton should be able to get downtown with ease, but as someone who uses the route on a quasi-regular basis, I have found the current arrangement, mostly, to be more convenient.

It took some doing. When they first rerouted the 21 to Oakville, there was no midday service along Derry Road and it took them eons to wake up and run all the 27s to Milton, but now that all of them do so, it is a marked improvement. The biggest problems with the current 21 in Oakville is that it doesn't run during rush hours (which is a complete joke), and that it runs every hour for most of the day (30 minutes would be much better). Transferring in Oakville was fine, there's normally a train along within 10 minutes or so, but the reverse direction is brutal, sometimes you could be stuck waiting an hour for the next bus. So of course, instead of working at these issues, Metrolinx are reverting the changes and throwing us into Gardiner traffic.

If you gave custody of transit in Ontario to a bunch of strung out crackheads, I doubt very much they'd do any worse than ML does.

I think it is very unlikely that the decision to revert back to direct buses to Union came from within Mx. I suspect that the province forced them to do that in response to people complaining about losing their one-seat ride.

 

[cplchanb]

for the stoufville line whats holding them back from relaunching weekend day trains? why only evening trains?

 

[T3G]

I think it is very unlikely that the decision to revert back to direct buses to Union came from within Mx. I suspect that the province forced them to do that in response to people complaining about losing their one-seat ride.

In retrospect, you may be right - it may have been obvious from my post that I was letting my emotions get the better of me.

However, even if that is true, I can still blame ML for the fact that the 22 won't run on weekends and have a pretty spotty frequency.

Actually the new 27 schedule just removed half of the recent gains... there is now only 1 round trip on weekends to Milton and it stops at Meadowvale after 8pm on weekdays. I really would like them to just move to the 407. During rush hour, the 27 sometimes goes all the way up to the 407/400 interchange to avoid 401 traffic. It's so annoying it can't stop at Highway 407 station when it's right there! I think the route would be far more competitive if it went on the 407 and stopped at Highway 407 subway and Finch instead of Yorkdale and Finch. Meadowvale already has this with Route 48, but Milton doesn't

Well spotted. But I also noticed there is nothing between 10 am and 2 pm. Effectively we've gone back to the same status quo as before. Why does this town exist?

 

[canarob]

for the stoufville line whats holding them back from relaunching weekend day trains? why only evening trains?

Weekend trains have been back for a while, aside from certain weekends with construction closures.

 

[Dan416]

So the new Milton line trains they added are

1. Departing Milton at 6:43 am (in between trains that are now scheduled for 6:28 and 6:58 am--it seems all trains are scheduled for a minute earlier and arriving at Union at the same time, which makes sense I guess because the trains are always late as I've mentioned before) and arriving at Union at 7:48 am.
2. Departing Union at 4:10 pm (in between a 3:40 pm train and a 4:25 pm train). I thought most people work 9 to 5. So those of us on that kind of a schedule, this doesn't help at all. I really thought they'd add something around 5:40 pm or 6:10 pm.

Thanks for nothing Metrolinx.

However, the return of the Milton buses to Union is at least something. They're actually quicker than the train a lot of the time. The late buses especially can be at Cooksville GO in 20-ish minutes, versus the train which is now taking over half an hour.

 

[Achemarci]

In retrospect, you may be right - it may have been obvious from my post that I was letting my emotions get the better of me.

However, even if that is true, I can still blame ML for the fact that the 22 won't run on weekends and have a pretty spotty frequency.


Well spotted. But I also noticed there is nothing between 10 am and 2 pm. Effectively we've gone back to the same status quo as before. Why does this town exist?

Even rush hour service is shocking. Back in 2002, there were 6 eastbound trips from Milton to Finch between 5am and 8am. 22 years later, there are 7. In 2002 there were 7 westbound trips from Finch to Milton between 2pm and 8pm. In 2024 there are 8, and the last last one leaves earlier than in 2002 (6:40pm vs. 7:05pm). How does a Town quadruple in size and there is virtually no improvement

 

[reaperexpress]

So the new Milton line trains they added are

1. Departing Milton at 6:43 am (in between trains that are now scheduled for 6:28 and 6:58 am--it seems all trains are scheduled for a minute earlier and arriving at Union at the same time, which makes sense I guess because the trains are always late as I've mentioned before) and arriving at Union at 7:48 am.
2. Departing Union at 4:10 pm (in between a 3:40 pm train and a 4:25 pm train). I thought most people work 9 to 5. So those of us on that kind of a schedule, this doesn't help at all. I really thought they'd add something around 5:40 pm or 6:10 pm.

Thanks for nothing Metrolinx.

However, the return of the Milton buses to Union is at least something. They're actually quicker than the train a lot of the time. The late buses especially can be at Cooksville GO in 20-ish minutes, versus the train which is now taking over half an hour.

The AM trip make sense: there's now service every arriving at Union every 15 minutes from 07:30 to 09:00.

The PM trip is definitely bizarre though... I was so certain they'd add it at 17:40 that I hadn't even checked the times in the new schedule.

I guess the silver lining is that there's still one more round trip to be added to return to pre-pandemic service levels, so hopefully it will be at 17:40.

 

[anb]

Wait… why would they bring back the 21 directly to Union? The very same reason it was detoured to begin with which was due to summer traffic, will now get even worse due to Gardiner construction which will make this route completely unbearable.

It would’ve been better if they would go to Bramalea, Hwy 407, or Kipling instead. We live in a time where all the transit agencies are integrated in fare.

 

[Metroscapes]

I'll be very interested to see the run time for UPX trains. GO trains express to Bramalea can do the trip in 27 minutes vs. local trippers (with or without stops at Etobicoke North or Malton) vs. 35-36 minutes, so a savings of ~8 minutes. I imagine it's be a fraction of that given the faster acceleration / deceleration, but it ain't nothing. Can they achieve 20 minutes? That sounds much quicker than 25, comparative to saying "it's 5 minutes faster".

 

[Northern Light]

I'll be very interested to see the run time for UPX trains. GO trains express to Bramalea can do the trip in 27 minutes vs. local trippers (with or without stops at Etobicoke North or Malton) vs. 35-36 minutes, so a savings of ~8 minutes. I imagine it's be a fraction of that given the faster acceleration / deceleration, but it ain't nothing. Can they achieve 20 minutes? That sounds much quicker than 25, comparative to saying "it's 5 minutes faster".

You may recall, the pre-UPX idea here was pushed 'as Blue 22' as in, it could make the run in 22 minutes. That included one stop at the Bloor Station.

 

[reaperexpress]

I'll be very interested to see the run time for UPX trains. GO trains express to Bramalea can do the trip in 27 minutes vs. local trippers (with or without stops at Etobicoke North or Malton) vs. 35-36 minutes, so a savings of ~8 minutes. I imagine it's be a fraction of that given the faster acceleration / deceleration, but it ain't nothing. Can they achieve 20 minutes? That sounds much quicker than 25, comparative to saying "it's 5 minutes faster".

UP Express trains have a 10 mph (16 km/h) speed limit while passing UP Express platforms so the express trains will hardly save any time at all. They'd be lucky to save 1 minute per skipped stop, in which case the travel time would be 23 minutes.

GO Trains don't have that speed restriction so GO Kitchener express trains commonly pass through stations at 120 km/h, saving about 2 min per stop skipped.

The elephant in the room here is Mount Dennis station which should open relatively soon. Adding that stop to the local service would produce a travel time of about 27 minutes to Pearson. Personally I'm hoping that they just ditch Weston from UP Express and have a all UP trains serve only Union, Bloor, Mt Dennis and Pearson. Removing Weston from all UP trips would allow them to remove the platform edges from the UP platforms, allowing UP trains to pass through at the full 120 km/h track speed. Ridership from Weston is primarily to/from Union, not Pearson, so the Kitchener local service is much more suitable for serving that demand. Especially since UP Express doesn't have free transfers to/from TTC like GO does.

 

[IRT_BMT_IND]

Wait… why would they bring back the 21 directly to Union? The very same reason it was detoured to begin with which was due to summer traffic, will now get even worse due to Gardiner construction which will make this route completely unbearable.

It would’ve been better if they would go to Bramalea, Hwy 407, or Kipling instead. We live in a time where all the transit agencies are integrated in fare.

I suspect the preference for most riders is a one seat ride, even if it's slow and unreliable, rather than having to transfer from trains that are often already overcrowded.

But yes, I suspect some of those USBT-Milton trips will take well over 2 hours in practice.

 

[cplchanb]

Weekend trains have been back for a while, aside from certain weekends with construction closures.

ohh didnt know that. good to know

 

[T3G]

I suspect the preference for most riders is a one seat ride, even if it's slow and unreliable, rather than having to transfer from trains that are often already overcrowded.

Unfortunately, humans are often known for choosing exactly the things that are worse for them.

N.B. I have not observed that the trains have been overcrowded, unless there's a sports game or major concert on, in which case the Milton bus was rammed too. Not empty, certainly, but there has always been ample space for people travelling off-peak.

 

[allengeorge]

Article from The Star on today’s announcement:

Doug Ford promises all-day GO train service in Milton — if Ottawa steps up

While the premier touted an overall 15 per cent expansion in GO service on Monday, he said the province still needs Ottawa's assistance.

www.thestar.com

FTA:

While the premier touted an overall 15 per cent expansion in GO service — with about 300 additional weekly trips on the Lakeshore West, Lakeshore East, Milton, Kitchener and Stouffville lines as of April 28 — he said the province still needs Ottawa's assistance.

"We're going to keep urging the federal government to join us in a true cost-sharing partnership to build a fully separated passenger rail line, so we can finally make two-way all-day GO train service a reality here in Milton," Ford said Monday at the Milton GO station.

…

Naidoo Harris, manager of community affairs for Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden, is the son of former education minister Indira Naidoo Harris, who represented Milton from 2014 until 2018.

He pointed out that Ford cancelled planned upgrades to Milton's GO station four years ago and has yet to move forward with a second station in the area.

"This riding has had a Conservative MPP since 2018 and it's only now, when this seat is at risk, that Doug Ford has managed to find Milton on the map," said Naidoo Harris.