[drunkmunky]

Why did they build the hwy 7 one first before the yonge expansion? the yonge has more traffic and more riders. I would just think that they could influence increases in ridership that way...

 

[Electrify]

YRT just announced their fare increases for the next TWO years. Looks like they are following the TTC's strategy by freezing cash fares, but increasing passes and tickets/Presto:

http://yrt.ca/en/News/index.aspx?Fe...3&newsId=9746b888-3959-401f-84e1-100e79e8fd42

The irritating thing with this strategy is that when you factor in the price of a Presto card ($6), let alone the $5 minimum for auto reload, it makes switching from cash to bulk far less appealing. Doing some quick math, when factoring in the cost of a Presto card, in 2012 you will have to use the service more than 12 times in a year before the card pays for itself. No problem for a regular user, but those who don't use transit will face yet another barrier to keeping them from using it.

EDIT: Reposting this in the general YRT thread. My bad for posting it here.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Why did they build the hwy 7 one first before the yonge expansion? the yonge has more traffic and more riders. I would just think that they could influence increases in ridership that way...

Yonge, from Steeles to 7, was supposed to be the first phase; followed by Highway 7. It got put on hold when the subway expansion plan was announced and is now in total limbo.

The irritating thing with this strategy is that when you factor in the price of a Presto card ($6), let alone the $5 minimum for auto reload, it makes switching from cash to bulk far less appealing. Doing some quick math, when factoring in the cost of a Presto card, in 2012 you will have to use the service more than 12 times in a year before the card pays for itself. No problem for a regular user, but those who don't use transit will face yet another barrier to keeping them from using it.

First, that fare plan has to be approved by council.
Second, I don't follow the Presto logic at all. you pay $6 one time and that's it. I got one last year when I was taking YRT maybe once a month and still enjoyed having it as the per-ride is obviously cheaper and you don't have to worry about getting tickets etc. I've been using it much more often this year and, especially sine a single fare is $3.30, the $5 (ie less than round trip) reload strikes me as even less of an obstacle. And if you actually ride more than 1 transit system it's even more of a no-brainer AND (for those who'll use it) the UP train discount will be another reason to have one, even if you hardly use it. The convenience factor outweighs the "you have to use it 12 times logic, IMHO.

Presto isn't perfect but in just about every way it makes riding transit in this region EASIER, not harder. It's certainly the least of the barriers YRT faces.

Presto is

 

[salsa]

I used to live in Toronto and moved to the warden / 7 area. i really wanted to like viva and the brt. i take it during weekdays to unionville go station (approx 10min ride)

after taking it for 4 years, now (and I still do), whenever i get the chance, i much rather bike to the go station. I have several major peeves with YRT/VIVA that i think really hurt the success of viva and the brt. my friends always hear me complain whenever i'm commuting and waiting for a viva bus.

1. All of pink / purple / green have about 15min headway. Along the stretch of highway 7 where pink and purple run, they are usually 1-3 min apart! Couldn't they schedule it so during rush hours, pink / purple and purple / green are 7 min apart? That way you don't always miss both at once. Instead, you can miss one of them, and only have to wait 7min instead of 15min for another!

2. Schedule for Pink, which is supposed to service unionville GO, has a horrible schedule.

In order to be able to catch a connecting southbound go train on weekdays, i need to take a bus that arrives at the station 15min-18min earlier. The one that arrives at the same time as the train is often 1-2min late, meaning i'd miss the train (this also means making the commute 15min longer in the morning vs a car)

In the afternoon, you'll often notice pink is completely empty until enterprise or town centre. this is because 90% of the time, it leaves the GO station without any passengers due to bad scheduling (or maybe it's also partially the drivers). The official schedule is that pink leaves the go station 1 min before the train arrives.I also mention the drivers because sometimes, they leave 1-3min later than scheduled. almost every single day, the pink leaves just as the train arrives, or as the train door opens, or even when people are already running towards it! Still see this even now that the train arrives 3min later, which is why i think it's partly the drivers. Almost everyone ends up walks to the Rivis/YMCA stop to try to catch purple which cones 1-3min later. But missing that purple (which sometimes happens), means waiting 15min for the next pink.

considering most people taking pink from unionville GO get off at either enterprise or town centre (10 min or less ride), i'm sure a lot of people that are near these stops end up driving instead of taking VIVA which ends up being an up to 25min commute each way to the GO (up to 10min ride + up to 15min wait)

I've actually contacted them multiple times about this, but they always say the schedule is the schedule, and nothing can be done.

3. I'd say 70%+ of the time, VIVA has to make a stop at every single light between town centre / 7 and birchmount / enterprise. The light at town centre / 7 is sometimes extremely long as well! I think during non-busy times.. this probably adds a bit of the time to the commute. they really need to time the traffic lights better for viva if it's to be given priority (without too negatively impacting cars, like what happened at town centre / clegg when it first opened)

4. VIVA / YRT changes their schedules every couple months! Seems every couple months, you see a notice saying there is an updated schedule. I think having a consistent schedule would go a long way vs. changing all the schedules every couple months. luckily the Viva ones I take don't usually change drastically

5. Although the 2 hour transfer is much better than TTC's one-way transfer, why can't they have a day pass on weekends like TTC??? There is a SIGNIFICANTLY higher chance I'd take Viva / YRT outside of commuting if I could share a daypass with somebody on the weekends

6. this probably applies to most transit agencies and probably is more on the riders than Viva/YRT's fault. but has anybody actually been on a VIVA? I cant believe how filthy the buses get, compared to TTC buses! even before 7am, the buses could have garbage everywhere, liquids all over the floor (not sure if it's water, or spilled drinks), dirt / garbage /etc. on seats (probably due to the orientation of the seats on viva, i've seen lots of people putting their dirty / muddy shoes on the seats)

7. Compared to the TTC website, the process of getting a schedule for a YRT bus is not user friendly to say the least. And the YRT/Viva iPhone app only gives you ETAs within 45 minutes from now, but if I wanted to see the schedule for tomorrow morning it can't do that.

 

[nfitz]

And the YRT/Viva iPhone app only gives you ETAs within 45 minutes from now, but if I wanted to see the schedule for tomorrow morning it can't do that.

Why not just use Google Maps for schedules?

 

[ElvaSoShexai]

7. Compared to the TTC website, the process of getting a schedule for a YRT bus is not user friendly to say the least. And the YRT/Viva iPhone app only gives you ETAs within 45 minutes from now, but if I wanted to see the schedule for tomorrow morning it can't do that.

I've mostly used the YRT site for Viva schedules and the odd YRT route, which don't seem to bad... app works, but doesn't seem to be real-time data. the only issue ive had in terms of finding a schedule and planning the the route is with woodbine... that route and schedule seems like a mess.

 

[Electrify]

Transit app is the best way to get YRT schedules and real time updates. The official app is nice, but too buggy compared to this beauty!

 

[CapitalSeven]

It looks as though the new university/college campus in York Region could be well served by both bus (and rail) transit. I don't know the project well, so I spent some time this evening looking for some detail on the plans for what they are building. In vain. There is virtually nothing on the project website in the way of maps, plans, diagrams, etc. beyond the 2005 assessment. There are some construction photos and renderings, and billions of bytes of fluff and feel-good, but they positively don't want you to actually examine the project. It's like Steven Harper's comms team is in charge. Can anyone point the way?

 

[doady]

http://yrt.ca/en/News/index.aspx?Fe...3&newsId=9746b888-3959-401f-84e1-100e79e8fd42

The irritating thing with this strategy is that when you factor in the price of a Presto card ($6), let alone the $5 minimum for auto reload, it makes switching from cash to bulk far less appealing. Doing some quick math, when factoring in the cost of a Presto card, in 2012 you will have to use the service more than 12 times in a year before the card pays for itself. No problem for a regular user, but those who don't use transit will face yet another barrier to keeping them from using it.

The irritating thing is they are even planning fare increases at all. I think the fare prices already insane enough.

 

[xtremesniper]

It looks as though the new university/college campus in York Region could be well served by both bus (and rail) transit. I don't know the project well, so I spent some time this evening looking for some detail on the plans for what they are building. In vain. There is virtually nothing on the project website in the way of maps, plans, diagrams, etc. beyond the 2005 assessment. There are some construction photos and renderings, and billions of bytes of fluff and feel-good, but they positively don't want you to actually examine the project. It's like Steven Harper's comms team is in charge. Can anyone point the way?

Are you referring to any plans for transit in the Downtown Markham area? Or plans relating to the new York University campus?

If it's about transit in the area, the lack of info might be attributed to the fact that most of it is contingent on the Downtown Markham area to be built (in progress). They have a portion of the Viva rapidway between Warden and Birchmount in operation already, but the remainder of it is still yet to be built. The Viva purple/pink lines run through the area and have a stop right out front of the proposed York U building, which is adjacent to the Unionville GO train/bus station.

The GO station is the Stouffville line which currently is the terminus for the proposed all-day two-way express GO service (and potential electrification) expansion plans that GO has in place.

Steve Munro has a blog post about the electrification: http://stevemunro.ca/2015/04/17/go-transit-rerelectrification-plans-announced/

Other than that, I'm not sure what other info you might be looking for.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Are you referring to any plans for transit in the Downtown Markham area? Or plans relating to the new York University campus?

If it's about transit in the area, the lack of info might be attributed to the fact that most of it is contingent on the Downtown Markham area to be built (in progress). They have a portion of the Viva rapidway between Warden and Birchmount in operation already, but the remainder of it is still yet to be built. The Viva purple/pink lines run through the area and have a stop right out front of the proposed York U building, which is adjacent to the Unionville GO train/bus station.

The GO station is the Stouffville line which currently is the terminus for the proposed all-day two-way express GO service (and potential electrification) expansion plans that GO has in place.

Steve Munro has a blog post about the electrification: http://stevemunro.ca/2015/04/17/go-transit-rerelectrification-plans-announced/

Other than that, I'm not sure what other info you might be looking for.

That's a good summation. There's an article on the announcement here. It shows a map of where the site actually is too, pretty close to the GO station.
http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/5635187-province-picks-markham-for-new-york-u-seneca-campus/

Oh, one thing to add is that the GO station isn't only part of GO's electrification plans; it's part of SmartTrack too.

 

[xtremesniper]

If you want to see detailed renderings and a (very) high-res map of the proposed campus, this is the place to go: http://yestoyork.ca/

If you right click on the site map and say "view image", you'll get the high-res version.

Also found this neat little transit summary which is pretty nice:

 

[cplchanb]

a whole bunch of viva and yrt buses were gathered at le parc this afternoon (about 8 artics and various 40ftrs). Anyone know the occasion?

 

[cplchanb]

So they just added a new "for your safety please stay seated..." message to the end of the stop announcements on viva blue.

Man crystals bionic voice is going to drive all these riders insane.....not to mention it's kind of a moot message for the standees. I really don't understand why yrt feels that we lack common sense that they need to constantly bombard us with these things

Oyea the announcements are tied to the external speakers as well so now everyone inside and out are safe.....! :/

 

[salsa]

So they just added a new "for your safety please stay seated..." message to the end of the stop announcements on viva blue.

Man crystals bionic voice is going to drive all these riders insane.....not to mention it's kind of a moot message for the standees. I really don't understand why yrt feels that we lack common sense that they need to constantly bombard us with these things

Oyea the announcements are tied to the external speakers as well so now everyone inside and out are safe.....! :/

YRT is pathetic. There's also the "for your safety blablabla please use the dedicated crosswalks and obey all pedestrian signals" on the new Highway 7 East rapidway. What next, "the bus is turning"? Viva is becoming more annoying than useful despite all the infrastructure investments, while the regular bus routes are extremely slow no matter how light or heavy the traffic is. I'm glad I no longer work in Markham so that I don't have to listen to this bullcrap anymore.