{"id":16267,"date":"2017-01-12T12:56:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T17:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16267"},"modified":"2017-01-12T12:56:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T17:56:29","slug":"politics-as-usual-weekend-service-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-weekend-service-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: Weekend Service Improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

As my regular readers know, I generally get around Town and the Region in one of three ways: by foot, by bike, or by transit, or a combination of all three. To me, it does not make sense to take your car everywhere. You can\u2019t do anything when driving a car (let me take that back. You should not be doing anything but driving when driving your car). But, I can work on the train or bus.
\nI can answer emails.
\nI can read a book.
\nIn short, I prefer to use transit to get to where I am going because it is usually the most economic and efficient way of getting around. And I also get to pat myself on the back – with a healthy amount of smug self-righteousness for \u201cdoing my part\u201d for the environment.
\nClearly, any improvement to our transit system, bike lanes and\/or pedestrian pathways would be enthusiastically welcomed by me. So, it was with great delight that I learned of the recently implemented \u201cimprovements\u201d to the Barrie GO line; specifically, the addition of train service on weekends. And it wasn\u2019t the piddley weekend service we have been treated to the past two summers \u2013 just a few trains each way for a mere three months or so \u2013 it was touted to be all-day service. Trains from 9-ish in the morning until 7ish in the evening. Considerably greater train service than was offered in the summer trial period.
\nLet me say that yes, a train is better than the bus. It is more comfortable; it has more seats available; it is often quicker than the bus and it is generally just a more pleasant experience. On that basis alone, the addition of \u201call day\u201d weekend service is indeed an improvement.
\nBut my beef is about whether or not this is, in fact, an improvement in service. If you are looking at quality of service, then yes, this is most definitely an improvement. If you are looking at the volume of folks that can now get downtown, then yes, it is an improvement.
\nBut, if you are looking at frequency of service, then the weekend train service is most definitely not an improvement.
\nI hate to whine about what is otherwise a truly great transit improvement, but I dislike disingenuousness of any kind. And the fact that the announcement glossed over the fact that the price of train service is a reduced number of trips and reduced access (you can\u2019t get GO service on Yonge Street anymore as there are no buses servicing the route) irks me.
\nBus service was every hour.
\nTrain service is every hour and 15 minutes.
\nCumulatively, this amounts to a reduction of two full trips each way. I found that out the hard way this past weekend when I missed a train and the options to get back home were a bit more limited than I expected.
\nYou might say, \u201cBig deal. So we have two less trips each way. It\u2019s worth it to have train service as opposed to just buses.\u201d Fair enough. It is certainly a fantastic service improvement for folks in Barrie, Bradford, East Gwillimbury and Newmarket.
\nBut, to someone like me, who uses the GO every weekend and is used to being able to get back and forth every hour, the reduction in options is, well, annoying.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas As my regular readers know, I generally get around Town and the Region in one of three ways: by foot, by bike, or by transit, or a combination of all three. To me, it does not make sense to take your car everywhere. You can\u2019t do anything when driving a car (let […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4en","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-03 12:49:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}