I take the UP Express train into the office every day (here in Toronto). This is a rail service that we have spoken about many times over the years on this blog.
It started as an airport link that was too expensive, but was then repriced so that more people would use it, and use it locally. It is now widely used by people like me. I don't know the exact split, but in the mornings, it feels like majority commuters.
Then on Monday of this week, the province announced that local service would be reduced from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes. Supposedly this was in order to improve service between downtown and Pearson airport.
Commuters immediately reacted. In fact, while riding the train on Tuesday morning, there was quite literally a guy beside me on the phone trying to complain to his local city councillor and MPP. A petition was also started on Monday that, at the time of writing this post, had close to 6,000 supporters.
And then -- some 24 hours after the initial announcement -- the Minister of Transportation announced that the province would be walking back this service change and that he had "directed Metrolinx to not proceed." Boom.
As a daily rider, this selfishly makes me happy. But more importantly, I think it, once again, shows how quickly voices can get amplified in today's world and how important good regional express rail is to our city. Clearly we need more of this!
Sadly, it probably also shows that some people have no idea how lines like these are actually getting used. I have to believe that if anyone had looked closely at ridership and the split between local/airport, that this decision wouldn't have been made in the first place.
This morning on my way into the office I ran into a friend who lives in my building (downtown). She works in midtown and so I asked her how she gets into the office. She told me that she either takes the subway or an Uber, but that increasingly she has been taking Uber, particularly on the way home.
We then started talking costs and she told me that what she does is carpool with a friend from work using UberPOOL. They live nearby and so what they do is leave from the same place at night (the office) and then select a midpoint location between their homes for the drop-off. After splitting their portion of the fare, the ride costs her about $3.25.
As she was telling me this, I couldn’t help but think to myself: Wow, this is massively disruptive to transit. That is the same cost as taking the subway. So why take transit? With the subway, there may be a speed argument in certain instances, but that certainly wouldn’t be the case with some of Toronto’s streetcar lines (such as the King line). It’s faster to walk.
However, there are obviously geographic limits to how far you can go in an UberPOOL before your costs greatly exceed taking transit. But as Uber and other similar services continue to bring down the price of a ride (eventually the labor cost component will disappear), how big does that area get?
All of this – including my own mobility patterns – has got me thinking yet again about the role of transit in the city of tomorrow.
One segment that continues to be underserved is the regional scale. Here in the Greater Toronto Area, we are working on that by transforming our commuter rail service into a two-way all-day Regional Express Rail service. Today that strikes me as being hugely valuable. And unless driverless vehicles somehow solve our traffic problem, it will likely remain that way.
I would love to get your thoughts in the comments below.
On Thursday afternoon the mayor of Toronto, John Tory, was in London meeting with their mayor, Boris Johnston, and talking about Toronto-London business relations, the economy, and transit.
Here is the tweet:
I’m meeting with @MayorofLondon this afternoon to talk Toronto-London business relations, the economy & transit. pic.twitter.com/fpVsPIBvtQ
— John Tory (@JohnTory)
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On the topic of transit, the big item to see and discuss was The Crossrail. For those of you who might not be familiar with it, here are a few bullet points from their website:
Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project – work started in May 2009 and there are currently over 10,000 people working across over 40 construction sites.
The Crossrail route will run over 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
Crossrail will transform rail transport in London and the south east, increasing central London rail capacity by 10%, supporting regeneration and cutting journey times across the city.
Crossrail will bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London and will link London’s key employment, leisure and business districts – Heathrow, West End, the City, Docklands – enabling further economic development.
And below is a neat diagram that I found in this City of London report. I think it does a good job summarizing some of the spatial impacts of The Crossrail.
In the past I’ve been negative about John Tory’s SmartTrack proposal, which is clearly inspired by The London Crossrail. I had my reasons for that. But I want to be clear that I am not in any way negative on Regional Express Rail as a mobility solution.
Toronto would benefit greatly from RER and Metrolinx is working diligently to deliver it to the region. I can’t wait for that to happen so I can drive even less than I already do.