VIA Rail

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The issue that most people do is they ignore the realities of life outside the big cities and the challenges that rural people face. For a good example, if an elderly person needs to go to the big city for a medical appointment, what method of travel would be better for them? For people wishing to visit the big city but driving in the big city scares them, how should their family visit?

The Northlander when it was running usually had 3 cars. 2 coaches and a snack car. It was a round trip daily service except Sundays. Now, imagine you own a cottage and live in Toronto and want to take the train instead. Well, unless you don't work on Mondays, you can't. This goes back to daily service, 7 days a week. It then can work for everyone who needs it. It also works well for those that may want to use it.

I know it's an 8 hour train ride to Toronto from here. I can do it in 4. What if I don't care about the time, but want to go down today, and come back tomorrow? How hard is that to do?

The Canadian is not a short train. It has well over 10 cars. It is not the busiest route. That would be the Corridor. However, the Corridor trains usually have less than 10 cars. Why not shorten the train, but run it more often. Lets say the current Canadian runs with 20 cars, 3 times a week. Why not run it with 10 cars, but 7 days a week. No new rolling stock is needed. Now, I can go to/from Toronto every day as though I live in somewhere with the same population as here - Kingston.

The Corridor isn't the busiest just because of population. It is because of frequency. The Vox video showed that larger cites than Toronto have worse ridership. Toronto has higher ridership because they invest in the frequency. Population is only one part of the formula for success. Frequency is also only one part.

So, in the simplest way, adding more service, even if the train is shorter would build ridership. I highly doubt there would be more than 1 or 2 trains a day along the Canadian if they were to make it daily. Mind you, if they started by having shorter, but daily service, it would start something good. Then if they watch their ridership between stations, they might see a need between cities that could add service akin to the Corridor where parts of the route have higher frequencies than other parts.

No one out there can show me cutting service can truly build ridership.

What about all the places not on a rail line? Why are they undeserving of public transit, when those who happen to be near one get a massively subsidised, inefficient service?

I don't propose cutting service, I propose spending at least as much money on providing usable transit where it is needed most. It just doesn't need to be a train, and it would often be better if it wasn't a train.