Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
What makes you think that Translink has any sort of 'trigger' to pull to try to buy the rails? And more to the point, why would the rail companies have any interest in selling them? Don't you think that the use of the tracks to transport freight is orders of magnitude more important to the region and the Canadian economy than transporting a few thousand more passengers a day?
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Let me clarify...
When I said pull the trigger, I should have said "begin negotiations" or "do a case study".
Obviously I don't think that moving passengers takes precedence over a nation's economy, and I am not sure how you would get that impression over my post
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FarmerHaight
Higher frequencies and extended operating hours would certainly be useful to people who already ride the WCE. My colleague has had to pass on Friday drinks in order to catch the train, or has come for drinks but then doubled her commute time or paid for an Uber. I don't know if higher frequencies and extended operating hours would add any new riders, so each train may just be more empty.
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I think that you might be assuming that I was talking about extending
frequencies as well as extending
operating hours... which I actually wasn't. I only mentioned that I would like to see extended
operating hours. The frequency of the line can be tapered down to cover more hours so instead of having 5 trains operating until 20:00, it could taper down to 1 or 2 trains running at whatever frequency that would allow. I don't see how there could be a need for full service frequency when first extending the operating hours in the beginning if operating hours were to extend but I digress.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FarmerHaight
When it comes to commuting to work, people in Mission have to decide whether to drive or take the train. The train takes 90 minutes to reach DT Vancouver while driving takes an hour. So the car already comes out ahead, and then you have to factor in if that person doesn't work close to Waterfront. If that's the case, they may need to transfer to a bus or Skytrain or bike or walk. That'll only make driving more attractive.
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This is not a unique problem though for those who live outside of larger cities that have a Commuter Rail station option.
Take the Kitchener Go-Train line for example in Toronto. On paper, it only beats driving by about 10 minutes. And driving will outpace the commuter train line likely starting in Brampton in terms of time saved. People in the GTA are
still choosing to take the Go-Train service despite possibly having to transfer at Union Station to the TTC, even with private cars beating it in terms of time saved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FarmerHaight
In the end, most people in these communities aren't making the decision to buy a car and pay for gas, registration and maintenance vs. buying a WCE monthly pass. They likely already own the car, and fuel may only cost a couple hundred dollars per month more than the transit pass, so why would they spend up to an additional hour commuting each way and risk missing their train instead of driving themselves?
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Actually people do all the time in the GTA. The way that things are done there is if you are living in a community that has Go-service (bus or train), you would actually purchase both a car and a transit pass. They live their lives in that they use their cars for local or unique trips and then hop on a train into downtown Toronto for work and back. There are plenty of reasons why people in the GTA develop the commuter patterns that they do but I know for a fact that parking is a bitch in downtown Toronto and that you can actually spend more time trying to park on a random side-street than had you taken transit. And the success of the Go-Train services (as well as other American commuter rail systems) is a testament that people are willing to develop a mix of public/private commuter patterns. Essentially they drive to a station, park their car, hop on a train, and go to work making transfers where they need to.
And to top it off, this does take into consideration that the GTA has some of the best highway infrastructure in our Country.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FarmerHaight
There will always be some people who choose the train because of the environment, or because the value proposition works for them, or because they hate driving, or because they like reading a book or getting work done on the train. Unfortunately, the small minority of commuters who fit the description above aren't sufficient to fill the trains.
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Actually, prior to COVID there were
11,000 people using it per day. It obviously pales into comparison to Skytrain usage but having nearly double the population of Mission using the WCE at the end of the week does speak that these mixed commuter patterns are economic for the individual despite you assuming that it's a commuter service designed for bookworms.
My point here is that the WCE wouldn't be in operation since the 90's had there not been a demand for it, or if there was a declining demand. Cities continue and discontinue train schedules all the time, so the WCE would have been susceptible to it in the last 3 years had there been a huge decline of riders.
Just so that I'm clear: the reason I suggested to
look at (not implement!) extending the
operating hours was to see if it was feasible to increase ridership on the WCE.
Nothing will be done about the WCE without a case study. And the ownership of the tracks will be a HUGE talking point when the time comes.
And I assume that nothing will be done seriously about improving the WCE until after SLS and the Broadway extensions as those will take priority for the region, understandably so.
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