All the places we need better GO - TTC Integration
As GO grows, the system needs to become better integrated with the TTC to unlock its potential.
Toronto’s GO Transit is booming, as has become apparent in recent years. Almost every train I’ve been on recently has been very busy and ridership, especially outside the traditional nine-to-five commute, appears to be returning fast. Trips for things like going to Niagara and accessing sports games seem to be massively popular and entirely constrained by available trains. Honestly, I think the return across the whole day would be even faster if service was coming back more quickly, but all-day 15-minute UP Express and Lakeshore GO Service remains just a memory.
My point here is that the ridership trends for GO are looking up post-pandemic, and I actually think there are a number of major things that will help to drive ridership much higher than it has been historically.
1) The opening of new transit lines like the Line 5 Eglinton and the Hurontario line will make a lot of trips that include GO in them a lot more attractive. You’ll be able to go from downtown Toronto to Square One fairly quickly all on rail, as well as from Pearson to Midtown. These connection points will only grow more and more well-used as GO service at connecting stations ramps up. Of course, the opening of the new lines as well as new residents moving along the corridors will also lead to the usual media storm that you’d expect, and this will be a helpful reminder of just how useful and cost effective transit is.
2) Better yet, the connecting service to is getting better and better. With Line 5 likely opening sometime in early 2023, I expect all-day 15-minute service will be back on the UP Express, and we may even have half hourly service on the Kitchener line, which will mean 6 trains per hour worth of connections just at Mount Dennis, and of course other connection points will also be seeing service improvements as well. I am always a little surprised how well used Kennedy station is right now given Stouffville line service is at best hourly, and can only imagine how much more popular things will get when service goes to half-hourly (as the Lakeshore line has long been at a minimum) and beyond. All-day hourly service is now basically the minimum for all the RER corridors and this should only be improved upon from here on out.
3) Open payment is finally a thing with Presto! Indeed, since last week, a number of transit agencies including GO have started accepting credit card in lieu of a Presto card or a ticket, and this is a big deal. Fare payment can be intimidating especially for infrequent riders, and reducing the barrier here is really valuable in making the experience easier. It also lets many people who might not use say the TTC (who should get open payment in the not so distant future) to get rid of their Presto card, and payment using Apple Pay or Google Wallet means you may not even need to get out your wallet.
4) Stations have gotten way nicer on average. I still remember the days when it felt like most GO stations were just bus shelters and a curb, and while still too many stations are like this, a lot of improvement is going on. The renovations to the stations of the frequent section of the Stouffville and Barrie lines mean that now riders on the non Lakeshore lines (Kitchener stations were largely improved back in the early 2010s) are getting much more comfortable waiting areas and platforms with canopies over them to keep you out of the sun, rain or snow. At the same time, accessibility has been improved and connections to other modes like local transit and active transportation have been overhauled. I think perhaps whats most notably here, is the visual improvement. Stations now also stand out, helping to remind people transit is an option, and also being much less miserable places to wait a while for a train if you must. Union Station being the centre of GO’s network has obviously seen a ton of improvements as well with the York and Bay concourse renovations nearly entirely complete (stores are slowly opening up in the Bay concourse’s mall-like lower level), and this is allowing work to move on to platform level. Of course the past few years has also meant the opening of the massively improved Union Station Bus Terminal which is now all indoor and weather protected, and the new Park at CIBC Square which is a great place to wait before catching a train.
Now, given all of this great progress and the demand for regional train service consistently strengthening, you might expect that GO and the TTC, the urban rail and bus service in Toronto proper, would have gotten a lot better integrated in the past five years, but unfortunately thats really not the case.
A big step forward on this issue was made by the previous Liberal government, who sadly did not fully integrate fares (which probably requires a region level overhaul about how we think about fares) but did offer a bidirectional discount so that people riding the TTC to GO and vice versa didn’t need to pay as much. Unfortunately, the subsequent Conservative government has let this program die even though its costs are small; its benefits were huge, and they are spending tons of transit anyway! Now, to be fair, you can at least easily pay with Presto on both services, which was not really the case when I first moved to Toronto in the mid 2010s (getting a Presto card was a lot harder!). But the pricing is clearly also something that discourages use, even if it is still far more affordable than driving.
To some extent, the lack of fare integration today doesn’t seem to be too horrible a deterrent since many trains are very full and service appears to be well used, and that concerns me a bit because I think it could lead to GO and Metrolinx thinking that they’ll be fine without integrated fares — even though they will clearly be more equitable and attractive. This is also a really big issue because GO needs the riders more than the TTC does — GO’s infrastructure holds the potential for ridership several times what it is today, while the TTC can really only handle a few percentage points of growth from its previous highs before the lack of infrastructure like the Ontario Line becomes the main barrier. At the same time, the massive growth in the 905 (which thankfully now does have a free co-fare with GO — albeit not a rationalized fare system) and the large number of people who already ride the TTC past faster GO trains every day are huge missed opportunities for the system.
I do think it’s important to consider that fares are not the only place where integration between the systems is lacking — and the seemingly questionable decisions flow both ways. For example, one thing that has long frustrated me is that TTC services don’t always stop at GO stations (the Steeles East Express for example does not stop at or even acknowledge Milliken GO at adjacent stops), which is bad route planning (express routes should stop at major interchanges where the most potential users can take advantage of them), and wayfinding does not really emphasize these destinations. This is a loss for the TTC because some people may well be willing to do a short hop on a bus to get to a train, but might instead drive given the inconvenience.
What’s more is that there is precedent for collaboration: TTC riders can use GO transit services during delays, and that’s only going to be more and more valuable as frequencies and capacities rapidly expand on GO.
So considering all of this, what do we actually need to do?
Clearly fare integration is important, but I think rationalization is just as important. What I mean by that is quite literally making fares rational, for example travelling a short distance but crossing a municipal border and thus needing to pay twice is much clearly is not rational. At the same time, rapid or local transit journeys in different places in the region costing wildly different amounts also does not make sense. In order to optimize the system we have, we need to change the way we price it, and that means not continuing to run GO transit as a premium service, and perhaps even making fares on GO even more attractive than rapid transit, as capacity is far more plentiful.
Branding and wayfinding integration is also key. While I don’t think we are likely to get to London levels where every TFL service uses a different form of the same London Underground derived roundel to represent itself, I do think we should be at least standardizing our wayfinding and mapping solutions — something which people are working on, but which does not appear to be nearly enough of a priority. There should be maps at every regional rail station and subway station showing the region’s transport system and they should not be different based on which system you are in. We should also standardize more minor elements of the systems such as how we communicate entrances and exits and how we describe things on signs to make using GO and the TTC together simpler. At the very least, even without integration, the TTC needs to remove the old signage that crowds the ceiling and sight lines of so many of its rail stations.
Announcements should also give more consideration to the broader network, if there are delays on other lines (especially ones connected to the one you are on) we should be communicating that whether visually or through audio announcements, and there is no reason that when stopping at a station a transfer to another subway line should be mentioned while a frequent regional train service is not.
The last major piece of integration, and the most fun one from a design perspective in my opinion is the physical system integration. At any point where two high order transit lines connect we should make the process of changing quick and the capacity of the space reasonable for the number of people we expect to transfer. This is something we were not bad at historcially with stations like Sheppard-Yonge and St. George, but which has gotten much worse with new stations like Downsview Park where there is a giant vertical gap between lines and little to no weather protection for the regional train platforms unlike newer stations (despite the opulence of the subway facility, which is the least used in the city). Now, some of the new planned interchanges on the Ontario Line are really truly good with a short up and over to go from GO to the subway, but they are short of the originally planned cross-platform transfers, which given most of our transit lines are not exactly new plans (rehashed versions of things we’ve long been planning like a subway on Queen) it really is unfortunate that we haven’t been planning in better designs. Probably the best example of poor physcial integration are the “near misses” like Main Street-Danforth between Line 2 and the Lakeshore and Stouffville lines, and Bloor-Dundas West between the UP Express, Kitchener line, Line 2, and the streetcars. Bloor-Dundas West in particular still not having a direct indoor connection between the subway and regional rail station is very dissapointing and is less a case of the connection being a huge technical challenge and more one of priorities. There have been land disputes and the like that have held up the connection, but it’s still incredibly important and thus I think it would not have been unreasonable to escalate the issue into something much more serious. Even now, with major works going on once again at Bloor Station to add the fourth and final track and a new entrance and platform fittings the tunnel is still not yet being built.
gooingd thl things considered, about GO and above ground infrastructure in general is that fixing mistakes should be simpler and more cost effective in theory, but not getting integration with local and especially rapid transit right from the start is a big problem that we need to get past if we want great transit.
TTC busses should stop right in front of the entrance to every GO Station that's not adjacent another higher order transit line. The 905 Lakeshore Line towns do this. Toronto can too.
Great article and spot on. The overlapping TTC and GO Transit networks need to be brought together seamlessly, with Presto. We have the tools, the software, the station connexion infrastructure. We just don't have the political willpower - yet.