[TOareaFan]

Coming from Kitchener/Guelph/etc., your best bet is probably getting off at Bramalea and either transferring to the hourly 34 bus (serves the bus loop going inbound) or walking to Bramalea Road and taking the BT 115 - runs every 30 min Mon-Sat, every hour Sundays.

I can't imagine too many doing either of those....but, for some reason, I can see people going to Malton and extending their train ride by a short bus ride on a dedicated GO Bus shuttle (that said, I still think a more permanent solution would be some kind of people mover extension).

 

[BMO]

I see a lot of issues arising from using the People Mover as public transit, as the People Mover is owned by GTAA and offered as a free service. Wouldn't extending the People Mover to both Malton and Renforth see it compete with Brampton Transit, the TTC and MiWay for some stretches of Airport Road?
Unless Metrolinx assumes control of the People Mover, I'm not sure how it could continue operating as a free system and be extended both north and south.

I honestly see it as an advantage to these transit systems. The whole road network around the airport is so not transit friendly it may be more cost effective to just end a bunch of routes at the People mover termini with the exception of a route or two on airport road.

 

[TFC]

I honestly see it as an advantage to these transit systems. The whole road network around the airport is so not transit friendly it may be more cost effective to just end a bunch of routes at the People mover termini with the exception of a route or two on airport road.

I also see it as an advantage. The question is would GTAA be willing to expand their People Mover and essentially provide free public transit between the Airport and Malton GO?

 

[TOareaFan]

I also see it as an advantage. The question is would GTAA be willing to expand their People Mover and essentially provide free public transit between the Airport and Malton GO?

They may if the public paid for the expansion.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I can see it getting expanded the next time Pearson gets a major expansion, specifically when they double the size of T1. I can see that happening later in the decade as well.

 

[kram74]

 

[gweed123]

I also see it as an advantage. The question is would GTAA be willing to expand their People Mover and essentially provide free public transit between the Airport and Malton GO?

I agree with TOareaFan. The cost of building an extension of the PM would probably be significantly less than building the Eglinton LRT to the Airport (mainly because new LRT stations at Terminals 1 and 3 wouldn't be required). People will be arriving at the airport by transit either way, it's just right now it's a plethora of different routes run by a handful of agencies.

If it costs GTAA the same to operate it either way, and it saves the TTC, MiWay, and GO money by routing all their routes into convenient terminals instead of having a few of them snake to the airport itself, I think it's a win-win.

Under the current proposed setup, someone from Mississauga would need to catch a dedicated bus to the airport, which probably has a pretty lousy frequency. If the PM is extended to Renforth Gateway, every Transitway bus will make a stop there. Obviously this has a big advantage from a convenience perspective for thousands of passengers and workers.

 

[TOareaFan]

I agree with TOareaFan. The cost of building an extension of the PM would probably be significantly less than building the Eglinton LRT to the Airport (mainly because new LRT stations at Terminals 1 and 3 wouldn't be required). People will be arriving at the airport by transit either way, it's just right now it's a plethora of different routes run by a handful of agencies.

If it costs GTAA the same to operate it either way, and it saves the TTC, MiWay, and GO money by routing all their routes into convenient terminals instead of having a few of them snake to the airport itself, I think it's a win-win.

Under the current proposed setup, someone from Mississauga would need to catch a dedicated bus to the airport, which probably has a pretty lousy frequency. If the PM is extended to Renforth Gateway, every Transitway bus will make a stop there. Obviously this has a big advantage from a convenience perspective for thousands of passengers and workers.

Yes, and similar can be said about a northern extension of the PM to Malton. It opens up public transit access to the airport for so many people. People all along the KW rail line between Malton and Union who feel the UPX is priced too high....people coming from the NW of the airport along the line (Brampton...Georgetown....Guelph....KW) and it opens up an opportunity to feed bus routes (GO, BT, MiWay) into the Malton station.

There will be some who express a "and then you have to transfer to another mode to get into the airport" concern.....the airports that I have been to with successfully accepted PM type strategies do so because they redefine the front door of the airport as the PM entry point.

 

[gweed123]

Yes, and similar can be said about a northern extension of the PM to Malton. It opens up public transit access to the airport for so many people. People all along the KW rail line between Malton and Union who feel the UPX is priced too high....people coming from the NW of the airport along the line (Brampton...Georgetown....Guelph....KW) and it opens up an opportunity to feed bus routes (GO, BT, MiWay) into the Malton station.

There will be some who express a "and then you have to transfer to another mode to get into the airport" concern.....the airports that I have been to with successfully accepted PM type strategies do so because they redefine the front door of the airport as the PM entry point.

Exactly. People accept having to transfer from one terminal to another all the time when making a connection. Going from the People Mover "reception area" to one of the terminals shouldn't really be much different. Of course, the UPX would remain in operation for those who want the "door to door" service.

There could be a concern though that people would start to use the Malton GO parking lot as a Park N Ride lot. I'm sure there would be ways to mitigate that, but I think that would be something that would need to be looked at.

 

[BMO]

Yes, and similar can be said about a northern extension of the PM to Malton. It opens up public transit access to the airport for so many people. People all along the KW rail line between Malton and Union who feel the UPX is priced too high....people coming from the NW of the airport along the line (Brampton...Georgetown....Guelph....KW) and it opens up an opportunity to feed bus routes (GO, BT, MiWay) into the Malton station.

There will be some who express a "and then you have to transfer to another mode to get into the airport" concern.....the airports that I have been to with successfully accepted PM type strategies do so because they redefine the front door of the airport as the PM entry point.

The planning case is pretty strong for this. Maybe it just needs to be brought to light? I never thought of this possibility until you guys brought it up. Most people probably don't even realize how close the Malton GO is because of how unfriendly the entire airport area is to any other form of transportation other than automotive. This compounded by the fact that it's literally isolated by highways and train tracks makes it hard to visualize the people mover extending beyond the boundaries of the airport. This example reminds me of the Zurich airport in Switzerland where the people mover in the airport is basically a mini subway that takes you to a terminal where you can connect to local transit, etc.

 

[gweed123]

The planning case is pretty strong for this. Maybe it just needs to be brought to light? I never thought of this possibility until you guys brought it up. Most people probably don't even realize how close the Malton GO is because of how unfriendly the entire airport area is to any other form of transportation other than automotive. This compounded by the fact that it's literally isolated by highways and train tracks makes it hard to visualize the people mover extending beyond the boundaries of the airport. This example reminds me of the Zurich airport in Switzerland where the people mover in the airport is basically a mini subway that takes you to a terminal where you can connect to local transit, etc.

I think the right time to bring it up, in order to have maximum impact that is, is when the Eglinton LRT extension and/or Finch West LRT extension to the airport are seriously on the table. Right now it's a fair amount of extra money to execute an expanded PM, but when you compare the cost of that vs the cost of the LRT extension, the PM option becomes much more attractive. I guess what I'm saying is it would be hard to find additional funding for a project like that, but if the money is going to be spent on some type of connection to the airport anyway, might as well have the money go towards the optimal solution.

And yes, this solution in an international context is hardly unique. It's just that North American airports in particular might as well be on little islands, so connecting to nearby transit hubs isn't really considered all that much.

 

[TOareaFan]

Exactly. People accept having to transfer from one terminal to another all the time when making a connection. Going from the People Mover "reception area" to one of the terminals shouldn't really be much different. Of course, the UPX would remain in operation for those who want the "door to door" service.

I suspect their polling/consumer surveys tell them its a bigger issue in this market than you and I think it is. After all, the original plan for UPX (then called Blue 22) was to build a stop on the Georgetown (now KW) GO line roughly around Woodbine Racetrack and have people shuttled in on what I assume was an expanded people mover type vehicle. That idea was scrapped for a direct to terminal solution.

There could be a concern though that people would start to use the Malton GO parking lot as a Park N Ride lot. I'm sure there would be ways to mitigate that, but I think that would be something that would need to be looked at.

I thought of this too and concluded (in my mind) that it would not be a huge issue but one that would need to be dealt with. I think most people driving to the airport want to park at the airport or very close to it. Those that would get tempted to use the GO lot would likely be budget conscious travelers rather than same day business travelers...so enforcement of GO's existing "no overnight parking" rules would probably deal with it. Another (more complicated but possible) way would be automatic gates at the entrance to the lot....gates are opened by tapping a Presto card (or other payment method once the system is expanded)....if the Presto card is then tapped onto GO or other public transit within a reasonable time (half hour?) nothing is charge to the card....if not, it is assumed you are using the free parking lot for something other than its intended use and a punitive parking charge is levied to the card.

 

[smallspy]

GO Transit is very aware of the costs and options involved in servicing the airport. Their own commissioned reports from 2003 said that a people mover connection to the mainline (and a new station a touch west of the 427) would cost 10% or more than a new spur line built to the airport to mainline rail standards.

The problem is that the line's construction is a political decision, and not one based on any sort of rational and logic-based decision on what is best for the network/system. And also why UP is being operated and managed as a separate, free-standing organization, and not part of GO.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Dan416]

Extending the people mover costs more than building the spur?

 

[nfitz]

Extending the people mover costs more than building the spur?

The people mover is like an elevator going up and down. You can't really extend it very far, without making the vehicles so infrequent, it can't handle it. If you want a more sophisticated system with more than 2 vehicles, you will have to rebuild it from scratch. It's designed to have a very short extension to a second Terminal 1 station, if Terminal 1 is extended. That's it. Alternatively you maye be able to extend it at the other end to an adjacent parking garage. Anything would require a completely different system.