[sixrings]

Well I have sad news for everyone. Just got to Ottawa and my parents condo front patio which is heated is working but there’s so much ice it won’t melt. Bottom line is that no matter what you do… sometimes you’re the bird and sometimes you’re the statue.

 

[T3G]

Is the bird a metaphor for incompetent public authorities? If Mississauga was able to clear almost all their bus stops of snow, every other city is able, too.

I'm not asking for the impossible here - I'm not criticizing snowed in bus stops 30 minutes after a huge snow dump has ended. I'm talking more than 24 hours after the fall of the snow, when the sidewalks have gotten cleared, and cities like Mississauga have managed to free their bus stops. There is ***zero*** reason why, in the process of clearing the sidewalks, the bus stops in Milton could not have been cleared at the same time, too.

 

[sixrings]

Is the bird a metaphor for incompetent public authorities? If Mississauga was able to clear almost all their bus stops of snow, every other city is able, too.

I'm not asking for the impossible here - I'm not criticizing snowed in bus stops 30 minutes after a huge snow dump has ended. I'm talking more than 24 hours after the fall of the snow, when the sidewalks have gotten cleared, and cities like Mississauga have managed to free their bus stops. There is ***zero*** reason why, in the process of clearing the sidewalks, the bus stops in Milton could not have been cleared at the same time, too.

In fairness, there is nothing especially special about Mississauga, of all places. I'd say it has the edge over Brampton, or Milton, or York Region, just purely by virtue of having a shoreline.

But yeah, no, it sucks.

Yeah I was reading about your hate for Mississauga late last night. Well it’s nice you gave us two compliments. A waterfront and snow removal. This place sucks.

 

[kev1n1m]

Just a reminder to everyone that the ignore function works wonders to make this place more useful and less childish

 

[MiExpress]

According to a report on the next Niagara Region Transit board agenda, GO Transit is looking to implement bus service to downtown St Catherines (while maintaining existing service to Fairview Mall):

https://pub-ntc.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=493

 

[ShonTron]

According to a report on the next Niagara Region Transit board agenda, GO Transit is looking to implement bus service to downtown St Catherines (while maintaining existing service to Fairview Mall):

https://pub-ntc.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=493

GO really should choose one or the other, unless they were separate routes (say, the 11 that goes to Brock), but even then, I'm not convinced. I don't see the point of Route 12 (which is far too slow with too many stops) serving both locations; the only point of Fairview is to have an easy-ish on/off the QEW while still having a connection to local transit. There's no dedicated carpool/park-and-ride parking there, unlike at Beamsville or Grimsby.

 

[reaperexpress]

GO really should choose one or the other, unless they were separate routes (say, the 11 that goes to Brock), but even then, I'm not convinced. I don't see the point of Route 12 (which is far too slow with too many stops) serving both locations; the only point of Fairview is to have an easy-ish on/off the QEW while still having a connection to local transit. There's no dedicated carpool/park-and-ride parking there, unlike at Beamsville or Grimsby.

Exactly. Route 11 (Hamilton - St Catharines) already goes past downtown St. Catharines, so adding a stop at the downtown bus terminal would be a fairly minimal change.

But adding a stop to Route 12 (Burlington - Niagara) sems like an excessive deviation that would make travel times even longer than they already are.

 

[Metroscapes]

Exactly. Route 11 (Hamilton - St Catharines) already goes past downtown St. Catharines, so adding a stop at the downtown bus terminal would be a fairly minimal change.
View attachment 631636
But adding a stop to Route 12 (Burlington - Niagara) sems like an excessive deviation that would make travel times even longer than they already are.

Gosh, my partner and I could have used this and Route 17 for way more convenient visits to each other 15 years ago.

 

[reaperexpress]

Gosh, my partner and I could have used this and Route 17 for way more convenient visits to each other 15 years ago.

When I lived in Hamilton more than a decade ago, there was a Coach Canada bus line from Kitchener to Niagara Falls via Hamilton Centre and St Catharines Terminal. That was much faster between Hamilton and St Catharines than the current GO service.

In my opinion, the 11 should skip Beamsville P&R to improve journey times by about 5 minutes per direction. It's pretty close to Grimsby P&R by car and I doubt many people are parking in Beamsville to take a bus just to Hamilton or St Catharines. They're more likely to park to go to Toronto, in which case they'd be on Route 12, which also has express service so the additional stop is less impactful than on Route 11.

 

[Metroscapes]

When I lived in Hamilton more than a decade ago, there was a Coach Canada bus line from Kitchener to Niagara Falls via Hamilton Centre and St Catharines Terminal. That was much faster between Hamilton and St Catharines than the current GO service.

Yup, that Coach Canada service was available to us for my first year of undergrad at Guelph, and then it got cancelled. I had to resort to 3 transfers via Square One, Oakville and Burlington, and even then, getting dumped off / picked up at Fairview Mall required another couple local buses or taxi to get close to Brock U. It was brutal, but at least we stayed together, made it through those hard times, and got married.

 

[T3G]

When GO buses divert to get around traffic, is that at the discretion of the driver or does the instruction come from further high up?

Because whatever it is, the system needs rethinking. Every so often I'll get a driver who uses Lake Shore entering Toronto to avoid traffic on the Gardiner, and even less frequently than that a driver on the westbound 27 who gets around the congestion on the 401 by using the 400/407, but most of them dutifully drive through the prescribed routing. It's awful. There is no better way to realize how little your time is worth as a transit rider than to have to sit in bumper to bumper traffic on the Gardiner and seeing Lake Shore clipping along at a fair pace.

I remain hugely thankful to everyone who complained about the 21 and saw its through routing to Union station restored in lieu of the transfer at the Lakeshore West stations. Because it doesn't matter how much slower and more terrible service is, as long as you don't have to move for any reason whatsoever. No bus only lanes, no movement on improving passenger service on freight corridors, and when someone comes up with an idea to make the journey halfway tolerable they change it back. The inmates are running the asylum here.

 

[sixrings]

When GO buses divert to get around traffic, is that at the discretion of the driver or does the instruction come from further high up?

Because whatever it is, the system needs rethinking. Every so often I'll get a driver who uses Lake Shore entering Toronto to avoid traffic on the Gardiner, and even less frequently than that a driver on the westbound 27 who gets around the congestion on the 401 by using the 400/407, but most of them dutifully drive through the prescribed routing. It's awful. There is no better way to realize how little your time is worth as a transit rider than to have to sit in bumper to bumper traffic on the Gardiner and seeing Lake Shore clipping along at a fair pace.

I remain hugely thankful to everyone who complained about the 21 and saw its through routing to Union station restored in lieu of the transfer at the Lakeshore West stations. Because it doesn't matter how much slower and more terrible service is, as long as you don't have to move for any reason whatsoever. No bus only lanes, no movement on improving passenger service on freight corridors, and when someone comes up with an idea to make the journey halfway tolerable they change it back. The inmates are running the asylum here.

Every time people complain about being in traffic on transit I’m always confused how people hated the idea of TC and thought a LRT in its own lane wasn’t a massive improvement for just the dedicated lane alone.

 

[smallspy]

When GO buses divert to get around traffic, is that at the discretion of the driver or does the instruction come from further high up?

A little bit of both.

The driver does have some discretion to take alternate routes provided that they don't miss any stops and that their vehicle allows them to. The double-deckers have some route restrictions that don't allow some alternates, for instance.

But the central office will also provide detours if they see congestion developing on a route and can get the vehicles around it.

Dan

 

[reaperexpress]

One thing that must be said about the 15 minute service on Lakeshore East, though, is that their insistence on interlining Lakeshore trips means that service is being capped on Lakeshore West even though they have no construction going on there that would preclude it. If there can't be 15 minute LSE service, it would be nice if they at least divorced it from LSW.

Do we actually know that insistence on interlining is actually the reason though? They've de-interlined them in the past for construction schedule adjustments, and sometimes run special Union-Ex shuttles during special events. It seems equally likely that the 15-minute Oakville-Union local service is just missing due to limited crew availability.

 

[crs1026]

It seems equally likely that the 15-minute Oakville-Union local service is just missing due to limited crew availability.

Quite likely that this, and not ridership, is the barrier.

This is another thing ML is unwilling to talk about (or claims it's no longer their responsibility).

Fire and police departments have no problem sharing their staffing plans - usually during the municipal budgeting process.

I see nothing confidential in this that could not be disclosed publicly. But, ML....

- Paul