GO Transit Article

GO Transit Honors 40 Millionth Rider

GO Transit celebrated transporting 40 million passengers in a single year in a ceremony Dec 13 at Toronto's Union Station when rider Judith Brissett was recognized as the system's symbolic 40 millionth passenger and presented with a pass for one year of free transit as well as a gift basket. The Toronto area transit system said this is the first it has carried so many passengers in one year.

GO estimated its total bus and rail ridership for 2000 at 40.8 million, 6.3 percent more than the previous years 384 million.

Article by Richard C Ducharme then Managing Director of GO Transit Excerpt from the Railway Gazette International September 1999

A HOT TOPIC for discussion at this year's UITP World Congress is the question of regionalisation - moving control and financing of local public transport closer to the end users. So it is highly appropriate that the host city should be facing a similar transition. This summer sees the culmination of a two-year process to transfer control and funding of GO Transit from Ontario's provincial government to a locally-elected Greater Toronto Services Board. I am delighted to welcome UITP delegates to Toronto, and I look forward to a lively debate.

Created at the 1960s as a three-year experiment, GO Transit has become one of the foremost regional transport operators in the world today. Starting out as just a single rail line along the shore of Lake Ontario, GO was launched by the province in May 1967 to attract car commuters off the roads in the Toronto area and reduce the need for the costly construction or expansion of express highways. The new service immediately exceeded all expectations. Before long, ridership forecasts were thrown out as passengers flocked to the trains. It took only six months to surpass the regular weekday ridership that had originally been projected after two years.

The first GO Train route has since expanded into an integrated train and bus network serving a population of 4.9 million in an area that covers more than 8,000 sq. kilometers. Our routes reach towns up to 100 km from central Toronto. GO Trains operate on seven routes, and GO Bus, which started in September 1970, serves nine corridors. We now run 140 trains and 1,200 bus trips on a typical weekday, carrying 133,00O passengers in total. Whereas Lakeshore GO Trains carried 2 ½ million passengers in the first year, today the combined network handles 36 million riders a year And this figure is rising by 4 to 6% annually.

As Canada's first regional transport system created and funded by a provincial government, GO Transit was until recently financed entirely by Ontario. The province met all of our capital costs, and subsidized the proportion of the operating costs that were not recovered from revenue. In January 1997 the province announced it would hand over funding responsibility for GO Transit to the Greater Toronto Area municipalities (the City of Toronto, the Regions of Halton, Peal, York, and Durham, plus the neighboring Region of Hamilton-Wentworth). In exchange, the province would assume some other expenditure from the municipal governments.

The transition has been gradual. On January 1, 1998 the GTA municipalities began to fund GO Transit, cost-sharing all of our operating and capital subsidy under a formula devised by the province. Our 1999 funding requirement, for both capital investment and operating subsidy, is C$106.4m, the same as in 1998.

A year later, on January 1 1999, the Greater Toronto Services Board came into being. This is a new municipal agency created by the province to co-ordinate the GTA municipalities' overall planning and decision-making. Initially GTSB will only be responsible for operating GO sewers, could also fall under its mandate. The new board will also have the power to amend the GO cost-sharing formula that has been established by the province.

GTSB is composed of elected politicians from the GTA municipalities, including regional Chairs, Mayors, and Councilors. The services board has held its inaugural meeting and elected a chairman, and once it is fully operational, GO Transit will transfer to the municipal sector. This is expected to take place this summer, completing the transition process that began in January 1998. This most fundamental shift since our creation in 1967 means GO will no longer be an Ontario crown agency, ending over 30 years of direct affiliation with the provincial government.

Despite the long transition and the uncertainty that inevitably comes with change, it has been business as usual for GO Transit during the past two years. The funding and governance changes have all been transparent, taking place behind the scenes and causing no impact on our customers. We have unwaveringly kept our eye on the way ahead, managing the business soundly and meeting high expectations of our costumers.

Working within our existing resources, we have continued to address ridership growth. We have also tried to seize every opportunity to improve service our passengers. We have nearly tripled the number of rush-hour express trains, converting some local trains as well as adding new express trains. We put on a second train on the Bradford line, one of our rush-hour-only routes. We have also aggressively expanded our 'train-bus' service' which is oar fastest-growing market segment. These are bus routes taking Toronto's Union Station with other stations at those times when the trains do not run. Because our operation is oriented to rush-hour commuters, buses and drivers are available to provide off-peak services for comparatively little additional cost. Several new bus routes have been added to fill in some gaps in the outer reaches of the GO service area.

All this was done with an eye on the bottom line, allowing us to turn in consistently one of the best cost recovery rates of any North American public transport network. The 1957-98 financial year was our most cost-effective ever; we recovered 77.8% of our operating costs from revenue; a ratio surpassed only by Toronto Transit Commission's metro, light rail and bus operations. The continuing growth in patronage is helping to improve our cost effectiveness too. In the current financial year we have broken through the 80% barrier several times in our monthly financial results.

This positive performance puts GO Transit in a solid position to address the many challenges which lie ahead. Not least of these is the road traffic gridlock which has been forecast fur the Greater Toronto Area. Our projection is that by 2021, ridership on our existing train services will be at least 90 % higher than 1991 levels, but without major expansion our existing network will simply not be able to accommodate a near-doubling of patronage. If the GTA is to cope with a situation of such magnitude, it is clear that the entire region's public transport infrastructure must be improved significantly.

The challenge for all levels of government is to work together to ensure that public transit is adequately funded. For the Greater Toronto Services Board, the challenge will be to take the lead and forge a vision which not only protects what has been invested in public transport over many decades but also continues to invest for the future. It must safeguard the quality of life in the region, with significant improvements in service for the traveling public.

GO Transit will not shy away from these challenges but will face them head on, as we have always done. With the support of our new funding partners in the GTA municipalities, we look to the future with confidence.

The above photo from "CANADIAN TRANSIT FORUM" February 2001

Article by Richard C Ducharme then Managing Director of GO Transit Excerpt from the Railway Gazette International September 1999