02-18-2020, 07:47 AM
(02-17-2020, 02:56 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I have availed myself of the free transit weekends most of the weekends this month. I must say I have seen a far larger number of children on the train than I usually do. However, I rarely rode it on weekends before. Does anyone know if this is typical, or if we are seeing a really big surge.
I think this is probably a big surge, which really shows the current fare structure is a huge obstacle to families using the LRT. Cars (even when people think otherwise) are almost always more expensive than transit. But for a family of four, transit probably is going to be more expensive than almost all driving scenarios using a single car.
My family has taken advantage of the free transit a few times this month, including one trip as the entire family. We have almost never done this, as there are no trips we take within the Region (given cheap parking) that are less expensive by transit than by car. We only have the one car, so if one parent wants to get somewhere with one or two of the kids, we'll take the bus or train for that. I'm thinking that the last time we took transit all of us together was shortly after the Ion started running.
Two of my kids and I encountered friends of ours downtown on Saturday while we were waiting for a bus, and they had apparently taken the train to the market for the first time ever, and the kid was pretty excited about it. I know of a couple of other trips that were planned by acquaintances, specifically so the kids could have the experience of taking the train.
I had an e-mail exchange with a Regional Councillor back in September when staff was proposing to eliminate concession fares for children and seniors to help pay for the new low-income transit pass. At first, the wording in staff's report made it unclear even to the councillor whether concession fares for elementary students were to be eliminated. When it was clear that they would be, the justification was in part that so few kids take transit that it the impact could be considered small.
That seemed backwards to me, but so it is. In a lot of ways, GRT is a commuter system, and its fare structure is just one of them. I think the family pass is a good product, along with the summer pass (though it's still not exactly cheap).
Anyway, good observation, I expect that one positive from these free weekends are that a lot of kids are getting exposure to transit.