I am not sure if you want this here or to start a new thread given today’s announcement by GO.

Steve: I will start a new thread on the announcement re the Weston Sub.

Rob:

Transit Toronto’s web site has a link to GO transit’ GO 2020 plan for expansion of service and it makes interesting reading. GO recognizes the need get more people to their stations by means other than driving and parking. They state that the number of people who take transit has remained static because the transit service to their stations has remained static for a number of years. In Brampton I know that the 4 dedicated shuttles to Brampton and Bramalea stations have been dropped but there are a lot of regular buses that stop at those two stations and at Mt. Pleasant. Georgetown does not have public transit except for GO.

GO recognizes the need to change the zoning and land use to make public transit an effective alternative to the private auto. It is successful at hauling people to Union station because most of them work within 2 km of Union and can get there via the PATH system without having to worry about weather. The 407 express bus service is successful because it mainly serves universities and colleges which are concentrated destinations where passengers have an easy walk to their final destination. They also state that they may look at separating the cost of parking from the ticket cost at selected stations. It is interesting to look at the revenue to cost ratio for the major commuter systems in North America. GO is between 85 and 90 % while the next best, Metro North New York is just above 60 %. There are two or three about 50 % and the rest are all below 50% (page 24 of their .pdf or page 20 by their numbering.)

Over 95% of the trains riders and 65% of the bus riders have downtown Toronto as the primary destination. This may be why GO wants to run both express and locals into Union in the rush hour. It provides faster service for the patrons and makes more efficient use of equipment. Around 80% of train riders and 60% of bus riders are discretionary riders; they have a car and could drive if they wanted to. Some train stations have 20% of the riders arrive by public transit; GO wants to increase that number to 35%. They want to get peak service to at least every 15 minutes and off peak or reverse direction to every 30 minutes. If there are more than 4 trains per hour then they want to run express and local service for faster travel time and better equipment utilization.

They are looking at electrifying the Lakeshore and possibly Georgetown, at least to Mt Pleasant, if it is cost effective. They are also willing to look at other technologies including self propelled trains that run on diesel fuel or electricity. I finally think that GO may have its act together and Metrolinx takes them over. I am off to the Georgetown South Service Extension, Blue 22, open houses next week and will let you know what they have to say.

Steve: The interesting thing about the GO Transit plan is that it is not entirely in sync with the Metrolinx RTP, but came out after that plan was published. We can see here that the two agencies don’t entirely see eye-to-eye. The fascinating part about the merger will be to see which “culture” survives (my bet is on GO) and how cavalier the new Metrolinx is about sticking to the regional “plan” considering it has already been modified by government announcement.

The issue of local feeder service to GO stations has been discussed here at length, and it is a problem Metrolinx needs to deal with sooner rather than later. It’s all part of funding local transit, something the old Metrolinx wanted nothing to do with. This was a major flaw in their plan. “Mobility Hubs” look great in the pictures, but they depend on local services connecting there.

“ I wouldn’t blame them for a desire to distance themselves from PPP’s, road tolls, taxes, 50-year-old diesel rail cars, fare increases and lousy service.”

The last ones VIA has were built in 1958, most are closer to 60 than 50. The body structures are sound are as good as any new equipment built to the ridiculous style for mainline North American Passenger service. The design is very slow to load and unload and is not handicap friendly. The Bombardier bi-levels are apparently the only cars that meet the new US ADA requirements. If the line is successful the 22 is going to refer to the time to load and unload them. A consultant for the GO expansion said that he had seen an artists rendering of them with a double width high platform sliding centre door. That makes sense and is do-able at the airport but there is not any room at Union for a dedicated high platform for a one car train that runs every 15 minutes.

Now as to “Why was MetroLynx created?” I believe that the Liberals think that it will give the appearance that they are taking decisive action, are transit friendly and are doing something now. Remember that TATOA and GO Transit were creations of Bill Davis and His Tories. McGuinty wants or needs some thing that is his creation, not a carry over from the Red Tories.

Name Change: I detest the term LYNX. It is in a number of areas in the US. Orlando has the LYNX and the bus stops are pastel coloured LYNX paws, different colours for different routes. Please not here.

Now that Steve is retired he will have even more time to keep the powers that be on their toes.

Take care and happy retirement

I’m not saying this is a good development… just somewhat understandable.

When this proved not to be the case it was time for plan B.

While the climate carisis needs somewhat draconian action, I’m not sure there’s much progress here, and we will still have problems, perhaps from doing a few projects that cost too much without enough quality transit resulting.

And one area of missing transit is something between the GO longer-haul and the milk run of the TTC transit.

Thanks for watching all of this Steve, and writing it up.

As for the change itself, blame Miller and Giambrone. They should have been kicked off Metrolinx (and into orbit), but not the others. Hazel was fairly objective, but Miller and Giambrone’s games were getting tiring …

a) Sheppard LRT going first — total political BS — this line is simply not a priority
b) Opposition to a regional line on Eglinton when the model could have gone either way (local with LRT or regional with ART)
c) All the strings to the Yonge extension — why didn’t they mention this before?

I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the vote to push the DRL ahead of the Yonge extension. It’s almost as if Toronto got jealous that York Region was getting subways and finally wanted in too. Too late — they played their cards wrong (as they always do), and this is the result.

Steve: The strings on the Yonge extension may seem excessive, but it was TTC staff who raised the whole issue of handling extra demand on the line and floated the madness of the Bloor-Yonge station reconstruction. That scheme, not to mention the extra trains to run more service on the line, were NOT included in the Metrolinx budget or project list.

As for tolls, it was the Premier whose office didn’t want any discussion of revenue tools before the next election, hence a 2013 target date for a report on proposals. The Metrolinx board pushed for a discussion of that issue this year, and for their troubles — actually wanting to bring an important debate out into the open — have been dumped.

However the Legislation has to be rumber-stamped (excuse me, passed) in the Legislature first. Thus the new board has to wait to get legal authority to do anything.

The new board members have to be briefed on what’s going on unless the plan is that they just rubber-stamp what the Premier’s Office wants done first. (As pointed out in the post there are only a few on the board with any transit experience and some of those were on the GO Board only. )

It doesn’t matter who is on the board if there is no money to pay for projects. Queen’s Park controls the purse strings as they did before. Since they are apponting the board it is now their entity-100%. There is no cover of having the local mayors and regional chairs as the board members. Is Queen’s Park likely to approve a decision to impose road tolls on the 400 & 401 to bring in more revenue? Not likley, after taking flak for harmonizing the sales taxes.

I did notice that the board does seem to have many members of the previous GO Transit board. Steve you did say previously that it wouldn’t so much be Metrolynx taking over GO as GO taking over Metrolynx!

I think that in 4 years we will realilze that we have been shuffling chairs for so long that we forgot to build anything … how long will it take for Metrolinx to get a handle on operating the GO operations? How long will it take for the GO people to take a look at the first draft and realize that it was written by people with no experience building or operating a system? How long will it take to redo it? How long will it take for the infighting to begin between the people who wrote the first draft and the people who have to fix it? How long will it take for them all to realize that they forgot to ask the public what they want? How long will it take for the public to realize that what is being built doesn’t make sense, and then how long will it take for the politicians to re-exert control over the process?

I feel like this whole situation could have been fixed a lot easier by giving GO a few more powers (fare unification, regional planning, full control of all rail (including subway)), rather than creating a whole new organization to gobble up GO and all the associated havoc it will create there.

It’s almost like if McDonalds when they want to create a new burger decide to start a new company and then once the burger is created the new company takes over the entire operation of McDonalds under a new structure … it really doesn’t make any sense to me.

Sometimes it takes only one gig for everyone to realize the fair-haired boy is not a compentent leader. Sometimes this doesn’t sink in even after a few failures. (And yes, I was at U of T in the early ’90s.)

Unfortunately with the planning secrecy I’m going to have to wait an awfully long time to figure out who to blame what on. I’m sure the residents around West Toronto Junction going out of their mind from the pile driving would like to get their hands around the throats of the folks at SNC Lavalin and their Fed buddies, but instead are directed to strangle GO. Or is that Metrolinx… who really knows any more.

Steve: According to the legislation, the corporate name is Metrolinx, but who knows what name they will operate services under. This gets messy not just for GO, but for any services operated on their behalf by other agencies like the TTC or York Region.

The real irony is that GO emphasis the Provincial control while Metrolinx implies a regional agency, just at the point where local input to the organization is clearly in Provincial hands.

Steve: Paul Bedford is the former Chief Planner for Toronto, but that’s the closest you get. The work will all be done by staff in private, and approved by the board in private. After a few years and a few scandals, there may be pressure for change, but meanwhile we have lost a valuable if flawed mechanism for public participation in the development of our region.

I don’t trust Metrolinx staff to do a good job because what they have produced to date is superficial, lines on a map and some background, but not the level of detail needed to actually build and run a network.

There should be a difference here between an executive board (who decide how to run things, and should consist of appointed people with those skills), and a supervisory board (who provide budgetary aproval, and should contain representatives from local and provincial goverments). The latter should have their meetings made public.

Given fares form part of the budget, I don’t see why fare increases should be approved seperately. I also wish people would not complain endlessly about annual transit fare increases, unless they truely believe all staff employed by the transit agency should have their pay frozen (and inflation be damned).

Steve: We ask annoying questions and expect proponents of schemes to actually understand what they are talking about rather than just promoting flavour of the week “solutions”.

It is not the municipal politicians who are holding up progress, and the alleged reasons for this reorganization ring hollow. I will post separately on this later in the week as the dust settles.

This will be an interesting battle to say the least as the new MetroGO or GOMetro (or whatever) enters the fray with lots of ideas and momentum and provincial backing for plans that, as you pointed out, may be incomplete, lacking detail, or just poorly planned.

The TTC will continue to push on with its “local, local, local” focus – but there are areas (inner suburbs) where the TTC itself could expand services and reach more people and do it better than the local operators could.

Will the TTC come out fighting? A certain Admiral told me (when I met him in Kuala Lumpur 2 weeks ago) that he would like to bury (sink?) Metrolinx.

Will that be the case – or will TTC and GOMetro manage to find a happy compromise? What will happen to public transport without the input of elected, semi-accountable councillors?

And above all, what happens to transit users when the elephants tussle?

Cheers, Moaz

from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia