Updated February 22 at 4:00 pm
As expected, the Metrolinx Board approved the proposed increase in GO Transit fares at its recent meeting. The contrast with the debates about TTC budgets and fares was quite striking. The greatest potential for discord came with the presentation of an anti-increase petition.
The bottom line for this increase is “to ensure fiscal responsibility and meet the needs of a growing market of commuters” (presentation to the Board, page 2). That’s shorthand for keeping the subsidy requirement under control, paying for the operations we have now and giving us some headroom to do more.
GO customers are, after all, from a very different market than the TTC. Their median family income is $100k, they live well outside the core, and auto travel is already an established part of their lifestyle. 85% are fully employed, 9% are students and 1% are seniors. They are travelling on GO overwhelmingly by choice and good service, in all aspects, matters.
40% of GO riders use monthly passes and another 40% use 10-trip tickets. This is not unlike the TTC where the monthly pass accounts for over half of the adult trips, and a large majority of those remaining use token fares.
The purpose of the fare increase was to raise revenue by $14.6m in fiscal 2010. Provincial subsidy will also jump for 2010 from $52.6m to $72.1m, but over half of this changes adjusts for one-time revenue in 2009/10 that allowed for a lower subsidy in that year. GO’s total operating budget is $386.7m, and they expect to carry 56m rides.
By comparison, the TTC’s fare increase is project to raise somewhere between $36m and $50m depending on which figures you believe. In 2010, the City will carry the entire $430m TTC subsidy while Queen’s Park spends its way through this budget cycle propping up Ontario’s economy. The TTC’s proposed total operating budget is $1.37b, and they expect to carry 462m rides.
GO’s workforce, including contract staff, is 1,938. The TTC’s proposed “conventional system” workforce for 2010 (as discussed in another thread), excluding contractors, is 10,491. This number omits Wheel Trans, Capital Projects and Toronto Coach Terminal.
The TTC’s budget is only 3.5 times GO’s, but there are far more staff (5.4:1) and riders (8.2:1). The subsidy per rider on GO is $1.29. On the TTC it is about $0.93.
Earlier, I mentioned the potential for discord at the Metrolinx meeting. The protocols for these meetings accept the public’s presence only grudgingly, unlike meetings for municipal agencies such as the TTC where in camera discussions are allowed on only a handful of grounds. There are no deputations at Metrolinx, unlike the City of Toronto where a long history of public involvement would be impossible to silence.
The Directors, with few exceptions, ask no questions in the public session, and everything has clearly been worked out beforehand. They’re just one big happy family.
Alas, thanks to an email slip-up, Metrolinx’ attitude slipped into view. An internal email from Rob Prichard, Metrolinx CEO, was cc:ed to the petion’s originator in error. From this, the clear intent was to give the petition as little exposure at the meeting as possible and assume that the Board would ignore it. They did.
The original article from February 12 follows the break.
The Metrolinx Board will consider a GO Transit fare increase proposal at its February 19 meeting. This increase is proposed to take effect on March 20, 2010.
The fare increase would, generally speaking, involve an across the board 25-cent increase in all single ticket fares. There would be a “top up” fare of up to $3 for the Niagara Falls excursion service. It is unclear what would happen to this once rail service to Niagara Falls becomes part of the standard schedule.
The proposal will also standardize the relationship of the various discount fares to the single ticket rates.
- 10-ride tickets will cost 9.25 single fares for adults, 8.5 single fares for students
- monthly passes will cost 33 single fares for adults, 26 single fares for students
The fare bylaw also includes provisions for various special cases such as group rates as well as for ticket refunds. The contrast with the TTC, where management invents new rules with every fare increase, is quite striking.
Steve Munro 
GO needs to come up with and publish a rationale for their fare break down between fixed cost and variable cost. For the past few years GO has had a flat fare increase for everyone, $0.25 each year if I recall. While I can agree that the per mile cost for short distance rides should be greater that longer distance as there is a fixed cost to providing infrastructure and equipment it would be nice if we new how it was determined. I still believe that GO’s fares are reasonable for the service that they provide.
I think that having a standard to relate 10 trip and passes to regular fare is a good idea. It would also be nice if they charged the same fare for the same distance on different lines. The Niagara fare last year was a bargain compared to VIA’s fare for the same line. GO had a lot more personnel on the train than they have on regular runs. This was reasonable at the start but once the service had been running was it really necessary. I believe that the fare was around $17.00 from Toronto to Niagara last year per adult so a fare of an even $20.00 would be convenient It would be nice if they had a family fare equal to two adult fares to keep the service reasonable and affordable.
From my observations it appeared last year that a number of the riders were not regular GO riders but no one seemed to have any problems so were all the extra personnel really necessary? I don’t think so! Most of the passengers seemed to have an idea of how to board and ride the trains though it was obvious from the conversations that many of them had not ridden the GO train before. Perhaps it is the transit mentality that comes from having the TTC and GO in the area. One observation from my train was that a lot of people with strollers and bicycles thought that the handicap platform was a good placed to board so this car ended up with a lot of bikes and stroller. Fortunately no one with a wheel chair tried to board for there would have been no room for them. Perhaps GO should put signs on the handicap platform saying that bikes and stroller could NOT use that car.
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GO Transit is deciding to raise monthly fares by 5% and increasing single fares by 25 cents per adult ride for this March. This will put the monthly pass from Milton to Union at $272 from $260 per month. Over 2 years, fares have gone up 10% (if the latest proposed hike is passed).
I am fine with a 1% or inflationary increase year over year, but another 5% is simply wrong on top of the 5% last year. As of Dec 2009, annual inflation was 1.2%, and as of Mar 2009 it was 1.3%.
I have created a petition calling for a reduction in fares pegged at inflation since 2007, to conduct a complete review of GO Transit’s operating expenses and contracts, and and to develop and implement a strategy for economically sustainable and affordable transit in Ontario. I plan to send to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario this spring.
Please sign here.
Sincerely
Andrew Salmons
Milton Council Candidate for 2010
Steve: Everyone complains about TTC costs going up faster than inflation, but somehow GO escapes scrutiny. That said, at a time when riding and service are growing, there are costs associated with growth over and above inflation. Also, it is possible that GO is trying to pull its cost recovery up to a higher level in response to budget constraints at Queen’s Park.
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GO Transit’s fare recovery (2008) was 83.6%. The TTC’s fare recovery (2008) was 73.8%. They are the highest fare recover ratios in North America.
Postponing fare increases only results even bigger fare increases down the road (see what happened to the TTC when they skipped one year).
We do not live in Asia, where they actually make a profit because of their very high density. Because of the low density areas GO Transit operates in, the fares are higher because of the lack of subsidy from the provincial and federal governments. If we want the fares to be more reasonable, we need a guaranteed subsidy from both Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill, but not one where they will disappear because of so-called constraints.
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Higher? Doesn’t GO have an even higher recovery rate than the TTC? Seems ridiculous.
Steve: Yes, GO has been doing better than TTC, but recently their recovery rate fell, and their bragging rights are not what they once were. Also, GO continues to expand service even though ridership has “stabilised” as they put it, and that drives up the overall system cost.
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A 25 cent base hike also favours longer trips over those in the near-905 which won’t please those who want to see GO form a larger part of the transportation mix in Toronto itself.
As for Niagara, perhaps the fare hike is not so much down to staffing as the length of the route and deadheading associated with it, plus pressure from coach operators and VIA who feared being wiped out?
Steve: While it’s an excursion train, they can possibly justify the surcharge, although I think this is just a cash-grab by GO. Once it’s part of daily service, people from Niagara will scream about paying $120 a month (20 days, two trips, $3 each) on the grounds that GO has extra expenses for their route.
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I wish GO would calculate their fares based on time of day, too.
Off-peak trains have many empty seats which could probably be filled with off-peak discount pricing. It only makes sense, these seats aren’t doing us any good by traveling across town empty.
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Maybe they’ll also update their ticket machines. They sell tickets that are only valid for use within a 4 hour time period. Last year I was dropped off in Maple to take the train back into the city, and my ride left before I bought my ticket. Which was also before I checked the schedule and found there were no more trains picking up southbound until the next day. Thought it was odd it would sell an unusable ticket.
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GO Transits employee wages didn’t go up 10% in 2 years. Diesel fuel prices were higher 2 years ago. So what is causing the need for the increase ? Longer trains were supposed to help reduce opperating costs. If it is expansion costs, then don’t expand. Somebody who commutes from Port Credit to the Exibition Sation shouldn’t have to pay for expansions on other parts of the system.
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I wish that GO would go with a percentage increase, rather then a flat rate increase. Why should I see a higher percentage increase for my trip downtown then someone from Burlington or Aldershot who has already taken all the seats before the train gets to me (especially true in the rush hour.) The flat rate is great for those living in Hamilton, Milton, Barrie, etc. that have a long train ride, but then they choose to live so far away from downtown Toronto, instead of those of us who choose to live closer. You want the large property, you pay for the extra travel time in my opinion.
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Turbo Train said:
Yes, let’s not expand/improve Union Station, everything’s fine as-is.
Thinking bigger-picture helps.
Steve: Except that the Union Station work is, I believe, in the capital budget, not paid for by fares. My question is why the TTC is pilloried for this sort of over-inflationary increase, and GO just takes it in stride.
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GO went ahead with some of the improvements on its own, like the teamways. GO has been talking about premiums for passengers using Union Station for a long time. Even if the current renovations are a capital project with no relation to fares, the finished product will have GO requiring more staff at Union to man the expanded complex.
I can think of a lot of reasons why GO isn’t pilloried while TTC is when hiking fares above inflation, but that’s an essay question.
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Turbo Train says:
February 13, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Don’t forget that in 1967 GO did not exist. So someone had to expand the non-existent service to go from Pickering to Oakville. If they hadn’t expanded the number of trains and the capacity of the cars you would be standing on the roof to get on at Port Credit. Should all expansion stop once you get the service you want and the hell with the rest of the GTA. MY taxes subsidize YOUR service, so I should get hourly service to Brampton too or your service should be cut back to match mine. Is that what you want. GROW UP and get real!
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Could it be that the reason for using the specific transit authority that might have something to do with why GO can take this increase in stride. GO tends to see a lot of commuters, while the TTC has to deal with both commuters, and regular users. For example, it is not likely that a lot of GO’s passengers use their system to go shopping, while people use the TTC to get around town and to do shopping. That might make a difference in the reaction to an increase.
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I like the 33 multiplier. That would bring the TTC metropass to $99, less the federal tax credit.
A $99 metropass would really help make transit more affordable and fostering “transit lifestyle” including more off-peak use.
It should be part of someone’s political platform (likely more provincial than municipal)…
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I think that GO’s main market would tend to be those who actually prefer it to driving into the core. These customers can easily swallow 25 cents in order not to have to drive into downtown at rush hour. And, of course, the closer you live to the city of toronto, the more GO serves as a convenience rather than a lifeline. Someone commuting from Richmond Hill or Port Credit could easily take local transit to get where they are going, but don’t because it is far less convenient.
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Let us not forget that GO has not increased the distance part of their fares in several years, opting to increase the fixed price portion only. This has resulted in increases over four year up to last year’s March 16 increase of 27% for someone traveling from Old Cummer to Union while riders from Barrie only saw 9%, Oshawa saw 14%, and Hamilton only saw 10% over that same period.
In my proposal for GTHA fare integration, I outline the need to strike a balance between fare-by-distance and flat fares. One of the major problems with fare-by-distance is that it never really is that as there must be a fixed-cost portion and it is far too easy to only raise this as GO has been doing for so long.
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On the other hand, most people who have Metropasses have numerous extra trips. Even on days when I don’t have extra trips, I often stop at a bank, or a cornerstore, or grocery store to pick something up on the way home.
I can’t imagine there is much of that on GO.
I do agree though that the 25¢ across the board fare increase is unfair. So when I travel downtown I’ll be paying a 6% fare increase; but someone travelling to downtown from Waterloo pays less than a 2% fare increase?
Steve: The appropriate multiple for passes will become an interesting debate when all systems are forced to move to Presto if there is, at the same time, any attempt to integrate fare structures. They would be better off simply allowing the Presto card to be “loaded” with whatever existing fares (e.g. Toronto monthly pass, GO pass, etc) a user wanted. Blending the fares across the GTA will be a huge challenge.
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From anecdotal experience Jonathan seems to have identified a lot of GO’s riders accurately. GO has a lot of dedicated commuters who would probably never drive to downtown Toronto, but there is a contingent who switch to GO over the winter or in inclement weather and take it for the convenience of not having to drive rather than saving a couple of dollars. The same applies for those attending concerts or games downtown: it’s so easy to go between the ACC and Union Station whereas parking is still available, but at increasingly longer distances away from the ACC and at ever higher prices.
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This came up the last time GO hiked fares, but to repeat, this style of fare hike shouldn’t be painted as 905 “winning” at the expense of the 416. A three-zone trip from, say, Appleby to Oakville, continues to cost as much as a three-zone trip from Guildwood to Union. Yes, systemwide more trips involve Union Station as a destination than Oakville, but that’s a reality of GTHA commuting patterns at present. It seems silly to try and warp the fare structure to create an arbitrary mathematical bottom line that counts as “fair.”
As Steve himself has pointed out countless times in the much-rehashed debates about whether the TTC should have fare zones, flat or partially-flattened fare structures are merited in part because as transit trips become longer and longer, the relative convenience of transit compared to the private automobile drops off.
In the case of GO, longer-haul journeys tend to be relatively express-ish, so the model they have — best approximated as a flat base price of ~$4 plus a fare-by-distance add-on for journeys crossing 2 or more fare zone boundaries — strikes me as a fair compromise.
The biggest single reason Torontonians aren’t getting more out of the GO lines running through their backyard has less to do with GO’s ticket pricing structure and more to do with the fact that the TTC remains the only local transit agency without some kind of co-fare arrangement with GO. I have no idea whether we can blame GO or the TTC or both for this state of affairs, but surely we can all agree that if I could switch from the subway to the GO Train at Dundas West and make it to Union for $5 total, the system would be greatly improved.
Steve: My understanding of the GO/TTC situation is that the level of subsidies GO pays to the 905 systems is justified as an offset against having to build more parking. There is no comparable offset within the 416 and, moreover, there could be a lot of 416 passengers. Somebody has to eat the cost of the lower combined fare.
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I think the main reason why the TTC takes so much heat for fare hikes while GO (and other regional transit operators) don’t is simply the media’s obsession to villainize the TTC. Growing up in York Region this past decade, it drove me nuts that our fares would go up every year without even a mention in the back pages of the newspaper, while whenever there was even a slight rumour of TTC fares increasing it was front page news for a week! And of course, we got all the sob stories of how spending a whole extra dollar or so per week would force families into bankruptcy, etc.
Personally, I think the TTC could be on to something with how they did their last fare increase. Have fares frozen for 1.5 years, then increase them by about a quarter. So the next fare increase would be in summer 2011, and fares would go to $3.25 cash, $27.50 for 10 tokens, and $135 for a monthly pass. It would allow fares to stabilize in peoples’ minds, and the fares would be at fairly round numbers.
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The reason the TTC takes heat and that GO does not is that Toronto news gets covered. 905 news does not. Noone’s looking except a gaggle of weekly community papers that reprint a handful of press releases in between front-to-back ads, are tossed on driveways in plastic tubes along with an inch of inserts, and are read by virtually noone. See also under: Vaughan, City of.
Like the TTC, GO needs fare by distance and off-peak discounting.
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The average income of a GO commuter is probably much higher than the average TTC rider. GO commuters make a huge fuss about timeliness and reliability and are quiet about fare increases. It’s not a media conspiracy — it reflects the different interests of the two different ridership groups.
Flip the question — why is GO pilloried for being very occasionally late, while the TTC gets (relatively) less media and rider focus on its unreliable streetcar service?
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I did some comparison between GO and Metro North Rail, New York City into Connecticut and Chicago Union Station to Big Timber IL. All trips are 34 – 35 miles. The trip times are different.
Here are comparative costs:
I am not 100% positive on the Chicago single trip price as I was having trouble with their web site.
New York fares are expensive unless you buy the monthly pass or ride off peak. Peak time is 05:00 to 10:00 and 16:00 to 20:00. I rode this line from Darrien to New York in the 1990’s.
I know nothing about the Chicago line except that it is the first one I found with a trip time approaching 50 to 55 minutes. I have ridden the line that takes you out near the Illinois Railway Museum but I can’t remember which one it was.
Both the Chicago and the Metro North line had ticket checkers on each car. Talk about a make work project. It would appear that GO does not give pass holders the same break that they do in New York or Chicago. It easy to see why GO has such a high recovery ratio of operating costs out of the fare box.
The distance from big Timber to Chicago Union Station is 35 miles.
The distance from Darrien CT to Grand Central Station is 35 miles.
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“if I could switch from the subway to the GO Train at Dundas West and make it to Union for $5 total, the system would be greatly improved.”
A situation which should be solved by the DRL. We should have supplemented GO with a Regional service to serve the likes of Niagara and Kitchener and Peterborough and Bolton but instead GO is fulfilling that role. It’s going to be hard to make it a local transit system too.
In any case, making GO serve more of the 416 demand is going to lead to the 905 municipalities wanting an increase in the amount Toronto contributes to GO, especially since it will require more capacity rather than simply using spare / counterpeak capacity.
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A lot of the rationale for planning various LRT projects or avoiding subway extensions was based on the apparent impact of integration with GO’s services. They just showed the 416 what GO really thinks about that idea. Who’s going to use GO inside the 416, if the fares remain so disproportionate, integration or not?
Steve: It is quite odd that the Metrolinx demand model assumes full integration and transferring between all of the disparate GTA networks. The assumption appears to be that by 15 and 25 years from now, they will have figured out how to implement this. Place your bets now, ladies and gentlemen.
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Let’s talk about Presto for a second. Steve – do you know if this fare increase is directly related to integrated Presto across the board? If both GO and TTC are now moving to a common multiplier, I assume that helps in creating a standardized calculus for buying Presto passes.
I’m indifferent to Presto as a regular GO and casual TTC rider. My main concern is to ensure Metrolinx continues to offer a small incentive to riders to purchase their fares in 10 or monthly pass options. The 33 multiplier works fine by me and really, even though the February monthly pass from Hamilton to Toronto is now $300, it is still cheaper than the cumulative costs of putting a car on the road over that same amount of time.
Steve: I doubt that there is any co-ordination between GO and TTC fare policies. As for GO’s pricing, they are simply saying “we need more money this year for our strategic plan, and so we’re raising fares”. What is not mentioned is that GO’s farebox recovery had been sliding in recent years, and this pushes up the subsidy requirement from Queen’s Park. Raising the fares puts more of the burden on the riders. Probably we are seeing several factors at work.
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Tom A-N says: “as transit trips become longer and longer, the relative convenience of transit compared to the private automobile drops off”
Only if transit is slower than the car. If GO managed to have average station-station times substantially over 100km/hr, then the advantage of GO over the car would increase with distance. Similarly, one hopes Transit City vehicles will be able to beat the car with exclusive right-of-way and signal priroity.
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I think GO fare increases are not as big an issue, because GO is using these increases to improve service. And let’s be honest, compared to the TTC, GO offers a auto competative trip. So people don’t mind paying for that kind of service.
Also as stated, GO is improving service with these fare increases. GO has really been expanding, and a lot of the new services are great and attracting lots of new riders to the system. The Peterborough route for example is so full drivers I have chatted with have said that the buses are going packed.
Steve: Another reason many GO riders take a 25-cent increase in their stride is that GO reports the average household income of its riders to be $100K. This is not the same as the TTC’s demographic. I will explore the relative effect of both fare increases in a separate post.
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Well, Kudos to GO, just giving me even more reason to do my travel to Hamilton my way.
[Steve: I’m not sure “kudos” is the word you want given the issues that follow.]
Before you think I’m nuts, let me explain..
I’m legally blind, I use a white cane, I live on $800 a month, I live in west end Etobicoke, near Kipling Station. I have friends and family in Hamilton, I also have medical doctors there.
Currently I have to be in Hamilton 1-2 times a month, it used to be much more often, but I was able to move several of my Medical files to doctors here in Toronto.
GO costs $9.25 each way, that’s $18.50 return per trip, I travel alone, independently, as I don’t have friends that can travel with me, and I can’t afford to pay their way, or food in Hamilton, as well as the GO fares.
GO CLAIMS to be accessible. It is for those with mobility challanges, such as wheelchair or scooter users, yes there are special platforms, and ramps for the trains, and ‘special seating’. BUT, they are STILL INACCESSIBLE FOR THE BLIND!
They have:
NO Braille on platform signs, numbers etc,
no braille or raised lettered washroom signs,
NO Tactile Platform edging on Train Platforms,
no accessible ticket machines (all are touch screen),
no audible train announcements at Union,
bus departure announcements are done ONLY at Union bus terminal, NOT at Hamilton, and
when they ARE announced, how is a blind or visually impaired person supposed to find the appropriate platform? since
there are NO Braille or even Large Print signs at Eye Level,
all the signs are 7-10 feet off the ground,
All but ONE of the departure screens at Union are very high in the air, and
the one at the Customer Service office has had its print fonts decreased in size, apparently to fit more information, and
even then it is frequently off, or broken, with no one available to turn it on or fix it,
Stairs are not edged with High Contrast and Tactile edges or Contrasting colour Handrails,
the Stairs at Aldershot are a different step depth and width then conventional stairs and have no tactile edges or railings,
the brand new stairs leading to the platforms in Union and the Bay street Teamway, are not edged either,
Paper Schedules are in ridiculusly small font,
Large Print and Braille schedules are NOT available at all.
Don’t even get me STARTED about all the other inaccessibilities in GO Stations. I could list all the complaints that I’ve heard from not only other blind/visually impaired people by have experienced myself, but I won’t, I think that what I have said is enough.
When I challange GO about this, they tell me I should ‘get a sighted friend to help me’. I’m sorry, but this is 2010, NOT 1967! I am a INDEPENDENT blind person, If a person in a wheelchair can get accessibility and be able to travel independently, why can’t I?
Why is it that EVERY TIME I ask GO, they come up with some lame excuse, trying to shut me up with , “oh but your companion would get on free” I DON’T have anyone to travel with me, and WHY should I ask anybody to take time out of their day just to take me to Hamilton?, I shouldn’t have to.
Yes, they’ve made all these ‘improvements’ and spent millions of dollars for wheelchair accessible train cars and buses and renovated stations, and put in elevators, but if TTC can do great accessibility features for blind/visually impaired people, why can’t GO? WHY, should I be expected to pay full fare if I can’t use the system independently?
I currently use the local transit systems between here and Hamilton to get there. It’s free all the way, and better washrooms WITH braille! at Oakville, (braille/large print washroom signs were donated by the local Guide Dog school). With the improvements with Oakville Transit, and Mississauga Transit’s new 101 service between Islington Station and Uptown Core in Oakville, it makes it even easier than just a year ago to do my trips back and forth.
Now with yet ANOTHER fare increase, I will be doing it my way all the time, instead of occasionally using GO from Union to Hamilton.
I cannot and will not justify paying $19 per trip for inaccessibility.
I hate using Long Branch as it is, and Mimico with its platform going from really wide at one end and narrowing down to nothing with NO warning at the other, as well as not being tactile edged, is just downright dangerous for a blind person.
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Steve, I used ‘kudos’ with extreme sarcasam.
Steve: I thought so, but just wanted to be sure.
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Emily,
Have you contacted GO Customer service, or only mentioned your ideas to bus drivers and station attandants?
I would encourage you to write to the customer service department. They do treat customers comments seriously and I am sure they will have some effect if you bring the issues to the attention of the proper people at the head office, who can enact change.
Your ideas are very good and important.
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About GO riders and income. To be honest I do not think GO riders are any richer than regular transit riders, for the most part.
GO ridership is seen as richer, because such a high amount of riders are people going to work. But if you took students out, and others who are not commuting to work, than I am sure you would find income levels pretty much equal with GO riders.
Also as GO runs more than just rush hour service, you are seeing all different types of riders and income levels.
The 905 is really not as rich as people make it out to be, and last I read, the average GO commuter comes from a family with a family income of $80,000. Which equals two adults making $40,000 each a year.
Of course there are richer people who use GO. But overall, it is just your normal workers. I am sure the TTC downtown express buses have similar income demographics to GO service, because a higher number of riders are just going to work.
Steve: The $100K average income of GO families was cited in a report at the Metrolinx Board meeting on February 19.
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Michael:
Yes, many, many times, have even written letters to GO, 10-15 of them.
GO don’t give a damm, never have, never will, I am but a single customer, an infrequent one at that, they don’t care, they only seem to care about making money and serving the rich, car/truck/suv driving people.
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Emily says: Yes, many, many times, have even written letters to GO, 10-15 of them.
Maybe It is time to get the blind lawyer that made the TTC make station/stop announcements to start making GO fix those problems.
And what about David Onley,whose mandate was to make all services available to the handicapped when he became Governor General of Ontario.
I’m sure his office will respond to your problems.
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Not to be a nitpicker, but median != average.
Steve: GO says that “50% of household incomes are over $100,000”. That means that the “median” (the value for which half of the sample points are above and half below) is $100k. GO did not say what the arithmetic average was. I am using the correct term, and chose it to match what GO reported.
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When I came to visit my parents in Mississauga in June 2009 I had a dinner with a friend in downtown Toronto.
For a return ticket from Port Credit to Union station I paid $9.25 and the train was 30 minutes late in arriving at Port Credit.
When I got to BCE place, I noticed that they were offering parking for $5 for customers of Marche & visitors, provided there was no sporting event going on.
I know GO’s market is the daytime commuter … but they should provide services that really meets the needs of the evening visitors to Toronto.
Why not offer evening service discounts to encourage more people to take the train instead of driving to the core.
Cheers, m
Steve: This is the sort of thing GO should be examining as part of their farecard rollout — the ability to charge different fares by time of day. Of course, if their financial people are anything like the TTC’s, they will weep and moan about how much money this will cost and all of the “lost” revenue.
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One think people need to remember about the costs of expansion, GO is a provincial agency, therefore people in places like Northbay and Timmins have been playing Provincial taxes to support GO for decades, without ever being close enough to use it. People in Peterborough paid taxes to support GO for over 40 years before getting a GO bus last year. If that new service means people riding Go now need to pay an extra 25 cents, then so be it.
I do think that across the board increases are easier to calculate and easier to update fare systems for and that is why it’s often done that way. As for services for the blind, and upgrades required for the Blind, some of those things can be difficult or very expensive to do, they will be done eventually, but it may take time. As for ticket machines, how do bank ATM’s deal with the problem of touch screens? Ticket machines should be similar I would think.
Steve: The GTA pays to subsidize many services in remote parts of Ontario. I could say, let’s forget everything north of Barrie, but people might get a tad upset.
The problem with the flat increases of 25 cents (this is not the first one) is that the gradual effect is to move GO away from strictly speaking a fare-by-distance system, something they claimed to be in the very report that was at the Metrolinx Board. At least they are ironing out the disparities in fare discounts, but they really need to look hard at how they calculate fares.
As for the blind, the TTC and many other transit agencies are being forced by provincial law to spend a lot of money making their services accessible in many ways. The least GO Transit can do is provide the services expected of other government agencies.
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PSC says:
February 23, 2010 at 4:13 pm
“Not to be a nitpicker, but median != average.”
Median is the value in the middle, half the values are above and half are below.
Mean is the arithmetic average, The sum of all the values divided by how many there are.
Mode is the most common value in the group.
If the distribution is in a normal “Bell curve” then they are the same.
Perhaps you should have paid more attention in math class.
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Perhaps readers should peruse the comments to see what I commented on, instead of slagging me first.
Steve is correct in saying that he used median in the article. He later said “The $100K average income of GO families was cited in a report at the Metrolinx Board meeting on February 19.” in his response to Mike’s comment.
RIF.
Steve: Thanks for pointing out the error of my ways.
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PSC, Is != supposed to mean not equal to average? If that is the case then I apologize but I have not seen the symbol to mean “not equal”. Why not use the words and spell it out or insert the correct symbol, ≠? I still use correct terms and do not speak texting. I have taught Math, Physics and Science for 37 years and ! has always meant factorial (the product of all the numbers between 1 and the number in front of it 3! =3*2*1) and not “not”. It might be an accepted meaning in some uses but I haven’t seen it. The last time I taught statistics they had changed some of the symbols from when I taught it 20 years before.
Average can be swayed too much by a major change in a few values, say it the top 1000 earners get a $20 million dollar bonus. The average would go up a lot whereas the middle value is not affected. People tend to misuse and interchange Median and Mean or average. It raises a red flag in my brain. Again my apologies but I did not understand your meaning.
Steve: Can we put this little tiff to rest? I used “median” in one place and “average” in another, when I should have used “median” in both. Another comment, above, makes the valid point that family income may misrepresent the situation for students living at home, although they are only 9% of the total GO ridership and therefore can’t affect the stats (whatever terms you might use) a great deal.
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