Why is commuter/regional rail so bad in Canada?

[Admiral Beez]

The title is high speed rail, but the posts are mostly low speed, multi-stop commuter rail.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_Canada#Edmonton_.E2.80.93_Calgary

How about high speed rail between Calgary and Edmonton?

I look an ICE train from Frankfurt to Cologne last month, and it was an excellent, non-stop trip. I love rail in Germany.

 

[Admiral Beez]

If the Gardiner had never been built I believe we'd all be using rail more.

 

[dunkalunk]

If the Gardiner had never been built I believe we'd all be using rail more.

If the Gardiner were to be disassembled, we'd also be taking rail more

 

[diminutive]

Much of Europe isn't particularly dense either. A smaller city like Barrie not being core centric doesn't stop it from having good rail service. Barrie and other cities like it are small enough so it's quick and easy to drive to the train station. The statistics bear that out too - when the Barrie GO line reopened ridership was triple what they were expecting, IIRC.

GO's ridership kinda falls off a cliff once you get passed the inner-905 stations. Only a few hundred people board at stations like Guelph or Barrie. It's not entirely clear these non-commuter GO services really make much sense by themselves.

It does matter that these cities are not core-centric. It leads to really significant last-mile problems. Take the proposed Peterborough railway; lots of Torontonians have cottages in the region, so you'd maybe imagine the train being a good alternative to driving. It's a terrible alternative though since, even if it was faster, you'd then be faced with >1hr getting from the station to your cottage!

There are ways you could offset this, but regional rail (like flying..) faces big access time issues given how sprawl-y most Ontario cities are. To really be faster than driving, inclusive of access times, we'd have to start seeing real HSR speeds (~200km/h) on most rail lines. To do this on any large scale though you'd have to spend tens of billions across Southern Ontario (electrification, new EMUs, track work ect...) as a starting point. And sure, it would be neat imagining a hub high-speed rail network centred on Toronto. Would it really be that much better than the alternative though to justify the huge investment?

Let's say GO got its ass in gear and introduced a 200km/h train from Kitchener to Union Station, bringing travel times to 30-40minutes. But, for the sake of argument, let's also assume a bulk of riders are coming from UofW or WLU. So, getting to the train is about 30 minutes on public transit, plus some cushion time to make sure you don't miss the train. The one way trip is now 60-70 minutes. If there were simply a bus from campus which ran express to downtown it'd probably take 80-90minutes. Still slower, but not necessarily by much considering option one would need billions in capital work. If you consider more disaggregated travel patterns, say UofW to Markham or Scarborough, a direct mini-bus would almost surely be faster than the rail option!

I've seen stop and go traffic well outside of the GTA. But this thread is about regional rail, so it isn't really about anything outside the GTA/Golden Horseshoe. Interesting that you mention Israel, that's not really true of that country anymore. They have invested heavily in passenger rail since 1990, and have grown ridership ten-fold since then. What they have built in a couple decades makes our lack of rail investment look even more sad. By the way, Ontario didn't primarily develop after WW2. The settlement patterns were firmly established here by the 1800s. Israel, OTOH, did develop mostly after the war. Toronto is a much older city than, say, Tel Aviv.

Ehh, I guess it's just semantics, but I think of "regional" transit as something more like Toronto-London or Toronto-Cambridge. Trips between city pairs which don't have significant daily commuter volumes. Obviously there can be overlap between commuter and regional rail, but routes which can't take advantage of the Toronto commuter market probably won't be economical on their own.

And yet every time GO expands, ridership increases. People take whatever mode makes sense, they're not glued to cars the way people think. Rail is weak here because service is slow, infrequent, unreliable, or simply non-existent. If we invested in rail the way that other countries do, rail would be much more successful. Countries like Israel and Australia show that rail can be successful even in new or sparsely populated countries. Our regional rail system sucks because we choose to make it suck, and for no other reason.

Most increases in GO ridership have been coming from long established stations like Pickering or Oakville, not the expansions to Barrie or Waterloo. This is where the distinction between regional and commuter rail becomes significant.

 

[BurlOak]

GO's ridership kinda falls off a cliff once you get passed the inner-905 stations. Only a few hundred people board at stations like Guelph or Barrie. It's not entirely clear these non-commuter GO services really make much sense by themselves.

It does matter that these cities are not core-centric. It leads to really significant last-mile problems. Take the proposed Peterborough railway; lots of Torontonians have cottages in the region, so you'd maybe imagine the train being a good alternative to driving. It's a terrible alternative though since, even if it was faster, you'd then be faced with >1hr getting from the station to your cottage!

If you take your car with you on the train, would it count as carry-on or checked-in baggage?

I do not see how anyone could get from Peterborough to their cottage in the Kawarthas - put the family on bicycles?

 

[innsertnamehere]

they can't.

Thats a big reason I am a supporter of adding HOV lanes up the 400, most cottage commuters are multi passenger so it would go a long way in reducing the friday crush of people heading north while not significantly improving the daily commute for car travellers from Barrie. Hell, I say make the 400 a 4+HOV highway and be done with it.

 

[mpd618]

Most increases in GO ridership have been coming from long established stations like Pickering or Oakville, not the expansions to Barrie or Waterloo. This is where the distinction between regional and commuter rail becomes significant.

Train ridership - sure. But I would note that Route 25 from UW-Kitchener-Cambridge to Mississauga Square One has gone from nothing in 2009 to all-week hourly + express service with many double-deckers now. It's a good example of new/better service generating significant ridership, and it's service that cannot be correctly classified as "commuter".

 

[MrsNesbitt]

Train ridership - sure. But I would note that Route 25 from UW-Kitchener-Cambridge to Mississauga Square One has gone from nothing in 2009 to all-week hourly + express service with many double-deckers now. It's a good example of new/better service generating significant ridership, and it's service that cannot be correctly classified as "commuter".

Indeed. The fact that GO ridership at a lot of the more newly-expanded-to stations like Kitchener and Barrie is still low-ish comes from the fact that these stations receive pitifully little service. Two trains in and two trains out per day for Kitchener and Guelph for instance doesn't really lend itself well to people relying on the train.

 

[diminutive]

Indeed. The fact that GO ridership at a lot of the more newly-expanded-to stations like Kitchener and Barrie is still low-ish comes from the fact that these stations receive pitifully little service. Two trains in and two trains out per day for Kitchener and Guelph for instance doesn't really lend itself well to people relying on the train.

Not necessarily. There may simply be a limited demand for travel between two points.

When you get to outer Golden Horseshoe, you no longer have significant amounts of people commuting to Toronto for work. Yes, there are some people who live in Kitchener but have to travel to Toronto regularly, but these things are relatively rare. Most people who work and socialize regularly in Toronto wont live so far away.

Without commuters, you're left with a much smaller travel market. And if you disaggregate this non-commuter market, many subcategories will likely be predisposed to car travel. A family with two kids, for instance, may not want to spend ~50$ on GO fare, eachway, to go from Kitchener to Toronto.

Train ridership - sure. But I would note that Route 25 from UW-Kitchener-Cambridge to Mississauga Square One has gone from nothing in 2009 to all-week hourly + express service with many double-deckers now. It's a good example of new/better service generating significant ridership, and it's service that cannot be correctly classified as "commuter".

Yea, this is the kind of service to microdestinations which seem to make buses a more attractive service for South/Southwestern Ontario. If we deregulated intercity buses, all sorts of direct routes could proliferate. You could see, say, UW-Sq1, UW-YYZ, UW-Yorkdale, UW-STC, UW-Markham, UW-Pickering Town Center, UW VCC and so forth. By cutting down on access times and ticket cost, they'd be pretty competitive with almost any imaginable train service.

 

[BurlOak]

they can't.

Thats a big reason I am a supporter of adding HOV lanes up the 400, most cottage commuters are multi passenger so it would go a long way in reducing the friday crush of people heading north while not significantly improving the daily commute for car travellers from Barrie. Hell, I say make the 400 a 4+HOV highway and be done with it.

It would do nothing for the cottage commuters - probably make it worse.

On friday afternoon, most vehicles already have 2 or more people in them so they would obtain no benefit from the HOV lanes since all lanes would be equally used. The only thing it would do is NOT have faster traffic left and slower traffic right - bacause some slower traffic would use the HOV lanes and then faster people would pass on the right and the whole thing would be more chaotic.

Since traffic is very unidirection on this stretch of road, a 2 or 3 HOV/HOT lane set-up may work (i.e. 3 or 4 NB lanes, 3 HOV lanes in middle, 3 or 4 SB lanes). Weekday mornings and weekend nights, the HOV/HOT lanes would be SB, while weekday afternoons and weekend mornings, those lanes would be NB. Unfortunately, Major Mac and King Road have already been replaced with a 2 span bridge and many of the other frame bridges are planned as 2 span. This solution would require 3 span bridges.

 

[mpd618]

When you get to outer Golden Horseshoe, you no longer have significant amounts of people commuting to Toronto for work. Yes, there are some people who live in Kitchener but have to travel to Toronto regularly, but these things are relatively rare. Most people who work and socialize regularly in Toronto wont live so far away.

Yes on the first part, no on the second part. There is tons of less-than-daily (and a fair amount of daily) travel between Kitchener and Toronto and vice versa. Greyhound runs quite a bit of (often unreliable) service on that corridor. Anecdotally, there is a lot of travel demand on the corridor even as far as Toronto, but little alternative to driving on the 401. Some companies have offices in both Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, necessitating periodic travel between the two. Other companies run shuttles for employees from Toronto to offices in KW.

Yea, this is the kind of service to microdestinations which seem to make buses a more attractive service for South/Southwestern Ontario. If we deregulated intercity buses, all sorts of direct routes could proliferate. You could see, say, UW-Sq1, UW-YYZ, UW-Yorkdale, UW-STC, UW-Markham, UW-Pickering Town Center, UW VCC and so forth. By cutting down on access times and ticket cost, they'd be pretty competitive with almost any imaginable train service.

Square One is not its own destination for most people - it's useful as a connection point in an integrated regional transit network. An unchecked private sector proliferation of direct routes from everywhere to everywhere would likely hurt the quality of the network as a whole, because it would dissipate frequency as compared with GO Transit providing a consolidated regional network service.

 

[MrsNesbitt]

Yes on the first part, no on the second part. There is tons of less-than-daily (and a fair amount of daily) travel between Kitchener and Toronto and vice versa. Greyhound runs quite a bit of (often unreliable) service on that corridor. Anecdotally, there is a lot of travel demand on the corridor even as far as Toronto, but little alternative to driving on the 401. Some companies have offices in both Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, necessitating periodic travel between the two. Other companies run shuttles for employees from Toronto to offices in KW.

Square One is not its own destination for most people - it's useful as a connection point in an integrated regional transit network. An unchecked private sector proliferation of direct routes from everywhere to everywhere would likely hurt the quality of the network as a whole, because it would dissipate frequency as compared with GO Transit providing a consolidated regional network service.

I can agree with both of these. I don't like the idea of public services of any kind falling into the hands of private enterprise, because we have a very poor history of that working out in Ontario (the Harris days...), and deregulating bus routes would only drive passengers away from GO Transit. Public transit needs to remain public.

As for KW and Toronto, both are urban growth centres and both will only continue to attract new businesses and residents. Even today if rail connections were better between the two, the passengers on the 25 GO bus as well as the Greyhound would flock to the train and you'd see the Kitchener GO Line much more full all the way up to KW, not just Brampton.

 

[MisterF]

GO's ridership kinda falls off a cliff once you get passed the inner-905 stations. Only a few hundred people board at stations like Guelph or Barrie. It's not entirely clear these non-commuter GO services really make much sense by themselves.

It does matter that these cities are not core-centric. It leads to really significant last-mile problems. Take the proposed Peterborough railway; lots of Torontonians have cottages in the region, so you'd maybe imagine the train being a good alternative to driving. It's a terrible alternative though since, even if it was faster, you'd then be faced with >1hr getting from the station to your cottage!

There are ways you could offset this, but regional rail (like flying..) faces big access time issues given how sprawl-y most Ontario cities are. To really be faster than driving, inclusive of access times, we'd have to start seeing real HSR speeds (~200km/h) on most rail lines. To do this on any large scale though you'd have to spend tens of billions across Southern Ontario (electrification, new EMUs, track work ect...) as a starting point. And sure, it would be neat imagining a hub high-speed rail network centred on Toronto. Would it really be that much better than the alternative though to justify the huge investment?

Let's say GO got its ass in gear and introduced a 200km/h train from Kitchener to Union Station, bringing travel times to 30-40minutes. But, for the sake of argument, let's also assume a bulk of riders are coming from UofW or WLU. So, getting to the train is about 30 minutes on public transit, plus some cushion time to make sure you don't miss the train. The one way trip is now 60-70 minutes. If there were simply a bus from campus which ran express to downtown it'd probably take 80-90minutes. Still slower, but not necessarily by much considering option one would need billions in capital work. If you consider more disaggregated travel patterns, say UofW to Markham or Scarborough, a direct mini-bus would almost surely be faster than the rail option!



Ehh, I guess it's just semantics, but I think of "regional" transit as something more like Toronto-London or Toronto-Cambridge. Trips between city pairs which don't have significant daily commuter volumes. Obviously there can be overlap between commuter and regional rail, but routes which can't take advantage of the Toronto commuter market probably won't be economical on their own.



Most increases in GO ridership have been coming from long established stations like Pickering or Oakville, not the expansions to Barrie or Waterloo. This is where the distinction between regional and commuter rail becomes significant.

Well of course ridership falls off once you get outside the urban area, the population falls off as well. So does highway traffic. But that didn't stop highways from being built to places like Barrie, Kitchener and Peterborough and there's still demand for travel to these places. Regional rail isn't about 12 car diesel trains running out to outlying cities in rush hour, it's about smaller trains on a schedule regular enough for people to rely on. It accommodates commuters and anyone else who needs to travel. The way GO runs trains to a city like Kitchener ignores everyone but rush hour commuters who run on a specific schedule. That severely limits potential ridership. I think you underestimate how many potential riders are people outside that group.

Yes, electrification and faster, 200 km/h trains would work wonders for regional rail. It wouldn't require a huge increase in money to do, it would just require reallocating where we spend our transportation money. Last year the province spent $1.9 billion on capital highway projects in southern Ontario. Reallocating some of that to regional rail would work wonders for improving service and growing ridership. By the way, express buses have the same problems with dispersed population as trains do. Even in Waterloo, students live all over the city so an express bus from the campus wouldn't be any more convenient for students than a high speed rail line.

Someone from Australia would find your arguments rather foreign and strange. They have all the limitations you're describing yet every significant population centre is connected to the rail system. The same is happening in Israel (thanks for bringing that up by the way, I had no idea that they were expanding their rail system so much. They're essentially building a modern regional/intercity rail system from scratch, and quite successfully.). Even the United States, which has sprawl that we can barely comprehend, is restoring service to towns that lost it decades ago and they're making their trains faster and more frequent. Ridership and revenues have been steadily increasing. Every obstacle we're talking about, other places are overcoming. It's really no wonder, we've been stacking the deck in favour of driving for so long that we've trained ourselves to think that nothing else is possible. That's just not the case.

 

[diminutive]

Yes on the first part, no on the second part. There is tons of less-than-daily (and a fair amount of daily) travel between Kitchener and Toronto and vice versa. Greyhound runs quite a bit of (often unreliable) service on that corridor. Anecdotally, there is a lot of travel demand on the corridor even as far as Toronto, but little alternative to driving on the 401. Some companies have offices in both Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto, necessitating periodic travel between the two. Other companies run shuttles for employees from Toronto to offices in KW.

It exists, obviously, but compared to daily commutes within a given urban area these inter-city trips are comparatively rare. You'd probably have far fewer people travelling between Kitchener-Waterloo & the GTA on any given day than people using, say, a modest bus route in Toronto or the KW LRT.

Since this thread is about commuter/regional rail, I'm pretty skeptical about what kind of demand we'd see if we invested hugely in the Kitchener Line for two main reasons:
1.)Lack of inter-regional travel overall, with both cities outside the other's commuter belt.
2.)Disaggregating the extreme-commuters who do exist, it seems relatively few would be interested in a service to Union. Maybe they have to commute Waterloo-Markham, for instance, or Beaches-Kitchener, in which cases you'd see very substantial access time issues with any Union service.

Given those two, it seems like it would be more productive to speed up trips by cutting down on access times through introducing as many direct Origin-Destination pairs as the market would sustain. Services like company shuttles may genuinely represent the most efficient solution, like in the Bay Area, since they're fairly decent at limiting access times.

Square One is not its own destination for most people - it's useful as a connection point in an integrated regional transit network. An unchecked private sector proliferation of direct routes from everywhere to everywhere would likely hurt the quality of the network as a whole, because it would dissipate frequency as compared with GO Transit providing a consolidated regional network service.

It depends on what the time loss associated with transferring & indirect trips is versus lower frequency. Obviously you won't have routes from literally everywhere-to-everywhere, but there could easily be a dozen nodes or so in the GTA and 2-3 nodes in smaller towns which could host direct routes between each-other.

Not all routes would even need to be run by coaches, necessarily. Minibuses hauling 8-20 people could handle low-density routes quite efficiently. This is totally illegal at the moment, mind you...

 

[dunkalunk]

Not all routes would even need to be run by coaches, necessarily. Minibuses hauling 8-20 people could handle low-density routes quite efficiently. This is totally illegal at the moment, mind you...

Minibuses are uneconomical. For every minibus, you are paying driver salaries/benefits and vehicle insurance/maintenance for an entirely different fleet.

Also, Instead of one six-car train every hour or two that will get you between Kitchener and Toronto in an hour as well as points in-between, you now have 20 minibuses making point-to-point service getting stuck on the 401.

How much would such direct, transfer-less service cost? Will people pay twice the amount for it?

Since this thread is about commuter/regional rail, I'm pretty skeptical about what kind of demand we'd see if we invested hugely in the Kitchener Line for two main reasons:
1.)Lack of inter-regional travel overall, with both cities outside the other's commuter belt.
2.)Disaggregating the extreme-commuters who do exist, it seems relatively few would be interested in a service to Union. Maybe they have to commute Waterloo-Markham, for instance, or Beaches-Kitchener, in which cases you'd see very substantial access time issues with any Union service.

Waterloo-Markham commutes would have no reason to transfer at Union, they would likely transfer at Bramalea to the 407 GO Bus service. Beaches-Kitchener might make sense to take an express train from Union after boarding at Main Street.

You're right in saying that there are relatively few extreme 100km+ commutes. There are however many people living in the Region of Waterloo who do commute regularly to Wellington, Halton, and Peel. (I hope someone can help me with the census numbers here). If the train service got down to even 1.5h you'd see lots of tech, insurance, and institutional employees currently driving in from places like Milton, Brampton and even Downtown Toronto pick it up.

As a side note, the number of people riding the Ossington Bus or the ION LRT is a red herring. They serve completely different markets than regional rail.