09-25-2018, 06:45 PM
I think higher-order transit to the airport is way ahead of its time.
About 128,000 passengers used the local airport in 2016. Pearson averages more than 129,000 every day and 30% more than that on a busy day.
For us that’s about 350 people per day; that’s not even two LRV’s worth of people across an entire day. That also assumes 100% of those even want to take transit; not everyone one wants to or is physically able to haul suitcases on busses and/or trains before/after they get on a flight.
In June 2018 UPX carried 417,000 riders or 13,900 per day. That would be about 10% of the daily passenger load; and I think that UPX is actually used a lot for commuting, not to get to Pearson for travel.
A 10% modal share of our daily passenger load (350) is 35 or half of a GRT bus.
I can see it both ways though; it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. No one takes transit to the airport because it is currently impossible and in the future will likely at best will be very hard to do, but we don’t build better transit to the airport because no one is taking transit.
I think the best option will be move the proposed Greenhouse Road GO station to be physically located at the airport The proposed location is only 2km from the airport perimeter and about 2.5km from the YKF terminal, and it would build awareness about the airport. Once the entire GO system is on 15-minute headways that is more than enough service for current and future passenger loads at YKF.
You could loop the route back in to central Guelph (red dotted), or by-pass central Guelph for a stop in south Guelph and still hit Acton (purple dotted). Either option probably wouldn’t even add much time to the route (the purple route might even make it faster).
Also, once the Ottawa St is extended to Fountain you can extend the 205 across the river to the airport and either loop down Fountain to Fairway or up to Victoria. Build the new bridge to accommodate LRT and maybe in time a phase of Ion could run across Ottawa to the airport.
At the moment though, it is more efficient to get yourself to the airport (taxi, carpool, ride-share, bike, drive). Maybe WROUTE will start offering to take people from Fairway Station to YKF as part of their service.
About 128,000 passengers used the local airport in 2016. Pearson averages more than 129,000 every day and 30% more than that on a busy day.
For us that’s about 350 people per day; that’s not even two LRV’s worth of people across an entire day. That also assumes 100% of those even want to take transit; not everyone one wants to or is physically able to haul suitcases on busses and/or trains before/after they get on a flight.
In June 2018 UPX carried 417,000 riders or 13,900 per day. That would be about 10% of the daily passenger load; and I think that UPX is actually used a lot for commuting, not to get to Pearson for travel.
A 10% modal share of our daily passenger load (350) is 35 or half of a GRT bus.
I can see it both ways though; it is a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. No one takes transit to the airport because it is currently impossible and in the future will likely at best will be very hard to do, but we don’t build better transit to the airport because no one is taking transit.
I think the best option will be move the proposed Greenhouse Road GO station to be physically located at the airport The proposed location is only 2km from the airport perimeter and about 2.5km from the YKF terminal, and it would build awareness about the airport. Once the entire GO system is on 15-minute headways that is more than enough service for current and future passenger loads at YKF.
You could loop the route back in to central Guelph (red dotted), or by-pass central Guelph for a stop in south Guelph and still hit Acton (purple dotted). Either option probably wouldn’t even add much time to the route (the purple route might even make it faster).
Also, once the Ottawa St is extended to Fountain you can extend the 205 across the river to the airport and either loop down Fountain to Fairway or up to Victoria. Build the new bridge to accommodate LRT and maybe in time a phase of Ion could run across Ottawa to the airport.
At the moment though, it is more efficient to get yourself to the airport (taxi, carpool, ride-share, bike, drive). Maybe WROUTE will start offering to take people from Fairway Station to YKF as part of their service.
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.