denfromoakvillemilton said:
The fare will be around 30 dollars imo. They have to make the money back from this somehow.
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The star has a nice article comparing express airport trains in other cities:

Vancouver- 15km, $9
NYC - Newark: 27km, $13.6
NYC - JFK: 26km, $8.2
Chicago- O'Hare, 30km, $5.4
Chicago - Midway: 17km, $2.5
San Fran - 22km, $9.0
London - 24km, $38.3
Barcelona - $3.1-15
Seoul - $15.5

Make the money back? Doesn't mean the high the price the high the revenue. Demand can be more elastic than we think. Let's just wait and see.
 
ehlow said:
A lot of people have been complaining about the fares, even though they aren't announced yet.

But let's say it's $25-$30. That's still half of cab fare, and way faster when there's traffic.

There are a huge amount of single people living in condos without cars downtown or near Bloor West where UP Express would be the fastest & cheapest option for them. Of course, if there's group/family fares, then even better.
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$25 - $30 is a lot of money compared to the alternatives.

For a few bucks I could take the Georgetown Line from downtown to Eglinton or Finch and use the LRT to get to the airport. Sure it would take a little longer, but I think it would be worth it to save the $20 especially during non-peak hours.

Alternatively I could pay $50 and have my own private taxi pick me up from my own house and drop me right at the airport. No walking through snow to/from a train station with my luggage.

I can only see myself using UPX if I were right beside the UPX station.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
$25 - $30 is a lot of money compared to the alternatives.

For a few bucks I could take the Georgetown Line from downtown to Eglinton or Finch and use the LRT to get to the airport. Sure it would take a little longer, but I think it would be worth it to save the $20 especially during non-peak hours.

Alternatively I could pay $50 and have my own private taxi pick me up from my own house and drop me right at the airport. No walking through snow to/from a train station with my luggage.

I can only see myself using UPX if I were right beside the UPX station.
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There is no LRT to the airport, and won't be for a very long time.

$50 dollars for a cab is double the price.

From Yonge & Eg, I could take a 15 min subway ride to Union, then take UP Express. I could take Bloor all the way west and take the bus, but that takes way too long. I could take a cab, but that's twice price.
 
ehlow said:
There is no LRT to the airport, and won't be for a very long time.

$50 dollars for a cab is double the price.

From Yonge & Eg, I could take a 15 min subway ride to Union, then take UP Express. I could take Bloor all the way west and take the bus, but that takes way too long. I could take a cab, but that's twice price.
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It costs about $35/$40 to hire someone from Craiglist/kijiji to give you a private ride from anywhere downtown/midtown, door to door. $30 from North York.
Not everyone is comfortable with doing that but many are. Just saying it is an option.

And no matter how you want to justify the price, the fact is the UPE is way more expensive than similar service in other cities as the Star correctly pointed out (2-3 times the price of New York, 5X of Chicago). The only more expensive city is London and we all know it is not a comparable city. (Plus London does have the alternative of just using the regular subway.)
 
ehlow said:
There is no LRT to the airport, and won't be for a very long time.

$50 dollars for a cab is double the price.

From Yonge & Eg, I could take a 15 min subway ride to Union, then take UP Express. I could take Bloor all the way west and take the bus, but that takes way too long. I could take a cab, but that's twice price.
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Yes, I'm aware there's no LRT to the airport. I've spent too much time on UT to not be aware ;) I was just trying to day that when the LRTs are inevitably extended to the airport then the LRT will be a better option for many.
 
The Star has some seriously shoddy reporting on the topic - lots of apples to oranges comparisons. UPE is so attractive because it is a point to point service running straight from the financial district into the airport, a situation that exists in very few other cities.

For example, both NYC airports with rail connections (Newark and JFK) require transfers to people mover like shuttles from commuter rail stations. This would be like if Pearson had a shuttle from Malton GO. Penn station is at 34th street, easily a mile from most midtown destinations so much less conveniently located than Union station is within the financial district. I took the Newark rail link once and it was more like 45 minutes due to construction, plus you generally need a cab to get to your final destination given that Manhattan is actually relatively spread out.

In London, Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect terminate at Paddington, which is on the outskirts of the central city and several tube stops from the City proper. If you take the tube to the City it will take up to 1 hour 15 minutes and will cost you 5 pounds anyway.

Vancouver's connection is about half the distance as from Toronto-Pearson, and is on the regular transit line subject to crowding, delays and so on. I would also argue that Vancouver is not a major global city (given it's small size) but that's another argument!

Chicago's connections to O'hare and Midway are the same - cheap but crowded at peak times and very slow.
 
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A lot of people seem to be annoyed that this won't likely help them personally, but that's not really the point; it is to provide a boost for tourism and business in the downtown core. Unfortunately a large segment of the population seem to be too short-sighted to understand how this benefits us all...
 
DarnDirtyApe said:
A lot of people seem to be annoyed that this won't likely help them personally, but that's not really the point; it is to provide a boost for tourism and business in the downtown core. Unfortunately a large segment of the population seem to be too short-sighted to understand how this benefits us all...
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Yeah you keep hearing variations of: "This thing won't be useful to my family of 4 people who live at Finch & Leslie." ... well obviously
 
Since everyone is paying to build it, it's no surprise that people would like a practical service that suits their needs. If these trains are only half full at best, then Metrolinx should make whatever changes are necessary to maximize ridership.
 
nfitz said:
I think it will, because they are stuck in this have to break even mindset. And this is not transit mindset.

But I think the game has to change, and they have to work on the basis that capital costs for GTTA should be paid upfront in lump sum, not added onto fares. And that this won't operate on a break-even basis ... but should get a similar subsidy to other GO operations.

But that's not going to happen, until they come out with the $30 fare ... and all hell breaks loose, and the Premier has to step in and fix it.

And they aren't going to announce the fares until after the municipal elections - as they know the kind of firestorm that will create - we can see the hints of it even now.
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They have really pointed themselves into a corner. The worst part is taking the go to Malton won't cost as much.
 
DarnDirtyApe said:
A lot of people seem to be annoyed that this won't likely help them personally, but that's not really the point; it is to provide a boost for tourism and business in the downtown core. Unfortunately a large segment of the population seem to be too short-sighted to understand how this benefits us all...
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So if it's to induce more tourism and business travel and not for locals, why would the GTAA need to ding an extra couple bucks for lost parking? Even Metrolinx has stated this is the demographic they're going after - why the ding for parking then? And why would Metrolinx agree to it?
 
Need help with a technical question here. My understanding which goes back to Blue22 days was that YYZ could take 4 cars. Someone asked me on twitter about that and I realised a lot of my accumulated docs which may or may not have confirmed were lost in a storage drive failure so no longer can check my memory on it.

The Weston platform is 73m apparently (so 3 cars long) and the electrification docs also assume 3 EMUs (5-3 of the Traction Power Modeling document). It seems that if the max was once four (I remember something about 2 powered and 2 unpowered coaches so it likely goes back to Blue22) then that is no longer operative. Can someone confirm either way? If the max length is now three then this makes the notion of UPX being something which can work as a low-ish fare mode (Josh Matlow wants it lower but won't say how much) pretty unlikely.
 
nfitz said:
I think it will, because they are stuck in this have to break even mindset. And this is not transit mindset.

But I think the game has to change, and they have to work on the basis that capital costs for GTTA should be paid upfront in lump sum, not added onto fares. And that this won't operate on a break-even basis ... but should get a similar subsidy to other GO operations.

But that's not going to happen, until they come out with the $30 fare ... and all hell breaks loose, and the Premier has to step in and fix it.

And they aren't going to announce the fares until after the municipal elections - as they know the kind of firestorm that will create - we can see the hints of it even now.
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ehlow said:
There is no LRT to the airport, and won't be for a very long time.

$50 dollars for a cab is double the price.

From Yonge & Eg, I could take a 15 min subway ride to Union, then take UP Express. I could take Bloor all the way west and take the bus, but that takes way too long. I could take a cab, but that's twice price.
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Or if the LRT was being built, you could take that to Terminal 1 without a transfer
ksun said:
It costs about $35/$40 to hire someone from Craiglist/kijiji to give you a private ride from anywhere downtown/midtown, door to door. $30 from North York.
Not everyone is comfortable with doing that but many are. Just saying it is an option.

And no matter how you want to justify the price, the fact is the UPE is way more expensive than similar service in other cities as the Star correctly pointed out (2-3 times the price of New York, 5X of Chicago). The only more expensive city is London and we all know it is not a comparable city. (Plus London does have the alternative of just using the regular subway.)
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TheTigerMaster said:
Yes, I'm aware there's no LRT to the airport. I've spent too much time on UT to not be aware ;) I was just trying to day that when the LRTs are inevitably extended to the airport then the LRT will be a better option for many.
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agreed guys. Plus the unnecessary stop at weston.
 
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