I tend to have a lot of complaints about public transit, being a daily user of the system. It’s trying, at best, to be reliant on public transit in this country/province and I am a dedicated user. Imagine how it appears to those who are not so altruistic? Locally, it’s designed with the assumption that all regional transit is to/from downtown Toronto, and it’s almost as if it would shock the planners to think that people might need to travel from one part of the region to another without the need to go downtown.
Case in point, I once considered a job offer at the Eglinton & Yonge area, almost due south of where I live on a straight line to downtown. It was an excellent opportunity, but I considered my transit day and the fact that I would need to take the GO train from Aurora to Union Station and then the Subway back north to Eglinton. Every day, Twice a day. No thanks.
But I digress since regional transit is not the subject of today’s post.
It would seem to me that to encourage people to leave their cars and rely on public transit, and I mean marginal people on the cusp of the decision, not the die-hard’s like me, that a local transit system designed to link to the regional transit is a critical component. George Monbiot wrote an entire section about this in his book on Climate Change solutions, “Heat, How to Keep the Planet from Burning”
Today, just as so many other days, I waited 17 minutes for a bus to appear. Add to that the three minutes during which I could have seen a bus go by and there was a 20 minute window in which no bus appeared. Now admittedly, for a route that includes two buses going to the same general location, each on a different 1/2 hour schedule you might be thinking that this certainly is a mathematical possibility. OK, that’s true, but consider the following:
- both of those buses take people in the morning to the Aurora GO station.
- they operate on different published schedules.
- one of those routes is called the “222 – Newmarket-Aurora GO Shuttle”.
- I make this trek every day and waited at my bus stop at the same time as I normally do, and generally can catch the bus by doing so.
Perhaps I’m being picky, but here are my rather humble requirements for designing this system:
- A bus route titled “GO Shuttle” ought to be designed to shuttle people to the GO station.
- It should do so within a reasonable window of time ahead of the train, say a minimum of 2 minutes ahead.
- It should have a schedule variance of NO MORE than 1/3 of the frequency.
For clarity, that means (in this case) a predictable 10 minute window each half hour where the bus would appear at stops along the route. Here it is visually…
The upshot of this is that a bus on a 1/2 hour schedule, specifically designed to take people to the train also on a 1/2 hour schedule, passed by my stop more than 25 minutes before the train and a more than 18 minutes before it actually needed to in order to meet the train. Brilliant.
The capital spend on transit systems is important, and governments of various levels are applying more, much needed funds for the expansion of transit projects. (Unfortunately they are doing this merely as an economic stimulus and don’t really care about transit for moving people or transit as a Climate Change response but whatever works to achieve those goals is good enough.)
But the operation of those systems is of equal, if not greater importance in that getting people out of their cars and onto transit requires:
- The system needs to go from/to where we need to travel.
- It needs to do so in a time frame reasonably competitively with our ability to drive.
- Most importantly, it needs to be predictable and consistent.
Why is this so difficult?
Other countries have good transit systems. Perhaps not in North America, but contrary to popular opinion we are NOT the entire world. And don’t give me the usual BS about us being a northern country or too spread out because northern European countries with just as much snow do a far better job and 97% of us live on 3% of the land area so for most Canadians our population density should be sufficient to support a decent system.
If I lived rurally I might have no legitimate case, but I live in a rather compacted town with an existing transit system and need to travel from my home to an existing regional commuter train.
No, the problem is a combination of political will and culture.
Culturally, we have been born and raised with the expectation that having and driving a car is our deity-given right and that transit systems are equivalent to social spending for people who can’t afford better.
And politically, well, they are just responding to the cultural demand (once you account for the petty infighting BS).
Some of this might change as the effects of Climate Change and Peak Oil become more apparent and richer folks start demanding a system that works, but we will likely first see more years of saving failing car companies, and don’t you dare spend a dime on public transit till you fix the potholes type rhetoric.
In the meantime, I’ll keep riding the crappy YRT service, tilting at windmills, and pointing out government stupidity wherever I find it, which should provide for years of entertaining blogs.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
hey, leave my windmills alone!
The schedule is unfortunate.
They are supposed to move the York U Go station to integrate with the Spadina Subway extension, which should hopefully make this commute more realistic. Maybe there’ll be some fare integration in place by then, maybe not.
Is the Viva Blue to Finch, subway to Eglinton less convenient for you? Viva’s pretty snappy as buses go.
@Leo Petr
“Is the Viva Blue to Finch, subway to Eglinton less convenient for you?”
I have taken the Viva Blue on the rare occasion that I need to go to the north end of Toronto, or Markham or such, but it adds an awful lot to my travel time and will continue to do so until we have dedicated lanes and get the buses out of general traffic.
Generally, it’s ok to have local transit in mixed traffic, although better if not, but longer distance or regional transit needs to have dedicated lanes. Essentially the planners need to plan the transit in dedicated lanes and cars can have the remaining pavement.
Hey, that’s what I’ve been trying to say for years!!!. When I lived in Newmarket and had to be at work near Bloor and Islington by 7AM, to take public transit, I would have had to catch the first morning bus, after finding a way to get to where the buses run to Toronto, then have a 3 or more hour ride and subway changes, to the Royal York subway station – one way – 6 hours on top of an 8 hour day. When I mentioned this at one of the open houses which the local (Newmarket) government had on transit, they (one of whom may have been the current mayor who was not mayor at the time) suggested I car pool. There are many people driving to Toronto between 5AM and 6AM (as anyone who drives the 404 or 400 at that time knows. However no one that I knew and possibly no one going to the Bloor & Islington area.
American cities like Boston and New York have more extensive subway and bus systems and are more convenient to get around without a car, even in the suburbs (as far as I know, anyway)so it certainly can be done in North America.
I understand public transit is much better and more frequent from Richmond Hill. I’ve often driven people to Richmond Hill to catch a bus and subway to Toronto or other areas.
I was a daily user of the Go Shuttle bus in Newmarket (#223) for nearly a full year until I gave up on it. Between the odd bus shuttle not showing up in the morning, too many delays waiting for the bus in the evening at the Newmarket Go train station, and one very rude drive at the end, I decided to stop. I’m lucky enough to live relatively close to the station that for the investment of 5 more minutes for my commute I can walk for 20 minutes to get to the station instead of: walking 5 minutes to the bus stop, wait for the bus for 5 minutes (so that I was sure to be early enough for it), and a bus ride of 5 minutes. So 20 mins instead of 15 mins, but peace of mind of having total control on that part of my commute.