At the GTTA Board meeting yesterday (see previous post for additional information on this), GO Transit presented an overview of its plans for additional parking on the network.  I won’t go into the fine details here, but broadly this contained two important directions:

• GO is moving toward parking structures, possibly in conjuction with development of its parking lot properties, as an alternative to continued outward expansion of the lots.
• The target growth rate is from 1,500 to 2,000 spaces per year.

GO currenly operates 48,500 parking spaces, and the park-and-ride sector now account for 67% of ridership.  Other modal shares are kiss-and-ride (15%), walking (9%), local transit (8%) and cycling (.5% to 1%).

In the long run, parking is not sustainable at its current modal share.  Assuming a 20-year growth rate in the middle of GO’s cited range (1,750), this would give 35,000 more spaces.  However, GO expects its riding to double over the next 20 years, and external factors such as a stepp rise in oil prices could accelerate this.  Clearly, parking will handle a lower, even if still important, proportion of total ridership.  A further problem is that a route such as Lakeshore with plans for large increases in capacity through electrification and extension is not necessarily where the additional parking capacity can be easily located.  Rapid growth in ridership may outstrip parking growth on this line.

This puts a considerable additional demand on local transit service to the GO stations both in quantity and in hours of service.  This will be a challenge for local transit operators and, by extension for the GTTA.

As the GTTA contemplates the future role of transit, it must adapt from provision of downtown-oriented, peak Monday to Friday communting service (including the local transit component) to service that makes travel by transit within and among the regions easy.  After all, much of the GTA gridlock comes not from commuters to downtown, but from travel between the regions including phenomena such as the lunch-hour traffic jams.

This is one of several cases the GTTA must not adopt a “more of the same” approach to transit.

One of the more bizarre election stories appeared in the Globe and Mail today — Dalton McGuinty is advancing the idea of hydrogen-fuelled GO Trains.

Regular readers here will know that my opinion of hydrogen as a transit fuel is thinly-veiled contempt on the best of days, and I am astounded to see McGuinty wandering down this technological dead end.

Fuel cells and hydrogen power have their uses, but they run into difficulties even at the scale of a city bus, let alone a railway car.  If this were used for GO equipment, it would be at best for self-propelled cars running on minor lines that did not warrant full, locomotive-hauled trains.  This is a niche market, not a mainstream replacement for existing equipment. Continue reading →

According to today’s Toronto Star, PC leader John Tory’s solution to GO Transit’s on-time performance problems is to fire managers if they cannot meet the targets.  Although this is a refreshing change from the usual right-wing habit of blaming everything on the unions, it is no more realistic or responsible a platform.

GO Transit operates in the unenviable position where much of the physical plant is not under its control.  If CNR doesn’t have enough switch heaters, or decides that their freight train is more important than GO’s service, there is very little GO can do about it.

Yes, operating contracts could contain penalty clauses for poor performance, but I doubt that CN would ever sign anything with draconian penalties that would actually affect their profits.  Indeed, performance management of “private partners” is a big problem and there is a balancing act between holding the private sector’s feet to the fire and reaching a point where they don’t bother trying to meet their obligations.

We need a much better public accounting and explanation of the reasons why trains don’t run on time so that everyone can discuss what areas (a) provide lots of opportunity for improvement and (b) why some problems will always be with us.

How often is GO service blocked by freight activities?  How often does a train not run because there is no working equipment?  How often does the crew show up late for work?  How often is there a problem with the track or signals?  How often is there a cow on the tracks?

Each of these problems needs its own approach, and there will be different issues on each line. 

John Tory’s simplistic “solution” shifts the blame from where it really belongs — at Queen’s Park and the decades of underfunding — to the managers who try to run an organization under difficult times. 

Tory needs to own up to his own party’s legacy, to changes in funding and downloading of costs to municipalities, and say what he would change.  The Liberals may have left some Harris policies in place for their own convenience, but if there are things Tory would change, he should say so.  He should acknowledge the damage that was done the last time his party ran Ontario and set himself clearly apart from that regime.