Rural Commuter Rail

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

gets agricultural land rezoned

Ontario really needs an Agricultural Land Reserve like they have in BC to protect both private and public land that is of either agricultural or environmental importance. It isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Ontario really needs an Agricultural Land Reserve like they have in BC to protect both private and public land that is of either agricultural or environmental importance. It isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now.

Yeah, land use planning in Ontario sucks. Even if the municipality wants to limit sprawl, they force municipalities to maintain a 20 year reserve of development land, then they allow the OMB to override any municipal attempt to limit sprawl.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Charles5

You need to work on your math, and your understanding of the issue.

A Presto fare is $3.35/trip, but for a return journey you have to pay the fare a second time leading to a daily cost of $7.70, and for 22 days that comes out to $147.40. Your position that a monthly fare costs you $40 above what you would get for individual fares is completely inaccurate.

My calculations were assuming that someone would take OC Transpo to work for "free", but would pay when going back from work. They'd only pay the fare once in that situation.

The costs of operating the network have to be recovered somewhere.

When you say this, are you referring to OC Transpo, or MOOSE?

For MOOSE, has anyone from MOOSE or otherwise stated that the subscription fee wouldn't be priced by a per-location basis? (Genuine question, I'm not sure if this has been brought up before already). In theory, someone who would live in Bristol could reasonably be expected to pay more than someone who would live in Barrhaven under this model.

For OC Transpo on the other hand, how far a passenger traveled to reach their network is irrelevant to them (it would make no difference to OC Transpo whether the passenger originated from Bristol or Barrhaven, they'd both pay the same rate in the city). My calculations from before showed that if these passengers got a free transfer on their way to their workplace, but payed going from work, OC Transpo would still be short ~$40 of what a monthly pass would otherwise cost. All I know about that is that an agreement between MOOSE and OC Transpo to cover the ~$40 discrepancy would, at the very least, be attempted.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

My calculations were assuming that someone would take OC Transpo to work for "free", but would pay when going back from work. They'd only pay the fare once in that situation.

And everyone else has to pay twice, so Moose is expecting a 50% discount.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by acottawa

And everyone else has to pay twice, so Moose is expecting a 50% discount.

I guess anyone who buys a monthly bus pass is cheating the system in your eyes then?

From @Charles5's calculations, if you paid cash twice a day for each work day of this month, it'd cost you $147. A monthly pass costs $113 which is around a ~25% less than the cost of normal fares. Looks like a discount to me!

Some kind of deal between the city and MOOSE would probably cover the difference between what MOOSE passengers wouldn't pay OC Transpo (directly) and the price of a monthly pass (which is what I explained in my previous post.)

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I guess anyone who buys a monthly bus pass is cheating the system in your eyes then?

From @Charles5's calculations, if you paid cash twice a day for each work day of this month, it'd cost you $147. A monthly pass costs $113 which is around a ~25% less than the cost of normal fares. Looks like a discount to me!

Some kind of deal between the city and MOOSE would probably cover the difference between what MOOSE passengers wouldn't pay OC Transpo (directly) and the price of a monthly pass (which is what I explained in my previous post.)

If a Moose customer wants to buy a monthly pass then that's up to them. That discount is available to everyone.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Edit: To integrate it better with your first example, in the real world you get a "free/discounted" transfer from your car to a bus by buying a monthly pass. You're still paying the $74 return fee, but you end up only paying ~$40 to transfer from the car to the bus. There's still $40, so I know it's not free.

So I guess park and ride users only have to pay to travel one way as well in your mind.


As for you assertion that monthly passes are a discount, they absolutely are. Every network encourages passes in order to increase ridership, to motivate people to use the system consistently. They also take into account that you may not ride the bus everyday of the month if you take a sick day, have a meeting, take a few days off, etc. Monthly passes are also much more efficient for the operator compared to collecting cash or tickets and so it's to their benefit to encourage them.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Ontario really needs an Agricultural Land Reserve like they have in BC to protect both private and public land that is of either agricultural or environmental importance. It isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now.

They need to extend the Places to Grow Act in all its glory to the Ottawa area.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Charles5

So I guess park and ride users only have to pay to travel one way as well in your mind.


As for you assertion that monthly passes are a discount, they absolutely are. Every network encourages passes in order to increase ridership, to motivate people to use the system consistently. They also take into account that you may not ride the bus everyday of the month if you take a sick day, have a meeting, take a few days off, etc. Monthly passes are also much more efficient for the operator compared to collecting cash or tickets and so it's to their benefit to encourage them.

It would be the equivalent of them paying only $40 for a monthly pass, but needing to spend $77 worth of fares (during that month) to get that price for a monthly pass.

We agree that it's a discount, and in MOOSE's case it's no different.

The passenger is paying $77 worth of return fares and the other $40 is paid for by an agreement between MOOSE and OC Transpo. That makes the total amount of money paid to OC Transpo equivalent to the cost of one monthly pass therefore enabling free transfers from MOOSE to OC Transpo.

[Allandale25]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Moose rejects the notion of a market in which any start-up is required to find an incumbent business to shepherd their entry. That idea's like the old failing taxi medallion system. We have approached no incumbent operators for (in effect) 'permission' to develop our business.

We'll locate investors, stick-handle authorizations, and we'll stand up a railway.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

Is that so? Because apparently that's not what the documents on your website indicate.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

For OC Transpo on the other hand, how far a passenger traveled to reach their network is irrelevant to them (it would make no difference to OC Transpo whether the passenger originated from Bristol or Barrhaven, they'd both pay the same rate in the city). My calculations from before showed that if these passengers got a free transfer on their way to their workplace, but payed going from work, OC Transpo would still be short ~$40 of what a monthly pass would otherwise cost. All I know about that is that an agreement between MOOSE and OC Transpo to cover the ~$40 discrepancy would, at the very least, be attempted.

It is time that all transit systems implemented a distance based fare so that users travelling a short distance do not pay a disproportionate rate, relative to users travelling a long distance. If you drive your car you have fixed costs and variable costs. Clearly the further or the longer you drive, the more fuel you burn, hence higher costs. The only reason why transit agencies don't charge by the distance is that in the past the technology was not available to record the distance travelled. Users should pay a base amount to gain access to the system and a variable rate depending on the distance. The rate per km for users far away should be reduced in order to encourage them to ride transit, whether it is OC Transpo or commuter rail or intercity rail or air.

With respect to comments by others about the occupancy rate in autos vs. commuter trains, occupancy is an important factor, but more important is revenue or cost per train-km and revenue or cost per available seat-km. When costs are factored in that is what efficiency is all about. I am sure that OC Transpo calculates costs per bus km and probably has the data now with Presto to approximately calculate cost per available seat km.

With automobiles it is not so much the occupancy of the auto that is important, but rather the occupancy of the road. If you are pro auto you will claim that the reason why roads are congested is that we don't make roads either fast enough or large enough. We conveniently ignore the costs of building and maintaining roads while we expect commuter services of all types to at least break even. While the cost of building 2 lanes of highway may be less than building LRT double track, the capacity of the LRT is greatly superior to the capacity of 2 opposing lanes of traffic.

I am sure that if Moose comes to fruition, that revenue sharing between OC Transpo and Moose will not be an issue. If we can share revenue between OC Transpo and STO then nothing is insurmountable.

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Ontario really needs an Agricultural Land Reserve like they have in BC to protect both private and public land that is of either agricultural or environmental importance. It isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now.

MOOSE approaches this with "form-based codes" incorporated into the Linked Locality contacts for train service.

https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-content/up...view_LinkedLocalities_2016-06-27_PDF.pdf

Background:
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/05/10/great-idea-form-based-codes
https://formbasedcodes.org/definition/

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

The passenger is paying $77 worth of return fares and the other $40 is paid for by an agreement between MOOSE and OC Transpo. That makes the total amount of money paid to OC Transpo equivalent to the cost of one monthly pass therefore enabling free transfers from MOOSE to OC Transpo.

What is the advantage of that for anyone? Moose customers have all of the cost of a pass without the benefit a pass (unlimited use of transit) and the hassle of keeping a presto card loaded. The city gets about the same revenue as it would if Moose people all bought passes, but in a weirdly complicated way, and Moose has a lot of extra paperwork.

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Allandale25

Is that so? Because apparently that's not what the documents on your website indicate.

Sorry for the lack of clarity.

Moose Consortium Inc. does not have to ally with an incumbent railway company.

But the multi-entity MOOSE Consortium would include one or more railway companies. The one or more train operators can be start-up or incumbent companies, as far as we're concerned. Naturally the people involved must have appropriate experience and professional credentials.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by acottawa

What is the advantage of that for anyone? Moose customers have all of the cost of a pass without the benefit a pass (unlimited use of transit) and the hassle of keeping a presto card loaded. The city gets about the same revenue as it would if Moose people all bought passes, but in a weirdly complicated way, and Moose has a lot of extra paperwork.

MOOSE will receive funds from passengers on a "pay-what-you-want" basis through a simple phone app. The app will also auto-generate proof of ridership, for use in transferring to other systems, with userID authentication being the only requirement. What complication are you referring to?

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

MOOSE will receive funds from passengers on a "pay-what-you-want" basis through a simple phone app. The app will also auto-generate proof of ridership, for use in transferring to other systems, with userID authentication being the only requirement. What complication are you referring to?

Cheetos says you are going to give the city $40 per passenger per month. You have to hope the donations add up to that amount or find some other source of funds, keep track of the passengers and transfer funds to the city.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Cheetos says you are going to give the city $40 per passenger per month. You have to hope the donations add up to that amount or find some other source of funds, keep track of the passengers and transfer funds to the city.

Maybe that is what Cheetos says, but Joseph says they won't be paying anything. Only time will tell what reality is.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

MOOSE will receive funds from passengers on a "pay-what-you-want" basis through a simple phone app. The app will also auto-generate proof of ridership, for use in transferring to other systems, with userID authentication being the only requirement. What complication are you referring to?

I guess those luddites amongst us like myself won't be able to get those free transfers onto STO and OC Transpo that we've all been promised. Thankfully we can all ride for free on MOOSE.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Cheetos says you are going to give the city $40 per passenger per month. You have to hope the donations add up to that amount or find some other source of funds, keep track of the passengers and transfer funds to the city.

Originally Posted by roger1818

Maybe that is what Cheetos says, but Joseph says they won't be paying anything. Only time will tell what reality is.

I never really said that. I said that there was a $40 discrepancy between what a typical passenger might pay in return fares and the price of a monthly pass. I also tried my best to clarify that I personally thought that a deal could be made between OC Transpo and MOOSE could/would be made to deal with that discrepancy. For all I know that could involve MOOSE paying OC Transpo $40 per customer, or no money at all. As @roger1818 says, only time will tell.

[Truenorth00]

I'd like to know what is Moose's plan, for the start of construction on Trillium Stage 2, since the current design has various negative implications for Moose.

Will Moose attempt to seek an injunction against construction?