[OT] Public Transit

[Evan Leibovitch]

On 27 October 2010 13:51, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>wrote:


> > Brilliance: GO Transit, easily one of the best suburban commuter rail
> > systems on the continent
>
> It is absolutely awful.  The line up through weston may become great now
> that they are resignaling it (after buying it instead of leasing access
> to the line), so that they can run trains more than every 30 minutes.
> Now if they will run more frequent service and both ways throughout the
> day, then it can start to be considered a good train system.  As it is
> it is probably the worst train system I have ever seen.
>

They work with what they have. Unlike in Europe and Japan, commuter rail
here has always had to deal with limtations of working with and alongside
freight-train lines. GO is trying to increase capacity to the Georgetown
line to give that northwest service similar capacity and times to the
lakeshore line. But neighborhood opposition in Weston has impeded progress.

In any case, there are not trainfuls of commuters going from downtown to
Markham in the morning, so there is bus service from Union station, but now
that area is best served by GO bus service to Finch station, York University
and Scarborough Centre (and will soon be complemented by a VIVA LRT on
highway 7). It's nice to see GO taking advantage of highway 407 from Oshawa
to Hamilton, as an alternative to going through downtown. In some cases,
fares for service on that line are less than the 407 tolls alone (or so it
seems).

Its also in other areas -- payment methods, station upgrades, other
intangibles and even car design -- where I think GO does very well.

If it's the worst train system you've seen, you need to get out more ;-)

- Evan
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