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1 hour ago, dre said:

hello transit fans far and wide i was wondering what a system would look if the TTC and all the other transit systems around toronto became one ?

Can this be done

That has been the goal of Metrolinx from 2006 onward. The micro management would be left up to the current systems owners, but Metrolinx would buy the equipment like YRT/GO Transit and small systems; have routes bid on like London UK & YRT; one colour and uniform for the whole system Like GO Transit/YRT. Routes could start in one Region/City and end in another. It was also Union busting.

The Government of Ontario has the power to do it if they want to.

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Become one as in a single system with the same fare structure and routes overlapping municipal boundaries or just a common brand with the exact same organization and fare structure? 

Further merges of suburban systems would lead to a huge funding issue. Yes it can be done if someone is willing to pay for it but it's a hard sell right now.

If they were just to repaint all the buses and keep all the fare structure the exact same, sure that can be easily done.

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16 hours ago, Xtrazsteve said:

Become one as in a single system with the same fare structure and routes overlapping municipal boundaries or just a common brand with the exact same organization and fare structure? 

Further merges of suburban systems would lead to a huge funding issue. Yes it can be done if someone is willing to pay for it but it's a hard sell right now.

If they were just to repaint all the buses and keep all the fare structure the exact same, sure that can be easily done.

Well the buses may need different paint since you need to know what region the bus is from or going to.  But the fare structure and route management would be centralized. 

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47 minutes ago, Shaun said:

Well the buses may need different paint since you need to know what region the bus is from or going to.  But the fare structure and route management would be centralized. 

Not necessarily. A good example is NYC or a state/provincial agency such as NJ transit and BC transit

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2 hours ago, anyfong said:

Well, look towards metro Vancouver as a role model as to see how a unified system covering the whole metro area looks like. If they can do it, there's no reason that the GTA can't do the same.

Metro Vancouver is much smaller than GTA.

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If there was one big system here could be possible ideas for fare zones


Zone 1: City of Toronto and Pearson Airport

Zone 2: Mississauga (East of Mavis Road), Vaughan,Richmond Hill, Markham (South of Teston/Elgin Mills Road.),Pickering (South of Concession 7),Brampton(South of Bovaird)

Zone 3: Mississauga(West of Mavis),Vaughan,Richmond Hill, Markham(North of Teston/Elgin Mills Road)Pickering(North of Concession 7)York Region South of Davis Drive. Oakville,Brampton(North of Bovaird),Ajax

Zone 4: Whitby(South of Highway 7/Winchester Road east of Highway 12) Georgetown,Milton York Region (Davis Drive to Queensville Side Road), Acton. Burlington(West of Guelph Line), Pickering (North of Concession 7), Stouffville

Zone 5: Whitby(North of Highway 7) Oshawa, Halton Hills,Rockwood, Butlington(East of Guelph Line),Bomanville, Uxbridge,Port Perry, York Region (North of Queensville Side Road),

Zone 6: Guelph, Rest of Durham Region, Rest of Halton Region, Barrie

Zone 7: Kitchener. Stoney Creek, Hamilton, Acton

Special Fares apply: Peterborough, South of Stoney Creek to Niagara Falls.

Tell me if I’m missing any areas or we should split the current areas into more zones

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On 4/9/2020 at 1:46 PM, John Oke said:

If there was one big system here could be possible ideas for fare zones


Zone 1: City of Toronto and Pearson Airport

Zone 2: Mississauga (East of Mavis Road), Vaughan,Richmond Hill, Markham (South of Teston/Elgin Mills Road.),Pickering (South of Concession 7),Brampton(South of Bovaird)

Zone 3: Mississauga(West of Mavis),Vaughan,Richmond Hill, Markham(North of Teston/Elgin Mills Road)Pickering(North of Concession 7)York Region South of Davis Drive. Oakville,Brampton(North of Bovaird),Ajax

Zone 4: Whitby(South of Highway 7/Winchester Road east of Highway 12) Georgetown,Milton York Region (Davis Drive to Queensville Side Road), Acton. Burlington(West of Guelph Line), Pickering (North of Concession 7), Stouffville

Zone 5: Whitby(North of Highway 7) Oshawa, Halton Hills,Rockwood, Butlington(East of Guelph Line),Bomanville, Uxbridge,Port Perry, York Region (North of Queensville Side Road),

Zone 6: Guelph, Rest of Durham Region, Rest of Halton Region, Barrie

Zone 7: Kitchener. Stoney Creek, Hamilton, Acton

Special Fares apply: Peterborough, South of Stoney Creek to Niagara Falls.

Tell me if I’m missing any areas or we should split the current areas into more zones

Splitting municipalities into multiple zones seems unfair unless you have transition zones similar to what YRT did with Zones 1 and 2 before they got rid of them or what TfL does with some of the more heavily crossed zone boundaries.  It would penalize people travelling within those municipalities who would now face a higher fare.  The flat time-based seems to work for the most part, how far can one go on local transit within 2 hours?  Aside from crossing the Toronto boundary, most 2-hour trips would fall within one zone.  Faster GO Transit service which is by distance (or technically a finer-grain zone) seems to be an appropriate trade-off in terms of fares.

This thread does already exist in the GTA Transit Section, it's just been buried as it hasn't come up in 5 years: 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Gil said:

Splitting municipalities into multiple zones seems unfair unless you have transition zones similar to what YRT did with Zones 1 and 2 before they got rid of them or what TfL does with some of the more heavily crossed zone boundaries.  It would penalize people travelling within those municipalities who would now face a higher fare.  The flat time-based seems to work for the most part, how far can one go on local transit within 2 hours?  Aside from crossing the Toronto boundary, most 2-hour trips would fall within one zone.  Faster GO Transit service which is by distance (or technically a finer-grain zone) seems to be an appropriate trade-off in terms of fares.

This thread does already exist in the GTA Transit Section, it's just been buried as it hasn't come up in 5 years: 

 

 

Agree doing zone by Municipality is not the way to go as some are just too large.

Time base is one option and was looked at back in 2008 by the Ministry of MTO as a 2.5-3 hour window. Down side to this, is how far off track a rider may have to go to get to X as there maybe no direct route to it.

Doing a radius is another option used mostly in Europe from a central location.

If the thread for this existed, then this one should be move there.

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I suggest they could divide the cities into microzones and charge fares according to multiple zones.

Let's say a zone would be mostly Northern Etobicoke bounded by 427/Steeles/Jane/Eglinton. A trip from Humber College to downtown would be 3-4 zones. If one stays within a zone, fare would reduced to $2.25 while travel between 2 to 3 zones would be around $3.25 (current fare). Further travels would result in a higher fare so Etobicoke to East Scabrorough would cost $4.25. This would address the issue with Rexdale to Malton trips resulting in 2 zones and would cost around current fare into of double fare. The size of the zones could be tweaked.

The problem with time based fare is a rapid transit is superior to buses in terms of travel speeds. One would get a lot further in a hour if they lived beside the subway and definitely a lot further on GO train. I don't think it makes sense to use time based fares for a GTA system. Time based fare is also unfair to those utilizing bus routes experiencing congestion all the time. Something like the TTC deciding to keep adding time to the schedule for reliability makes it worst.

 

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4 hours ago, Xtrazsteve said:

I suggest they could divide the cities into microzones and charge fares according to multiple zones.

Let's say a zone would be mostly Northern Etobicoke bounded by 427/Steeles/Jane/Eglinton. A trip from Humber College to downtown would be 3-4 zones. If one stays within a zone, fare would reduced to $2.25 while travel between 2 to 3 zones would be around $3.25 (current fare). Further travels would result in a higher fare so Etobicoke to East Scabrorough would cost $4.25. This would address the issue with Rexdale to Malton trips resulting in 2 zones and would cost around current fare into of double fare. The size of the zones could be tweaked.

The problem with time based fare is a rapid transit is superior to buses in terms of travel speeds. One would get a lot further in a hour if they lived beside the subway and definitely a lot further on GO train. I don't think it makes sense to use time based fares for a GTA system. Time based fare is also unfair to those utilizing bus routes experiencing congestion all the time. Something like the TTC deciding to keep adding time to the schedule for reliability makes it worst.

 

What so strange about Toronto that it can't be like London and Paris that are larger than Toronto that offer the same thing????? We rode Paris buses, RER, subway and LRT all on the same zone fare structure. Even London offer Rail, Bus and Subway by zone and LRT in one zone only. London had 7 zones on our fare card and only use 6 zones for our travels.

What about Stockholm and Copenhagen that have zone and RT??

I guess you haven't rode systems outside NA.

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On 4/11/2020 at 4:04 AM, Xtrazsteve said:

I suggest they could divide the cities into microzones and charge fares according to multiple zones.

Let's say a zone would be mostly Northern Etobicoke bounded by 427/Steeles/Jane/Eglinton. A trip from Humber College to downtown would be 3-4 zones. If one stays within a zone, fare would reduced to $2.25 while travel between 2 to 3 zones would be around $3.25 (current fare). Further travels would result in a higher fare so Etobicoke to East Scabrorough would cost $4.25. This would address the issue with Rexdale to Malton trips resulting in 2 zones and would cost around current fare into of double fare. The size of the zones could be tweaked.

The problem with time based fare is a rapid transit is superior to buses in terms of travel speeds. One would get a lot further in a hour if they lived beside the subway and definitely a lot further on GO train. I don't think it makes sense to use time based fares for a GTA system. Time based fare is also unfair to those utilizing bus routes experiencing congestion all the time. Something like the TTC deciding to keep adding time to the schedule for reliability makes it worst.

 

Microzones don't make much sense, at least if you're close to the boundary of one, and usually go just across into the next boundary. The more boundaries there are, the more people that will be crossing them for even short trips.

Also, dropping fares for short trips means you will be down on revenue, because the truly long distance riders, that are now paying a lot more, probably won't make up for the lower short-distance fares.

Add to that that the places where people might take short hops are typically already too busy, such as streetcar routes. So it's not like you want to encourage more people to take rides on the King car while also paying less.

Add to that, the fact that those poor sods who make the Etobicoke to East Scarborough ride are not people out for a pleasant joyride, they're people who have to do this, most likely because they're in a minimum-paying job. Soaking them more is not a sensible policy. (For two semesters, I took TTC from Long Branch to Seneca Newnham at Finch/404. It was under two hours in the morning--left at 6:03 because classes started at 8 AM--while getting home was usually 2.5 hours. I took the TTC because I could get a discount Metropass and could not afford to drive, either gas or parking.)

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