GO Transit

[nms]

I'll be blunt, and this is an unpopular opinion. I think new large park and ride facilities on greenfield space is a bad idea.

And I realize that I'm not going to convince anyone here, nor am I even going to be seen at anyone at GO/Metrolinx so this is a conversation for conversations sake, but the fact is, building a large park and ride facility is an investment that benefits a relatively small number of people (say 500-1000, who could possibly would use even a very large parking lot), at the cost of long term maintenance of the status quo--a transit station that will remain permanently and completely inaccessible by all the development that absolutely will happen around it. It is another missed opportunity to change the strategy of development in the province, and a significant loss of housing opportunity in a province with a desperate shortage of housing.

But I fully expect that a P&R facility will be built somewhere around the same time the 7 expressway is also completed, because nothing is changing in the province.

How do other jurisdictions (ie overseas) handle delivering commuters to their regional rail stations without parking garages?  Would Waterloo Region ever be able to increase its transit network to enough capacity to allow regular connections to GO services? In a Region where a car can get a person virtually anywhere is less than 20 minutes, a walk+transit ride would need to be less than 45 minutes to appear competitive.

I would love to see fewer parking garages, but especially for terminals at the end of the line, I don't see how GO can avoid them.  For passengers arriving from points north and west of Kitchener the only way might be to increase GO bus service to places like Stratford, New Hamburg or Elmira.  Extending secondary rail service beyond existing terminals with trains that don't all need to end their inbound trips at Union Station would also be a good route to go, but I don't see that happening soon.