[Fred.S]

In most cases, it will be necessary to widen the street (adding 2 new lanes). Of course this is doable along suburban arterials with wide public right-of-way, and cheaper than LRT or subway, but not as cheap as simply repainting the existing lanes.

True, if you want to maintain existing lanes, but that's not required. Although that would mostly likely happen anywhere where there are only 2 lanes per direction. Somewhere like Yonge North would probably have to lose the centre turn lane plus an additional lane.

 

[gweed123]

In most cases, it will be necessary to widen the street (adding 2 new lanes). Of course this is doable along suburban arterials with wide public right-of-way, and cheaper than LRT or subway, but not as cheap as simply repainting the existing lanes.

But BRT has the distinct advantage in that it can be built piecemeal over a period of time, as opposed to LRT which needs to be done all in 1 shot. With BRT, you can start out with a few queue jump lanes at busy intersections, then widen the roadway along busy stretches, and then fill in the gaps when money becomes available or when it is needed. BRT (or more specifically BRT light) can be a series of smaller roadworks projects, as opposed to one massive transit expansion project, as is necessary with rail-based rapid transit.

 

[EnviroTO]

Well if people were going from Agincourt to Yonge & Finch, why would they bother taking GO? The example I used is getting from Agincourt to downtown. And I think you missed my point about turnover on bus routes. If a bus turns over twice or 3 times over the span of a route instead of 1, that bus is much more profitable. The more transfer points you have along a given route, the higher the turnover will be.

I didn't miss that point. I agree if the people get off the bus sooner there is more space on the bus for the next person. This becomes more profitable not because you are turning around the bus but because you run the bus less frequently. If the bus is run at the same frequency there is no savings. My point is that both the Sheppard subway and Sheppard LRT don't serve the purpose of going downtown well, they are cross town routes so GO improvements don't do anything for the bulk of the riders that would have benefited from either plan. So if you believe that most of the riders of the Sheppard bus want to go north-south then you must also admit that an LRT to serve the people going east-west makes more sense than a subway going east-west because people mostly want to go north-south.

Yes, it does have something to do with electrification. With electrification you can run trains more frequently.

Only if the reason they cannot run the trains more frequently is related to acceleration. Do you believe that currently there is a section of track which sees trains at a frequency where the issue running trains closer together is limited by the acceleration of the train in front of it?

The 3 things you need in order to increase the amount of TTC<->GO transfers are: fare integration, more frequent GO service, and more stations. Your model is based on the assumption that GO will only keep the current service levels. You're looking at the status quo and saying why it doesn't work, and I'm telling you how it can be fixed so that it can work.

If you are saying that electrification by itself provides any service increase by itself I am telling you that it is marginal. I agree that those 3 things are required to increase TTC to GO transfers but fare integration (which really means offering transfers cheaper than today) doesn't come from electrification, it comes from dumping funding into operating costs to cover the shortfall that fare integration creates. More frequent service marginally comes from electrification since the round trip will be shorter but really this operational benefit is an operational cost benefit, not something that significantly increase the service frequency. More frequent service requires tracks, trains, staff, and station capacity upgrades not covered by electrification. Lastly new stations are not an automatic by-product of electrification either.

You are saying redirecting the Transit City money to GO electrification is a greater benefit and I am saying it isn't because (a) GO trains don't serve the use cases of the Transit City routes, (b) the routes served by Transit City have greater ridership than the total GO train network, and (c) a heck of a lot more money would be required to actually derive any meaningful benefit of electrification since the lack of electrification isn't the reason there isn't more service right now and by itself solves nothing.

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't build BRT and LRT, I'm just saying it shouldn't be the #1 priority. The #1 priority should be GO, because it will provide the greatest increase in capacity and mobility for the cost, especially compared to suburban LRT routes that aren't (and shouldn't) be designed for long distance commuting.

It doesn't serve the greatest number of riders and overloading is occurring now on the routes served by Transit City. Why would the number 1 priority be to spend much more per kilometre to serve less people?

 

[gweed123]

I didn't miss that point. I agree if the people get off the bus sooner there is more space on the bus for the next person. This becomes more profitable not because you are turning around the bus but because you run the bus less frequently. If the bus is run at the same frequency there is no savings.

No, the bus is more profitable because you have more people paying a fare. It has nothing to do with the time in which it takes the bus to run the route, it has to do with how many boardings the bus has during that trip. If the bus has a complete turnover 2 or 3 times along it's route, it's more profitable than a bus that only turns over once.

My point is that both the Sheppard subway and Sheppard LRT don't serve the purpose of going downtown well, they are cross town routes so GO improvements don't do anything for the bulk of the riders that would have benefited from either plan. So if you believe that most of the riders of the Sheppard bus want to go north-south then you must also admit that an LRT to serve the people going east-west makes more sense than a subway going east-west because people mostly want to go north-south.

Have you seen how many riders the Sheppard subway dumps onto the Yonge line? Nearly all of the people getting on at Don Mills in the AM get off at Yonge and board a southbound Yonge train (Very few of them actually get off at the stations in between). And where are most of those people headed? Downtown! It's not a crosstown line, it's a feeder line for the Yonge subway.

Same thing goes for the Sheppard East bus by the way. What percentage of the riders on the Sheppard East bus in the peak hour get off before Don Mills Station? They transfer onto the Sheppard Subway, to then transfer onto the Yonge Subway going southbound.

In order for Sheppard to be a "crosstown" route, it needs to go ACROSS TOWN. Not a line that's split up between an LRT in the east, a subway in the middle, and a bus in the west. That's not a crosstown route, that's a clusterf**k.

Only if the reason they cannot run the trains more frequently is related to acceleration. Do you believe that currently there is a section of track which sees trains at a frequency where the issue running trains closer together is limited by the acceleration of the train in front of it?

Union Station?

If you are saying that electrification by itself provides any service increase by itself I am telling you that it is marginal. I agree that those 3 things are required to increase TTC to GO transfers but fare integration (which really means offering transfers cheaper than today) doesn't come from electrification, it comes from dumping funding into operating costs to cover the shortfall that fare integration creates. More frequent service marginally comes from electrification since the round trip will be shorter but really this operational benefit is an operational cost benefit, not something that significantly increase the service frequency. More frequent service requires tracks, trains, staff, and station capacity upgrades not covered by electrification. Lastly new stations are not an automatic by-product of electrification either.

Electrification doesn't provide it, it just makes it possible. And you're assuming that fare integration wouldn't come with some sort of a re-implementation of a zone fare system on the TTC, in which case you're point about covering the increased operating costs of double fare would be somewhat moot.

You are saying redirecting the Transit City money to GO electrification is a greater benefit and I am saying it isn't because (a) GO trains don't serve the use cases of the Transit City routes.

Transit City routes don't even properly serve the use cases of Transit City routes (with the exception of maybe the central portion of Eglinton).

(b) the routes served by Transit City have greater ridership than the total GO train network, and

Wrong. The 2031 projections for the Express Rail lines (Lakeshore West & East, Brampton, Mississauga, Richmond Hill) have a combined projected ridership of 278.1 million riders per year, with a combined peak hour peak point ridership of 104,100.

Compare that to the 4 Transit City lines (prior to Rob Ford's handiwork): 131 million riders per year, 21,800 combined peak hour peak point ridership.

Cost of those 4 Transit City lines: $8.1 billion. Cost of electrifying the entire GO network: $4.2 billion.

(Sources: http://www.metrolinx.com/thebigmove/Docs/big_move/RTP_Backgrounder_Modelling.pdf, http://www.gotransit.com/estudy/en/current_study/docs/ElectricificationStudy_FinalReport.pdf)

Can you honestly say with a straight face that electrifying the GO network isn't a better use of funds? Double the yearly ridership, nearly 5x the peak hour ridership, just over half the cost. And the ridership numbers I quoted earlier aren't even including the entire GO rail network, just the Express lines!

(c) a heck of a lot more money would be required to actually derive any meaningful benefit of electrification since the lack of electrification isn't the reason there isn't more service right now and by itself solves nothing.

The reason there isn't more service right now is because of the lack of available engineers and conductors.

It doesn't serve the greatest number of riders and overloading is occurring now on the routes served by Transit City. Why would the number 1 priority be to spend much more per kilometre to serve less people?

I'll include the entire GO network in my calculations this time:

Total yearly ridership on the GO network vs Transit City: 338.6 million vs 131 million
Total peak hour ridership: 143,800 vs 21,800
Total capital costs: $4.2 billion vs $8.1 billion
Total cost per passenger for electrified GO network: $12.40/passenger
Total cost per passenger for Transit City: $61.83/passenger

So which one is the better investment again???

 

[Platform 27]

"Express Rail" in The Big Move and the electrified GO scenario in the Electrification Study are rather different things. You can't mix and match costs for one and ridership figures for the other.

 

[gweed123]

"Express Rail" in The Big Move and the electrified GO scenario in the Electrification Study are rather different things. You can't mix and match costs for one and ridership figures for the other.

For the cost analysis in my last post, I took the ridership projections of all the GO lines, not just the express rail (in the last quoted part I mean, at the very end). And the cost I quoted was from the electrification study, and it was the cost of the entire network. Ridership projections for the entire GO rail network and the cost of electrifying the entire GO rail network seems pretty equitable to me.

 

[Platform 27]

For the cost analysis in my last post, I took the ridership projections of all the GO lines, not just the express rail (in the last quoted part I mean, at the very end). And the cost I quoted was from the electrification study, and it was the cost of the entire network. Ridership projections for the entire GO rail network and the cost of electrifying the entire GO rail network seems pretty equitable to me.

Except if you spend the $4.2 billion described in the GO electrification study, you don't get The Big Move's vision of "Express Rail" on some lines and conventional GO "Regional Rail" on the rest. You get electrified conventional GO regional rail. And that's assuming you already have an expanded GO infrastructure plant to add electrification onto.

Remember that the $4.2 billion cost figure in the electrification study was explicitly premised on the idea that further billions would have already been spent already to add tracks, grade separations and so on to run the number of trains that were modelled... it was always a figure that was supposed to represent the difference between a future with expanded diesel or the same level of service powered electrically.

Express rail as described in The Big Move would mean even more infrastructure costs beyond those associated with getting the GO network up to electrification study levels because the lines have to be pretty much 100% grade separated. There's also completely new rolling stock and maintenance facilities to consider, along with probably redoing all the stations for high-floor trains.

 

[EnviroTO]

No, the bus is more profitable because you have more people paying a fare. It has nothing to do with the time in which it takes the bus to run the route, it has to do with how many boardings the bus has during that trip. If the bus has a complete turnover 2 or 3 times along it's route, it's more profitable than a bus that only turns over once.

How do you have more people paying the fare because they transfer for free sooner? If 500 people go to their respective bus stops today and go all the way to the Yonge subway, and then tomorrow 500 people go to their respective bus stops and some go to the Stouffville GO, Richmond Hill GO, and Yonge subway tomorrow, how have you saved money or made more money? You still have 500 fares. You are confusing different things. Increased ridership and route length are not directly related.

Have you seen how many riders the Sheppard subway dumps onto the Yonge line? Nearly all of the people getting on at Don Mills in the AM get off at Yonge and board a southbound Yonge train (Very few of them actually get off at the stations in between). And where are most of those people headed? Downtown! It's not a crosstown line, it's a feeder line for the Yonge subway.

So it makes no sense to build Sheppard as a subway then. Getting those riders to SCC where a subway takes a more direct route downtown or building the Don Mills LRT which goes north-south has more value than building a subway which runs at a right angle to where people actually want to go.

Union Station?

I suggest you go watch the tracks leading to Union Station. When things are backed up (which only occurs at rush hour) it is because there are no free platforms or they are trying to have trains cross the flow of other trains. Electrification would speed things up marginally but the real slow down at the platform is that they are so thin that GO is uncomfortable having passengers wait on the platforms for the trains. They need to have smaller signal blocks and automate things. They also need to be intelligent about which platform they use. I never really understood the need for the flyover near Bathurst Yard. If they have trains going to Richmond Hill and Barrie on the northern platforms and Lakeshore trains on the southern platforms and arrange things so there is minimal conflicts things would go smoother. They always end up doing the crossover shuffle.

Electrification doesn't provide it, it just makes it possible. And you're assuming that fare integration wouldn't come with some sort of a re-implementation of a zone fare system on the TTC, in which case you're point about covering the increased operating costs of double fare would be somewhat moot.

If there was a re-implementation of a zone fare system then the cash fare price from Scarborough would go from $3 to something like $4.50 to take the TTC the whole way downtown and probably about $1.50 for the local TTC plus an additional $5.15 to get onto the GO ($6.65 total). Right now the GO gets $5.15 from Agincourt without without any costs related to local surface transit. I don't think politically going from $3 to get downtown to a choice of $4.50 for TTC only, $5.15 for GO only, or $6.65 for a TTC+GO combo will sell.

Transit City routes don't even properly serve the use cases of Transit City routes (with the exception of maybe the central portion of Eglinton).

Sure they do, they serve to increase the carrying capacity of the routes they are located on, increase scheduling reliability, and reduce the operational per seat cost.

Wrong. The 2031 projections for the Express Rail lines (Lakeshore West & East, Brampton, Mississauga, Richmond Hill) have a combined projected ridership of 278.1 million riders per year, with a combined peak hour peak point ridership of 104,100.

That is the future with ALL improvements minus electrification applied across the full network. That would need to be compared to full Transit City implementation across the whole city (not just the initial lines) plus normal growth through to 2031.

Compare that to the 4 Transit City lines (prior to Rob Ford's handiwork): 131 million riders per year, 21,800 combined peak hour peak point ridership.

Why would I compare a GO network that has been expanded significantly in 2031 to a 2021 partially implemented Transit City?

Cost of those 4 Transit City lines: $8.1 billion. Cost of electrifying the entire GO network: $4.2 billion.

Electrifying doesn't provide express rail, tracks, trains, staff, etc. It only provides electrification. Please compare the 2031 Transit City with all lines implemented to the 2031 GO network with the costs for implementing express rail, station improvements, line enhancements, etc. To start the cost of the Georgetown corridor enhancements without any electrification and without the rail spur is about $875M for that 22km stretch of one line plus $275 for the West Toronto grade separation. Now apply upgrades across the network and to stations and apply that to your $4.2 billion figure.

Can you honestly say with a straight face that electrifying the GO network isn't a better use of funds? Double the yearly ridership, nearly 5x the peak hour ridership, just over half the cost. And the ridership numbers I quoted earlier aren't even including the entire GO rail network, just the Express lines!

Yes it is, because the largest part of that growth would come from the service going all day, nothing to do with electrification. It would also cost more per passenger to subsidize their travel a 20% operational subsidy on a fare of $8 is a subsidy of $2 per passenger whereas a subsidy of 20% on a fare of $3 is 60 cents.