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Metrolinx: Other Items (catch all)

aquateam said:
To clarify, I'm saying GO should look at using pricing to manage demand before building expensive garages or demolishing buildings. They shouldn't necessarily charge for parking at every station, and definitely shouldn't have a blanket rate at every station.

Surface parking is a lot cheaper to construct, maintain, and is an indication that land values are cheap enough that intensification isn't an option, so in that case I don't think it makes sense to charge for parking (or at least not as much.) Pricing should be a part of GO's toolkit for managing parking demand and for improving non-auto mode share to stations, and should vary from station to station based on demand.

This is an aside, but parking pricing is actually one of the best levers that policy makers have on hand for improving mode share and managing congestion. The reason that Calgary, a sprawling post-war city with an awful climate, is able to have such an impressive public transit mode-share is because they have limited parking supply downtown and they resultingly have some of the highest parking prices in North america.

Right now, the Liberals are projecting that when the Big Move is complete, with everything built and $100 billion dollars of transit projects later, that mode share will be exactly the same. I am convinced that the provincial government could not spend a penny on transit and actually see mode share improve by doing three things:
  1. Prohibiting municipalities from mandating parking and let developers choose how much parking they need
  2. Charging their $0.25/day/parking space "Revenue Tool" for the Big Move
  3. Removing development restrictions near rapid or frequent transit
Click to expand...

If this is to work, there should also be greater parking tax surcharges almost everywhere in Toronto that isn't a residential area. Make it a dollar, 2, maybe even 5. It would discourage parking downtown, midtown, and uptown, and provide much-needed revenue to the City of Toronto for transit. This can't just be limited to GO transit or else people will just drive to downtown. The problem I see with point #1 is that I don't think Metrolinx has the power to do it, and if they do, there would be such an outrage over their power.
 
Now that I think about things, knowing Metrolinx, they'll undoubtedly do something profoundly stupid like give all parking operations to a P3, which will take in 90% of the revenue from excessive prices and transit expansion money will be next to nothing. I sure as hell hope that something like this won't happen.
 
Streety McCarface said:
If this is to work, there should also be greater parking tax surcharges almost everywhere in Toronto that isn't a residential area. Make it a dollar, 2, maybe even 5. It would discourage parking downtown, midtown, and uptown, and provide much-needed revenue to the City of Toronto for transit. This can't just be limited to GO transit or else people will just drive to downtown. The problem I see with point #1 is that I don't think Metrolinx has the power to do it, and if they do, there would be such an outrage over their power.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I said that it's something the provincial government would do, not Metrolinx. The proposal, which is what the province backed away from, was to charge a levy on every commercial parking space in the GTHA, which would raise $350 million /year for transit. Suburban shopping malls would either absorb the cost (which would be absorbed by consumers, reducing their competitive advantage to local stores and encouraging people to shop locally) or charge for parking (encouraging people to take transit instead of driving there.) Increasing the gas tax and increasing vehicle registration charges would be other good sources of revenue to encourage a shift to transit and active modes.

The idea (which is the same idea behind carbon pricing) is that you can use taxes, not just as a method of raising revenue, but also as an incentive for certain behaviours. So instead of just skimming off of everyone's income, you charge for things that you are trying to discourage in order to achieve a shift in behaviour. It's the reason that taxes are so high on cigarettes and alcohol.
 
Heads up, a new Metrolinx board meeting is now scheduled on April 26. AMA calls it "a strategy session & will open to the public".
Agenda has not been posted yet.
 
Figured this was the appropriate spot to post this, my apologies if it isn't. Video of a GO Transit F59 emerging from the St. Clair River Tunnel between Sarnia and Port Huron, Michigan in "1994 or 1995". GO doesn't get much American mileage!

 
alexanderglista said:
Figured this was the appropriate spot to post this, my apologies if it isn't. Video of a GO Transit F59 emerging from the St. Clair River Tunnel between Sarnia and Port Huron, Michigan in "1994 or 1995". GO doesn't get much American mileage!

Click to expand...
Was this when VIA was leasing GO equipment when they had an issue with the LRC cars and had to pull all the LRC cars off revenue service until they were all inspected?
 
Fritter said:
Was this when VIA was leasing GO equipment when they had an issue with the LRC cars and had to pull all the LRC cars off revenue service until they were all inspected?
Click to expand...

Nope. That was around 1992.

This was for the opening of the new St Clair Tunnel between Sarnia and Port Huron. They chartered a train for a weekend to shuttle employees back-and-forth through the tunnel as part of the festivities.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
Nope. That was around 1992.

This was for the opening of the new St Clair Tunnel between Sarnia and Port Huron. They chartered a train for a weekend to shuttle employees back-and-forth through the tunnel as part of the festivities.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
Click to expand...

1994. I grew up in Sarnia and was there for the opening, although I was 8.
 
robmausser said:
1994. I grew up in Sarnia and was there for the opening, although I was 8.
Click to expand...

The tunnel started being used in the second half of 1994, it's true. But the official opening ceremony - and the use of the GO train - was the weekend of May 6th and 7th, 1995.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
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