I lived in ontario for a few years when i was on a training course, the GO train was an absolute pleasure to ride when it was available. The trains are clean, comfortable and generally a relaxing experience. just enjoy the scenery and read a book. however it was such an inconvenient schedule that i ended up buying a vehicle and never rode it again.
I did the same because when I was there too I finished work at 5:00 there was a train at 5:20.. for me to get from my office to the train for 5:20 I could never do it.. the next train wasn't at 5:30, or 5:45, or 6.. it was at 6:20.. a full 1 hour afterwards and so what did I do.. I had to drive downtown.
I've never seen trainstations this deserted. Insane to place a station in the middle of nowhere.. it defeats the purpose in so many different ways. Stunning video!
It looks like an abandoned mall... Size wise it's probably similar to bern's hauptbahnhof but whereas the hauptbahnhof is filled with grocery stores, restaurants, meeting spaces etc. and there are people everywhere this is completely empty. Mind you, the Hauptbahnhof has like 20 platforms at least. Such a huge building for what? 1 single platform! Ridiculous.
@@abellseaman4114 This video describes why parking lots are an incredibly expensive, wasteful investment with many cons, literally. If you have smaller stations within walking and biking distance of homes, you wouldn't have American & Canadian cities & towns designed with a vast stroad network in mind. Instead, you'd have flourishing, local commerce with a much happier standard of living. Not to mention, the cities wouldn't be broke due to the unintentional ponzi scheme design of car-dependent suburbs. See this channel's video titled, "Why American cities are broke".
And almost all issues pointed out in this video are being fixed. We only have 2 lines out of 8 that only operate during rush hours, and a ton of money is being spent on doing station and track expansions that will allow the core of the network to run every 15 minutes or more.
@@pascualsmithvaldes9038 As I said, most of these issues are being fixed, and when I say "being fixed" I mean shovels in the ground solutions, not just that they say its going to be fixed.
@@Absolute_Zero7 But why even have two trains operate only during rush hour. You obviously already have trains and drivers so why make them stand around wasting space for most of the day?
@@Mr8lacklp Both lines have different reasons. The Galt Sub, the track that the Milton Line runs on - is owned by CP rail as part of their Montreal - Detroit freight corridor. In 1979 an incident occurred called the Mississauga Miracle where a few chemicals derailed and the fear of Chlorine Gas spreading resulted in the largest evacuation in NA prior to Hurricane Katrina. As an "apology", CP was forced to provide compensation, including the introduction of passenger service on the subdivision which is now the Milton Line. However this still only included Rush Hour service, so if they want to get more - they have to beg CP to give them more slots which CP refuses to do. Unfortunately the only people who can force CP's hand to do otherwise is the Federal Government - and they're not budging. Now there is good news, last year as part of Trudeau's attempt to get a majority, he called a snap election and as part of that election, the Minister of Transport promised to get the Milton Line hourly all day service - which will likely involve building a separate set of tracks along the corridor - however that is still a few years away, and they still won't be able to electrify that corridor (which is why its not an immediate priority for the province). As for the Richmond Hill Line, they could launch all day service - and allegedly they had plans to do so prior to COVID, however that line as a whole is plagued with so many fundamental issues that makes this difficult. First, the line is routed at the bottom of Don Valley, where its slow, indirect, and prone to flooding. Second, there is a major at grade junction with the CN york sub called the Doncaster Diamond, which restricts how many trains can run through their per hour. 3rd, the track north of the Diamond is owned by CN. When combined altogether, this makes the line extremely difficult to turn into a proper regional train service. The position at the bottom of the valley means you can't build any infill stations to connect to busses and subway lines (or at least, you can't build any convenient transfer stations), and because of how prone it is to flooding, building permanent electrification infrastructure is also unappealing. As such, what they're instead going to do is extend the Yonge Subway Line north to Richmond Hill Centre (Langstaff Station on the Richmond Hill Line), and that will provide frequent all day service to Toronto while also having more stops, more connections to other service, and will only be like 5 minutes slower than the Richmond Hill Line (that's how bad the Don Valley alignment is). Now its possible that we may see hourly service on the Richmond Hill Line in a few years, but a proper regional rail line with electrified trains every 15 mins is unfortunately unlikely to happen any time soon as its arguably too expensive to justify.
As a European who's never been to North America, watching this series gives me very weird emotions. At times I feel like this longing when I look at these huge parking lots and wide empty roads and think how awesome it would be if driving and parking were this easy. But invariably, immediately after that initial feeling of longing, I always feel so sad and frustrated at how bad this is, how expensive, how inefficient, how environmentally destructive. It's just stunning.
After having lived in Vienna for 3 years, with its almost perfect public transit system, with subways, trams and buses every few minutes, sufficient night lines, where a ticket for a year costs € 365, seeing so many missed opportunities just leaves me speechless.
Even sadder is, even if you wanted to drive in vienna, you could. I argue that even driving is better in cities that are not built around cars, as more people use the alternatives. Every passenger and cyclist is one car off the road.
Man... In Saskatoon where I live, bus passes are 80 dollars a month, so converting to euros it would be 675 a year - but it's not even good! There are 3 routes (6 if you count their return trips) that go every 10 minutes, everything else is either 15, 20 minutes, or an hour. From many places, you will have to walk quite a ways to get to a bus stop, transfer times can be long, and the busses are often late because of traffic. And I know I said bus pass, but I may as well have said transit pass - because it's the same thing! There are no trains or subways or anything, just unpredictable, infrequent, expensive busses. It goes without saying that car drivers scoff at the idea of using busses because they can be late due to car traffic.
Right? Yet americans tend to believe they are still the best country on earth :D US politicians have never been as old on average as they are now or so i've heard.
@@Ekstrax And they also believe that it's freedom to drive only cars and that building bicycle lanes and more buses is government dividing American society. There was a PragerU video about it. Utter madness.
But there are 50 US states, 48 US states are larger than ALL of Austria, each, by themselves. The idea of eliminating all cars, and everything being public transporation, simply is not practical in nations with as much land and distance between areas as the US and Canada.
@@PropagandasaurusRex True, but that's because car infrastructure Requires a constantly increasing amount of funds to maintain. He was talking purely on a funding basis, not the quality of infrastructure itself.
@@spikedpsycho2383 that’s because of nonsense like this video where people are expected to drive to the train. If we designed around walkability first people would walk and take transit.
After traveling to Europe a few times I've been kinda annoyed at Australian city planning... But watching this video has made me think maybe it isn't so bad after all?
Very sobering to see that a commuter train that doesn't even go that far only has 4 trains each way twice a day. And here I am in Spain getting mad that I missed my train and now need to wait 20 minutes to catch the next one to go somewhere 2 hours away. Get well soon, North American continent.
@@adambogle6724 yes. He's been gone for too long. Even the Milton Line, which is a freight line has passenger trains at a higher frequency that that!!!
I'm near that station...this is true for this new one, I always calculate the inconvenient amount of hours and stress it would take me to painstakingly use the go transit vs getting an uber to pick me up and get me where I want to go in dt Toronto then work that money back. I can only justify the go train on days I have lots of time to waste and nowhere I need to be. The 4 train thing is true, and at first I didn't realize they had finished building it since it's just as empty as it was on weekends while still under construction, and it never shows up as an option when using google maps or the go trip planner.... I had no idea this was subsidised, I thought go trains were run by a private company, since the stations/trains were clean, had stadium sized car space, are overly expensive for what they provide, and were seldom useful outside of rush hour...
I live at exhibition station now, but I used to commute daily from Oakville to Toronto by car. I used to take the go train when I worked at an office near a subway stop, but then I changed jobs to something in king west which has no subway coverage whatsoever. Taking a car to the Oakville Go station, then taking a train, then walking to a streetcar stop, then waiting as 3 stuffed full king cars go by, then finally getting on one and riding to work, was MUCH more time consuming and stressful than just driving from Oakville and parking in king west... I think the limited subway coverage has a big impact on GO train ridership and is an often overlooked connection. It is an absolute tragedy that Toronto dropped the ball and stopped making subway lines downtown decades ago. The salt on the wound is the new Ontario subway line finally gives east/west coverage downtown but stops short before coming to Liberty in King West, it just goes south at Bathurst. This damn city...
That King car is insane. I used to take it to work at King & Dufferin back in 2003/2004 and even then it was rammed. I can't believe they let it get so bad.
Lack of proper subway network was a big surprise for me when I relocated to Toronto. In Moscow it is possible to go by subway almost anywhere in the city and a car there is pretty much a burden while in GTA it is almost impossible to live without a car. Before I got a driver's licence here I had to commute about 2 hours in one direction and with a car it is about 35-50 minutes.
@@NotJustBikes It's so much better now. Ever since they made King a transit corridor, I will actually walk to King from Queen to take that street car instead of the Queen car.
I'm very happy that there is such a large audience that take interest with the problem of North American cities, of which includes a lot of Canadian cities. For that I thank you, and may our people eventually break the cycle of "at least it's better than America"!
Policy in North America has a lot of influence on policy in the rest of the world. King car is only one example, but nobody in Western Europe would plead for a bigger liberalisation of the healthcare systems if the USA had universal healthcare.
If anything we're worse because of our addiction to subsidies and "free" things from the government. For example market urbanism hasn't taken off in Ontario or any other province in the same way that it has in the San Francisco Bay area.
@@nukiradio why do state and federal departments of transportation subsidise suburbia on a massive scale then? America is built on government subsidies, without them the inefficient development pattern of cities expanding outwards to low productivity suburbs would collapse. America is a welfare loving nation that likes to think of itself as free market capitalist even though it's clearly not.
Took the bus with my bike today (our buses have those bike hangars at the front). As I got ready to leave, the driver told me "Don't forget your toy" in this weirdly patronizing tone. I was so pissed about it that I turned on your channel the moment I got home to restore some of my sanity. Love this video; I hadn't realized how modes of "public transit"-which are supposedly built to serve pedestrians-so often revolve around cars/drivers. It's very true in the area I live, but it's become so normal to me to have to get a lift to the train station that I hadn't even realized how ridiculous it is.
When you mentioned that the bus requires a ticket, but that parking is free, my mind was blown! I guess they want to subsidise non parking transit, but ONLY to downtown. No need for less cars in suburbia I guess
Most suburban operators will give you about a dollar off of your ticket price if you check into the GO train right after your bus journey. But yeah, that's the only "benefit" to taking the bus.
@@dutchman7623 yeah that sounds the good way to do it! Which city are you talking about? I've heard talks of these kind of transit systems as long as I cab remember here in Amsterdam, but I haven't seen any real progress towards it
@@sjoerdglaser2794 Not the person you asked, but I know Den Bosch has at least one. We used to use it all the time when I was a kid and we would go to The Big City for clothes shopping and the like
@@sjoerdglaser2794 Amsterdam P+R explain it as €8 for parking 24h weekdays (+€1 p/d for next 3 days) and 5x free transit into downtown. My town publish it as 'free parking and €6 for 2way bus transit downtown for 5 people' . But it is basically the same I guess. For A'dam you need to go downtown, not for shopping in the Arena district...
Quite some time ago, I worked for CP rail, which included working on the GO Trains on the Milton Line. Part of the duties of the Conductor (me) was to put out the ramp at each station for Wheelchair access. It latched into the sill of the door, and extended across to the raised platform, giving a smooth surface to enter the car, with no gaps for a wheel to get stuck in. Since I could only be in one location, that was where the raised platform was located. It also gave a very clear indication to the people at the station as to which car was wheelchair accessible. As a side note, it meant that the engineer has to be very precise when stopping the train, because it is a relatively small area to hit.
I'm glad they go to the trouble of doing it. So many rail systems are not wheelchair accessible. Like in London (real London) where you have to call a day in advance to tell them you're coming with your wheelchair!!
@@NotJustBikes I never realised just how annoying this was, or that it even was the case, until I broke my leg and had to get from hospital to home. Fortunately the best British thing, the NHS, covered the cost of the ticket- but having to bump on each step down to the platform was absolutely demeaning. Another reminder that accessible infrastructure isn't just for those in wheelchairs, but anybody less mobile- be they with a pram, with a lot of shopping, or with a serious disability. We'll all be old someday!
@@iacopo538 And not to mention those of us that don't drive who still have to cart stuff around using trolleys. I appreciate "accessible" infrastructure that makes it easier to wheel heavy loads around by hand.
The channel The Tim Traveler mentions the level of accessibility on évery video he makes. It's really awesome to hear! (And really easy to include in a video...)
This open my eyes to someone who live minutes from a GO Train Station. This video shows that Ontario hae so much land to waste that we can continue to build endless parking lots.
Train must be a world transportation standard, they are so efficient and safe with a very low CO2 emissions. Recently in my city(Guadalajara) they built a modern light train(Metro L3) that cross the city and everyone loves it, I hope more cities in my country implements that kind of trains.
@@icecat2025 Word. The fact that I can get to Amsterdam in half an hour, and then take a train straight to Brussels, Paris or Berlin Ostbahnhof for like 80 euros is bloody amazing. Everyone should have that type of luxury.
Gdl should have at least 3 more train lines, but still they keep making all these new 100% car depending developments on the south side... At least the govmt is making progress with a lot of new cycling lanes in the city
Keeping in mind that when GO originally opened, the stations were not massive parking lots. The Dixie Rd station in Mississauga was rather small and had a relatively small parking lot for many years. In fact it was smaller inside than the train station in Antigonish NS, which was a very tiny station in a one street town. Then suddenly they razed all the buildings in the area and built the giant parking lot and station. This is basically true for all the original stations along that line.
What?? The owners of the buildings didn't see the much larger profit potential for mixed used development? Or they didn't have the political power to prevent their land from being seized? That's one advantage of living in a state with corrupt politicians-they're the ones engaging in land speculation for transit-oriented development so at least they don't let it become parking lots. Everything else they do is awful though.
I grew up close to the Clarkson GO station and it was the same. My parents would walk back and forth from the station and I would sometimes meet them there in the afternoon.
Birmingham, UK isn't incredible at public transport, far from it at all and there needs to be massive improvements (screw privatisation) but after watching videos like this, I feel so grateful to have the infrastructure that we do. This is actual madness..
What's even more fun about GO trains and parking is they are very under-utilized now due to the pandemic. The now-reduced hours have made it even less convenient to use the train outside of rush hour commutes despite the majority of travel likely benefiting those who have to go to work in person, for example nurses, doctors, shift workers, etc.
So true, I get dropped off at a suburban go station by the bus on my way to work and the insane amount of land taken up by the parking lots is infuriating. Especially since I’ve never seen them at more than 5-10% capacity even before the pandemic.
@@jameslikesturtles8254 I take Richmond Hill line to work everyday . The train is always pack with people before the pandemic . I can assure you that every GO station parking lot if full with cars .
As a Vancouverite transit foamer, watching this video really made me reflect on the state of transit here. The West Coast Express is basically what you described in part 1 (a half dozen trips a day, one way each peak time). The skytrain, however has been a huge success - at least recently - in terms of encouraging urban development. There are multiple redevelopments around Skytrain stations, and the upcoming Broadway and Fraser Hwy extensions have resulted in new zoning along the corridors. I'd really love a video from you talking more about this and other different elements of Vancouver transit!
If you live in Coquitlam or Surrey then you can always take the skytrain, unfortunately if you live in the rest of Metro Vancouver like the Fraser Valley there isn’t that option if you want to travel on weekends or outside working hours.
@@blarpgan3641 Skytrain still sucks, It was amazing in 86 when it was built, a massive feat of engineering, computerized which i think was basically unheard of back then, but now its 2022, a few centimeters of snow and poof, the skytrain is put to a halt. it doesnt run 24 hours (my theory is population control) and on sundays it doesnt start running until like 8 am, its ridiculous
@@acehighdan I'd be interested to know what the financial cost is for running a 24 hr service, as even London, Tokyo, and Seoul don't do that and have much higher ridership
Wow… You’ve succeeded again… My jaw is on my toes once again… Being a Dutchman I can’t get my head around building an 82 Million dollar station with only one platform for four trains…
It gets worse....NotJustBikes also pointed out that this station will never pay for itself under the current system. Users pay something like 6-7 Euro EACH WAY to take this train to and from the city center and they consider that to be a bargain. And it still won't pay for itself!!! I was in Vienna AU 2 weeks ago on business and took the train from the airport to the city center and back a few days later - probably a similar distance and I paid less than 2 Euro for the trip, each way, because I also had a city transit pass.
@@ColinMilroyPEng Yeah, the Vienna airport shuttle is a great connection! I visited the city a couple of years ago and it was just so smooth and cheap!
@@ColinMilroyPEng In North America, basically no public transit "pays for itself". Farebox recovery ranges from 10% to 50% typically. Everything is subsidized by the government for the remaining 50-90%.
On 2017 I went to Canada on a exchange program sponsored by my school here in Brazil. Me and some other colleagues of mine were finishing high school at a college in Oshawa, Ontario while also improving our English language skills. It was my first time being outside Brazil and it was definitely one of the best times of my life. But one thing that bugged me and my friends (not only my friends from Brazil but some people who I had met and were from other provincies or countries) was the trouble that it was to get to Toronto. Because Oshawa is a suburb with a really small downtown area, the only option we had to buy anything other than groceries and clothes was to go to Toronto. As we didn't have any cars ouselves the only route to Toronto was via the Go trains, which by itself wasn't bad at all because trains are great and, at least I thought in the beggining, surely were much better then the trains we have here in São Paulo. Truth is, while the train was indeed great, everything around it was a huge trouble for us, for example, the distance from the school to the station was roughly 8km, which is not a distance we could walk or cicle beause there were no bike lanes at all and we were afraid to go in the middle of the cars. The next best option was to wait for the bus that passed right by the school entrance and would take us all the way to the station; problem is, during week days we had to go to school, and we couldn't go to Toronto because we had to meet the school curfew which during week days was around 6PM. The only option left was to take the bus there on weekends, when we could leave the school in the morning and the curfew was around 8PM, perfect, right? Wrong! Because on weekends the bus that would take us to the station only appeared like 3 or 4 times in a day, and its schedule was all over the place, and trust me, waiting for a bus for hours, in the middle of the street, during Oshawa's winter is not an experience you want to have. In the end, the only real option we had to go to the station was to wait for a school employee who was willing to take a bunch of teenagers to the train station by car to show up. At the time I didn't really know why this was, and I thought it was all fun and games, but watching this and some other videos puts way more sense on the situation. I remember thinking during the time I was in Canada "How can this rich and developed country have a much worse public transportation system than the one we have in my home neighborhood?" and trust me, São Paulo is a VERY sprawled city, yet, I am in walking distance to at least 2 or 3 subway stations, and the buses around here operate 24/7, 365 days a year, no exceptions. Well, that was a long text, but I think I said everything I had to say hahahaha. Great video btw.
I'm also from Brazil, and I too had a very "Canadian experience" that resembles yours a bit. When I was in Canada, I couldn't quite comprehend why the public transportation and the urbanisation were so... "weird". I thought it was me, maybe I was homesick and seeing Brazil with rose tinted glasses. I mean, no way Brazil does this kind of thing better than rich, developed, paradise land Canada, right? Well, after finding some videos on the internet, I now know that it wasn't me. It was indeed Canada. The urbanisation isn't "weird", it just sucks. It's boring, ugly, disfunctional, predatory on people who can't afford cars, unpleasant, inefficient in the use of time, energy and space and it's overall simply bad. I have grown to despise it. My focus has changed to go to Europe since then. Hopefully France or the Netherlands.
Easy answer to your question. Canadian boomers made enough money to never think too hard again so no one has been keeping our politics in check. I can almost guarantee bloomington station is a side effect of corrupt development practices.
Indonesian cities are rarely mentioned as models for transit planning, but I feel like Jakarta did right by modernizing its commuter rail back in the early 2010s. Routes and ticketing system were greatly simplified, old railways were electrified, rolling stocks were renewed. Train frequency was even increased almost to the standard of a metro system (5 min headways in rush hours). Many stations were refurbished, with some being built hand-in-hand with transit oriented development around them. Walkability around the station and across the city in general have improved accordingly, with better wayfinding measures due to an integrated sign systems for all public transit in the metropolitan area. It's not an exaggeration to say that the modernization of commuter rail in Jakarta has brought up major urban revitalization and actually contributed to the massive growth in revenue of the national railway company (which operates the service). Ridership actually tripled between 2011 and 2019, up to more than a million passengers a day before the pandemic. And this was before major capacity improvement in recent years due to the development of a new central station and track duplication/quadruplication projects. I dare to say that Jakarta commuter system today is one of the best in its category. And all that were achieved by simply improving already existing services and infrastructure!
Excellent video! I’d say the worst commuter rail system in America is Metrolink in LA, simply because it’s absolutely massive and it runs so few trains…and there’s no clear plan to improve it. There’s so much potential, if the counties that fund Metrolink would decide to work together to improve it, LA could have an amazing regional rail system.
I disagree on this. There's a few key differences to what NJB describes here: 1. Amtrak and Metrolink share track and stations, eliminating a lot of the inefficiency of separate systems. They use separate train cars and separate booking systems, but that's pretty efficient still. 2. Metrolink operates as a normal train on the weekend, with a daylong pass ($10 last I rode). I still have to plan around their schedule since the trains are infrequent (2-3 hours), but the trains are usable and have decent ridership, especially with cyclists taking one-way trips (and there is usually a dedicated bicycle car). I agree that it would be great if they could add more trains, but I think the financial losses would be too hard to justify since the last mile problem is still big for many of their stations. There are some stations with very good walking connections, though.
I gotta say though, one of the best innovations to GTHA transit systems in recent years is the Presto card. If you live in Mississauga, for example, and commute to downtown Toronto, there's no need to fumble about with 5 different tickets for different modes of transit. You just gave one card which is accepted by just about every train, subway and bus service in Southern Ontario and which automatically applies transfers and discounts.
As someone who lives in Hamilton and only rides sporatically for specific purposes, the Presto Pass was legitimately the worst thing that happened to me. I didn't have a lot of money, so I tried to buy a ticket. I got upsold, telling me the presto pass would be cheaper over all by a little bit. Fine. I put the money I needed for the trip on the pass. On my way back... at aldershot, I had to transfer to a go-bus. When my Presto pass was declined. After dark. When I didn't have money on me. Because the way Presto worked for the short hop from Aldershot to Hamilton was it would deduct the total fare for a trip from aldershot to hamilton, 4.50, and refund me the amount that I paid OVER that due to the length of my trip, because due to the length of the trip it was less than that. I had to panhandle at aldershot station after dark for enough loose change to buy a ticket back home with $3.xx on my presto pass I couldn't access. To be clear, the amount on my presto pass was enough for me to do the full trip from where I was to where I was going, just not enough segemented the way it was, and there was NO explaining this to the go bus driver who just said 'tough luck'. When they started hard phasing out paper tickets, which frankly I liked cause I could just buy a strip, know exactly how many I have, easily hand one to a friend if we were riding together, had less of an investment requirement for restocking, didn't require me to go to a specific building to top up, and could be used immediately (UNless something has changed, the presto systems on busses updated their information periodically, so it was possible at least at the time to top up at the station but not be able to use that balance), I bought a presto pass. The thing lasted me 3 rides before I got stranded... a 2 hour walk from home... across town... because the card just spontaneously stopped working. And this is when they charged $20 for a replacement card. I haven't touched them since. Yes I know I'm an isolated case and not their target and all that, but unfortunately even though I triedto adopt it, it legitimately screwed me over too many times.
@@furrydreamer4443 happened to me and my niece as well. I have also heard that if you let your card sit unused for a period of time with no balance on it, it will go into the negative; and if your card is registered to your name/address/phone number, you could get a call from collections agency for the -$1.57 that might be on an unused card. I hate Presto.
@@furrydreamer4443 This is freaking insane...SMH...even the Hong Kong Octopus Card system is way better and that freaking thing was introduced 20+ years ago. As for Mainland China, ha! They are eons ahead of everyone when it comes to digital payments!
@@19973x I Remember visiting a friend in Richmond Hill took me 1.5h from Yorkdale mall to reach Major Mackenzie Blvd... Toronto traffic is insane.. would have taken public transit but thought it stopped at Yonge/Finch
@@scottanno8861 The point of the video is that If they had built high density mixed usage buildings instead, they wouldn't need to invest in a parking lot in the first place, just because you have space doesn't mean you need to use all ot it.
@@scottanno8861 why are you calling his rant autistic when you completely missed the point of the video? he never made any arguments that stated there wasn't enough land to build these massive parking complexes, he said that the construction of these stations with massive parking lots creates a situation where commuter rail is relegated to a secondary role in favor of car-driving.
It's insane watching this because a few years ago I traveled from Cincinnati to Toronto to visit a friend, and was absolutely blown away by the GO line and the Presto cards. So much better than our Metro buses and abandoned subway. Having it put into perspective definitely opened my eyes.
This is the sad truth of rail service in North America, even the trains are subordinate to the suburbs, still subordinate to cars. Here in Ottawa, the trams are also subordinate to suburbia, it is frequently scapegoated by tabloids, but it's the car that makes the tram so troublesome, and it's the car that's the reason why we cannot have nice things.
Here, in Saint-Petersburg (real one) one of our Governors (around 15 years ago now) decided to turn city in second Detroit (in terms of car producing) and OFC it was stated that city will be very car-centric now. Guess that happened next? As amount of cars skyrocketed its soon became problematic to drive in streets with clogs and stuff. And they blamed it all...to tram system! Its old! Its bad! its inconvenient! Lets tear it down! And so they did, in city center mostly. Didnt helped even a bit, but NOW they lament about past mistakes yet saying it will be too costly to rebuild tram system. In car-centric system its always somebody to blame for problems - trams, buses, pedestrians and so on.
@@warmike If you talking Saint-Petersburg i suppose you meant "Chijik" and mythical tram in Shushari. Well, first one is private venture and second still on paper. Not impressive so far, but time will show.
As someone that lives in Barrie, this video is hitting me hard. So many stations look so much like bloomington. 82 million dollars for a cathedral like station, serving a dozen people a day.
@@collan580 Hell, even the heavily rural station near my local homebrew shop gets hourly service throughout the day (the level crossing is still manual) and is better sized and utilised than Bloomington GO will ever get (600k passengers a year, ~1600 a day). In comparison my current local station is in a commuter town served by SWR and gets 8tph into London and 8 million passengers, which I think some parts of GO could aim to be similar (albeit smaller) if they just improved their service pattern.
@@xander1052 Yep. But this is a self fulfilling thing. If you dont have at least hourly service then people will choose other ways to travel. Not to mention that our stations are usually not that big if only one line going through it.
I am Dutch and I love Toronto as a city but man you're making me think twice about my plans to do some part of my studying there or live there for any substantial amount of time. This constant subsidising of car use is enraging.
Trains only meant to take people to work in the morning and home in the afternoon are just glorified school buses for adults. The new station even has lanes for people’s moms to drop them off lmao
Can't believe how normalized it is to drive to the train. This was also my experience in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where I'd need to drive 20 minutes to the nearest train station, or at least the nearest train station that my train home will actually run to. I would plan to catch the train that only runs once per hour and need to plan when to leave to catch the hourly train home. Sometimes I'd go to the closer train station and this might mean I need to go home an hour earlier because the train that goes to the further stop only runs once every 2 hours. And honestly Philadelphia has some of the best regional rail to the suburbs that I've seen in this country. I would be sad that I couldn't walk to the train station but would think "well I guess that's just not realistic". What's really unrealistic is to think it's sustainable to require cars to use transit.
Yet here we are with a train every 10 minutes and we complain because we are stacked like sardines... The problem is that a lot of trains need to pass through a bottleneck, so the (state owned) company can't add more trains without having to spend 100's of millions, maybe even more than a biliion € to increase capacity. The current trains can take about 1600 people each and are already bi level.
All of my aunts and uncles are fat, lazy suburbanites who feel naked without their cars. That's how shit shit happens. They haven't ridden a bicycle in decades (since they hurt their back/jacked up their knee 2 car accidents ago) and live in places where walking is boring and dangerous. They are the people who spend the first hour of any get-together complaining about traffic, and they vote for whoever is going to make driving cheaper and more convenient.
This is even an issue for some tube stations. I have never gone to Osterley tube station by any means but car due to it's horrendous location (though luckilly not as bad as some of those GO stations) I am more willing to do a 20 minutes - Half an hour walk to a better situated station/take the bus than use that station just because it's location is so annoying.
@wolfchild Yes, and in metro Philadelphia where I live, the commuter trains are very similar to the Canadian ones described by NJB--once an hour except during rush hour, with most of the stops being parking lots on highways/nowhere.
1- GO bus. Yes there’s traffic, but they run 96% on time. 2- level boarding is coming! But until they decide what hardware will be used for electrification, they don’t want to spend the money on raising the platforms. 3- THAT POLE! They are removing it as coaches go in for overhaul. Note they only exists on coaches with the old colour scheme. 4- Due to a lack of rails, it’s impossible to link most suburban stations of different lines by train. That’s why they connect them with the bus. 5- free parking: Metrolinx has been wanting to charge for parking, but commuters raise hell every time they suggest it. In the mean time, they have been expanding paid reserved spots. 6- Pickering GO: you missed the other surface lot to the east of the station. Yeah, I know. 7- Bloomington GO: it will relieve stress from the Aurora area (Barrie line) which is typically PACKED. Also, Metrolinx does not own the tracks there (CN Rail does) and that’s what limits their ability to add capacity. Great video! I work there, and it’s always exciting to hear what’s coming down the pipeline. Definitely good things coming!
@@RekySai What exactly is the misrepresentation? His criticism tends to be directed not at commuters who need cars, but at city planners who forced commuters to need cars.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o the economic development has significantly increased from every area where Go train has been expanded. Prices in the area go up as soon as the train expansion is planned and announced. Government recovers in taxes in other forms like sales taxes on properties sold near by which tallies up to millions and continuous year over year which cannot be said for bike riders since they only pay sales taxes on their bikes. Car drives pay additional sales taxes on gas, there is vehicle registration, traffic violation raises revenue for the provincial government. He just cherry picked arguments for Bikes. The whole segment reeks of Suburbia hatred.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o Because his entire thesis is that anyone who doesn't already live in the city shouldn't be able to get downtown. Live in a suburb, small town or *gasp* on a farm, and want to go to a Raptors game (or any other city centre activity)? Too bad, Freeways are evil, city parking is a waste of space, and even if you want to use transit in the city, you can't get to the station, because even at the very extremities of the line, in the middle of nowhere (Bloomington) you aren't allowed to have big parking garages to give access to people who don't have a bus stop. The only way you can use transit, is if you already live close to transit. Everyone who doesn't live near transit apparently shouldn't be able to get into the city.
@@tartrazine5 Take a look around the world that isn't Canada or the US. I live in a house with a giant backyard, detached house in a nice quite neighborhood. Yet I also have a bus stop, sidewalk, bikelane, train connections to the entire country every hour which connect to the local buses there. You don't need to build a city around cars to have detached housing. And not everyone needs a detached house with a backyard. Offering variation makes it more inclusive.
In Switzerland a national interval timetable (nationaler Taktfahrplan) was developed from the 1960s to the 1980s. The entire country (including the mountains) is connected on a hour half interval to each other. Each station has guaranteed connections to long-distance trains, regional trains, and buses. The most faraway places are still served by an hourly interval and the more urban areas are served by a quarter hour interval. As far as I know this is unique in the world. I find the quality of public transit in Switzerland higher than that in Japan. I live in Switzerland and visited Japan twice for a month. Now I understand why some companies choose Switzerland to be their basis instead of other European countries even though the salaries are extremely high.
I live in bumfuck nowhere in switzerland near a town with like 1500 people but it takes me half an hour max by train to get to our capital city. The place I grew up in, same amount of people, was served by two trains in 15 minute intervals, one that was faster but stopped at less stations and a slower one for if you just wanted to go to the next village over. I watch these video and my mind is blown because I just don't understand why you would have a giant station somewhere where no one lives or works. And all that infrastructure for 1 platform??? Pretty much every train station here has two at least.
I spent my honeymoon in Switzerland, and the train/public transportation system is the one thing we still rave about to anyone who will listen. Also Rivella. And mountains. I miss Switzerland.
This is one of the things I'm so thankful for in the Seattle area. When they voted to expand the light rail system they made certain the new rail would connect to various suburbs and other major population centers like Tacoma, Bellevue, and Everett (eventually...), they also put in incentives to build medium to high density residential and mixed use within walking distance of each station, they also put in incentives to put in bus stations and routes. It's far from done or perfect but it's great to just... walk a few blocks to a rail station and I missed my train so I have to wait 10 minutes for the next one, then ride that train to the airport to pick my mom up when she's visiting the city, then we ride the rail back to my apartment. Now if only they expanded the commuter rail to do more than just suburban commuting like you described...
well one thing no one in NA cant beat toronto is densifying arond the train stations. It's literally a dozen of 30+ floor condos rounding up most of each station.
Yeah when I visited Seattle for the first time I was amazed at how efficient the link light rail transportation is! It's great!! And affordable! I wish all places had things like that. I was a bit sad when I came back to my hometown and was car reliant again.
Yes, I love the light rail although I live near mill creek and I can't use any public transportation for anything. I can't even bike to anywhere because the roads are so busy that I don't want to bike or walk. There are even areas where the sidewalk runs out and cars are zooming by going so fast and not paying attention to anyone walking. I am near all these places but I still have to drive just to go up the street. It is ridiculous. I was thinking of writing to the city and complaining.
I live near Union Station and had an interview for a job out in Oakville. Many companies that once were in Toronto have moved to cheaper office space outside the city. Taking the GO train to Oakville wasn’t too bad since that part of the GO system works both ways. But, getting from the station to the office was really difficult - infrequent buses and a lot of walking through parking lots and few sidewalks. It was winter so my path was often blocked by piles of snow. I really like the people, but the trip was a nightmare. I couldn’t justify buying a car just to take the job. And no way was I moving to take a sort term job and give up the place I have which is affordable and is in a walkable neighborhood.
Some Asian countries solved the problem through motorcycle-hailing apps, like GoJek in Indonesia. They have their own terminal at the railway stations.
Yep. It's a huge problem. One thing that needs to be discussed more is relocated companies. Move suburban office towards to around suburban Go Stations with proper walking/cycling paths. Unionville Go is supposed to be the new 'Markham downtown'. It really could be and they did attract a few large employers to the region. I just wish they pushed them to build their offices within 5-10 minute walk of the Go Station for example. I think it's now a 30 minute walk. Almost the right idea :) They just executed it very poorly
@@Wofly-me3pq Markham downtown is such a joke. A bunch of large office towers surrounded by fields. Walking anywhere takes forever and Unionville GO is isolated from everything. I always laugh when people call it a downtown.
As someone without a car in Ontario, I rely on the rail system. I get to spend 3 hours on a crowded via, just to wait an HOUR in Union for a GO train that will dump me in a suburban parking lot, compared to a 3 hour drive on the highway. It's pretty obvious why so many just choose the car
@@neutrino78x there's a decent amount of research that says 3-4h is the human cutoff between rail and flying (because even a 1h flight can really take 4 when you have to arrive early and the airports are not beside where you're going). If we can get 4h rail trips to be cheaper than flying people will switch. I'm also not sure I'd agree with the "that's how most cities are in the world." Almost every European city (and I exclude the UK because that has some real issues with how it handled transit from 1960s) I've been to has a pretty decent setup of trains, trams or buses (with dedicated lanes) that is usually as quick as driving, or quicker. Also much more walkable which makes a huge difference too. North America is too far gone, I fear. To change things now seems impossible as cities are too large and the infrastructure is embedded. Maybe with 50 years of demolitions and resting of cities...
I live in Toronto and do just fine without a car here. Living in any other city here in Ontario would be a nightmare though, can't even imagine what's like to live carless in those cities
Union station drives me up the wall every time. 4 modes of transit running out of the place, but transferring is a nightmare, both due to schedules and the insane layout
@@NotJustBikes You should have spent more time on how several GO routes have been transitioning to more frequent and all-day service, seven days a week. Your early 2000s experience is being addressed. GO Transit has always offered counter-directional bus services and a network of feeder buses that connect to the stations. Which you neglect, making it seem impossible to use the stations without a car, or when going in the opposite direction. Pre-Covid, the system had been experiencing increased ridership and improving service with new stations and rising train frequency for decades. The story is not all doom and gloom.
@@Nunavuter1 it’s too late, most of the city has been trained to ignore GO inside the city itself, I lived at oriole station and is easily the most useless stop not because people don’t use it, but because the schedule makes it unusable.
As a person who takes the go train frequently (lakeshore east) I love it and wish the rest of our infrastructure for transit was better. Love the ttc in toronto too. Definitely agree it is too dependent on suburban drivers. If only our entire province wasn't completely built around car travel
OMG I lived in Toronto for 10 years and it never occurred to me that the G-O in GO Trains stood for "Government of Ontario". I'm only finding this out two years later, in Germany 🤦
I grew up in New Jersey, which has NJ Transit, one of the best commuter rail systems in the US, and even that has its problems. Most of the rail lines on NJT were absorbed from earlier commuter rail systems bringing people to and from New York, so they operate in just the kind of pre-war, walkable downtowns that were built because of their proximity to the railroads in most cases, so people who live in these towns can easily walk or bike to the trains, and since the trains run regularly from early morning until about midnight or 1 am in both directions, it serves a lot more than just people going to New York for work. My main issue with it though is that it tends to assume that nobody would want to go anywhere but New York going one way, or home going the other, so going between the lines you'll need a car, or going to a place on another line is all but impossible without a car. For example, if you want to go from my home town of Somerville to Princeton, you would have to get on a train to Newark, which takes about 45 minutes, then wait for the next train to Princeton Junction, which is another ~45 minute ride. Or you can drive 30 minutes down the highway.
I'm so glad I live in Western Europe with nice, walkable towns and good public transport/mass transit systems. I'm 17 years old and haven't got a drivers license yet and you wouldn't believe how many places I could already visit on my own when I was younger (including cities abroad like for example Paris, I live in West-Germany btw) without needing a car or even a bike. I'm not even kidding, public transport is actually that good here (and surprisingly "affordable").
@@troll2161 It once was that good here too, at least in the northeast (probably in other places too but I don't know as much about it). Before the war, my grandparents lived in Jersey City, which is just across the river from New York. My grandmother never knew how to drive because she didn't need to know. My grandfather literally learned how to drive while he was in the army and only bought a car when they moved to the suburbs.
I actually really like GO, especially when I have to travel downtown Toronto, and I do like the "free" parking. However, I do wish it was quicker to get to further destinations, I have had terrible experiences travelling to Barrie... ...also that thing about them being late often due to "signal issues". Sadly our whole infrastructure is built around cars, I mean the suburban sprawl of the GTA is just the perfect example of how NOT to build a pedestrian friendly city.
I discovered this channel a couple weeks ago and, after years of searching for what I want to do with my life, I'm more or less convinced that city planning is the career for me. I want to make this, everything you're saying, happen. EDIT: to be clear, I know the planners/ engineers don't have much impact on this. I just think it sounds fun and like I would be good at it, and it would put me into that sphere.
The planners aren't so much of an issue, many of them are up to date on how to make livable places. The problem lies with outdated zoning, and NIMBY politicians and residents who are trapped in car culture. They will oppose the slightest changes if it affects their way of life of single family houses and cars. Planners present and recommend options, it's ultimately up to the elected officials and the people who vote them in.
@@jordanmunoz7681 As much as I wish I could be a politician and do some real good... I don't think I have what it takes. Urban planning is something I think I could be good at though, even if it's not the seat of power for change.
@@Ruiluth That's fine. Planners do a lot of community engagement to educate the public and do make a difference. What Not Just Bikes does also helps reach even more people. Also consider engineering to become a transportation planner/engineer. They're the ones who design the pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure.
Civil engineer here. Via their day jobs, most engineers/planners have little impact on policy (with some exceptions I'm sure). You can make a difference by speaking at City Council meetings as a professional in a subject like urban planning/infrastructure, or by joining the local chapter of urban planners' professional society and making policy recommendations to officials.
We have enough places where people drive to the train station by car as well and then take the commuter train. Not as massive but we definitely do have them.
@@TheFeldhamster Yeah but the Car Parks are a lot smaller, most stations, Especially in the UK favour a Drop Off Area and a Taxi Rank, rarely a Multi-Storey Car Park.
@@choobs8511 which shows that they think in terms of there's a husband who's working and some wife who can play taxi service because she has no or no "real" job. Unless there's another good way to go to that station, like a tram or a bus service with sensible intervals. Or at least something like a big bicycle parking area or shared bikes / eBikes. You don't really have those electric scooters in the UK, do you? Here in Austria I sometimes took the train to Klagenfurt and the busses don't go that often but they have a pretty good and cheap bike sharing service with a station right by the main train station, so I took a share bike for €1,- to complete my trip. They have quite a number of bike stations all over the city, so I could drop the bike off right next where I work. They also have 3 different electric scooter services with "floating" scooters and usually there's a number of them available near the train station, so I could have taken those as well. But mainly I meant that we shouldn't be too much on a high horse because in many places we're not that much better in Europe. When the train station isn't within walking / biking / public transport distance to where people live, that's just stupid.
Montréal is replacing the Deux-Montagnes commuter rail line with the REM, a high frequency light metro. They will also densify neighbourhoods near some stations. The project has some flaws but in general, it will improve service. Off-peak rail service was barely existent. The REM frequency will be 2.5 min peak-time and 5 min off-peak, in both directions. Let’s hope such paradigm shift is replicated on other lines in Montréal and across in Canada.
As a yearly visitor to the Toronto area - mainly the Markham and Aurora suburbs - I completely agree with most of what is discussed here. In fact in the last 10 years of visiting the area, I can't remember the last time I travelled into the city centre by the GO train (as a 'tourist' I don't get up early enough to catch the commuter services). For comparison my wife and I live in the south east of England, roughly the same distance outside the city (London UK) centre. There are 10 trains per hour from our local station (OK, we do have to drive there) to the centre of London - outside the rush hours - there are more per hour during the rush hours. And this service starts early in the morning, and carries on into the late evening - in both directions. It's probably the same for most train networks in Europe. So you can imagine my shock / surprise / sadness when I visit Toronto to find the whole transport system so completely dependent on travelling by car.
A note on the limited Go train service: The Government of Ontario actually doesn't own a lot of the rails, they just rent them out from VIA Rail and CN. Sometimes they make good deals and you get longer service periods, like with Lakeshore West and East having around the clock service from 5am to 1am, but most of the time you end up with the other lines only operating on rush hour. I used to rent an apartment near Cooksville GO and I remember watching them build the parking lot for such a huge station and yet the train only runs at rush hour, and the rest of the time is just limited bus service. All of this, as well as the poor TTC coverage, is just the Government's poor attempt at reversing the damage caused by car companies lobbying for them to rip out all their public transport infrastructure and replace everything with car infrastructure. Well, now no one can afford to live in the city or own a car so they have to do this patchwork.
Actually, the Milton and Richmond Hill lines are the only lines that operate during Rush hours only. Most of the Barrie, Stouffville, and Kitchener Lines operate all day (On Barrie its hourly between Aurora and Union all week, with trains every 3 hours to Barrie only during weekends, on Stouffville its hourly between Mount Joy and Union, and on Kitchener its Mt. Pleasant and Union, unfortunately only on weekdays though).
@@kekchanbiggestfan CP and CN are both private companies. The government rents access to their lines to operate Go trains. CP owns large sections of the Milton GO line. This is why service on that line is rush hour only despite it being one of the more heavily utilized lines in the network. The reason CP will not rent out more access is that they still use the line for freight service (their is an intermodal equipped railyard between Toronto and Kipling stations). I also recall reading a newspaper article in which the Ontario governments electrification plans were scaled back to exclude the Milton line, likely due to the objections of CP (Most modifications to the line are paid for by metrolinx but their may have been concern over the increased maintenance necessary to support overhead gantries).
Imagine if the Bloomington GO station housed a mall and some nice apartments above it, instead of three layers worth of parking. You could create a nice mixed-use area from practically thin air, and, given GO owns the building, rent would be paid to GO to continue developing the land for this mixed-usage pattern.
@@kenbrown2808 That's why you leave the *surface parking*, at least until such time as car dependency the rest of the way through the NA transit network is defeated.
It would be interesting to sit on some of their meetings. How are the decisions that lead to this situation seen as reasonable? It seems completely insane to me
@@kenbrown2808 That's what the installation of the mall and the apartments in the garage is for. Induced ridership of the people living there & the people nearby who'd use the train to get into the city. Design the resulting exurbs to be transit-centric / mixed-usage / bike-friendly and you may not even need the parking at all, but for the sake of acknowledging reality, leaving the substantial surface parking would make a go-between.
I don't think that it can even get to the planning phase, since the darn thing is in the green belt where any kind of development is forbidden. They likely went through some serious loops to get the station even built there. But the point is moot. Take a look at the Pickering GO station as an example I'm familiar with. He didn't mention it, but there is a small commercial area right besides the station... nicely separated with a fence to make it extra hard for commuters to stop in the pub there for a beer before going home. The place looks like a wasteland from times old gone, and there is literally nothing happening there despite been between two ** ass parking lots that ALSO belong to the station (in the video, he missed one to the right of the station that exists from Sandy Beach road). You can literally go to Google maps, switch to the satellite view and see that the path between the station and that fourth parking lot is physically separated from the commercial zone and you simply CANNOT get into the area without going all the way to Bailey st and circling back to your destination. Is insane to think that someone went out of their way to put fences all over the place specifically to block pedestrians from using the direct route and send them on a 200m detour for no reason at all. And likewise, nobody in charge of the small commercial area thought of make a pedestrian friendly access to the GO station to increase the potential customer base and with it the value of the area. And as long as simple (and cheap) changes like that are in the "revolutionary" realm for the people in charge, mixed usage areas will be pipe dreams for the foreseeable future.
I'm infinitely thankful for this channel's existence. Things like this made me realize how broken and poorly designed my city is, and it genuinely inspires me to try and do something in order to change. Thank you for getting this information out, there's not enough people that know about this and absolutely need it.
1) GO is designed to get cars off the expressways like the 401 its feeders 2) Rush hour is when most cars would be on those roads 3) That's why GO mainly operates at rush hours. I don't see how this is broken and poorly designed -- sounds like common sense to me
@@jamesstuart3346 Agreed, but the video also points out that getting the cars off the road could have been achieved more effectively by doing other things.
Really? I mean, compared to what you'd find in most European cities, Toronto's public transit is in a lower level. But it's not that bad. Bus network is extensive and great, they all connect to a subway station providing free exchange. Ofc subway infrastructure is lacking but the bus network really stands out. I find Toronto's public transit better than the one in Dublin (Ireland), for instance
"... for both cyclists who are comfortable cycling along strodes like this, to get to and from the station each day." I was expecting "both" to be a conjunction but the adjective form is both, descriptive and comedic.
It confused me for a second, but then I saw the bike parking with a single bike, plus the footage of one person riding a bike, and put one and one together.
That was excellent. This is representative of England's attitude to cycling infrastructure. I could make hours of video footage of insultingly bad "cycle lanes" around England.
@@devononair Tom Scott did a good video on a rural intersection where cyclists keep dying, since the rest of the car infrastructure and traffic are heavily implying that drivers should blow through a stop sign.
My mother has taken the GO train back and forth to and from Toronto for 30 years, she always complained about the drive and which GO station to go to and on which line (basically which one was the shorter distance by car). It always amazed me that even with somewhat decent transit, people still rely on cars to get to their final destination which kind of cancels out the purpose behind transit in the first place. I'm very familiar with GO transit I'm a railway enthusiast, and this video was a really good explanation of the current system we have and the system we want and need. Great work!!
In Jay Foreman's video on the Northern Heights scheme originally planned for the London Underground, he talks about how adding stations in places usually meant they would become developed into neighbourhoods, with the Northern Heights cancellation leading to places that likely would have become housing estates just remaining as part of the green belt London now has. That's a good thing, because London does not have enough space like that, but it really reflects what you said about the US and Canada being built around where the trains went.
i’m looking forward to this video and i hope it really shits on southern ontario urban planning lol, i’m so angry at the lost potential here. today i cancelled a planned trip from North York to Niagara Falls because it turns out the train only runs on the weekend. That’s kinda fine because in either case bus or train it takes just over 3.5 hours from my doorstep to the Niagara Go Station, and another 1hr walk to the falls; half of the walk is actually not scenic at all, so that’s basically 8hrs of commuting and about $45 in transit cost to sit by the falls and smoke a cigarette. I’m not picky and normally i spend hours commuting and walking without a fuss, I’m not precious about travel times not for work and especially not for recreational outings. But the buses travel on ugly highways, and none of the bus connections has a coffee shop to grab a cookie and a coffee in transit. I honestly panicked and cancelled the plan because i didn’t wanna come back home at 11pm angry at how ugly southern Ontario actually is despite being blessed with one of the most beautiful summer climates and the most water abundant geographies in the world. And i know i can sink half of my income on owning and parking a second hand car, and then i don’t have to worry about the commutes; but the towns will still be ugly and the road there will still be ugly and i wouldn’t have enough money to buy cigarettes anymore lol.
I thought the walk from Niagara GO to the falls was actually scenic throughout, walking along Niagara Parkway. Even better though for the masochistic North American train traveller is walking through the town of Niagara Falls along the Olympic Torch Run Legacy Trail, which used to be a rail line from the station right to the falls. You can spend a wonderful 30 minutes quietly fuming at those who thought that such a rail line would better be ripped apart.
@XenonZed as a resident, it’s actually quite depressing. Barely any buses, buses only come once an hour, no light rail or tram lines! Stroads are everywhere and I swear it feels like the number one thing police do in the city is deal with car accidents. The thing is it could be so much better! A tram line going from the go station right to the heart of downtown. A light rail line to replace the QEW that’s through a decent portion of the city. More frequent times and double the bus lines. Converting our stroads into pedestrianized streets again, or at least take 2 of the lanes and make them dedicated bus lanes.
Damn thats unfortunate. I did a biking trip from Toronto to Niagara falls and was surprised at how weirdly inconsistent yet present the bike lanes were pretty much the whole way. We took the Go train bus back, but also were aware it was only available on weekend. Quite a shame really, as I think its just a bus/train combo all other times of the week. Ugh. So close, yet so far....
i've been taking go transit for probably around 10 years and have never owned a car. I've definitely got my own handful of gripes with it, mostly revolving around the complete lack of go train service on weekends, but if you can manage to navigate the website you can figure out how to get where you need to go pretty well. Also a lot of the stops, or at least the ones i use, have connections to local transit. I agree with a lot of the points in the video and it's definitely got a long ways to go but it's also not as dismal as the video makes it sound.
It's funny, I'm a lifelong car fan watching all your videos and I so greatly agree with what you say. I grew up in car-dependent Calgary and would ride my bike everywhere as a kid which was terrible due to deafening roads, no infrastructure and no direct routes. And since then I've always thought I would love to have a transit/bike system that was great, so I didn't have to rely on my car day to day. The less I have to rely on my car as a tool, the more it can be a toy. I can get something classic, questionably reliable and enjoy it for leisure, like road trips, track days and nothing else. I love your channel and that deconstructing car-based suburbia can actually make the car more enjoyable.
Calgary IMHO is probably the best among those extremely sprawling cities in terms of bikablity and car-as-a-toy due to its proximity to Rockie Mts.. Huston is the average level pain in the ass. Think about having to commute drive every half day yet when you want to drive for leisure you don't really have anywhere to go within 2 or 3 hours one way....
I live near Bloomington and every time that I have to drive by it I just feel so defeated. It seems like all of the development around Toronto is completely thoughtless and only makes worse the problems that everyone complains about. I love all of your content thought, and seeing videos that are relevant to my community is very cool. Thanks for always making good quality content and leading people in the right direction!
Just another example of how the world is ruled by tools. Good job bringing this idiocy to light and sharing your love of trains and sensible living. I'm really enjoying your vids.
Coming from Switzerland, where like trains are the transport, im just so flabbergasted. Like Train stations quite often have a few parking lots. But like 1 per 100 passengers. Also we have rush hours, where train services usually double and a few extra lines run, to loosen the pressure. But like like a train station in the middle of no where??? Here train stations are in the middle of everything, so that you can easily walk, bike or take a bus to it. Also that go station is massive, for one platform. Like what even, like a somewhat small station here with 3 platforms and 80k daily passengers, takes up like 1 tenth of the space.
I'm a seven minute walk from the busiest train station in my neck of the woods (I live in Espoo, Finland), and the train station has just two leaky roofs, one for each platform. Four trains run every hour from 07:00 to 22:30: four to Espoo Centre and four to Helsinki. I don't call it a train station, I call it a train stop, and it's used by thousands every single day.
Switzerland has, imo, the best railways outside Japan. Outstanding how every single line in operation for passengers has very frequent trains, and especially how well communicated those are with buses to the area. Coming from the province of Jaén, Spain, the aprox. 10 stations we have have ultra low frequency, most of them just a train a day, and jackshit connections, which sucks, because almost all of them are far from the center, or in the middle of nowhere. Linares-Baeza, the center for trains in the region, has no dedicated bus service, just a couple buses that stop there (with horrible timetable, of course), so you either A) Wait for hours until the bus arrives B) You take an urban bus to Linares and then there find another one, which is super slow, or C) just not bother with it and ride a car.
@@backalleycqc4790 Know 'Genetically Modified Sceptic'? The Atheist-TH-camr so nice and unbiased and non-arrogant that he has lots of Christian Fans now? That warm guy? Or Forrest Valkai, the Bio-Teacher who's also on Tiktok?
You cannot generalize from Bhf. Stadelhofen to the rest of the world. Stadelhofen is in some metrics probably the busiest train station in the world: Trains with 5 different destinations as their next stop come to Stadelhofen where each train, even those with 12 carriages that carry 1000 persons each, has 4 minutes on average to drive in, let the people out, let the people in, drive out of the station. And minimum time between two trains leaving the same platform is 3 min. Every day from 5 am to 1 am. Show me another train station like this anywhere in the world.
@@MemberHomei My point was more that a station with that size has at least 8 tracks, not 1. While stations with 1 to 3 tracks are like minimal in comparison
Here in Vancouver, the West Coast Express is even worse. Sure the stations are right beside municipal centres, are attached to transit hubs, and don't have the mega-parkades beside them, but they all have rather large ground level lots, a single platform, rush hour only trains, separate fares from the rest of the transit network, step-up train cars, no stations between the downtown terminus and the near edge of suburbia 20km away, and the worst part: they don't own the trackage they run on. So instead we rely on Skytrain, a great LRT that expands slower than the glaciers retreat.
The main issue with the WCE is that they don't own the track. They have to schedule with the freight operators - and of course CP is going to prioritize theirs and CN traffic over WCE. And with Skytrain getting expanded out to Port Coquitlam, does the current WCE even make sense anymore? All-in-all, Metro Vancouver needed a dedicated commuter rail corridor to Chilliwack. And there is a historic right away government has, but it's not direct and would be slow. The beauty of the Pacific northwest (mountains and ocean) are really our curse to not having good transportation
I have friends who live out in Mission, I'd love to take the WCE to go and see them on weekends. Such a shame it's so infrequent. If the route could be additionally tracked in places, made to run regularly, and density permitted near stations, it could be a fantastic service.
@@jameshansenbc I've seriously considered making a weekend vacation to Mission by taking the first afternoon train out on Friday and the last morning train in on Monday. Of course, this means I'd have to take Friday and Monday off and make a big event out of it rather than just a quick day trip.
The SkyTrain is more of a light metro service though, and with the Expo Line expansion plans, parts would probably be considered a full subway soon. (I believe the plans are for 25k+ ppdph by 2028)
Lived all my teenage years near that biggest suburban station, the bus connection from the station to the rest of the city was actually really good, one went from the station to about 5 minute walk from my house and back every 20 minutes from 6am to 10pm. COVID messed it up a bunch, but prior to that it was awesome how easy it was to get to downtown Toronto in an hour without being able to drive. That city has lots of trains running back and forth to Toronto about every half hour in mornings and evenings, and every hour during the day. The station is also surrounded by 5 over 1s so that's awesome. The highway path is pretty cool to walk through, and the mall on the other side used to be huge, with a movie theatre, optometrist, dentist, a few other doctors, a giant food court and plenty of surrounding restaurants of different price levels, and obviously a ton of stores. Across the street from the mall is also the library and town hall building, which has a large outdoor event space as well, on the other side of which is the city's recreation centre which had free-use ice rinks and pools, as well as cheap gym access, skill development classes, various clubs, childcare, etc. That area was super nice, and living in that city was a great experience in my teenage years. I wish it was like this for every station. I moved for university and now don't live near a station, thankfully my campus has a very active bus station (I would know, I live right next to it and hear every bus that come in) but I have to take one of those buses to one of two not so great stations with poor schedules and infrequent ride times. Now that my destination is back home more often than downtown and back, it's a lot more difficult. Honestly, I've lived in GO connected suburbs my entire life and have never imagined how much better it could be, I had just accepted train travel would always be meh for anything but commuting. Hoping to move to train-connected Europe once I've graduated and I can't wait to feel that difference.
Thanks for calling out GO's insane parking lot stations. I used to live in Chicago and it has a smilier commuter rail system (Metra) with similar scheduling issues too, in some ways Chicago's is even worse because the trains go into four different downtown stations as opposed to Toronto's single Union Station. The one thing that is really different in Chicago though is that most of the system was built before cars totally took over and most suburban stations have some kind of "downtown" development with apartments and stores around them - not just a field of parking. Where we lived in the suburbs we could walk to a train station and go downtown. Of course there is still parking near stations, but even newer ones often have a more mixed-use area around them and them perhaps parking in a thin ribbon along the train tracks. I've never understood GO's decision to do this. Even in GTA cities with a historic downtown (and usually a historic downtown train station) like Hamilton, Oshawa and Oakville - the station was moved somewhere else and harder to access without a car.
I was going to write the same thing. I live in Chicago and a lot of the Metra stations are in walkable places. And, most Metra lines can be used in both directions from early morning to late at night.
Keep it up! You are bringing important information to us, ‘the masses’. I never knew or expected that public transportation and city planning was going to be one of my top interests. You, and others, have educated me more than I’d ever known I needed. Thank you
The door that allows bicycles: has a bar in the way The door where bicycles aren't allowed: doesn't Metrolinx: *I am smort* Seeing how infrequent the service is there makes me blessed to live in the NY Tri-State. I currently live on Long Island, home to the busiest commuter rail system in North America, the Long Island Railroad. THREE of the top four busiest rail systems in North America are in the NY Tri-State (LIRR, Metro North, and NJ Transit). For most of my life we've never really used a car (and when we did, it was always someone else driving us). Why? Because using public transport was THAT convenient. I used to live in Jersey City, right across the Hudson from NYC, and with all the transport options like the PATH, NJ Transit rail, shuttle buses/dollar vans, ferries, and light rail, we never had to take a car into the city. Same when we used to live in Westchester County back in the 2000s. We specifically chose the Tarrytown area BECAUSE of the commuter rail service. Yes, the transit in the NYC area isn't perfect (FAR from it), but having transit like what NYC has is better than having practically zero transit during the day like in Greater Toronto
New York is a very old city by North American terms. It is one of the more "European" cities you have. Yeah there's still a lot of car dependency but it was built before car was king and very little of it was demolished. The same may be true for other areas in the state, perhaps the politicians there were a bit more grounded over the years.
I live in Yonkers, NY (and used to live in Queens), and while I know my fiance and I won't live in this area forever, it's going to be VERY difficult to move to a place where I can't take public transit everywhere. We currently have a car, only because my fiance has to drive to work every day at the Bronx Zoo, but I basically never have to take a vehicle anywhere, and it's wonderful! I can't figure out why Americans are so attached to their cars. I walk 10 minutes to the Yonkers train station in the morning, commute for 35-40 minutes into Grand Central - and read a book or the news and/or listen to music on my way in - then walk 5-10 minutes to my office. I get exercise, don't get stressed out with traffic, and I'm able to do things I enjoy on my commute (or catch up with work or writing). Then I do the same thing going home at the end of the day. Driving is so relatively miserable!
@@katesweeney9101 The sad answer to your question...(Why are Americans Hopelessly in love with their cars)...is Marketing and money...We here in the good old US have pretty well established ...that it is possible to sell anything if you can just market it properly...And when there is so much money at stake ....Well why leave any of it on the table... To that lets add it the fact that for most of us now not having a car is almost like not having a phone or email...for most types of work ...you would be unemployable...Even as far back as the 60s I can remember employers asking as interview questions...How are you going to get to to work if we need to call you in at a moment's notice????....Suppose we need you to unexpectedly work a double at the end of your shift??? I can remember being told on my first job...That it is my responsibility ...not my boss's to find him at the end of my shift and ask if it is OK to clock out and leave...And that employees were expected to be on call and could be called in at any time...
@@stevebell4906 And I think it's just being used to using cars and needing them. As I've seen in some of the other videos in this series, kids in other countries are used to walking, riding a bike, or taking public transit. In most of the US - because of how the cities and towns have been developed - kids are used to needing a ride everywhere. Then getting a license is seen as the ultimate form of independence. And when you actually own a car... wow, you've MADE it! It's kind of sad. I get it, because I was once in the same place and looked at the world that way, but I've since moved all over the country, and I understand that true independence is not needing to rely on only one mode of transportation to get everywhere.
@@katesweeney9101 Sadly it is even worse than depicted here....The USA had better mas transit 100 years ago and it was intentionally destroyed to sell cars truck and buses...and t spawn suburbia with all of it's sprawl... The original transit systems were built to be money making businesses...And they were very successful...GM and others actually bought lines just to shut them down and sell vehicles... and the entire thing was heavily subsidized by the taxpayers... There are entire books written about it!
I live 40 miles outside the "real London". I can walk to my local train station in 5 minutes, and it takes 40 minutes to get to the centre of London, and there's a train every 30 minutes all day and more during rush hour. When I visited my in-laws in Paris Ontario, I wanted to go on a trip to Toronto with my father in law on the train. We had to drive to Burlington to get on it. I was amazed how far away the station was from the actual town centre and shocked at the size of the car park. It literally is insane. And that Bloomington station being LEED certified is a complete joke. There's enough concrete in that monstrosity to build an airport! How much CO2 was released into the atmosphere to make all that? I think the solution would be to turn all GO's car parks into mixed use developments and then add local bus services to the town centres that they're supposed to serve. Not ideal, but perhaps more realistic than moving the train line itself.
Environmentalism in Canada much like literally everything we have done since I can remember was bought by speculators before it was made available. Worth noting is how my hometown of leamington banned rooftop solar but allowed a corporation to sell solar development door to door. The kicker is the development was put into a lien against your property that paid itself off as it sold power to the grid but there was no guarantee you would get hooked up to the grid. Various people had their properties devalued instantly by this. Some hippy wants to save energy though? NOT ALLOWED! We also wont let people live in tiny homes in a bunch of places too. One couple that made the news in Newfoundland had to build their house on a flatbed so it could be considered a trailer.
I live about the same distance. It's a 10 minute walk to the station and 4 trains leave in the London Direction (2 to London, 2 to a London suburb) every hour, and it takes about 40 minutes as well. The town I live in is tiny, it isn't a major interchange and there is a completely separate London trainline that goes to a different part of London if you decide to walk and extra 15 minutes to the other train station that's technically in the next town. And neither station has a parking lot. Only need secure storage for bicycles at this point because the locals are thieving c*nts.
@@wisenber No, that's not how mixed use developments work though. In the UK we have this all over the place. You get shops on the ground floor and then apartments above. You might have a few offices or co-working spaces, but it's unrealistic to think that everyone in a mixed use development would work in the same development and have no need to travel. There would be tons of commuters who'd want to live right next to a train station that takes them right into downtown Toronto.
As a fellow brit this video has made me appreciate our rail network more, for all its faults. its not perfect but at least i can get a train every 30 minutes from my middle of nowhere local station to london
Fun fact: Pickering Pedestrian bridge is the record holder for the longest enclosed pedestrian bridge. It crosses over 14 lanes of highway with, 9 road shoulders which are actually lanes themselves and 5 railway tracks. Also the station platforms cannot be made level because GO has bought the tracks off CN and CP with the condition that the stations should be accessible to freight trains which have lower clearance. I am a resident of Pickering and live in the very few non-car dependent neighborhoods in the city. It is right off Kingston Road with buses every 15 min and Pickering Go is 15 min min away by buses. All major grocery stores are right across the street and we walk there. I have not owned a car since I moved here a couple of years ago and don't plan to buy one. I feel I was lucky to find such a location. Great videos though.
"the stations should be accessible to freight trains which have lower clearance." - but doesn't that 'hump' in the platform interfere with freight trains anyways? So if you can build that hump, why not just raise the whole platform?
The last time I took the GO train regularly was 6 years ago and it was pretty good. However I still remember all my frustrations about them. 1. Mentioned already is the fact that I felt I HAD to drive to get to the station, because walking was too far and biking was dangerous on the busy rush hour stroads (not to mention hilly) with no bike lanes. Taking the bus to the station would take too long. 2. The cost. The price now for a one-way trip is $7.45, so twice a day that's $14.90. Up to a max cost per month of ~$265. Since I still needed a car anyway, that's on top of car costs. Also there was no TTC discount. I chose to walk ~20 minutes instead of taking the King streetcar to my job because of this. If I also HAD to take the TTC it would be an additional ~$150 a month. So GO + TTC + Car costs = a lot. My job at the time actually gave free parking (at King street, wow what a benefit), so it would have saved money to drive. 3. The extra commute time. Driving directly even with traffic would take ~45 minutes on average. The GO train itself took 35 minutes, but add the waiting times, driving to the parking lot (5 stories high), and the walk from union to my job my average time would be around 1 hour 15 minutes. This is without delays (which were often because the GO train has to wait for those stupid cargo trains). 4. Crowdedness. Taking the train on my line at peak rush hour would sometimes require you to stand due to the lack of seats.
I'm from the Greater Sydney area of Australia. I found GO Transit was fantastic for a North American city. Toronto is very tourist-friendly & saved me all the hassle of car hire. But I was a tourist experiencing the issues you notice as a Torontonian with regards to off-peak services & services for the suburbs. Toronto is a very car-dominant city & the GO Train is there to take cars off the road. It is a Diesel service & those Diesel locomotives are not cheap to run. There are Diesel trains which can be used as suburban shuttles while the larger GO Trains can be used for express trains for regional cites in Ontario. Check-out the Diesel-hydraulic Hunter Railcar used in Newcastle just north of Sydney in Australia. The Hunter Railcar is a Diesel-hydraulic drivetrain & unfortunately it's only 2 cars long, but should be at-least 4 cars long & connectable into an 8-car configuration. Diesel-train networks are going to be run to a tight budget, fuel is a huge overhead for trains.
Park and ride isn't inherently bad. It's when the entire station is basically just one giant parking garage in the middle of nowhere that that there's a problem.
@@tristanridley1601 in the NL farmers (children) in rural areas take either the bus or the bike to the train station. It would only be a small station and it runs a small train, but it does that every half hour for 20hrs a day.
That beautiful expensive Bloomington station that only serves 8 trains a day, Monday to Friday only, is so far away from anything it does not even have a water supply for the bathrooms. Water is trucked in and dumped into a holding tank. Same for the sewage. It goes into its own storage tank and is regularly pumped out and trucked away. Location Location Location. Build it and they will come.
The Schedule has been getting better lately. For example during rush hour on the Lake shore east line they run trains every 15 minutes and outside of it every 30 mins. It could be better on the weekends where they only run every hour. During the weekday GO is honestly amazing and helps me connect to my school in Toronto from all the way in Pickering and its a much more peaceful and comfortable ride than hopping on the highway, getting stuck in traffic, the noise, the comfort level etc. They just need to make it more frequent and its the best form of transport in Ontario
Canada: 82 million dollars for a single platform. Japan: A platform with some roof both: works exactly the same, actually the japanese ones runs at far better frequencies and quality
well, in Japan people walk to the train station... If not, they take the bus. In the Tokyo Metropolitan area, there's enough train stations that one is almost never more than a 15-20 minute walk away. Any station further than that is serviced by a bus that connects to the train station.
My area (US) is doing 2050 general plan and code updates, and I'm trying to figure out how to get as many of the people doing the planning to watch these videos as possible.
This was an awesome video! Just moved to Toronto from the states, where I’ve considered Toronto’s public transit to be a utopia compared to what I’m used to in the US. Cool to understand the flaws of the area nonethelesss
The quality of the videos has been skyrocketing lately, it's amazing how good the audio is now, and as a media designer I especially like the new intro logo animation.
Seeing all of that completely vacant parking lot space right next to a road NOT being used for even a single bike lane actually hurts my soul. Like you have so much space, and you only have to sacrifice like a single row of your parking lot for so much more convenience and accessibility. why must you do this, north america?
Given that most GO stations are located in industrial areas, I don't think a bike lane would be of much use. Also, I don't think adding bike lanes would be very helpful since nobody tries biking in suburbia for commutes. That's why there is a focus on suburban buses.
@@lsmith8333 Idk where how you got to this conclusion because it's not true at all. I use transit every day in Ontario and I never have to drive to use it. The only stations you really have to drive to are the stations he showed in this video that are located in either industrial areas or the Greenbelt. And even these stations have local bus services.
@@dutchman7623 But why cycle when you can drive! See this is the tricky situation we are in. Nobody is gonna cycle because of how easy it is to drive there. And if we were to restrict parking at the stations, the GO train users would get mad and drive to work instead of taking the train. Btw, these stations are located in DEEP industrial areas surrounded by auto manufacturers, steelworks, nuclear power plants, etc. For example, Oshawa is over 2km by road away from the closest house. Not all stations are like this tho. Many of the stations not located in industrial areas and are better served by local buses instead of bikes.
@@daelbows5783 I live in Barrie, in order for me to get to train station its either a 3.25 bus fare or I take my life in to my own hands and attempt to walk there and not get run over crossing the many stroads we have. Maybe instead of giving free parking they should give a rebate in the amount you spend on busses to get to these stations.
One other thing that makes auto transportation more economical/preferable/profitable is that roads/highways are provided and maintained at public expense. Railways were/are built and maintained (even kept clear of snow) by the train owners, CNR & CPR in our case. GO Transit and Via Rail pay to use the tracks and stations at public expense. Take that cost away from them and they likely could become more profitable providing people transit.
In terms of what’s built around the station, I think Mt. Pleasant Go station does a pretty good job of it (on the North side at least). It’s surrounded by a library, school, street front businesses with housing on top, and medium density living in a mostly dull suburban area. I think much of that development wouldn’t of happened had it not been for the GO station.
Hm.. maybe if a place like that keeps growing and developing, slowly a lively city and city centre will build around it. Would be fascinating to look 300 years in the future.
This was brilliant. Every person sitting on any city council and every person working for the transportation department of any large city should be required to view it.
I've always thought of Graz (Austria) as pretty decent in terms of public transport and bicycle infrastructure, but this channel showed me how much there is to improve on. I really hope that we take Dutch cities as examples for future planning, because everything I've seen so far is pretty amazing
Great video! I live in the bay area in California. We have the Caltrain running along the peninsula between San Jose and San Francisco. Only very recently, they are running trains every 10-20 mins or so on weekdays. The stations are close to the downtown and other businesses, and bike-friendly (although there are plenty of room for improvement). I have US suburban experience as well. This video makes me feel how privileged I am!
I lived in Brisbane Australia, there was a train every 30-45 minutes from 5 am until 1 am. It was amazing, and there were places to go at every local station, until the local became the coastal, then there were bus stations to Civilization
"Nobody will ever use this painted bicycle gutter" Next time I take the GO downtown I will go out of my way and bike two stations backwards JUST to use that gutter. Also, commuters who get to the GO station via bus (Presto tap) get a discount on their GO fair (and vice versa) if I recall correctly. Literally until I watched this video I praised the GO. I see now there are some glaring issues and some serious room for improvement. That said, I still think that for the purpose of travelling between downtown and the suburbs the GO works quite efficiently. Not to mention there are GO busses that run between the morning and evening (rush hour) train services that use HOV and sometimes dedicated lanes on the freeways. Great video as always!
The bicycle gutter dumps you out on to the 80km/h rural road with no shoulder. It is theoretically possible to bike there, but I wouldn't recommend it if you value your life.
This is the ACE and CalTrain system in California. Now that I live in Switzerland I literally cannot fathom not having access to solid mass transit, especially trains. For less than the cost of a car payment, I have access to the entire country’s mass transit system. For the same price I pay here, I’d only be able to connect from two cities in California. Absolutely insane.
"For less than the cost of a car payment" - half the point of this video was about taxpayer subsidies, and how this train system in Canada is too cheap. An ACE train fare isn't cheap because it's nowhere near as subsidized. The tracks were made in the 1860s, and is used for freight trains as well so it's not taxpayer subsidized in cost. It was not part of 1950's onwards car suburbia. I live in Edgewood, a suburb 200 feet from the ACE train station in Tracy. The station has no giant parking structure, or any major multi-million dollar waste of tax payer dollar building: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Tracy_ACE_station_2297_04.JPG Lathrop-Manteca station: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Lathrop-Manteca_ACE_station_2492_03.JPG The Stockton, CA station is a large building, and was built in the 1930s before car-dependent infrastructure was relevant: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cabral_Station_4.JPG It didn't take much money to create the system as they just used existing rail tracks. They are now working on connecting it to BART under the ValleyLink project and will eventually have trains at 12 - 24 minute intervals.
This puts into words the immense frustration of trying to visit friends outside of Toronto before I could drive. I have avoided using the GO train/bus ever since and have always opted to borrow a car or carpool, lest I find myself stranded in the middle of an ocean of a parking lot in suburbia, relying on a friend to pick me up from the station.
If you work at night where I live, there is literally no public transit options. The trains stop after 630 pm, and don't start until 605am, and I start work between 8pm and 930pm. Luckily I'm comfortable riding my bike on 2 lane highways.
These videos have trained me to passively spot the terrible urban development issues in my city. I have been miserable ever since. 10/10
Felt that
Going through the motions myself 😂
Yes
Saaaaaame
You must live in Toronto then ahhahah
I lived in ontario for a few years when i was on a training course, the GO train was an absolute pleasure to ride when it was available. The trains are clean, comfortable and generally a relaxing experience. just enjoy the scenery and read a book. however it was such an inconvenient schedule that i ended up buying a vehicle and never rode it again.
I did the same because when I was there too I finished work at 5:00 there was a train at 5:20.. for me to get from my office to the train for 5:20 I could never do it.. the next train wasn't at 5:30, or 5:45, or 6.. it was at 6:20.. a full 1 hour afterwards and so what did I do.. I had to drive downtown.
I've never seen trainstations this deserted. Insane to place a station in the middle of nowhere.. it defeats the purpose in so many different ways. Stunning video!
It looks like an abandoned mall... Size wise it's probably similar to bern's hauptbahnhof but whereas the hauptbahnhof is filled with grocery stores, restaurants, meeting spaces etc. and there are people everywhere this is completely empty. Mind you, the Hauptbahnhof has like 20 platforms at least. Such a huge building for what? 1 single platform! Ridiculous.
That stations placement that cycle lane was utterly awful.
It's also completed being built in the middle of the pandemic and trains aren't running on any kind of regular basis yet.
Not too mention the sheer amount of wasted $$$... those stations/parking lots are massive.
@@abellseaman4114 This video describes why parking lots are an incredibly expensive, wasteful investment with many cons, literally. If you have smaller stations within walking and biking distance of homes, you wouldn't have American & Canadian cities & towns designed with a vast stroad network in mind. Instead, you'd have flourishing, local commerce with a much happier standard of living.
Not to mention, the cities wouldn't be broke due to the unintentional ponzi scheme design of car-dependent suburbs. See this channel's video titled, "Why American cities are broke".
The most frustrating thing about GO is how obviously fixable most of its issues are, and yet here we are
And almost all issues pointed out in this video are being fixed. We only have 2 lines out of 8 that only operate during rush hours, and a ton of money is being spent on doing station and track expansions that will allow the core of the network to run every 15 minutes or more.
@@Absolute_Zero7 the problem is mainly under the concept on commuter trains, location and huge subsidized parking in those places
@@pascualsmithvaldes9038 As I said, most of these issues are being fixed, and when I say "being fixed" I mean shovels in the ground solutions, not just that they say its going to be fixed.
@@Absolute_Zero7 But why even have two trains operate only during rush hour. You obviously already have trains and drivers so why make them stand around wasting space for most of the day?
@@Mr8lacklp Both lines have different reasons. The Galt Sub, the track that the Milton Line runs on - is owned by CP rail as part of their Montreal - Detroit freight corridor. In 1979 an incident occurred called the Mississauga Miracle where a few chemicals derailed and the fear of Chlorine Gas spreading resulted in the largest evacuation in NA prior to Hurricane Katrina. As an "apology", CP was forced to provide compensation, including the introduction of passenger service on the subdivision which is now the Milton Line. However this still only included Rush Hour service, so if they want to get more - they have to beg CP to give them more slots which CP refuses to do. Unfortunately the only people who can force CP's hand to do otherwise is the Federal Government - and they're not budging. Now there is good news, last year as part of Trudeau's attempt to get a majority, he called a snap election and as part of that election, the Minister of Transport promised to get the Milton Line hourly all day service - which will likely involve building a separate set of tracks along the corridor - however that is still a few years away, and they still won't be able to electrify that corridor (which is why its not an immediate priority for the province).
As for the Richmond Hill Line, they could launch all day service - and allegedly they had plans to do so prior to COVID, however that line as a whole is plagued with so many fundamental issues that makes this difficult. First, the line is routed at the bottom of Don Valley, where its slow, indirect, and prone to flooding. Second, there is a major at grade junction with the CN york sub called the Doncaster Diamond, which restricts how many trains can run through their per hour. 3rd, the track north of the Diamond is owned by CN. When combined altogether, this makes the line extremely difficult to turn into a proper regional train service. The position at the bottom of the valley means you can't build any infill stations to connect to busses and subway lines (or at least, you can't build any convenient transfer stations), and because of how prone it is to flooding, building permanent electrification infrastructure is also unappealing. As such, what they're instead going to do is extend the Yonge Subway Line north to Richmond Hill Centre (Langstaff Station on the Richmond Hill Line), and that will provide frequent all day service to Toronto while also having more stops, more connections to other service, and will only be like 5 minutes slower than the Richmond Hill Line (that's how bad the Don Valley alignment is). Now its possible that we may see hourly service on the Richmond Hill Line in a few years, but a proper regional rail line with electrified trains every 15 mins is unfortunately unlikely to happen any time soon as its arguably too expensive to justify.
As a European who's never been to North America, watching this series gives me very weird emotions. At times I feel like this longing when I look at these huge parking lots and wide empty roads and think how awesome it would be if driving and parking were this easy. But invariably, immediately after that initial feeling of longing, I always feel so sad and frustrated at how bad this is, how expensive, how inefficient, how environmentally destructive. It's just stunning.
After having lived in Vienna for 3 years, with its almost perfect public transit system, with subways, trams and buses every few minutes, sufficient night lines, where a ticket for a year costs € 365, seeing so many missed opportunities just leaves me speechless.
Even sadder is, even if you wanted to drive in vienna, you could. I argue that even driving is better in cities that are not built around cars, as more people use the alternatives. Every passenger and cyclist is one car off the road.
Man... In Saskatoon where I live, bus passes are 80 dollars a month, so converting to euros it would be 675 a year - but it's not even good! There are 3 routes (6 if you count their return trips) that go every 10 minutes, everything else is either 15, 20 minutes, or an hour. From many places, you will have to walk quite a ways to get to a bus stop, transfer times can be long, and the busses are often late because of traffic. And I know I said bus pass, but I may as well have said transit pass - because it's the same thing! There are no trains or subways or anything, just unpredictable, infrequent, expensive busses.
It goes without saying that car drivers scoff at the idea of using busses because they can be late due to car traffic.
Right? Yet americans tend to believe they are still the best country on earth :D US politicians have never been as old on average as they are now or so i've heard.
@@Ekstrax And they also believe that it's freedom to drive only cars and that building bicycle lanes and more buses is government dividing American society. There was a PragerU video about it. Utter madness.
But there are 50 US states, 48 US states are larger than ALL of Austria, each, by themselves. The idea of eliminating all cars, and everything being public transporation, simply is not practical in nations with as much land and distance between areas as the US and Canada.
Imagine how different America would be if public transit and walkability was subsidized as heavily as car infrastructure is now.
@@PropagandasaurusRex True, but that's because car infrastructure Requires a constantly increasing amount of funds to maintain. He was talking purely on a funding basis, not the quality of infrastructure itself.
@@spikedpsycho2383 that’s because of nonsense like this video where people are expected to drive to the train. If we designed around walkability first people would walk and take transit.
@@spikedpsycho2383 and no, they’ve been doing the opposite. Ever since the 50’s engineers have been designing for cars first, human beings last.
Imagine Europe. Or Asia.
After traveling to Europe a few times I've been kinda annoyed at Australian city planning... But watching this video has made me think maybe it isn't so bad after all?
Very sobering to see that a commuter train that doesn't even go that far only has 4 trains each way twice a day.
And here I am in Spain getting mad that I missed my train and now need to wait 20 minutes to catch the next one to go somewhere 2 hours away.
Get well soon, North American continent.
Not sure where dude got those stats. The bigger suburbs have hourly or sometime 30 minute train service all day.
It does depend on the line. The Lakeshore line has frequent trains all day. It's the lines with low ridership
It will not get better I’m afraid, it’s only going to get worse. Now they’ve started building underground tunnels for individual cars…..
@@adambogle6724 yes. He's been gone for too long. Even the Milton Line, which is a freight line has passenger trains at a higher frequency that that!!!
I'm near that station...this is true for this new one, I always calculate the inconvenient amount of hours and stress it would take me to painstakingly use the go transit vs getting an uber to pick me up and get me where I want to go in dt Toronto then work that money back. I can only justify the go train on days I have lots of time to waste and nowhere I need to be. The 4 train thing is true, and at first I didn't realize they had finished building it since it's just as empty as it was on weekends while still under construction, and it never shows up as an option when using google maps or the go trip planner.... I had no idea this was subsidised, I thought go trains were run by a private company, since the stations/trains were clean, had stadium sized car space, are overly expensive for what they provide, and were seldom useful outside of rush hour...
Canadian engineer’s: This is revolutionary
Not Just Bikes: “Right out of 1960’s planning”
😂😂
I live at exhibition station now, but I used to commute daily from Oakville to Toronto by car.
I used to take the go train when I worked at an office near a subway stop, but then I changed jobs to something in king west which has no subway coverage whatsoever.
Taking a car to the Oakville Go station, then taking a train, then walking to a streetcar stop, then waiting as 3 stuffed full king cars go by, then finally getting on one and riding to work, was MUCH more time consuming and stressful than just driving from Oakville and parking in king west...
I think the limited subway coverage has a big impact on GO train ridership and is an often overlooked connection. It is an absolute tragedy that Toronto dropped the ball and stopped making subway lines downtown decades ago.
The salt on the wound is the new Ontario subway line finally gives east/west coverage downtown but stops short before coming to Liberty in King West, it just goes south at Bathurst. This damn city...
Yep, perfect example of network effect, or lack thereof.
That King car is insane. I used to take it to work at King & Dufferin back in 2003/2004 and even then it was rammed. I can't believe they let it get so bad.
Fancy seeing you here
Lack of proper subway network was a big surprise for me when I relocated to Toronto. In Moscow it is possible to go by subway almost anywhere in the city and a car there is pretty much a burden while in GTA it is almost impossible to live without a car. Before I got a driver's licence here I had to commute about 2 hours in one direction and with a car it is about 35-50 minutes.
@@NotJustBikes It's so much better now. Ever since they made King a transit corridor, I will actually walk to King from Queen to take that street car instead of the Queen car.
I'm very happy that there is such a large audience that take interest with the problem of North American cities, of which includes a lot of Canadian cities.
For that I thank you, and may our people eventually break the cycle of "at least it's better than America"!
Policy in North America has a lot of influence on policy in the rest of the world. King car is only one example, but nobody in Western Europe would plead for a bigger liberalisation of the healthcare systems if the USA had universal healthcare.
If anything we're worse because of our addiction to subsidies and "free" things from the government. For example market urbanism hasn't taken off in Ontario or any other province in the same way that it has in the San Francisco Bay area.
You ain't seen yacin , yet?
@@carfreeneoliberalgeorgisty5102 america has the least subsidies. Most of us cant get guaranteed healthcare _or_ transportation
@@nukiradio why do state and federal departments of transportation subsidise suburbia on a massive scale then? America is built on government subsidies, without them the inefficient development pattern of cities expanding outwards to low productivity suburbs would collapse. America is a welfare loving nation that likes to think of itself as free market capitalist even though it's clearly not.
Took the bus with my bike today (our buses have those bike hangars at the front). As I got ready to leave, the driver told me "Don't forget your toy" in this weirdly patronizing tone. I was so pissed about it that I turned on your channel the moment I got home to restore some of my sanity.
Love this video; I hadn't realized how modes of "public transit"-which are supposedly built to serve pedestrians-so often revolve around cars/drivers. It's very true in the area I live, but it's become so normal to me to have to get a lift to the train station that I hadn't even realized how ridiculous it is.
When you mentioned that the bus requires a ticket, but that parking is free, my mind was blown! I guess they want to subsidise non parking transit, but ONLY to downtown. No need for less cars in suburbia I guess
Most suburban operators will give you about a dollar off of your ticket price if you check into the GO train right after your bus journey. But yeah, that's the only "benefit" to taking the bus.
Yes, that sounded so silly to me.
It really shows how much the car is the default for the people planning these things.
@@dutchman7623 yeah that sounds the good way to do it! Which city are you talking about? I've heard talks of these kind of transit systems as long as I cab remember here in Amsterdam, but I haven't seen any real progress towards it
@@sjoerdglaser2794 Not the person you asked, but I know Den Bosch has at least one. We used to use it all the time when I was a kid and we would go to The Big City for clothes shopping and the like
@@sjoerdglaser2794 Amsterdam P+R explain it as €8 for parking 24h weekdays (+€1 p/d for next 3 days) and 5x free transit into downtown. My town publish it as 'free parking and €6 for 2way bus transit downtown for 5 people' . But it is basically the same I guess. For A'dam you need to go downtown, not for shopping in the Arena district...
Quite some time ago, I worked for CP rail, which included working on the GO Trains on the Milton Line. Part of the duties of the Conductor (me) was to put out the ramp at each station for Wheelchair access. It latched into the sill of the door, and extended across to the raised platform, giving a smooth surface to enter the car, with no gaps for a wheel to get stuck in. Since I could only be in one location, that was where the raised platform was located. It also gave a very clear indication to the people at the station as to which car was wheelchair accessible. As a side note, it meant that the engineer has to be very precise when stopping the train, because it is a relatively small area to hit.
I'm glad they go to the trouble of doing it. So many rail systems are not wheelchair accessible. Like in London (real London) where you have to call a day in advance to tell them you're coming with your wheelchair!!
@@NotJustBikes I never realised just how annoying this was, or that it even was the case, until I broke my leg and had to get from hospital to home. Fortunately the best British thing, the NHS, covered the cost of the ticket- but having to bump on each step down to the platform was absolutely demeaning. Another reminder that accessible infrastructure isn't just for those in wheelchairs, but anybody less mobile- be they with a pram, with a lot of shopping, or with a serious disability. We'll all be old someday!
It took the engineer three tries to hit the platform at Union on one train I was taking last week. I felt pretty bad for them!
@@iacopo538 And not to mention those of us that don't drive who still have to cart stuff around using trolleys. I appreciate "accessible" infrastructure that makes it easier to wheel heavy loads around by hand.
The channel The Tim Traveler mentions the level of accessibility on évery video he makes. It's really awesome to hear! (And really easy to include in a video...)
This open my eyes to someone who live minutes from a GO Train Station.
This video shows that Ontario hae so much land to waste that we can continue to build endless parking lots.
Train must be a world transportation standard, they are so efficient and safe with a very low CO2 emissions.
Recently in my city(Guadalajara) they built a modern light train(Metro L3) that cross the city and everyone loves it, I hope more cities in my country implements that kind of trains.
@@michaelmullin3585 haha ily
Waiting for an L4, or a high-speed rail network connecting major cities
@@icecat2025 Word. The fact that I can get to Amsterdam in half an hour, and then take a train straight to Brussels, Paris or Berlin Ostbahnhof for like 80 euros is bloody amazing. Everyone should have that type of luxury.
Gdl should have at least 3 more train lines, but still they keep making all these new 100% car depending developments on the south side... At least the govmt is making progress with a lot of new cycling lanes in the city
@@veradrost9654 and then Europeans can still learn stuff about high speed trains from like japan.
Keeping in mind that when GO originally opened, the stations were not massive parking lots. The Dixie Rd station in Mississauga was rather small and had a relatively small parking lot for many years. In fact it was smaller inside than the train station in Antigonish NS, which was a very tiny station in a one street town. Then suddenly they razed all the buildings in the area and built the giant parking lot and station. This is basically true for all the original stations along that line.
What?? The owners of the buildings didn't see the much larger profit potential for mixed used development? Or they didn't have the political power to prevent their land from being seized? That's one advantage of living in a state with corrupt politicians-they're the ones engaging in land speculation for transit-oriented development so at least they don't let it become parking lots. Everything else they do is awful though.
I grew up close to the Clarkson GO station and it was the same. My parents would walk back and forth from the station and I would sometimes meet them there in the afternoon.
very interesting history, would be good to examine that backslide more in depth.
Birmingham, UK isn't incredible at public transport, far from it at all and there needs to be massive improvements (screw privatisation) but after watching videos like this, I feel so grateful to have the infrastructure that we do. This is actual madness..
What's even more fun about GO trains and parking is they are very under-utilized now due to the pandemic. The now-reduced hours have made it even less convenient to use the train outside of rush hour commutes despite the majority of travel likely benefiting those who have to go to work in person, for example nurses, doctors, shift workers, etc.
So true, I get dropped off at a suburban go station by the bus on my way to work and the insane amount of land taken up by the parking lots is infuriating. Especially since I’ve never seen them at more than 5-10% capacity even before the pandemic.
@@jameslikesturtles8254 I take Richmond Hill line to work everyday . The train is always pack with people before the pandemic . I can assure you that every GO station parking lot if full with cars .
'This is insane.'
"Surely, it can't be that bad right?"
5 minutes later:
"This is insane."
As a Vancouverite transit foamer, watching this video really made me reflect on the state of transit here. The West Coast Express is basically what you described in part 1 (a half dozen trips a day, one way each peak time). The skytrain, however has been a huge success - at least recently - in terms of encouraging urban development. There are multiple redevelopments around Skytrain stations, and the upcoming Broadway and Fraser Hwy extensions have resulted in new zoning along the corridors. I'd really love a video from you talking more about this and other different elements of Vancouver transit!
I was just about to say that, GO Train to me seems like a Toronto version of the WCE that we have
If you live in Coquitlam or Surrey then you can always take the skytrain, unfortunately if you live in the rest of Metro Vancouver like the Fraser Valley there isn’t that option if you want to travel on weekends or outside working hours.
@@axisboss1654 WCE is based on the GO system, even though both are technically based on Montreal.
@@blarpgan3641 Skytrain still sucks, It was amazing in 86 when it was built, a massive feat of engineering, computerized which i think was basically unheard of back then, but now its 2022, a few centimeters of snow and poof, the skytrain is put to a halt.
it doesnt run 24 hours (my theory is population control) and on sundays it doesnt start running until like 8 am, its ridiculous
@@acehighdan I'd be interested to know what the financial cost is for running a 24 hr service, as even London, Tokyo, and Seoul don't do that and have much higher ridership
Wow… You’ve succeeded again… My jaw is on my toes once again… Being a Dutchman I can’t get my head around building an 82 Million dollar station with only one platform for four trains…
It gets worse....NotJustBikes also pointed out that this station will never pay for itself under the current system. Users pay something like 6-7 Euro EACH WAY to take this train to and from the city center and they consider that to be a bargain. And it still won't pay for itself!!! I was in Vienna AU 2 weeks ago on business and took the train from the airport to the city center and back a few days later - probably a similar distance and I paid less than 2 Euro for the trip, each way, because I also had a city transit pass.
@@ColinMilroyPEng Yeah, the Vienna airport shuttle is a great connection! I visited the city a couple of years ago and it was just so smooth and cheap!
@@ColinMilroyPEng In North America, basically no public transit "pays for itself". Farebox recovery ranges from 10% to 50% typically. Everything is subsidized by the government for the remaining 50-90%.
@@ColinMilroyPEng Not paying for itself/just about covering costs is fine if it is a public service. Good even.
As a Scot, my face is also going WHAAAAAAAT???!??!!!?
On 2017 I went to Canada on a exchange program sponsored by my school here in Brazil. Me and some other colleagues of mine were finishing high school at a college in Oshawa, Ontario while also improving our English language skills. It was my first time being outside Brazil and it was definitely one of the best times of my life. But one thing that bugged me and my friends (not only my friends from Brazil but some people who I had met and were from other provincies or countries) was the trouble that it was to get to Toronto. Because Oshawa is a suburb with a really small downtown area, the only option we had to buy anything other than groceries and clothes was to go to Toronto. As we didn't have any cars ouselves the only route to Toronto was via the Go trains, which by itself wasn't bad at all because trains are great and, at least I thought in the beggining, surely were much better then the trains we have here in São Paulo. Truth is, while the train was indeed great, everything around it was a huge trouble for us, for example, the distance from the school to the station was roughly 8km, which is not a distance we could walk or cicle beause there were no bike lanes at all and we were afraid to go in the middle of the cars. The next best option was to wait for the bus that passed right by the school entrance and would take us all the way to the station; problem is, during week days we had to go to school, and we couldn't go to Toronto because we had to meet the school curfew which during week days was around 6PM. The only option left was to take the bus there on weekends, when we could leave the school in the morning and the curfew was around 8PM, perfect, right? Wrong! Because on weekends the bus that would take us to the station only appeared like 3 or 4 times in a day, and its schedule was all over the place, and trust me, waiting for a bus for hours, in the middle of the street, during Oshawa's winter is not an experience you want to have. In the end, the only real option we had to go to the station was to wait for a school employee who was willing to take a bunch of teenagers to the train station by car to show up. At the time I didn't really know why this was, and I thought it was all fun and games, but watching this and some other videos puts way more sense on the situation.
I remember thinking during the time I was in Canada "How can this rich and developed country have a much worse public transportation system than the one we have in my home neighborhood?" and trust me, São Paulo is a VERY sprawled city, yet, I am in walking distance to at least 2 or 3 subway stations, and the buses around here operate 24/7, 365 days a year, no exceptions.
Well, that was a long text, but I think I said everything I had to say hahahaha. Great video btw.
I'm also from Brazil, and I too had a very "Canadian experience" that resembles yours a bit. When I was in Canada, I couldn't quite comprehend why the public transportation and the urbanisation were so... "weird". I thought it was me, maybe I was homesick and seeing Brazil with rose tinted glasses. I mean, no way Brazil does this kind of thing better than rich, developed, paradise land Canada, right?
Well, after finding some videos on the internet, I now know that it wasn't me. It was indeed Canada. The urbanisation isn't "weird", it just sucks. It's boring, ugly, disfunctional, predatory on people who can't afford cars, unpleasant, inefficient in the use of time, energy and space and it's overall simply bad. I have grown to despise it.
My focus has changed to go to Europe since then. Hopefully France or the Netherlands.
@@TheLSales come to Spain, our cities are pretty good and you'll have an easier time with the language :)
going to brazil now!
Yeah, researching public transit in North America is important when choosing where to live.
Easy answer to your question. Canadian boomers made enough money to never think too hard again so no one has been keeping our politics in check.
I can almost guarantee bloomington station is a side effect of corrupt development practices.
Indonesian cities are rarely mentioned as models for transit planning, but I feel like Jakarta did right by modernizing its commuter rail back in the early 2010s. Routes and ticketing system were greatly simplified, old railways were electrified, rolling stocks were renewed. Train frequency was even increased almost to the standard of a metro system (5 min headways in rush hours). Many stations were refurbished, with some being built hand-in-hand with transit oriented development around them. Walkability around the station and across the city in general have improved accordingly, with better wayfinding measures due to an integrated sign systems for all public transit in the metropolitan area.
It's not an exaggeration to say that the modernization of commuter rail in Jakarta has brought up major urban revitalization and actually contributed to the massive growth in revenue of the national railway company (which operates the service). Ridership actually tripled between 2011 and 2019, up to more than a million passengers a day before the pandemic. And this was before major capacity improvement in recent years due to the development of a new central station and track duplication/quadruplication projects.
I dare to say that Jakarta commuter system today is one of the best in its category. And all that were achieved by simply improving already existing services and infrastructure!
And soon the LRT will be finished which will add even more connectivity
Cool! I did not know that.
Wow that is awesome to hear. Usually when it comes to world news about such things for Indonesia, it is usually negative.
Excellent video! I’d say the worst commuter rail system in America is Metrolink in LA, simply because it’s absolutely massive and it runs so few trains…and there’s no clear plan to improve it. There’s so much potential, if the counties that fund Metrolink would decide to work together to improve it, LA could have an amazing regional rail system.
What is the best in your opinion?
Also I agree, but the problem is getting the counties to actually work together and do something
@@theanonymousman3406 LIRR probably but even then, it's still pretty terrible compared to European Regional Rail systems.
I disagree on this. There's a few key differences to what NJB describes here:
1. Amtrak and Metrolink share track and stations, eliminating a lot of the inefficiency of separate systems. They use separate train cars and separate booking systems, but that's pretty efficient still.
2. Metrolink operates as a normal train on the weekend, with a daylong pass ($10 last I rode). I still have to plan around their schedule since the trains are infrequent (2-3 hours), but the trains are usable and have decent ridership, especially with cyclists taking one-way trips (and there is usually a dedicated bicycle car).
I agree that it would be great if they could add more trains, but I think the financial losses would be too hard to justify since the last mile problem is still big for many of their stations. There are some stations with very good walking connections, though.
Metro plans for 15-minute headways on the AV & VC Lines by the Olympics, and 30-minute headways on the SB, and hour-2 hour headways on the OC Line
Ahh stop reminding me about our trains. I hate them! They're useless and I've only taken 1 (round)trip on after living in the AV for 8 years
2:43 "We build incredibly stupid car infrastructure", *immediately shows the NJ turnpike*
Hey, if the shoe fits ...
I want to see your opinion on American Commuter Rail! Any plans for a video on that soon?
@@mbrproductions160 I'm doing a video on Metra soon, so yes basically
@@alanthefisher Great, I can’t wait!
@@NotJustBikes should have showed the 407 taxpayers dollars built and than handed over to a private company. Huge waste of taxpayers dollars.
I gotta say though, one of the best innovations to GTHA transit systems in recent years is the Presto card. If you live in Mississauga, for example, and commute to downtown Toronto, there's no need to fumble about with 5 different tickets for different modes of transit. You just gave one card which is accepted by just about every train, subway and bus service in Southern Ontario and which automatically applies transfers and discounts.
As someone who lives in Hamilton and only rides sporatically for specific purposes, the Presto Pass was legitimately the worst thing that happened to me. I didn't have a lot of money, so I tried to buy a ticket. I got upsold, telling me the presto pass would be cheaper over all by a little bit. Fine. I put the money I needed for the trip on the pass.
On my way back... at aldershot, I had to transfer to a go-bus.
When my Presto pass was declined. After dark. When I didn't have money on me. Because the way Presto worked for the short hop from Aldershot to Hamilton was it would deduct the total fare for a trip from aldershot to hamilton, 4.50, and refund me the amount that I paid OVER that due to the length of my trip, because due to the length of the trip it was less than that.
I had to panhandle at aldershot station after dark for enough loose change to buy a ticket back home with $3.xx on my presto pass I couldn't access.
To be clear, the amount on my presto pass was enough for me to do the full trip from where I was to where I was going, just not enough segemented the way it was, and there was NO explaining this to the go bus driver who just said 'tough luck'.
When they started hard phasing out paper tickets, which frankly I liked cause I could just buy a strip, know exactly how many I have, easily hand one to a friend if we were riding together, had less of an investment requirement for restocking, didn't require me to go to a specific building to top up, and could be used immediately (UNless something has changed, the presto systems on busses updated their information periodically, so it was possible at least at the time to top up at the station but not be able to use that balance), I bought a presto pass.
The thing lasted me 3 rides before I got stranded... a 2 hour walk from home... across town... because the card just spontaneously stopped working.
And this is when they charged $20 for a replacement card.
I haven't touched them since.
Yes I know I'm an isolated case and not their target and all that, but unfortunately even though I triedto adopt it, it legitimately screwed me over too many times.
@@furrydreamer4443 happened to me and my niece as well. I have also heard that if you let your card sit unused for a period of time with no balance on it, it will go into the negative; and if your card is registered to your name/address/phone number, you could get a call from collections agency for the -$1.57 that might be on an unused card. I hate Presto.
Set up auto load! Problem solved!
@@johninflamez what happens if you deposit when you need that money to pay an actual bill. turning auto-deposit on and off isnt that easy
@@furrydreamer4443 This is freaking insane...SMH...even the Hong Kong Octopus Card system is way better and that freaking thing was introduced 20+ years ago. As for Mainland China, ha! They are eons ahead of everyone when it comes to digital payments!
I'm going to the Toronto area next month so I'm quite thankful you made this
HEY! Love the name and Love the channel. 😉
Go to vancouver and Quebec City too
@@coastaku1954 i agree, not all lines have few trips. I use the Stouffville line and it runs every hour. Not too terrible
@@19973x I Remember visiting a friend in Richmond Hill took me 1.5h from Yorkdale mall to reach Major Mackenzie Blvd... Toronto traffic is insane.. would have taken public transit but thought it stopped at Yonge/Finch
This video incorrectly offers your options with GO and TTC connections which don't cost extra... just like the London transit authority.
The most calming rant I've heard in a while.
@@scottanno8861 The point of the video is that If they had built high density mixed usage buildings instead, they wouldn't need to invest in a parking lot in the first place, just because you have space doesn't mean you need to use all ot it.
@@scottanno8861 why are you calling his rant autistic when you completely missed the point of the video?
he never made any arguments that stated there wasn't enough land to build these massive parking complexes, he said that the construction of these stations with massive parking lots creates a situation where commuter rail is relegated to a secondary role in favor of car-driving.
It's insane watching this because a few years ago I traveled from Cincinnati to Toronto to visit a friend, and was absolutely blown away by the GO line and the Presto cards. So much better than our Metro buses and abandoned subway. Having it put into perspective definitely opened my eyes.
This is the sad truth of rail service in North America, even the trains are subordinate to the suburbs, still subordinate to cars. Here in Ottawa, the trams are also subordinate to suburbia, it is frequently scapegoated by tabloids, but it's the car that makes the tram so troublesome, and it's the car that's the reason why we cannot have nice things.
The streetcar suburbs were actually some of the first suburbs in North America.
Were speaking about Ottawa Ontario?
Here, in Saint-Petersburg (real one) one of our Governors (around 15 years ago now) decided to turn city in second Detroit (in terms of car producing) and OFC it was stated that city will be very car-centric now. Guess that happened next? As amount of cars skyrocketed its soon became problematic to drive in streets with clogs and stuff. And they blamed it all...to tram system! Its old! Its bad! its inconvenient! Lets tear it down! And so they did, in city center mostly. Didnt helped even a bit, but NOW they lament about past mistakes yet saying it will be too costly to rebuild tram system.
In car-centric system its always somebody to blame for problems - trams, buses, pedestrians and so on.
@@Vednier they're slowly rebuilding the tram network
@@warmike If you talking Saint-Petersburg i suppose you meant "Chijik" and mythical tram in Shushari. Well, first one is private venture and second still on paper. Not impressive so far, but time will show.
As someone that lives in Barrie, this video is hitting me hard. So many stations look so much like bloomington. 82 million dollars for a cathedral like station, serving a dozen people a day.
Yeah, and here i am getting angry because we have trains to a city 200km away every 45 minutes.
@@collan580 Hell, even the heavily rural station near my local homebrew shop gets hourly service throughout the day (the level crossing is still manual) and is better sized and utilised than Bloomington GO will ever get (600k passengers a year, ~1600 a day). In comparison my current local station is in a commuter town served by SWR and gets 8tph into London and 8 million passengers, which I think some parts of GO could aim to be similar (albeit smaller) if they just improved their service pattern.
A dozen?? ! That's more than Downsview GO...and that cost 180 Million!
@@xander1052 Yep. But this is a self fulfilling thing. If you dont have at least hourly service then people will choose other ways to travel.
Not to mention that our stations are usually not that big if only one line going through it.
@@collan580 The current plan is to get electric trains to Barrie offpeak every 30 minutes.
I am Dutch and I love Toronto as a city but man you're making me think twice about my plans to do some part of my studying there or live there for any substantial amount of time. This constant subsidising of car use is enraging.
Trains only meant to take people to work in the morning and home in the afternoon are just glorified school buses for adults. The new station even has lanes for people’s moms to drop them off lmao
School buses are quite rare here in northwestern Europe afaik btw. Kids just bike or take regular transit.
🤣🤣
Lmfao 🤣
Well observed!!
School buses in and of themselves are a bit mad, In the UK we can just use the Public Buses, Trains or Bikes.
Can't believe how normalized it is to drive to the train. This was also my experience in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where I'd need to drive 20 minutes to the nearest train station, or at least the nearest train station that my train home will actually run to. I would plan to catch the train that only runs once per hour and need to plan when to leave to catch the hourly train home. Sometimes I'd go to the closer train station and this might mean I need to go home an hour earlier because the train that goes to the further stop only runs once every 2 hours. And honestly Philadelphia has some of the best regional rail to the suburbs that I've seen in this country. I would be sad that I couldn't walk to the train station but would think "well I guess that's just not realistic". What's really unrealistic is to think it's sustainable to require cars to use transit.
Yet here we are with a train every 10 minutes and we complain because we are stacked like sardines...
The problem is that a lot of trains need to pass through a bottleneck, so the (state owned) company can't add more trains without having to spend 100's of millions, maybe even more than a biliion € to increase capacity.
The current trains can take about 1600 people each and are already bi level.
All of my aunts and uncles are fat, lazy suburbanites who feel naked without their cars. That's how shit shit happens. They haven't ridden a bicycle in decades (since they hurt their back/jacked up their knee 2 car accidents ago) and live in places where walking is boring and dangerous. They are the people who spend the first hour of any get-together complaining about traffic, and they vote for whoever is going to make driving cheaper and more convenient.
My great aunt and uncle live in the suburbs of Philadelphia as well but there seems to just be a bus stop near their house, no train station.
This is even an issue for some tube stations. I have never gone to Osterley tube station by any means but car due to it's horrendous location (though luckilly not as bad as some of those GO stations) I am more willing to do a 20 minutes - Half an hour walk to a better situated station/take the bus than use that station just because it's location is so annoying.
@wolfchild Yes, and in metro Philadelphia where I live, the commuter trains are very similar to the Canadian ones described by NJB--once an hour except during rush hour, with most of the stops being parking lots on highways/nowhere.
As someone who has lived a 10 minute walk from a train station for most of my life I can't imagine not having trains easily available to take trips.
1- GO bus. Yes there’s traffic, but they run 96% on time.
2- level boarding is coming! But until they decide what hardware will be used for electrification, they don’t want to spend the money on raising the platforms.
3- THAT POLE! They are removing it as coaches go in for overhaul. Note they only exists on coaches with the old colour scheme.
4- Due to a lack of rails, it’s impossible to link most suburban stations of different lines by train. That’s why they connect them with the bus.
5- free parking: Metrolinx has been wanting to charge for parking, but commuters raise hell every time they suggest it. In the mean time, they have been expanding paid reserved spots.
6- Pickering GO: you missed the other surface lot to the east of the station. Yeah, I know.
7- Bloomington GO: it will relieve stress from the Aurora area (Barrie line) which is typically PACKED. Also, Metrolinx does not own the tracks there (CN Rail does) and that’s what limits their ability to add capacity.
Great video! I work there, and it’s always exciting to hear what’s coming down the pipeline. Definitely good things coming!
Know 'Hbomberguy'?
He's such a good TH-camr.
@@RekySai What exactly is the misrepresentation? His criticism tends to be directed not at commuters who need cars, but at city planners who forced commuters to need cars.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o the economic development has significantly increased from every area where Go train has been expanded. Prices in the area go up as soon as the train expansion is planned and announced. Government recovers in taxes in other forms like sales taxes on properties sold near by which tallies up to millions and continuous year over year which cannot be said for bike riders since they only pay sales taxes on their bikes. Car drives pay additional sales taxes on gas, there is vehicle registration, traffic violation raises revenue for the provincial government. He just cherry picked arguments for Bikes. The whole segment reeks of Suburbia hatred.
@@user-ed7et3pb4o Because his entire thesis is that anyone who doesn't already live in the city shouldn't be able to get downtown.
Live in a suburb, small town or *gasp* on a farm, and want to go to a Raptors game (or any other city centre activity)?
Too bad, Freeways are evil, city parking is a waste of space, and even if you want to use transit in the city, you can't get to the station, because even at the very extremities of the line, in the middle of nowhere (Bloomington) you aren't allowed to have big parking garages to give access to people who don't have a bus stop.
The only way you can use transit, is if you already live close to transit. Everyone who doesn't live near transit apparently shouldn't be able to get into the city.
@@tartrazine5 Take a look around the world that isn't Canada or the US.
I live in a house with a giant backyard, detached house in a nice quite neighborhood. Yet I also have a bus stop, sidewalk, bikelane, train connections to the entire country every hour which connect to the local buses there. You don't need to build a city around cars to have detached housing. And not everyone needs a detached house with a backyard. Offering variation makes it more inclusive.
In Switzerland a national interval timetable (nationaler Taktfahrplan) was developed from the 1960s to the 1980s. The entire country (including the mountains) is connected on a hour half interval to each other. Each station has guaranteed connections to long-distance trains, regional trains, and buses. The most faraway places are still served by an hourly interval and the more urban areas are served by a quarter hour interval.
As far as I know this is unique in the world. I find the quality of public transit in Switzerland higher than that in Japan. I live in Switzerland and visited Japan twice for a month.
Now I understand why some companies choose Switzerland to be their basis instead of other European countries even though the salaries are extremely high.
You should come to the Netherlands for a month :) Also, companies is more about prestige, previous banking rules and tax avoidance I tink
@@Luca-sz5uy Hahaha true. There's a new nightjet since this year though I heard
I live in bumfuck nowhere in switzerland near a town with like 1500 people but it takes me half an hour max by train to get to our capital city. The place I grew up in, same amount of people, was served by two trains in 15 minute intervals, one that was faster but stopped at less stations and a slower one for if you just wanted to go to the next village over. I watch these video and my mind is blown because I just don't understand why you would have a giant station somewhere where no one lives or works. And all that infrastructure for 1 platform??? Pretty much every train station here has two at least.
Thank you for this information !
I spent my honeymoon in Switzerland, and the train/public transportation system is the one thing we still rave about to anyone who will listen. Also Rivella. And mountains. I miss Switzerland.
This is one of the things I'm so thankful for in the Seattle area. When they voted to expand the light rail system they made certain the new rail would connect to various suburbs and other major population centers like Tacoma, Bellevue, and Everett (eventually...), they also put in incentives to build medium to high density residential and mixed use within walking distance of each station, they also put in incentives to put in bus stations and routes. It's far from done or perfect but it's great to just... walk a few blocks to a rail station and I missed my train so I have to wait 10 minutes for the next one, then ride that train to the airport to pick my mom up when she's visiting the city, then we ride the rail back to my apartment.
Now if only they expanded the commuter rail to do more than just suburban commuting like you described...
well one thing no one in NA cant beat toronto is densifying arond the train stations. It's literally a dozen of 30+ floor condos rounding up most of each station.
Yeah when I visited Seattle for the first time I was amazed at how efficient the link light rail transportation is! It's great!! And affordable! I wish all places had things like that. I was a bit sad when I came back to my hometown and was car reliant again.
Yes, I love the light rail although I live near mill creek and I can't use any public transportation for anything. I can't even bike to anywhere because the roads are so busy that I don't want to bike or walk. There are even areas where the sidewalk runs out and cars are zooming by going so fast and not paying attention to anyone walking. I am near all these places but I still have to drive just to go up the street. It is ridiculous. I was thinking of writing to the city and complaining.
I live near Union Station and had an interview for a job out in Oakville. Many companies that once were in Toronto have moved to cheaper office space outside the city. Taking the GO train to Oakville wasn’t too bad since that part of the GO system works both ways. But, getting from the station to the office was really difficult - infrequent buses and a lot of walking through parking lots and few sidewalks. It was winter so my path was often blocked by piles of snow. I really like the people, but the trip was a nightmare. I couldn’t justify buying a car just to take the job. And no way was I moving to take a sort term job and give up the place I have which is affordable and is in a walkable neighborhood.
Yeah, I used to live downtown but I worked at the 407 & 404. It was so frustrating that I couldn't take a train. In the end, I had to buy a car.
Some Asian countries solved the problem through motorcycle-hailing apps, like GoJek in Indonesia. They have their own terminal at the railway stations.
Yep. It's a huge problem. One thing that needs to be discussed more is relocated companies. Move suburban office towards to around suburban Go Stations with proper walking/cycling paths. Unionville Go is supposed to be the new 'Markham downtown'. It really could be and they did attract a few large employers to the region. I just wish they pushed them to build their offices within 5-10 minute walk of the Go Station for example. I think it's now a 30 minute walk. Almost the right idea :) They just executed it very poorly
@@Wofly-me3pq Markham downtown is such a joke. A bunch of large office towers surrounded by fields. Walking anywhere takes forever and Unionville GO is isolated from everything. I always laugh when people call it a downtown.
As someone without a car in Ontario, I rely on the rail system. I get to spend 3 hours on a crowded via, just to wait an HOUR in Union for a GO train that will dump me in a suburban parking lot, compared to a 3 hour drive on the highway. It's pretty obvious why so many just choose the car
@@neutrino78x there's a decent amount of research that says 3-4h is the human cutoff between rail and flying (because even a 1h flight can really take 4 when you have to arrive early and the airports are not beside where you're going). If we can get 4h rail trips to be cheaper than flying people will switch.
I'm also not sure I'd agree with the "that's how most cities are in the world." Almost every European city (and I exclude the UK because that has some real issues with how it handled transit from 1960s) I've been to has a pretty decent setup of trains, trams or buses (with dedicated lanes) that is usually as quick as driving, or quicker. Also much more walkable which makes a huge difference too. North America is too far gone, I fear. To change things now seems impossible as cities are too large and the infrastructure is embedded. Maybe with 50 years of demolitions and resting of cities...
I live in Toronto and do just fine without a car here. Living in any other city here in Ontario would be a nightmare though, can't even imagine what's like to live carless in those cities
Union station drives me up the wall every time. 4 modes of transit running out of the place, but transferring is a nightmare, both due to schedules and the insane layout
As a Canadian. I am sad. 😭
Don't worry. It will get better. Be sure to check out RMTransit's response video (coming later today).
Love both your channels
@@NotJustBikes You should have spent more time on how several GO routes have been transitioning to more frequent and all-day service, seven days a week. Your early 2000s experience is being addressed. GO Transit has always offered counter-directional bus services and a network of feeder buses that connect to the stations. Which you neglect, making it seem impossible to use the stations without a car, or when going in the opposite direction. Pre-Covid, the system had been experiencing increased ridership and improving service with new stations and rising train frequency for decades. The story is not all doom and gloom.
@@Nunavuter1 it’s too late, most of the city has been trained to ignore GO inside the city itself, I lived at oriole station and is easily the most useless stop not because people don’t use it, but because the schedule makes it unusable.
same as someone who has a disability and probably won't be able to drive living in this hellhole sucks
I'd watch a 1 hour video about trains by this guy any day of the week. I'm just in love with this guy
lol. Thanks! 😂
@@NotJustBikes no thank you
As a person who takes the go train frequently (lakeshore east) I love it and wish the rest of our infrastructure for transit was better. Love the ttc in toronto too. Definitely agree it is too dependent on suburban drivers. If only our entire province wasn't completely built around car travel
OMG I lived in Toronto for 10 years and it never occurred to me that the G-O in GO Trains stood for "Government of Ontario". I'm only finding this out two years later, in Germany 🤦
Ahhhh, Germany. One of the places rail flourishes and is done right 😌. Hopefully your area has good rail service.... I envy you 😂😭!!
@@TheLIRRFrenchie... Not going to lie... I live in Berlin not far from the main rail station, and I'm not missing Canadian infrastructure right now 🤫
Traveling widens the horizon and helps you learning things about your home ;)
Omg I’m the same. 😂 I thought it was called GO Transit because it sounded cool.
I grew up in New Jersey, which has NJ Transit, one of the best commuter rail systems in the US, and even that has its problems. Most of the rail lines on NJT were absorbed from earlier commuter rail systems bringing people to and from New York, so they operate in just the kind of pre-war, walkable downtowns that were built because of their proximity to the railroads in most cases, so people who live in these towns can easily walk or bike to the trains, and since the trains run regularly from early morning until about midnight or 1 am in both directions, it serves a lot more than just people going to New York for work. My main issue with it though is that it tends to assume that nobody would want to go anywhere but New York going one way, or home going the other, so going between the lines you'll need a car, or going to a place on another line is all but impossible without a car. For example, if you want to go from my home town of Somerville to Princeton, you would have to get on a train to Newark, which takes about 45 minutes, then wait for the next train to Princeton Junction, which is another ~45 minute ride. Or you can drive 30 minutes down the highway.
I'm so glad I live in Western Europe with nice, walkable towns and good public transport/mass transit systems. I'm 17 years old and haven't got a drivers license yet and you wouldn't believe how many places I could already visit on my own when I was younger (including cities abroad like for example Paris, I live in West-Germany btw) without needing a car or even a bike. I'm not even kidding, public transport is actually that good here (and surprisingly "affordable").
@@troll2161 It once was that good here too, at least in the northeast (probably in other places too but I don't know as much about it). Before the war, my grandparents lived in Jersey City, which is just across the river from New York. My grandmother never knew how to drive because she didn't need to know. My grandfather literally learned how to drive while he was in the army and only bought a car when they moved to the suburbs.
They really need to expand to southern Jersey
@@theanonymousman3406 For real. I don't know why AC-Philly is the only line down there
NJ Transit is the best in the US probably below average anywhere else.
Source: lived in NJ for 2 decades, now live in Europe.
I actually really like GO, especially when I have to travel downtown Toronto, and I do like the "free" parking. However, I do wish it was quicker to get to further destinations, I have had terrible experiences travelling to Barrie...
...also that thing about them being late often due to "signal issues".
Sadly our whole infrastructure is built around cars, I mean the suburban sprawl of the GTA is just the perfect example of how NOT to build a pedestrian friendly city.
Someone suggested I might take a train to Barrie and I couldn't believe how slow it was.
I discovered this channel a couple weeks ago and, after years of searching for what I want to do with my life, I'm more or less convinced that city planning is the career for me. I want to make this, everything you're saying, happen.
EDIT: to be clear, I know the planners/ engineers don't have much impact on this. I just think it sounds fun and like I would be good at it, and it would put me into that sphere.
The planners aren't so much of an issue, many of them are up to date on how to make livable places. The problem lies with outdated zoning, and NIMBY politicians and residents who are trapped in car culture. They will oppose the slightest changes if it affects their way of life of single family houses and cars. Planners present and recommend options, it's ultimately up to the elected officials and the people who vote them in.
@@jordanmunoz7681 As much as I wish I could be a politician and do some real good... I don't think I have what it takes. Urban planning is something I think I could be good at though, even if it's not the seat of power for change.
@@Ruiluth That's fine. Planners do a lot of community engagement to educate the public and do make a difference. What Not Just Bikes does also helps reach even more people. Also consider engineering to become a transportation planner/engineer. They're the ones who design the pedestrian, bike, and transit infrastructure.
Civil engineer here. Via their day jobs, most engineers/planners have little impact on policy (with some exceptions I'm sure). You can make a difference by speaking at City Council meetings as a professional in a subject like urban planning/infrastructure, or by joining the local chapter of urban planners' professional society and making policy recommendations to officials.
@@jordanmunoz7681 Know 'Hbomberguy'?
He's such a good TH-camr.
Honestly, I am very hopeful about the future of GO. They already have everything they need - JUST RUN THE DAMN TRAINS!
can they? like the video said most stations sit middle of nowhere and that's gonna be a permanent obstacle however frequent those lines become
Seeing your videos makes me realize how blessed I am with the train infrastructure here in Austria.
European here. For me this is such an abstract thing. In my mind when I take the train it means that I don't need to use the car.
We have enough places where people drive to the train station by car as well and then take the commuter train. Not as massive but we definitely do have them.
@@TheFeldhamster Yeah but the Car Parks are a lot smaller, most stations, Especially in the UK favour a Drop Off Area and a Taxi Rank, rarely a Multi-Storey Car Park.
@@choobs8511 which shows that they think in terms of there's a husband who's working and some wife who can play taxi service because she has no or no "real" job. Unless there's another good way to go to that station, like a tram or a bus service with sensible intervals. Or at least something like a big bicycle parking area or shared bikes / eBikes. You don't really have those electric scooters in the UK, do you?
Here in Austria I sometimes took the train to Klagenfurt and the busses don't go that often but they have a pretty good and cheap bike sharing service with a station right by the main train station, so I took a share bike for €1,- to complete my trip. They have quite a number of bike stations all over the city, so I could drop the bike off right next where I work. They also have 3 different electric scooter services with "floating" scooters and usually there's a number of them available near the train station, so I could have taken those as well.
But mainly I meant that we shouldn't be too much on a high horse because in many places we're not that much better in Europe. When the train station isn't within walking / biking / public transport distance to where people live, that's just stupid.
Montréal is replacing the Deux-Montagnes commuter rail line with the REM, a high frequency light metro. They will also densify neighbourhoods near some stations. The project has some flaws but in general, it will improve service. Off-peak rail service was barely existent. The REM frequency will be 2.5 min peak-time and 5 min off-peak, in both directions. Let’s hope such paradigm shift is replicated on other lines in Montréal and across in Canada.
As a yearly visitor to the Toronto area - mainly the Markham and Aurora suburbs - I completely agree with most of what is discussed here. In fact in the last 10 years of visiting the area, I can't remember the last time I travelled into the city centre by the GO train (as a 'tourist' I don't get up early enough to catch the commuter services). For comparison my wife and I live in the south east of England, roughly the same distance outside the city (London UK) centre. There are 10 trains per hour from our local station (OK, we do have to drive there) to the centre of London - outside the rush hours - there are more per hour during the rush hours. And this service starts early in the morning, and carries on into the late evening - in both directions. It's probably the same for most train networks in Europe. So you can imagine my shock / surprise / sadness when I visit Toronto to find the whole transport system so completely dependent on travelling by car.
A note on the limited Go train service: The Government of Ontario actually doesn't own a lot of the rails, they just rent them out from VIA Rail and CN. Sometimes they make good deals and you get longer service periods, like with Lakeshore West and East having around the clock service from 5am to 1am, but most of the time you end up with the other lines only operating on rush hour. I used to rent an apartment near Cooksville GO and I remember watching them build the parking lot for such a huge station and yet the train only runs at rush hour, and the rest of the time is just limited bus service. All of this, as well as the poor TTC coverage, is just the Government's poor attempt at reversing the damage caused by car companies lobbying for them to rip out all their public transport infrastructure and replace everything with car infrastructure. Well, now no one can afford to live in the city or own a car so they have to do this patchwork.
Yes, except I think you mean CN and CP. Via, I don't think, owns any trackage within the Toronto area.
@@tartrazine5 no. And also, I will not be engaging with your racist dog whistle politics. Urbanism has no room for hate.
what do you mean they don’t own the rails, it’s the government
Actually, the Milton and Richmond Hill lines are the only lines that operate during Rush hours only. Most of the Barrie, Stouffville, and Kitchener Lines operate all day (On Barrie its hourly between Aurora and Union all week, with trains every 3 hours to Barrie only during weekends, on Stouffville its hourly between Mount Joy and Union, and on Kitchener its Mt. Pleasant and Union, unfortunately only on weekdays though).
@@kekchanbiggestfan CP and CN are both private companies. The government rents access to their lines to operate Go trains. CP owns large sections of the Milton GO line. This is why service on that line is rush hour only despite it being one of the more heavily utilized lines in the network. The reason CP will not rent out more access is that they still use the line for freight service (their is an intermodal equipped railyard between Toronto and Kipling stations). I also recall reading a newspaper article in which the Ontario governments electrification plans were scaled back to exclude the Milton line, likely due to the objections of CP (Most modifications to the line are paid for by metrolinx but their may have been concern over the increased maintenance necessary to support overhead gantries).
"This is insane."
That is an apt description of just about everything in Canada right now.
Oh c’mon mate chill. It’s not that bad. We’re not in peril or anything
GO Train is one of the most comfortable ways of travelling in Ontario!
Imagine if the Bloomington GO station housed a mall and some nice apartments above it, instead of three layers worth of parking.
You could create a nice mixed-use area from practically thin air, and, given GO owns the building, rent would be paid to GO to continue developing the land for this mixed-usage pattern.
I know, right?
@@kenbrown2808 That's why you leave the *surface parking*, at least until such time as car dependency the rest of the way through the NA transit network is defeated.
It would be interesting to sit on some of their meetings. How are the decisions that lead to this situation seen as reasonable?
It seems completely insane to me
@@kenbrown2808 That's what the installation of the mall and the apartments in the garage is for. Induced ridership of the people living there & the people nearby who'd use the train to get into the city. Design the resulting exurbs to be transit-centric / mixed-usage / bike-friendly and you may not even need the parking at all, but for the sake of acknowledging reality, leaving the substantial surface parking would make a go-between.
I don't think that it can even get to the planning phase, since the darn thing is in the green belt where any kind of development is forbidden. They likely went through some serious loops to get the station even built there.
But the point is moot. Take a look at the Pickering GO station as an example I'm familiar with. He didn't mention it, but there is a small commercial area right besides the station... nicely separated with a fence to make it extra hard for commuters to stop in the pub there for a beer before going home. The place looks like a wasteland from times old gone, and there is literally nothing happening there despite been between two ** ass parking lots that ALSO belong to the station (in the video, he missed one to the right of the station that exists from Sandy Beach road).
You can literally go to Google maps, switch to the satellite view and see that the path between the station and that fourth parking lot is physically separated from the commercial zone and you simply CANNOT get into the area without going all the way to Bailey st and circling back to your destination.
Is insane to think that someone went out of their way to put fences all over the place specifically to block pedestrians from using the direct route and send them on a 200m detour for no reason at all. And likewise, nobody in charge of the small commercial area thought of make a pedestrian friendly access to the GO station to increase the potential customer base and with it the value of the area.
And as long as simple (and cheap) changes like that are in the "revolutionary" realm for the people in charge, mixed usage areas will be pipe dreams for the foreseeable future.
I'm infinitely thankful for this channel's existence. Things like this made me realize how broken and poorly designed my city is, and it genuinely inspires me to try and do something in order to change. Thank you for getting this information out, there's not enough people that know about this and absolutely need it.
1) GO is designed to get cars off the expressways like the 401 its feeders 2) Rush hour is when most cars would be on those roads 3) That's why GO mainly operates at rush hours. I don't see how this is broken and poorly designed -- sounds like common sense to me
@@jamesstuart3346 Agreed, but the video also points out that getting the cars off the road could have been achieved more effectively by doing other things.
I lived in Toronto for almost 8 years and this is exactly what I felt. I live in Krakow now. I am happy
Really? I mean, compared to what you'd find in most European cities, Toronto's public transit is in a lower level. But it's not that bad. Bus network is extensive and great, they all connect to a subway station providing free exchange. Ofc subway infrastructure is lacking but the bus network really stands out. I find Toronto's public transit better than the one in Dublin (Ireland), for instance
"... for both cyclists who are comfortable cycling along strodes like this, to get to and from the station each day."
I was expecting "both" to be a conjunction but the adjective form is both, descriptive and comedic.
It confused me for a second, but then I saw the bike parking with a single bike, plus the footage of one person riding a bike, and put one and one together.
That was excellent. This is representative of England's attitude to cycling infrastructure. I could make hours of video footage of insultingly bad "cycle lanes" around England.
@@devononair Tom Scott did a good video on a rural intersection where cyclists keep dying, since the rest of the car infrastructure and traffic are heavily implying that drivers should blow through a stop sign.
My mother has taken the GO train back and forth to and from Toronto for 30 years, she always complained about the drive and which GO station to go to and on which line (basically which one was the shorter distance by car). It always amazed me that even with somewhat decent transit, people still rely on cars to get to their final destination which kind of cancels out the purpose behind transit in the first place. I'm very familiar with GO transit I'm a railway enthusiast, and this video was a really good explanation of the current system we have and the system we want and need. Great work!!
In Jay Foreman's video on the Northern Heights scheme originally planned for the London Underground, he talks about how adding stations in places usually meant they would become developed into neighbourhoods, with the Northern Heights cancellation leading to places that likely would have become housing estates just remaining as part of the green belt London now has. That's a good thing, because London does not have enough space like that, but it really reflects what you said about the US and Canada being built around where the trains went.
i’m looking forward to this video and i hope it really shits on southern ontario urban planning lol, i’m so angry at the lost potential here. today i cancelled a planned trip from North York to Niagara Falls because it turns out the train only runs on the weekend. That’s kinda fine because in either case bus or train it takes just over 3.5 hours from my doorstep to the Niagara Go Station, and another 1hr walk to the falls; half of the walk is actually not scenic at all, so that’s basically 8hrs of commuting and about $45 in transit cost to sit by the falls and smoke a cigarette. I’m not picky and normally i spend hours commuting and walking without a fuss, I’m not precious about travel times not for work and especially not for recreational outings. But the buses travel on ugly highways, and none of the bus connections has a coffee shop to grab a cookie and a coffee in transit. I honestly panicked and cancelled the plan because i didn’t wanna come back home at 11pm angry at how ugly southern Ontario actually is despite being blessed with one of the most beautiful summer climates and the most water abundant geographies in the world. And i know i can sink half of my income on owning and parking a second hand car, and then i don’t have to worry about the commutes; but the towns will still be ugly and the road there will still be ugly and i wouldn’t have enough money to buy cigarettes anymore lol.
Not able to buy cigarettes would be the only + than ?
I thought the walk from Niagara GO to the falls was actually scenic throughout, walking along Niagara Parkway. Even better though for the masochistic North American train traveller is walking through the town of Niagara Falls along the Olympic Torch Run Legacy Trail, which used to be a rail line from the station right to the falls. You can spend a wonderful 30 minutes quietly fuming at those who thought that such a rail line would better be ripped apart.
@XenonZed as a resident, it’s actually quite depressing. Barely any buses, buses only come once an hour, no light rail or tram lines! Stroads are everywhere and I swear it feels like the number one thing police do in the city is deal with car accidents.
The thing is it could be so much better! A tram line going from the go station right to the heart of downtown. A light rail line to replace the QEW that’s through a decent portion of the city. More frequent times and double the bus lines. Converting our stroads into pedestrianized streets again, or at least take 2 of the lanes and make them dedicated bus lanes.
Damn thats unfortunate. I did a biking trip from Toronto to Niagara falls and was surprised at how weirdly inconsistent yet present the bike lanes were pretty much the whole way. We took the Go train bus back, but also were aware it was only available on weekend. Quite a shame really, as I think its just a bus/train combo all other times of the week. Ugh. So close, yet so far....
@@dominik.peters I've done the walk as well it was scenic until I reached where the casino was.
This is insane.
It completely baffles me.
I have no words.
i've been taking go transit for probably around 10 years and have never owned a car. I've definitely got my own handful of gripes with it, mostly revolving around the complete lack of go train service on weekends, but if you can manage to navigate the website you can figure out how to get where you need to go pretty well. Also a lot of the stops, or at least the ones i use, have connections to local transit. I agree with a lot of the points in the video and it's definitely got a long ways to go but it's also not as dismal as the video makes it sound.
It's funny, I'm a lifelong car fan watching all your videos and I so greatly agree with what you say. I grew up in car-dependent Calgary and would ride my bike everywhere as a kid which was terrible due to deafening roads, no infrastructure and no direct routes. And since then I've always thought I would love to have a transit/bike system that was great, so I didn't have to rely on my car day to day. The less I have to rely on my car as a tool, the more it can be a toy. I can get something classic, questionably reliable and enjoy it for leisure, like road trips, track days and nothing else. I love your channel and that deconstructing car-based suburbia can actually make the car more enjoyable.
So you want the car and bicycle to swap roles in America its car as a tool/flex. And. Bike as toy/sport
Calgary IMHO is probably the best among those extremely sprawling cities in terms of bikablity and car-as-a-toy due to its proximity to Rockie Mts.. Huston is the average level pain in the ass. Think about having to commute drive every half day yet when you want to drive for leisure you don't really have anywhere to go within 2 or 3 hours one way....
I live near Bloomington and every time that I have to drive by it I just feel so defeated. It seems like all of the development around Toronto is completely thoughtless and only makes worse the problems that everyone complains about. I love all of your content thought, and seeing videos that are relevant to my community is very cool. Thanks for always making good quality content and leading people in the right direction!
They don't build any businesses by the massive suburban subdivisions. Just drive yow car to get anything you need.
Just another example of how the world is ruled by tools. Good job bringing this idiocy to light and sharing your love of trains and sensible living. I'm really enjoying your vids.
Coming from Switzerland, where like trains are the transport, im just so flabbergasted. Like Train stations quite often have a few parking lots. But like 1 per 100 passengers.
Also we have rush hours, where train services usually double and a few extra lines run, to loosen the pressure. But like like a train station in the middle of no where??? Here train stations are in the middle of everything, so that you can easily walk, bike or take a bus to it.
Also that go station is massive, for one platform. Like what even, like a somewhat small station here with 3 platforms and 80k daily passengers, takes up like 1 tenth of the space.
I'm a seven minute walk from the busiest train station in my neck of the woods (I live in Espoo, Finland), and the train station has just two leaky roofs, one for each platform. Four trains run every hour from 07:00 to 22:30: four to Espoo Centre and four to Helsinki. I don't call it a train station, I call it a train stop, and it's used by thousands every single day.
Switzerland has, imo, the best railways outside Japan. Outstanding how every single line in operation for passengers has very frequent trains, and especially how well communicated those are with buses to the area. Coming from the province of Jaén, Spain, the aprox. 10 stations we have have ultra low frequency, most of them just a train a day, and jackshit connections, which sucks, because almost all of them are far from the center, or in the middle of nowhere. Linares-Baeza, the center for trains in the region, has no dedicated bus service, just a couple buses that stop there (with horrible timetable, of course), so you either A) Wait for hours until the bus arrives B) You take an urban bus to Linares and then there find another one, which is super slow, or C) just not bother with it and ride a car.
@@backalleycqc4790 Know 'Genetically Modified Sceptic'?
The Atheist-TH-camr so nice and unbiased and non-arrogant that he has lots of Christian Fans now?
That warm guy?
Or Forrest Valkai, the Bio-Teacher who's also on Tiktok?
You cannot generalize from Bhf. Stadelhofen to the rest of the world.
Stadelhofen is in some metrics probably the busiest train station in the world: Trains with 5 different destinations as their next stop come to Stadelhofen where each train, even those with 12 carriages that carry 1000 persons each, has 4 minutes on average to drive in, let the people out, let the people in, drive out of the station. And minimum time between two trains leaving the same platform is 3 min. Every day from 5 am to 1 am.
Show me another train station like this anywhere in the world.
@@MemberHomei My point was more that a station with that size has at least 8 tracks, not 1. While stations with 1 to 3 tracks are like minimal in comparison
Here in Vancouver, the West Coast Express is even worse. Sure the stations are right beside municipal centres, are attached to transit hubs, and don't have the mega-parkades beside them, but they all have rather large ground level lots, a single platform, rush hour only trains, separate fares from the rest of the transit network, step-up train cars, no stations between the downtown terminus and the near edge of suburbia 20km away, and the worst part: they don't own the trackage they run on.
So instead we rely on Skytrain, a great LRT that expands slower than the glaciers retreat.
The main issue with the WCE is that they don't own the track. They have to schedule with the freight operators - and of course CP is going to prioritize theirs and CN traffic over WCE.
And with Skytrain getting expanded out to Port Coquitlam, does the current WCE even make sense anymore?
All-in-all, Metro Vancouver needed a dedicated commuter rail corridor to Chilliwack. And there is a historic right away government has, but it's not direct and would be slow.
The beauty of the Pacific northwest (mountains and ocean) are really our curse to not having good transportation
I have friends who live out in Mission, I'd love to take the WCE to go and see them on weekends. Such a shame it's so infrequent. If the route could be additionally tracked in places, made to run regularly, and density permitted near stations, it could be a fantastic service.
Skytrain is pretty good, but it really needs to be expanded south of the Fraser River.
@@jameshansenbc I've seriously considered making a weekend vacation to Mission by taking the first afternoon train out on Friday and the last morning train in on Monday. Of course, this means I'd have to take Friday and Monday off and make a big event out of it rather than just a quick day trip.
The SkyTrain is more of a light metro service though, and with the Expo Line expansion plans, parts would probably be considered a full subway soon. (I believe the plans are for 25k+ ppdph by 2028)
Lived all my teenage years near that biggest suburban station, the bus connection from the station to the rest of the city was actually really good, one went from the station to about 5 minute walk from my house and back every 20 minutes from 6am to 10pm. COVID messed it up a bunch, but prior to that it was awesome how easy it was to get to downtown Toronto in an hour without being able to drive. That city has lots of trains running back and forth to Toronto about every half hour in mornings and evenings, and every hour during the day. The station is also surrounded by 5 over 1s so that's awesome. The highway path is pretty cool to walk through, and the mall on the other side used to be huge, with a movie theatre, optometrist, dentist, a few other doctors, a giant food court and plenty of surrounding restaurants of different price levels, and obviously a ton of stores. Across the street from the mall is also the library and town hall building, which has a large outdoor event space as well, on the other side of which is the city's recreation centre which had free-use ice rinks and pools, as well as cheap gym access, skill development classes, various clubs, childcare, etc. That area was super nice, and living in that city was a great experience in my teenage years. I wish it was like this for every station. I moved for university and now don't live near a station, thankfully my campus has a very active bus station (I would know, I live right next to it and hear every bus that come in) but I have to take one of those buses to one of two not so great stations with poor schedules and infrequent ride times. Now that my destination is back home more often than downtown and back, it's a lot more difficult. Honestly, I've lived in GO connected suburbs my entire life and have never imagined how much better it could be, I had just accepted train travel would always be meh for anything but commuting. Hoping to move to train-connected Europe once I've graduated and I can't wait to feel that difference.
Thanks for calling out GO's insane parking lot stations. I used to live in Chicago and it has a smilier commuter rail system (Metra) with similar scheduling issues too, in some ways Chicago's is even worse because the trains go into four different downtown stations as opposed to Toronto's single Union Station.
The one thing that is really different in Chicago though is that most of the system was built before cars totally took over and most suburban stations have some kind of "downtown" development with apartments and stores around them - not just a field of parking. Where we lived in the suburbs we could walk to a train station and go downtown. Of course there is still parking near stations, but even newer ones often have a more mixed-use area around them and them perhaps parking in a thin ribbon along the train tracks.
I've never understood GO's decision to do this. Even in GTA cities with a historic downtown (and usually a historic downtown train station) like Hamilton, Oshawa and Oakville - the station was moved somewhere else and harder to access without a car.
I was going to write the same thing. I live in Chicago and a lot of the Metra stations are in walkable places. And, most Metra lines can be used in both directions from early morning to late at night.
Keep it up! You are bringing important information to us, ‘the masses’. I never knew or expected that public transportation and city planning was going to be one of my top interests. You, and others, have educated me more than I’d ever known I needed. Thank you
The door that allows bicycles: has a bar in the way
The door where bicycles aren't allowed: doesn't
Metrolinx: *I am smort*
Seeing how infrequent the service is there makes me blessed to live in the NY Tri-State. I currently live on Long Island, home to the busiest commuter rail system in North America, the Long Island Railroad. THREE of the top four busiest rail systems in North America are in the NY Tri-State (LIRR, Metro North, and NJ Transit). For most of my life we've never really used a car (and when we did, it was always someone else driving us). Why? Because using public transport was THAT convenient. I used to live in Jersey City, right across the Hudson from NYC, and with all the transport options like the PATH, NJ Transit rail, shuttle buses/dollar vans, ferries, and light rail, we never had to take a car into the city. Same when we used to live in Westchester County back in the 2000s. We specifically chose the Tarrytown area BECAUSE of the commuter rail service. Yes, the transit in the NYC area isn't perfect (FAR from it), but having transit like what NYC has is better than having practically zero transit during the day like in Greater Toronto
New York is a very old city by North American terms. It is one of the more "European" cities you have. Yeah there's still a lot of car dependency but it was built before car was king and very little of it was demolished. The same may be true for other areas in the state, perhaps the politicians there were a bit more grounded over the years.
I live in Yonkers, NY (and used to live in Queens), and while I know my fiance and I won't live in this area forever, it's going to be VERY difficult to move to a place where I can't take public transit everywhere. We currently have a car, only because my fiance has to drive to work every day at the Bronx Zoo, but I basically never have to take a vehicle anywhere, and it's wonderful! I can't figure out why Americans are so attached to their cars.
I walk 10 minutes to the Yonkers train station in the morning, commute for 35-40 minutes into Grand Central - and read a book or the news and/or listen to music on my way in - then walk 5-10 minutes to my office. I get exercise, don't get stressed out with traffic, and I'm able to do things I enjoy on my commute (or catch up with work or writing). Then I do the same thing going home at the end of the day.
Driving is so relatively miserable!
@@katesweeney9101 The sad answer to your question...(Why are Americans Hopelessly in love with their cars)...is Marketing and money...We here in the good old US have pretty well established ...that it is possible to sell anything if you can just market it properly...And when there is so much money at stake ....Well why leave any of it on the table...
To that lets add it the fact that for most of us now not having a car is almost like not having a phone or email...for most types of work ...you would be unemployable...Even as far back as the 60s I can remember employers asking as interview questions...How are you going to get to to work if we need to call you in at a moment's notice????....Suppose we need you to unexpectedly work a double at the end of your shift???
I can remember being told on my first job...That it is my responsibility ...not my boss's to find him at the end of my shift and ask if it is OK to clock out and leave...And that employees were expected to be on call and could be called in at any time...
@@stevebell4906 And I think it's just being used to using cars and needing them. As I've seen in some of the other videos in this series, kids in other countries are used to walking, riding a bike, or taking public transit. In most of the US - because of how the cities and towns have been developed - kids are used to needing a ride everywhere. Then getting a license is seen as the ultimate form of independence. And when you actually own a car... wow, you've MADE it!
It's kind of sad. I get it, because I was once in the same place and looked at the world that way, but I've since moved all over the country, and I understand that true independence is not needing to rely on only one mode of transportation to get everywhere.
@@katesweeney9101 Sadly it is even worse than depicted here....The USA had better mas transit 100 years ago and it was intentionally destroyed to sell cars truck and buses...and t spawn suburbia with all of it's sprawl...
The original transit systems were built to be money making businesses...And they were very successful...GM and others actually bought lines just to shut them down and sell vehicles... and the entire thing was heavily subsidized by the taxpayers...
There are entire books written about it!
I live 40 miles outside the "real London". I can walk to my local train station in 5 minutes, and it takes 40 minutes to get to the centre of London, and there's a train every 30 minutes all day and more during rush hour. When I visited my in-laws in Paris Ontario, I wanted to go on a trip to Toronto with my father in law on the train. We had to drive to Burlington to get on it. I was amazed how far away the station was from the actual town centre and shocked at the size of the car park. It literally is insane. And that Bloomington station being LEED certified is a complete joke. There's enough concrete in that monstrosity to build an airport! How much CO2 was released into the atmosphere to make all that? I think the solution would be to turn all GO's car parks into mixed use developments and then add local bus services to the town centres that they're supposed to serve. Not ideal, but perhaps more realistic than moving the train line itself.
Correct. If we’re calling London fake London then Paris is fake Paris.
Environmentalism in Canada much like literally everything we have done since I can remember was bought by speculators before it was made available.
Worth noting is how my hometown of leamington banned rooftop solar but allowed a corporation to sell solar development door to door. The kicker is the development was put into a lien against your property that paid itself off as it sold power to the grid but there was no guarantee you would get hooked up to the grid. Various people had their properties devalued instantly by this.
Some hippy wants to save energy though? NOT ALLOWED!
We also wont let people live in tiny homes in a bunch of places too. One couple that made the news in Newfoundland had to build their house on a flatbed so it could be considered a trailer.
I live about the same distance. It's a 10 minute walk to the station and 4 trains leave in the London Direction (2 to London, 2 to a London suburb) every hour, and it takes about 40 minutes as well. The town I live in is tiny, it isn't a major interchange and there is a completely separate London trainline that goes to a different part of London if you decide to walk and extra 15 minutes to the other train station that's technically in the next town.
And neither station has a parking lot.
Only need secure storage for bicycles at this point because the locals are thieving c*nts.
@@wisenber No, that's not how mixed use developments work though. In the UK we have this all over the place. You get shops on the ground floor and then apartments above. You might have a few offices or co-working spaces, but it's unrealistic to think that everyone in a mixed use development would work in the same development and have no need to travel. There would be tons of commuters who'd want to live right next to a train station that takes them right into downtown Toronto.
As a fellow brit this video has made me appreciate our rail network more, for all its faults. its not perfect but at least i can get a train every 30 minutes from my middle of nowhere local station to london
Fun fact: Pickering Pedestrian bridge is the record holder for the longest enclosed pedestrian bridge. It crosses over 14 lanes of highway with, 9 road shoulders which are actually lanes themselves and 5 railway tracks.
Also the station platforms cannot be made level because GO has bought the tracks off CN and CP with the condition that the stations should be accessible to freight trains which have lower clearance.
I am a resident of Pickering and live in the very few non-car dependent neighborhoods in the city. It is right off Kingston Road with buses every 15 min and Pickering Go is 15 min min away by buses. All major grocery stores are right across the street and we walk there. I have not owned a car since I moved here a couple of years ago and don't plan to buy one. I feel I was lucky to find such a location.
Great videos though.
"the stations should be accessible to freight trains which have lower clearance." - but doesn't that 'hump' in the platform interfere with freight trains anyways? So if you can build that hump, why not just raise the whole platform?
@@stephanweinberger The hump is set back, which is partly why they need the bridge to cross to the passenger coach.
The last time I took the GO train regularly was 6 years ago and it was pretty good. However I still remember all my frustrations about them.
1. Mentioned already is the fact that I felt I HAD to drive to get to the station, because walking was too far and biking was dangerous on the busy rush hour stroads (not to mention hilly) with no bike lanes. Taking the bus to the station would take too long.
2. The cost. The price now for a one-way trip is $7.45, so twice a day that's $14.90. Up to a max cost per month of ~$265. Since I still needed a car anyway, that's on top of car costs. Also there was no TTC discount. I chose to walk ~20 minutes instead of taking the King streetcar to my job because of this. If I also HAD to take the TTC it would be an additional ~$150 a month. So GO + TTC + Car costs = a lot. My job at the time actually gave free parking (at King street, wow what a benefit), so it would have saved money to drive.
3. The extra commute time. Driving directly even with traffic would take ~45 minutes on average. The GO train itself took 35 minutes, but add the waiting times, driving to the parking lot (5 stories high), and the walk from union to my job my average time would be around 1 hour 15 minutes. This is without delays (which were often because the GO train has to wait for those stupid cargo trains).
4. Crowdedness. Taking the train on my line at peak rush hour would sometimes require you to stand due to the lack of seats.
GO bus is honestly pretty decent. It often goes on highways so it's fast, and often has HOV lanes available to avoid traffic.
As a Dutch person, I’m not sure whether this makes me laugh or cry
The NS is sometimes pretty shitty, but it's nowhere near as bad as this. I think we take too much for granted
Agreed, it seems soooo crazy.
I live in the middle of nowhere in the Netherlands, but a train every 15 minutes runs. In the evening and early morning every 30 minutes....
All this made me was furious! There's a lot of wasted money in these projects that only send a message to get a car or else.
@@Stroopwafe1 true
To many dutch ppl bitch about NS its not perfect but compare many ritch country thy do good jobe.
I'm from the Greater Sydney area of Australia. I found GO Transit was fantastic for a North American city. Toronto is very tourist-friendly & saved me all the hassle of car hire. But I was a tourist experiencing the issues you notice as a Torontonian with regards to off-peak services & services for the suburbs. Toronto is a very car-dominant city & the GO Train is there to take cars off the road. It is a Diesel service & those Diesel locomotives are not cheap to run. There are Diesel trains which can be used as suburban shuttles while the larger GO Trains can be used for express trains for regional cites in Ontario. Check-out the Diesel-hydraulic Hunter Railcar used in Newcastle just north of Sydney in Australia. The Hunter Railcar is a Diesel-hydraulic drivetrain & unfortunately it's only 2 cars long, but should be at-least 4 cars long & connectable into an 8-car configuration. Diesel-train networks are going to be run to a tight budget, fuel is a huge overhead for trains.
"Driving to the train" isn't a phrase that should ever have to spoken.
Mines even worse. I have to drive to a bus which then takes me to train. Welcome to Phoenix!
Park and ride isn't inherently bad. It's when the entire station is basically just one giant parking garage in the middle of nowhere that that there's a problem.
Nah. it makes total sense for truly rural people. Farmers should drive to the train.
@@tristanridley1601 Yes but this isn’t about farmers. This is about suburbs and even outlying cities.
@@tristanridley1601 in the NL farmers (children) in rural areas take either the bus or the bike to the train station. It would only be a small station and it runs a small train, but it does that every half hour for 20hrs a day.
That beautiful expensive Bloomington station that only serves 8 trains a day, Monday to Friday only, is so far away from anything it does not even have a water supply for the bathrooms. Water is trucked in and dumped into a holding tank. Same for the sewage. It goes into its own storage tank and is regularly pumped out and trucked away. Location Location Location. Build it and they will come.
Wow. Trucked-in water. Very environmentally friendly. I'm glad they're LEED Gold certified!
That is insane, I didn't even know that. Why build a cathedral where there's no people, it makes absolutely no sense at all!
@@shadow_5245 because it's all political.
Like that poop truck in Dubai lol
That's very likely why it was built. Transit before housing. Novel idea.
The Schedule has been getting better lately. For example during rush hour on the Lake shore east line they run trains every 15 minutes and outside of it every 30 mins. It could be better on the weekends where they only run every hour. During the weekday GO is honestly amazing and helps me connect to my school in Toronto from all the way in Pickering and its a much more peaceful and comfortable ride than hopping on the highway, getting stuck in traffic, the noise, the comfort level etc. They just need to make it more frequent and its the best form of transport in Ontario
Canada: 82 million dollars for a single platform.
Japan: A platform with some roof
both: works exactly the same, actually the japanese ones runs at far better frequencies and quality
well, in Japan people walk to the train station... If not, they take the bus. In the Tokyo Metropolitan area, there's enough train stations that one is almost never more than a 15-20 minute walk away. Any station further than that is serviced by a bus that connects to the train station.
I hope some govts in Canada start watching your channel. So informative and makes the poor development we have here so obvious.
My area (US) is doing 2050 general plan and code updates, and I'm trying to figure out how to get as many of the people doing the planning to watch these videos as possible.
This was an awesome video! Just moved to Toronto from the states, where I’ve considered Toronto’s public transit to be a utopia compared to what I’m used to in the US. Cool to understand the flaws of the area nonethelesss
The quality of the videos has been skyrocketing lately, it's amazing how good the audio is now, and as a media designer I especially like the new intro logo animation.
Seeing all of that completely vacant parking lot space right next to a road NOT being used for even a single bike lane actually hurts my soul. Like you have so much space, and you only have to sacrifice like a single row of your parking lot for so much more convenience and accessibility. why must you do this, north america?
Given that most GO stations are located in industrial areas, I don't think a bike lane would be of much use. Also, I don't think adding bike lanes would be very helpful since nobody tries biking in suburbia for commutes. That's why there is a focus on suburban buses.
Pretty sad that in order to use public transportation in Ontario you have to have a car to get to it.
@@lsmith8333 Idk where how you got to this conclusion because it's not true at all. I use transit every day in Ontario and I never have to drive to use it. The only stations you really have to drive to are the stations he showed in this video that are located in either industrial areas or the Greenbelt. And even these stations have local bus services.
@@dutchman7623 But why cycle when you can drive! See this is the tricky situation we are in. Nobody is gonna cycle because of how easy it is to drive there. And if we were to restrict parking at the stations, the GO train users would get mad and drive to work instead of taking the train.
Btw, these stations are located in DEEP industrial areas surrounded by auto manufacturers, steelworks, nuclear power plants, etc. For example, Oshawa is over 2km by road away from the closest house.
Not all stations are like this tho. Many of the stations not located in industrial areas and are better served by local buses instead of bikes.
@@daelbows5783 I live in Barrie, in order for me to get to train station its either a 3.25 bus fare or I take my life in to my own hands and attempt to walk there and not get run over crossing the many stroads we have. Maybe instead of giving free parking they should give a rebate in the amount you spend on busses to get to these stations.
One other thing that makes auto transportation more economical/preferable/profitable is that roads/highways are provided and maintained at public expense. Railways were/are built and maintained (even kept clear of snow) by the train owners, CNR & CPR in our case. GO Transit and Via Rail pay to use the tracks and stations at public expense. Take that cost away from them and they likely could become more profitable providing people transit.
Well that was depressing, but I'm so glad there is someone like yourself that is getting this information out there. It will make a difference.
In terms of what’s built around the station, I think Mt. Pleasant Go station does a pretty good job of it (on the North side at least). It’s surrounded by a library, school, street front businesses with housing on top, and medium density living in a mostly dull suburban area. I think much of that development wouldn’t of happened had it not been for the GO station.
Hm.. maybe if a place like that keeps growing and developing, slowly a lively city and city centre will build around it. Would be fascinating to look 300 years in the future.
This was brilliant. Every person sitting on any city council and every person working for the transportation department of any large city should be required to view it.
I've always thought of Graz (Austria) as pretty decent in terms of public transport and bicycle infrastructure, but this channel showed me how much there is to improve on. I really hope that we take Dutch cities as examples for future planning, because everything I've seen so far is pretty amazing
Great video! I live in the bay area in California. We have the Caltrain running along the peninsula between San Jose and San Francisco. Only very recently, they are running trains every 10-20 mins or so on weekdays. The stations are close to the downtown and other businesses, and bike-friendly (although there are plenty of room for improvement). I have US suburban experience as well. This video makes me feel how privileged I am!
I lived in Brisbane Australia, there was a train every 30-45 minutes from 5 am until 1 am. It was amazing, and there were places to go at every local station, until the local became the coastal, then there were bus stations to Civilization
"Nobody will ever use this painted bicycle gutter"
Next time I take the GO downtown I will go out of my way and bike two stations backwards JUST to use that gutter.
Also, commuters who get to the GO station via bus (Presto tap) get a discount on their GO fair (and vice versa) if I recall correctly.
Literally until I watched this video I praised the GO. I see now there are some glaring issues and some serious room for improvement. That said, I still think that for the purpose of travelling between downtown and the suburbs the GO works quite efficiently. Not to mention there are GO busses that run between the morning and evening (rush hour) train services that use HOV and sometimes dedicated lanes on the freeways.
Great video as always!
So that bicycle gutter doesn't just dump you out onto the freeway?
The bicycle gutter dumps you out on to the 80km/h rural road with no shoulder. It is theoretically possible to bike there, but I wouldn't recommend it if you value your life.
This is the ACE and CalTrain system in California. Now that I live in Switzerland I literally cannot fathom not having access to solid mass transit, especially trains. For less than the cost of a car payment, I have access to the entire country’s mass transit system. For the same price I pay here, I’d only be able to connect from two cities in California. Absolutely insane.
"For less than the cost of a car payment" - half the point of this video was about taxpayer subsidies, and how this train system in Canada is too cheap. An ACE train fare isn't cheap because it's nowhere near as subsidized.
The tracks were made in the 1860s, and is used for freight trains as well so it's not taxpayer subsidized in cost. It was not part of 1950's onwards car suburbia.
I live in Edgewood, a suburb 200 feet from the ACE train station in Tracy. The station has no giant parking structure, or any major multi-million dollar waste of tax payer dollar building:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Tracy_ACE_station_2297_04.JPG
Lathrop-Manteca station:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Lathrop-Manteca_ACE_station_2492_03.JPG
The Stockton, CA station is a large building, and was built in the 1930s before car-dependent infrastructure was relevant:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Cabral_Station_4.JPG
It didn't take much money to create the system as they just used existing rail tracks. They are now working on connecting it to BART under the ValleyLink project and will eventually have trains at 12 - 24 minute intervals.
This puts into words the immense frustration of trying to visit friends outside of Toronto before I could drive. I have avoided using the GO train/bus ever since and have always opted to borrow a car or carpool, lest I find myself stranded in the middle of an ocean of a parking lot in suburbia, relying on a friend to pick me up from the station.
If you work at night where I live, there is literally no public transit options. The trains stop after 630 pm, and don't start until 605am, and I start work between 8pm and 930pm. Luckily I'm comfortable riding my bike on 2 lane highways.