Quote:
Originally Posted by mishap
As for GO pitching in on construction costs, I don't know. The city is going to take GO's parking spaces, and wants money to convert them into HSR bus bays. That's like Kato hitting up OJ for money to expand the guest house.
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Yeah, but GO wants easy access to and from their terminal - and since they have no parking at Hunter, they are probably very keen to make transit access super easy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by raisethehammer
I think Mishap is going to be right....people won't be walking from one to another. I think they'll all pass each terminal during their route.
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In my opinion, transfers are not the only downside of a split terminal. The biggest downside to me is for people arriving on another mode - greyhound or GO specifically. They will be dumped at our "station" and then walk out to the local transit terminal and see only 5 bays. And then what - they have to get on a wrong bus and transfer at macnab? But they have to be sure to get on one that's going to macnab and not one that's just come from there. Or they have to walk to macnab. Possibly in the snow. This is a very lame way to treat commuters - and even worse - visitors and tourists.
The other problem is with signage for pedestrians and casual transit users. Right now, it's a mess near gore because if you get off a bus to transfer, you have no clue about where your next bus will be unless you do some serious research - get a route map or walk around gore and macnab til you find it.
A central terminal would solve this - just wait for the terminal and transfer there - you can get all the info you want and all the buses are in one spot.
IMO this split terminal does not solve this problem. You have to be intimately familiar with the system in order to use it efficiently.
And this is a big deal because some people just don't use transit very often - or not at all. But some of those people might need to use it once in a while, and when these people decide to hop on, the experience needs to be smooth, seamless, easy, and preferably enjoyable. If you start introducing frustrations for casual users, they will never be converted to regular users.
Sure split terminals are easy for regular commuters who spend a few days getting used to it and then they work like clockwork. But as far as increasing ridership, this will have minimal effect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mishap
Anything they build now is - at least in part - a throwaway cost.
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This is the saving grace. I mean, we are all hoping for LRT and when we get that, everything will change.
Here is my dream:
1. Take over and revamp city centre as city hall.
2. Sell old city hall to mcmaster (at a loss even).
3. mcmaster moves their downtown "campus" to old city hall and expands their DT operations.
4. mcmaster's old building becomes our "union station" and the parking lots across hughson and john can be part of it.
5. cover hughson from hunter to main, linking GO to "union" for pedestrians
6. all HSR buses use the "union" forecourt and the parking lots for bays.
7. LRT on main stops at forecourt.
8. A-Line uses john (not james) and takes hunter to claremont, stopping at the NE corner of the GO station on the way
9. huge covered secure bike parking behind the GO
10. a gondola from GO, stop at st joes, up to upper james.
sorry, had to throw the gondola in there ;-)
Here's my DREAM MAP:
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?hl=en&...07188&t=h&z=17