Categories
Transit Urban Planning

Milton’s self-inflicted growing pains

There’s an interesting article in today’s Toronto Star about Milton’s growing pains. The Town of Milton, which has grown tremendously in the last 15 years, complains that the province has neglected to provide the growing municipality with transit and other infrastructure. In 2001, its population was only 31,471. But In 2006, after finally connected to “The Big […]

Categories
Politics Toronto Transit

King Street: a mess of Uber proportions

One of the most frustrating things about living and working in central Toronto is having to rely on streetcars for east-west travel. This isn’t the fault of the streetcars; when free of traffic, they’re a smooth, fast and comfortable way to get around. But trapped in the quagmire that is downtown traffic, streetcars are painfully […]

Categories
Cycling Transit

Dispatches from Durham Region, and Kingston Road tokenism

Two weeks ago, I was out exploring Durham Region, the eastern end of the Greater Toronto Area. While south Durham Region is mostly made up of generic suburban sprawl, there are some interesting historic villages and new urbanist neighbourhoods. North of Highway 7, Durham Region is still mostly rural, though plans for a new airport in North Pickering may […]

Categories
Toronto Transit

It’s time for two-hour transfers on the TTC

As of Monday, December 14, all TTC streetcars will operate under a “proof-of-payment” system; allowing customers to enter through the rear doors, as they currently do on 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina, the two routes partially equipped with the new Bombardier low-floor streetcars. All-door loading and proof-of-payment (POP) is supposed to be in effect on […]

Categories
Transit

GO Transit plans to raise fares in 2016. How about a better fare system?

Note: Updated in February 2016 due to a conflicting chart. At Thursday’s Metrolinx Board Meeting, the Board of Directors will be voting on a GO Transit fare increase effective February 1, 2016. As has become common, Greg Percy, the President of GO Transit, will be recommending a tiered fare increase, and we should expect that the Metrolinx Board will rubber stamp […]

Categories
Transit

The trouble with Trans-Cabs

In my last post, in which I discussed the gaps in the Golden Horseshoe’s transit network (and offered unsolicited advice to Metrolinx), I used the example of Milton, in which a carpool lot served by several GO Transit bus routes was largely disconnected from the rest of the local transit system, and located several kilometres from the […]

Categories
Toronto Transit

The Golden Horseshoe’s missing links

GO Transit bus at Uxbridge Over the last 15 years, GO Transit has done well expanding its bus and rail operations. It opened up new stations, such as Mount Pleasant, Lincolnville, Barrie South, Allandale Waterfront, and West Harbour. It introduced the Highway 407 service, finally making York University accessible to thousands of suburban students. And […]

Categories
Maps Transit

Not so fair-by-distance: GO Transit’s problematic fare system

GO’s bus and rail system serves 39 municipalities and reaches points over 130 kilometres from Union Station In 1967, GO Transit started out as a simple commuter service from Oakville to Pickering (with two additional trains to and from Hamilton). In 1970, it started its first bus service, connecting Oshawa and Hamilton to the hourly […]

Categories
Transit

GO Transit and the high cost of “free” parking

This is the first of a series on regional transit in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area This may or may not come as a surprise to readers of my site, but the largest parking lot provider in Ontario isn’t the Toronto Parking Authority, nor is it a major real estate developer like Oxford (owner of […]

Categories
Brampton Politics Transit

On Brampton’s short-sighted Hurontario-Main LRT decision

LRT mockup at Gage Park, Brampton On late Tuesday night (actually, early Wednesday morning) Brampton City Council made disappointing and harmful decision by voting against the Hurontario-Main LRT, a 23.2 kilometre, $1.6-billion light rail line, whose construction costs would be fully covered by the province. This followed another marathon meeting back in July in which a final decision was […]