GO Transit

[danbrotherston]

Yes, and more lines linking across the web coming from Union can't hurt either. It still leaves me confused how there are so few North-South busses across train lines out this way. It shouldn't be that hard to get the Burlington or Hamilton!

There is the 407 buses.

But part of the problem is that we're just bad at buses...it is amazing how inefficient the bus routes are into and out of literal 100 million dollar transit stations next to a highway...

Like...we spent 100 million dollars on waiting rooms so that people can wait comfortably for their buses instead of spending on ramps to get buses in and out of the station faster so that people don't have to wait!

But I digress...

[SF22]

That being said, I really wish we would just do a damn bus like...yesterday. Compared with building a train, it would be trivially easy and then we could start building ridership to justify the investment of a train.

The recent addition of the GO route 17 (Waterloo-Kitchener-Guelph-Aldershot-Hamilton) last year was great, and I hope it's doing well. If so, maybe Metrolinx will consider more of that kind of non-Toronto route, like Guelph-Cambridge or even Guelph-Cambridge-Brantford (both more service to Brantford, but also connects to the VIA line there). Small up-front investment and doesn't prevent us from putting rail service on the Fergus sub at the same time or afterward.

I'm kind of hoping that the Cambridge-Guelph spur might eventually bloom into its own line. Extend it one way out to Ayr, Paris, and/or Brantford (or Hamilton, it's baffling that we don't have a KWC/Hamilton route yet), and then north out to Elora/Fergus.

[ac3r]

Bro...what? None of those towns have the population or economy to justify even a single bus, nevermind a train haha. I mean it would be cool to take the train there but until those towns grow to be cities of at least 150'000+ people, they aren't going to even consider putting a single GO bus stop in them. That goes for Hamilton and Brantford as well. Neither of those places matter that much. A town or city has to have a certain population and a great degree of economic, educational, cultural etc importance to warrant investment like that.

IMO the best solution to this is to just find a way to entice private operators to come here. Having a government run Crown corporation manage train or bus routes to Paris or Brantford would be an absurd waste of money and time. Nothing costs as much or moves as slowly than a North American government project. If private operators had incentive to move in and set up routes, then it would make sense. It would cost a lot less, they could move a lot faster as well as be more flexible and they wouldn't be burning tax dollars. Think back to when Greyhound still in Canada. They would go all over the country/provinces, stopping in the smallest towns. They offered cheap tickets and fairly reliable service. If we could get that sort of thing back, it would solve a lot of the intercity transit. Flixbus has been trying, at least. I hope they are successful. They have a lot of experience back home in Europe. Let them get a foothold here, more operators will come to compete, prices will drop, new routes will open up...and so on. This is a much better option than expecting politicians and government morons who don't give a shit to do it right.

I'm sure everyone here will disagree with me, but even a train to Cambridge is pretty god damn stupid to consider now or even in a decade. That place is Backwardsville. It's disconnected from the region. Nearly every citizen is a regressive, closed minded drooling fool that couldn't put a square peg into a square hole, the political class is made up of bottom feeding pond scum and the people working in the various departments aren't much smarter either. Maybe if we force them to accept the LRT and somehow find a legal way to overrule their stupid as stupid gets council and mayor so we can develop the city, we could think about a GO train connection in 30+ years time. But now? Why? I'm surprised the region is even bothering to do a business case on this.

[tomh009]

Greyhound only served the small towns because their licence required them to do so. The business case for serving those towns is no better for private enterprise than it is for the government.

[danbrotherston]

Greyhound only served the small towns because their licence required them to do so. The business case for serving those towns is no better for private enterprise than it is for the government.

I'm suspect you're replying to some insane thing ac3r said...but this is the whole reason we have government...and why it shouldn't rely on "business cases" to decide what to do.

[cherrypark]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

[ijmorlan]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

(I know this is hugely simplified; I didn’t even mention the Roman roads, for example)

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

[danbrotherston]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

The problem with this...is that you basically can do it...the fundamental problem with business cases is that they are fake...a pseudo science. You decide what you want, then you design a business plan that will give you that result.

So, basically you say stuff like "buses going to a city will provide rides for x people at y cost", oh look that's way too high. But then you don't consider things like how you can grow the service, or how valuable those rides are...do they provide options to lower income people who can now survive much better, etc. etc.

It's the same thing that council did regarding hybrid buses 10 years ago. I remember the presentation to council. GRT said "the hybrid buses save y in fuel over their lifetime, and they cost x more in maintenance and purchase price, and since y < x we won't buy them...oh...you mean they also are more pleasant, less polluting in noise and emissions....well, we don't care, because y is still < x..."

But then you come to building a road, oh, well, it's going to cost y billion dollars and generate x trillion dollars in economic growth, that clearly wouldn't have happened in the "do nothing" scenario where you you instead burn y billion dollars in a bon fire, a totally realistic scenario...and x is much bigger than y so clearly we're going to build the road.

Businesses cases do nothing than provide the veneer of objectivity on an inherently subjective decision. They are a lie we tell ourselves to justify the things we want without admitting that we are making real choices. Neoliberalism at it's finest.

So yeah, I can write a business case for the 413 that looks bad, and I can write one for transit that looks good, but it doesn't change the fact that they'll be filled with just as much opinion as the ones the government already writes. I'll give them credit...when it comes to roads, we don't even pretend to lie to ourselves...

[Bytor]

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

In Ontario, gas taxes only pay for provincial highways and even then for only about 60% to 70% of the yearly spending on them. The AGO's office showed that driver and vehicle licensing fees in Ontario doesn't;t even cover what's necessary to run and administer that system.

I haven't seen figures since before the pandemic, but for Waterloo Region, federal gas tax grants totalled less than 4% of the total aggregate roads budget for the Regional and all lower tiers. The provincial gas tax transfer was less than 5%.

Most road mileage we drive on is paid for by municipal property taxes.

[ac3r]

I'm suspect you're replying to some insane thing ac3r said...but this is the whole reason we have government...and why it shouldn't rely on "business cases" to decide what to do.

It's cute when you pretend you don't click Show Post and read my comments despite blocking me. You even admitted to doing it. <3

When you spend 10 years to earn a Doctor of Philosophy and have a long list of accomplishments across a wide spectrum relating to all this stuff, well...it's because I actually know what I'm talking about.

Well, most of the time. :'>

[danbrotherston]

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

In Ontario, gas taxes only pay for provincial highways and even then for only about 60% to 70% of the yearly spending on them. The AGO's office showed that driver and vehicle licensing fees in Ontario doesn't;t even cover what's necessary to run and administer that system.

I haven't seen figures since before the pandemic, but for Waterloo Region, federal gas tax grants totalled less than 4% of the total aggregate roads budget for the Regional and all lower tiers. The provincial gas tax transfer was less than 5%.

Most road mileage we drive on is paid for by municipal property taxes.

And they removed even the limited vehicle registration fees at that.

[plam]

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

I think that's Japan. It's actually expensive to get around Japan (both by road and by train, which is also not public, though paid for by e.g. real estate development in addition to fares).

[danbrotherston]

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

I think that's Japan. It's actually expensive to get around Japan (both by road and by train, which is also not public, though paid for by e.g. real estate development in addition to fares).

And I don't actually think charging for mobility is a good thing (although funding it through realestate makes some sense). Mobility is a huge public good, it should be subsidized by the gov, but we should also make intentional and good choices about WHAT mobility we fund. (I.e., make highways expensive and regulated, and trains/buses cheap or even free). It is also the case that mobility is a huge factor in social mobility, so failing to subsidize it means we harm social mobility.

[KevinL]

My main beef is that this whole plan seems to be based on the thought that the Milton line will never extend to Galt, which is just such a lack of ambition and more mediocrity for the area.

It seems the Milton line may be back on the table, if a recent announcement means what Reece thinks it does. 

[danbrotherston]

My main beef is that this whole plan seems to be based on the thought that the Milton line will never extend to Galt, which is just such a lack of ambition and more mediocrity for the area.

It seems the Milton line may be back on the table, if a recent announcement means what Reece thinks it does. 

FWIW, we should/could support both trains...it would enable even more trips (especially if extensions to the south existed). The city I'm living in now is about 250k combining all nearby/incorporated surrounding towns, and yet supports four different branches of train service.

That being said, I don't really see it happening, I'd be impressed if either route ever exists...doubly so given that we won't even try creating a bus service as a proof of concept...or in the case of the Milton line, they did create a (very bad) bus service, and it failed.