Metrolinx service reliability has light years ahead of TTC. Their current maintenance issue will pass; and I bet afterward, Metrolinx service reliability will still be light years ahead.
So they do one thing properly; perhaps the most important thing. Even if they suck ass in so many ways.
Respectfully, I think that this is an oversimplification, as someone who uses both GO (train and bus) and TTC 5 days a week. Since September, I've only been affected by TTC outages twice; but GO delays are so regular that I always feel an undercurrent of anxiety when I embark on a journey, not knowing if I will make it to the end or if a catastrophic infrastructure failure is going to leave me stranded somewhere.
Yes, ML tends to run according to schedule more often, helped no doubt by the fact that they pad their schedules. But the maintenance issues aren't an external problem, they were brought along by their own stupidity. And it's not just their trains, this winter there's been the daily threat of bus cancellations hanging over our heads too, because the double deckers are unreliable and the MCIs are really starting to show their age. This problem might possibly be dealt with at an unknown time in the future, though only after much more commuter nightmares, but unless they get rid of the morons who brought about this problem in the first place, there is every risk of further such difficulties cropping up at another time. And their service planning is woefully inadequate too. Last fall, the Union-bound 21s were leaving scores of people behind at the stops in Mississauga, because, despite RTO mandates, no one thought that maybe the same level of service they were running during WFH was possibly not adequate (that problem, as far as I can tell, has only gone away because they finally switched most runs on the 21 to double deckers, something they couldn't figure out throughout the fall semester). And don't get me started on routes like the 22 which run every TWO hours! If your bus is cancelled (and this has happened), you'll be left waiting 4 hours for the next one, or paying out the ass for an Uber.
Yes, the TTC has loads of issues, but they run so much service it is exceedingly rare for a GO transit style catastrophe (being stranded in the middle of nowhere with no alternative options) to occur. If you run such a barebones service as GO does, it is
essential that you have 110% reliability. Cancellations
cannot occur, under
any circumstances. If a TTC vehicle has to be taken off the line for a breakdown, in the worst case scenario another one will be along within 20 minutes, and if the headway is followed much less than that. No such thing with GO, if your train or bus is cancelled, if you are not on the Lakeshore corridor there is a very, very good chance your whole day is about to be ruined.
Some people will say, "oh, leave your house earlier", but since the 21 runs every hour after noon, what that suggestion essentially boils down to is "leave your house earlier and waste even more of your life away from your friends and family because Metrolinx are too stupid to run a competent service". Heaven forbid we should expect buses and trains to run according to the posted schedule!
At least stop charging fares for people living outside of the Lakeshore corridor. A one way journey into town costs me $12, but for this exorbitant fare structure, we've seen no improvements whatsoever, only things getting progressively worse since COVID initially broke out. Criminal scum. If I could move and rely on solely the TTC instead every day, I would do so in a heartbeat.
www.thetrillium.ca
