6:43 am. A Christmas miracle indeed!
So what's different about this Monday compared to other Mondays? Is it Daylight Savings Time? All those folks that allegedly pay cash fares the eight stops before mine, and according to GO Transit, are the reason why my bus can't keep a paddle, must have all slept in!
Only us PRESTO card folks were on the ball this morning, I guess.
Here's the follow-up email to my letter from Friday.
As it stands, changes are coming in April. I've been blogging about the inconsistency about this route since October.
| rom: | GO Transit Customer Relations customerrelations@gotransit.com | ||
| to: | Cindy Smith | ||
| cc: | Greg Percy Paula Edwards | ||
| date: | Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 5:45 PM | ||
| subject: | GO Transit, A Division of Metrolinx EM0018001185 |
Dear Ms. Smith,
Thank you again for your recent emails. I appreciate your patience while I’ve looked into this issue.
We have examined the operating times of this trip from February 9th to today. Other than yesterday, this trip has experienced 4 significant delays during that time (on February 10th, 12th, 18th and 19th). Every other day, it has operated within 5 minutes of its scheduled arrival time. Unfortunately, traffic conditions and weather can all contribute to these minor delays.
We have taken a closer look at these overall delays and it seems that from Monday to Thursday, there is a higher number of passengers that pay with cash and need to have tickets printed. While I cannot guarantee that this is the cause of all the daily delays, this can have an impact on the arrival time of a bus.
I recognize that you probably give yourself enough time to catch this bus at its intended arrival time and I realize that being forced to wait an additional 3-5 minutes for a delayed bus can be unpleasant, especially with the cold weather we’ve been having. I am sorry for this inconvenience.
We have recently completed a review of the Route 90 bus services and we will be making some adjustments to the scheduled arrival times in order to better reflect the actual operating times of this trip. Information regarding this schedule change will be posted on our website closer to the date of the schedule change, April 11th.
Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.
16 comments:
Were there students on the bus this morning? It's Spring Break I believe for UOIT.
Ohhh, sorry - you're wrong!
UOIT had their break back in February.
Please don't belittle me. I'm not stupid.
Why is it that everyone wants to make excuses for this route.
Holy moses - get it together!
I'm not making excuses. I just know this week is Spring Break for some schools. I was just trying to help out.
I appreciate it. But making excuses isn't helping. I'm sorry if I opened my mouth and flames shot out but I no longer have humour left in me about this issue.
Let's start over.
Thank you for suggesting the paddle was met this morning because of lighter passenger activity. I have to politely disagree.
It's a similar reason why I stopped taking Durham Transit to the Whitby GO Station. The bus was never on time. I took it for three years and it only arrived less than 5 minutes late once. Most of the time it was 10 minutes late or wouldn't even show up. I know it's only 70 cents but my time is worth more.
My train on the LSW was really empty compared to a normal Monday. I wonder if March Break is this week in my area?
I actually had a choice of seats this morning rather than doing the empty seat sprint. Four more days of actually sitting on a train.
Out on the LSE trains it looked and felt like a regular, normal Monday, George!
I think it is definitely Spring Break so that would explain it. Glad this problem is now solved.
Dear Bus Operator Troll
Please quantify. Thank you.
All of the high schools along this route are not on Spring Break. Durham College's Spring Break is next week.
Spring Break is also next week for all elementary school kids along this route.
Some private schools started this week. Private school kids don't ride the GO bus. I've never seen a kid younger than 17 on the bus in the morning.
Parents would not take Spring Break at a different time than their kids and as far as I know, no company here in downtown TO gives Spring Break to its staff.
And I highly doubt that hundreds of students took this week off instead of next week. The bus crowd on my bus was the same group of people. Hate to break your trolling heart in two.
My train (5:53 am LSE from Whitby) was busier than normal today. Three in my quad this morning, when it's usually one or two.
Have to wonder if people took the earlier train in case there were issues with the later ones.
Barrie train was PACKED.
I also ride the 90A departing at Simcoe Street in Oshawa every morning and boarding at the car pool lot. The bus is supposed to arrive at 6:56 am at Simcoe. LOL. On a good day maybe.The latest I ever showed up was 7:04 am and I've missed the pulse I don't know how many times. Was never a problem in the summer. If it helps, the last two drivers we had were slow to leave the carpool. Slow to drive along 2. It is pretty dark along the stretch until we hit Courtice. But the bus has headlights. Not sure if this is helpful
Ron
Do you mean "arriving" at Simcoe? There is a bus that runs in the other direction but it sounds like you're on my bus.
Ya sorry, arriving at Simcoe for 6:56. This morning we got there around 6:59.
If the problem is too many passengers buying tickets on the bus, and I know from my niece and nephew at university, that this is a problem, especially on Fridays, have a cash fare surcharge, say $5.00.
Then they would learn where to buy tickets or get one of those wonderful Presto cards.
GO would also need to start selling tickets outside of the bus at convenient locations and we would not want to make service more convenient would we? That might increase ridership!
A cash surcharge only works if there some means of buying tickets at *every* bus stop served by GO (about 1500).
Also: if a route tends to attract lots of cash-paying riders, then the run-time should be adjusted accordingly.
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