Wednesday’s headlines

12 comments

1. Parking lots? Excuse me, but !@$%*^!#%*!%@# PARKING LOTS???? That’s the big crisis-into-opportunity idea of the Feds? Good god. Of the million things GO Transit could use — electrification, more lines, more stations, something to bring it up to Chicago or New York levels of service — instead we get parking lots for the 905ers. Great. Montreal and Seattle and Denver can manage to build new lines but we can’t? The GO station areas are already urban wastelands — trading one evil for another — and simply adding more parking to them shows that no one has ever heard of transit-oriented-development in this province. Just give the local precast guys some work and throw up some more parking at existing stations in areas that vote Tory. Brilliant. Really needed to ride a locomotive for that one.

   Look, I’m a realist and I know you need to make it convenient to get people to leave their car and take the train, and Ontario doesn’t have the history of densely packed settlements around century-old stations to allow for any other option. Postwar 905 = low density = need for cars. But GO should be adding more routes to attract more riders, not worrying about parking at existing stops. This is a made-in-Canada joke.

2. $175 million dollars for a measly 6,800 parking spots divided among 12 GO stations. This is considered a major improvement to GO Transit. How about spending money on improving local transit access to GO stations?

   Absolutely pathetic.

3. • The city’s top de-signer [ Globe & Mail ]

4. This comes a bit late, but is quite cool: the Star’s Map of the Week blog (which I adore) has been working on a neighbourhoods map. Plenty to discuss! And some blank spots still to fill in.

5. Just goes to re-iterate how Harper doesn’t think twice about climate change. Let’s invite MORE CARS, rather than spend on infrastructure or LRT’d “to” these stations.

   Pathetic.

6. In GO-land, you can drive to and from the GO station in probably under 10-15 minutes given the distances. On the way home, people with cars can stop to pick up kids from daycare, drycleaning, dinner or whatever else. This is a big convenience compared to waiting for a bus, then riding for probably nearly twice as long to get to the neighbourhood, and then walking from the bus stop to get home AND not being able to pick anything up, which then requires a separate trip. If there were commercial “villages” in walking distance to most residential areas, people would get into the habit of walking to/from them, much like people who live a couple of blocks from say College St. or St. Clair will walk after they get off the streetcar. Unfortunately, only the immediately close residents will walk to a suburban plaza, and then this is compounded by the fact that shopping centres are fewer and farther between, which just makes everyone drive there. Building village nodes around transit is only starting now, but it’s too late for most of Mississauga, Durham, Vaughan etc where fact is that if you’re on foot, you’re a pretty lonely pedestrian with a long walk to get anywhere.

7. The $500 million is just a recycled Harper announcement. It doesn’t mean the federal government will actually send any money. Not that things were any better under the Liberals.

   uSkyscraper should remember that Montreal can expand its subway system because Quebec harvests Ontario tax dollars, courtesy of the federal government. That’s been going on since the early 1970’s. If you want Toronto to have the financial capacity to build infrastructure, the only realistic solution is for Ontario to separate from Canada. As long as we stay in this country, we’re just a tax farm.

8. Re: pman

   Even better, just have Quebec separate from Canada! 😀

   Anyways, here is a comment I posted on a Toronto Sun blog about being pro-GO-parking:

   (Here is the article: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/rob_granatstein/2009/02/18/8427676-sun.html#/comment/columnists/rob_granatstein/2009/02/18/pf-8427676.html)

   “This article is so full of fail, I don’t know where to begin. Rob, I oppose this mass investment for parking not as an “eniro fear-monger,” but as someone who knows a thing or two about transportation planning. Adding parking is fine, but how exactly will all these extra cars GET to the station? Infrastructure around current stops is already beyond capacity because so many people park at GO already. Throw in more parking without upgrading surrounding infrastructure, and you will create gridlock of epic proportions! What good is extra parking if people miss their trains because they can’t get to their parking spot in time?

   Rob, if you ask people why they don’t take the GO downtown, it is usually because service is unreliable or that their schedule does not fit GO’s rush hour trains. I assume less than 10% of people don’t use GO because of parking, especially since getting commuters to and from GO stations is one of the few things 905 transit agencies are good at.

   If the focus of this half billion is simply to make it easier for people to get to GO stations, then at least 50%-75% of it should have been spent on local shuttle bus service and maybe even building more stations so that entire suburban regions have more than one stop to service them. The rest could go towards modest parking improvements.”

9. I have at least 3 co-workers that have given up on GO completely because it’s impossible to find parking after 7:30am. I’ve heard countless stories of them arriving to completely full lots, and either parking 8 blocks away (and getting a ticket) or parking in empty spaces in the lot that aren’t marked as spaces (and getting a ticket). I’m guessing that same situation holds for many 1000s of others around the ‘burbs..

   These people would gladly take GO if they were able to.

   To me investing in parking spaces for commuter rail seems like a great investment even if I’ll never personally see any benefit.

10. The problem, James, is that this is a lost opportunity. Sure, more parking has its benefits, but this is is low-hanging fruit. The local municipalities should be able to figure out how to add parking and manage traffic on their turf at existing stations. The sense of outrage here is that the PM comes riding in on a train and delivers… parking lots. If the feds are going to get involved, show some leadership and vision and do things that the local towns and GO can’t do on their own, like obtaining right of way for more routes, or funding a mega capital project like electrification. I can take a commuter train in New York to the beach (LIRR) or to other major cities (NJT/SEPTA) or two hours into cottage country (Metro North) – all with at least a train every other hour, both directions, every day of the week. This is the time to send GO trains to London, to Cobourg, to Gravenhurst. Or to add intracity routes like a new 905 belt line, or GO to the airport. To make such a fuss over a couple parking garages — why not ride in on an aircraft carrier next time with a “Mission Accomplished” banner?

    Pman, I’m well aware of the lousy funding formulae in Ontario, but Quebec is not the answer. The solution, perhaps surprisingly for smug Canadians, lies in the US, where mass transit gets excellent funding. If Toronto had the cash that, say, Atlanta gets for transit, we’d have TTC and GO running all over town for $2 fares and $70 monthly passes.

11. Sorry, I meant send GO to Waterloo, not London. London is a bit far to be practical, but KW would mesh nicely just as the college towns Worcester, Ma and Providence, RI terminate some of Boston’s commuter lines, or the way New Haven and Princeton are served by New York’s net.

12. uSky, Stephen Harper has proven again and again he has no vision for the country. (I mean this in a non-partisan way: e.g. Mike Harris had vision, even if that vision was horrifying to so many.) And I’m sure Harper rode in on a car to stand next to the train.

    The good news, though, is that GO is planning bi-directional train service to Kitchener. Steve Munro covers it here.