Toronto ditches archaic parking rules that have clogged the city with cars

[Nite]

Originally Posted by C.

Really dumb. It's almost as bad as the Fulton Transit Center and the World Trade Center PATH station head. Two major transit facilities right next to each other because agencies could not play nice. The PATH station cost billions but had no service improvements. The temporary PATH station built in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 was better designed and more functional. Billions of dollars functionality is decreased, especially in the realm of ADA compliance.

There was now room at the existing Kipling station TTC bus terminal is why a second terminal servicing GO and Mississauga transit was built.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Doady

Sorry, I think Nite is confused. The protests I referred to which resulted in Mississauga buses being banned from Islington subway station happened over 20 years ago. The recent move of a lot of Mississauga buses to Kipling subway station is voluntary.

Islington station had a major bus terminal because it was once the western terminus of the Bloor-Danforth subway line. However, the subway was later extended to Kipling station, closer to Mississauga, but also connecting to the GO Trains, so Kipling became the natural location for a regional bus terminal, but Toronto only built a station for Toronto buses, no Mississauga buses. Finally, many decades later, there is now a terminal at Kipling for Mississauga buses and the Islington site can be redeveloped. Maybe it shows the lack of care Toronto and TTC has for neighbouring transit systems, but mostly I think it is just lack of foresight on both part of Toronto and Mississauga.

There are some Mississauga routes that are better off continuing to serve Islington rather than being rerouted to Kipling. Islington is still closer to Mississauga for some routes, and those routes now serving Kipling is certainly evidence of the continuing lack of integration and coordination between the two systems. But overall the regional bus terminal at Kipling subway station is a positive development for transit in the Toronto area and long overdue.

But still, I wouldn't call GO Transit the "best Regional transit system in North America". GO is not even the best regional transit system in Canada. Not even close, especially with GO's exorbitant fares for travel within the City of Toronto and GO's lack of fare integration with TTC subway, streetcar and bus services. GO Transit is essentially the regional transit system for everywhere in the Toronto region except for the City of Toronto itself.

That's why I say that these parking rules are not the main things that have "clogged the city with cars". There are policies that have done much greater damage to getting people of Toronto out of their cars, such as Toronto's idiotic restrictions on suburban transit and GO's idiotic fare structure designed to restrict the TTC. It really starts with enabling transit, especially regional transit, not disabling cars.

That is a lesson everywhere: stop thinking so much about limiting parking, think more about increasing bus service, building bike lines, building pedestrian walkways, and so on. We can talk more about getting rid of parking lots and garages after, when they become empty and underutilized. The suburbs struggling to build downtowns because the parking lots are still full and so cannot be redeveloped, and it is too expensive to build tall office towers. Parking space is a symptom not the cause. Toronto is getting rid of these parking requirements, but why? Because it can. People don't really need this parking anymore. People don't need a car to live and work in Toronto. But not everyone lives AND works in Toronto, that's the problem that the City of Toronto along with the TTC and Metrolinx/GO will have to address one day, and reducing the amount of parking doesn't do that.

Which City or cities in North America (Canada and the USA) has better regional transit than GO transit currently? and will they still be better than GO transit after the multitude of billion dollar GO transit projects are completed.

For those that aren't familiar this video explains what GO Transit is
• Video Link

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nite

Which City or cities in North America (Canada and the USA) has better regional transit than GO transit currently? and will they still be better than GO transit after the multitude of billion dollar GO transit projects are completed.

The SF Bay area comes to mind. Outside the core trunk sections, BART acts more like a high frequency regional rail system like you'd find outside NA than like a metro so I'd include it, while Caltrain is also pretty high quality and decent frequency compared to most commuter rail in NA. And it's also getting electrified. Plus there are a couple other complementary regional rail lines like SMART and ACE. But we'll have to see how the future version of GO compares.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The SF Bay area comes to mind. Outside the core trunk sections, BART acts more like a high frequency regional rail system like you'd find outside NA than like a metro so I'd include it, while Caltrain is also pretty high quality and decent frequency compared to most commuter rail in NA. And it's also getting electrified. Plus there are a couple other complementary regional rail lines like SMART and ACE. But we'll have to see how the future version of GO compares.

Does BART also have a Bus Network which is crucial for Suburb to Suburb connection on the GO network?

Numbers for specifically regarding trains: (from wikipedia)
BART is 167 km with 43 stations. daily passengers 411,000
GO Train network: 526 km 68 stations. daily passengers 215,500

BART has twice the daily passengers than the GO network but San Francesco also doesn't have it's own separate metro system as Toronto has where the TTC trains network which has of 75 stations over 77 km and 700,000 daily ridership (trains only)
To compare BART with GO transit you would have to include the TTC train infrastructure which would come out with the following numbers:
BART: 167 km, 43 stations with 411,000 daily passengers
TTC+GO (trains only) 603 km, 143 stations with 915,500 daily passengers

The BAY area doesn't seem anymatch to Toronto Transit systems to me looking at these numbers

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Nite

Which City or cities in North America (Canada and the USA) has better regional transit than GO transit currently? and will they still be better than GO transit after the multitude of billion dollar GO transit projects are completed.

I like using GO. But I am resident of Mississauga. Would GO still be as great if I was a resident of Toronto. How much would it cost to travel from Guildwood Station in Toronto to Union Station in Toronto, especially if I have to transfer from a TTC bus? Or imagine if I am in Mississauga and I want to take GO Train to Union and then transfer to the TTC subway to go to Yorkville or Yonge-Eglinton?

When I say GO is not a good regional transit system, I am not referring to the quality of the service, I am talking about how it excludes City of Toronto residents, and its lack of integration with TTC.

For true seamless, better integrated, regional transit systems, better examples might be Translink in Vancouver, New Jersey Transit, MBTA in Boston, and many more. Pretty much every urban area does it better than the Toronto area. It might be a bigger challenge to find a place that does regional transit worse than Toronto and its suburbs.

NYC seems similar to Toronto and Detroit, with "closed doors" for Bee-Line buses in The Bronx? Yikes. We talk so much about less parking in the city while we want less suburban buses in the city also. Doesn't make sense to me.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nite

Does BART also have a Bus Network which is crucial for Suburb to Suburb connection on the GO network?

Specifically regarding trains from wikipedia
BART is 167 km with 43 stations daily passengers 411,000
GO Train network: 526 km 68 stations. daily passengers 215,500

BART has twice the daily passengers than the GO network but San Francesco also doesn't have it's own separate metro system as Toronto has where the TTC trains network which has of 75 stations over 77 km and 700,000 daily ridership (trains only)
To compare BART with GO transit you would have to include the TTC train infrastructure which would come out witht he following

BART: 167 km, 43 stations with 411,000 daily passengers
TTC+GO (trains only) 603 km, 143 stations with 915,500 daily passengers

The BAY area doesn't seem anymatch to Toronto Transit systems to me looking at these numbers

In terms of ridership, I know some people such as Crawford have argued that ridership should be directly equated with a system's quality but I don't agree with that. i think they're related but not the same thing. A system in one city can lower ridership than a system in another despite being equal or greater quality because the ridership is affected by other factors such as built form and the ease or affordability of car usage. So I might use the ridership as a proxy for quality if no other info about the systems are available, but otherwise I'd set that aside and focus on the qualitative measures.

In terms of the system length, BART is shorter but more frequent, while GO has significant portions that are mostly peak period/direction such as the Milton and Richmond Hills lines. Plus the whole section between Hamilton and Niagara Falls adds a lot to the total length but has very little service. So I don't think length is all that relevant unless comparing systems with similar service levels.

I do agree that Toronto may have the edge in terms of local service due to the subway, but I was specifically referring to regional rail. Plus, SF does have the Muni Metro light rail which is high floor and has sections that are underground and acts as a metro.

I'm not sure how good the regional bus services are but there definitely are regional buses. There was a thread on SSC where they'd post pictures of the regional coach-style buses all the time.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Doady

I like using GO. But I am resident of Mississauga. Would GO still be as great if I was a resident of Toronto. How much would it cost to travel from Guildwood Station in Toronto to Union Station in Toronto, especially if I have to transfer from a TTC bus? Or imagine if I am in Mississauga and I want to take GO Train to Union and then transfer to the TTC subway to go to Yorkville or Yonge-Eglinton?

When I say GO is not a good regional transit system, I am not referring to the quality of the service, I am talking about how it excludes City of Toronto residents, and its lack of integration with TTC.

For true seamless, better integrated, regional transit systems, better examples might be Translink in Vancouver, New Jersey Transit, MBTA in Boston, and many more. Pretty much every urban area does it better than the Toronto area. It might be a bigger challenge to find a place that does regional transit worse than Toronto and its suburbs.

NYC seems similar to Toronto and Detroit, with "closed doors" for Bee-Line buses in The Bronx? Yikes. We talk so much about less parking in the city while we want less suburban buses in the city also. Doesn't make sense to me.

Does Tokyo have a bad local and regional transit system as well since you also have to pay separate fairs on every transit lines there as they are all separately owned to my knowledge, since you are excluding the service quality in your analysis.

To me the most important thing to good transit is frequency which GO does a good job at for regional rail in North America. your main issue is you have to pay a separate fare when you leave GO and get on the subway or vice versa, but frequency is much more important issue to most people than the price of a ticket.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In terms of ridership, I know some people such as Crawford have argued that ridership should be directly equated with a system's quality but I don't agree with that. i think they're related but not the same thing. A system in one city can lower ridership than a system in another despite being equal or greater quality because the ridership is affected by other factors such as built form and the ease or affordability of car usage. So I might use the ridership as a proxy for quality if no other info about the systems are available, but otherwise I'd set that aside and focus on the qualitative measures.

In terms of the system length, BART is shorter but more frequent, while GO has significant portions that are mostly peak period/direction such as the Milton and Richmond Hills lines. Plus the whole section between Hamilton and Niagara Falls adds a lot to the total length but has very little service. So I don't think length is all that relevant unless comparing systems with similar service levels.

I do agree that Toronto may have the edge in terms of local service due to the subway, but I was specifically referring to regional rail. Plus, SF does have the Muni Metro light rail which is high floor and has sections that are underground and acts as a metro.

I'm not sure how good the regional bus services are but there definitely are regional buses. There was a thread on SSC where they'd post pictures of the regional coach-style buses all the time.

I didn't include the Muni Metro because it seems pretty analogous to Toronto's streetcar network instead of Toronto subway network to me. in both size and daily ridership the TTC streetcar network is the larger of the two.

TTC Streetcar network: 83 km with 530,600 average weekday ridership
Muni Metro network: 59 km with 157,700 daily ridership

To your other point, you can't compare BART to GO directly because the Bay area lacks a true metro system, like Toronto has. if the TTC subways system didn't exist, the GO system in Toronto would be much more extensives within the city with much more daily ridership than BART has right now is my point.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Doady

I like using GO. But I am resident of Mississauga. Would GO still be as great if I was a resident of Toronto. How much would it cost to travel from Guildwood Station in Toronto to Union Station in Toronto, especially if I have to transfer from a TTC bus? Or imagine if I am in Mississauga and I want to take GO Train to Union and then transfer to the TTC subway to go to Yorkville or Yonge-Eglinton?

When I say GO is not a good regional transit system, I am not referring to the quality of the service, I am talking about how it excludes City of Toronto residents, and its lack of integration with TTC.

For true seamless, better integrated, regional transit systems, better examples might be Translink in Vancouver, New Jersey Transit, MBTA in Boston, and many more. Pretty much every urban area does it better than the Toronto area. It might be a bigger challenge to find a place that does regional transit worse than Toronto and its suburbs.

NYC seems similar to Toronto and Detroit, with "closed doors" for Bee-Line buses in The Bronx? Yikes. We talk so much about less parking in the city while we want less suburban buses in the city also. Doesn't make sense to me.

From what it looks like for the most part, these other cities you mentioned do not have both a large high frequency local metro system and and larger relatively high frequency regional rail systems as well like TTC and GO.
Instead they have one system which doesn't match the combine power of the TTC rail network and the GO Transit. You also have to pay an increase fair in Vancouver when going to different zones, which you pointed out was a negative when switching between the TTC and GO

For example Vancouver has Translink with it's great skytrain network, but this network have stops that are much wider apart than Toronto's TTC subway network and closer together than GO Transit but not nearly as expansive as the GO network.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nite

I didn't include the Muni Metro because it seems pretty analogous to Toronto's streetcar network instead of Toronto subway network to me. in both size and daily ridership the TTC streetcar network is the larger of the two.

TTC Streetcar network: 83 km with 530,600 average weekday ridership
Muni Metro network: 59 km with 157,700 daily ridership

To your other point, you can't compare BART to GO directly because the Bay area lacks a true metro system, like Toronto has. if the TTC subways system didn't exist, the GO system in Toronto would be much more extensives within the city with much more daily ridership than BART has right now is my point.

I agree since BART provides some service to the central areas it reduces the need for an urban metro while the TTC subway providing some service to suburban areas reduces the need for a regional rail system. Therefore this resulted in Toronto having a stronger urban rail system and the Bay area has a stronger regional rail system.

What I don't understand is why we can't compare what actually exists because of how things could have been in a hypothetical alternate universe? BART (at least large parts of it) is more comparable to a regional rail system than to an urban subway in several ways. The farthest the Toronto subway stretches from downtown is about 20km with the new Vaughan extension, while BART stretches over 50km from downtown in a couple cases. In fact the furthest BART reaches is over 65km from downtown to SJ as the crow flies. That would be the equivalent of the TTC subway reaching the town of Ancaster outside of Hamilton. Plus BART has a similar average speed to GO (56km/h vs 60km/h). To say you can't compare that to GO makes no sense.

But as i said, I'm not really considering ridership in the comparison. I'm just looking at things like how you can travel 50-65km from downtown using BART with similar speeds and generally higher all-day frequency than using GO in addition to the less metro like services of ACE and Caltrain. If someone can travel across the region more conveniently with say 20 min off-peak frequencies instead of hourly, they're not going to say, "Well, a lot fewer people would be using the system without the urban section so this isn't very good regional rail." Plus the total regional system length when including Caltrain, SMART and ACE is pretty similar even if you exclude the central metro-like part of BART.

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's not conservative in the way that Americans or even many other Canadians would envision "conservative".

More like the dictionary as opposed to the political definition of conservative.

Think prudent.

The opposite of revolutionary.

It's true that, to an extent, Toronto is slow to make decisions and prone to changing its mind shortly thereafter. While this means things take a bit longer, the sober second (and third...and fourth...) thought have saved us from making mistakes in the past like plowing more expressways through our urban fabric or ripping out our streetcar network. On certain local issues, some otherwise progressive voices use these non-failures as precedence for obstructing change, especially when so much change in this city runs counter to progressives' vision (e.g., the Conservative Premier intervening to help his developer buddies hollow out our heritage in favour of unaffordable for-profit housing).

In some ways, the conditions in Toronto haven't really been there (yet) for a revolutionary approach to city planning. I would attribute this to the fact that rapid change has been occurring in this city at a sustained or accelerating rate for decades absent a revolutionary vision. Even where a vision has been articulated, the momentum of the city's transformation has tended to overpower it.

There are very few places in North America that have seen the same type of rapid growth and redevelopment Toronto has, and there's much more to its transformation than this alone: Deindustrialization, shifting demographics, amalgamation and the recentring of (Anglo-)Canada's economic and cultural life have all played a role as well. People don't like change, yet Torontonians have been extremely flexible in adapting, focusing their aversion to change on relatively minor inconveniences (real or perceived).

Finally, the dynamics of the city–province relationship have created a political landscape in which a progressive focus on municipal politics has terrible ROI. For better or worse, the government of Ontario has been much more willing to interfere in Toronto's governance than its counterparts in other large cities in the country (e.g., the OMB/LPAT, the decision to veto tolled municipal expressways, the forced restructuring of the ward system in the middle of an election, &c.). That doesn't necessarily mean the province is a hindrance to progress—to the contrary, provincial initiatives like the Greenbelt and Places to Grow Act are still extremely progressive by North American standards over 15 years later.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

But how long does it take in the car vs on the train though? I've never done the daily commute but given the experiences I've had with traffic all the times I was there I feel like the cost is not the biggest factor. For instance, last time I was in town in Sept, we decided to go to Wonderland and left the Cambridge Suite at Yonge/Richmond around 2:30 since we wanted to get ahead of rush hour which we assumed would start around 4. It took us TWO HOURS to get to the Gardiner on ramp. In fact, we spent about 10 light cycles just at Yonge and Esplanade before we could even clear the intersection.

We lost so much time that by the time we got to the on ramp we just did a u-turn and went back.

Oh 100% train is easier, though I find usually a wash time wise. The difference is I can use that time to do other things instead of staring down at someone elses bumper. If anything driving is typically faster once you account for the time you spend waiting for the train, etc, especially in the morning rush hour which isn't as bad traffic wise. I usually take the train if it's just going to be a regular 9-5 day in the office, and drive if I know I'm staying later for whatever reason past rush hour since it's a lot faster in the evenings to get home.

My garage downtown happens to be right next to a Gardiner ramp so it doesn't take me more than 5 mins to get on the Gardiner, and the Gardiner typically isn't that bad once I'm on it. It's sort of a unique circumstance though as the garage is so close to the ramp that I don't have to fight through downtown traffic.

I well know the struggles of leaving downtown from "deeper in" to the core at rush hour from when I lived downtown.. it could take an hour to get on the Gardiner sometimes on Friday evenings when we were leaving town, and that was using the Jarvis ramp which isn't as bad as the downtown ramp accesses.

The most humorous thing about me commuting to Toronto is that my office commute isn't actually much longer from Hamilton than some of my coworkers taking the TTC in from areas like Caledonia and The Junction. If you are heading within a few minutes of Union it's sort of hilarious how quick GO is, and generally I find it much more reliable than the TTC as well. With electrification it's only going to get faster as well. My commute in a few years could be under an hour door to door to cover ~70km by a mix of driving and public transit, which is sort of crazy.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Nite

Which City or cities in North America (Canada and the USA) has better regional transit than GO transit currently?

I'm not familiar with Montreal's system, but definitely NYC, Philly, Bay Area, Boston and Chicago. All have more robust regional rail networks. With the exception of Boston/Chicago they're overwhelmingly electrified systems. And the NYC and Philly systems are almost entirely grade separated. Much of BART, LIRR and Metro North have essentially subway-like infrastructure, using third rail and complete grade separation.

[Nouvellecosse]

I consider frequency and trip speed to be more important than the number of lines and total length. I don't know enough about the frequencies and other operating characteristics of the other systems to comment but electrification is definitely a big advantage for those that have it. Based on comments I've heard over the years from forumers in those other cities, the off-peak service frequencies aren't that great though. With GO, there are some lines with little or no off-peak service, but the core Lakeshore route (E/W) which carries around half the system riders was upgraded to a minimum 30 min off-peak headway prior to covid.

Only GO and Septa have the advantage of central through-station operations which helps streamline scheduling and improve speed and convenience for cross town trips. NY Penn also has the technical capability because of the NE corridor but I don't think it's used for commuter operations since LIRR and NJT don't serve each other's regions. I personally would need more info about them to compare - especially with a comparison between NYC and smaller cities since it would be relative to city/metro size. But anyone placing a high priority on system length and ridership would definitely have to place NYC and Chicago higher.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Doady

NYC seems similar to Toronto and Detroit, with "closed doors" for Bee-Line buses in The Bronx? Yikes. We talk so much about less parking in the city while we want less suburban buses in the city also. Doesn't make sense to me.

NYC is pretty different. The Bee-Line is likely the only non-state owned public transit system in the NY Metro area. Even despite being a separately owned system the Bee-Line uses the MTA MetroCards, which is the same payment method used for NYC buses and subways, and Long Island buses. All public transit throughout New Jersey falls under New Jersey Transit as well.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Doady

I already posted a link to the article on the previous page. I will post it again, with quote this time.

Residents block Mississauga buses
(Published by Toronto Star on December 2, 1998 6:17 PM)

https://transittoronto.ca/archives/d...12021817.shtml

Okay, so a block of NIMBYs in 1998 protested against Mississauga transit busses using their street, demanding that they instead use an adjacent arterial.

Not quite "Torontonians taking to the street to block transit riders from Mississauga from coming into their city" as described.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Okay, so a block of NIMBYs in 1998 protested against Mississauga transit busses using their street, demanding that they instead use an adjacent arterial.

Not quite "Torontonians taking to the street to block transit riders from Mississauga from coming into their city" as described.

Okay?

Of all the traffic along a major street, these Toronto residents single out not the car drivers, but the bus riders, and not the bus riders from Toronto, but just the bus riders from Mississauga, and they literally went out into the street and physically blocked the buses as they were going toward the subway station, and somehow you think I was lying or exaggerating what happened?

Since I am so fucking stupid, then explain it to me then.

If Torontonians did not take to streets to block Mississauga Transit riders coming into Toronto, then what the fuck happened then? Explain it to me. I want to know.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Doady

Okay?

Of all the traffic along a major street, these Toronto residents single out not the car drivers, but the bus riders, and not the bus riders from Toronto, but just the bus riders from Mississauga, and they literally went out into the street and physically blocked the buses as they were going toward the subway station, and somehow you think I was lying or exaggerating what happened?

Since I am so fucking stupid, then explain it to me then.

If Torontonians did not take to streets to block Mississauga Transit riders coming into Toronto, then what the fuck happened then? Explain it to me. I want to know.

It is much easier to get local politicians to ban a neighbouring cities buses than to ban cars, it's as simple as that.
Toronto is a very conservative city and it is easy to get politicians to agree to make transit harder.

[softee]

Originally Posted by Nite

Toronto is a very conservative city and it is easy to get politicians to agree to make transit harder.

That's quite an exaggeration, Toronto is one of the most progressive large cities in North America even with its more suburban oriented politicians in the former 416 boroughs, and is currently undergoing the largest expansion and upgrading of its public transit and commuter rail system of any city in both Canada and the U.S. No other large North American city is currently committed to building more transit than Toronto.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Only GO and Septa have the advantage of central through-station operations which helps streamline scheduling and improve speed and convenience for cross town trips. NY Penn also has the technical capability because of the NE corridor but I don't think it's used for commuter operations since LIRR and NJT don't serve each other's regions. I personally would need more info about them to compare - especially with a comparison between NYC and smaller cities since it would be relative to city/metro size. But anyone placing a high priority on system length and ridership would definitely have to place NYC and Chicago higher.

Minor nitpick: Baltimore Penn station (MARC) and Salt Lake City's Central Station both have through-running commuter train service, although if you're counting Baltimore, you might as well also count major New Jersey stations that also serve as the central stations for bona fide downtowns like Newark Penn, etc. In the case of MARC, I think the objective is to funnel commuters to Washington Union station much like NJT is funneling people to New York's Penn station.

But, yes, too many major stations in North America are either termini or are set up like termini for their operators, even if there are tracks that run through them.