City Centre Transit Terminal

[SteelTown]

You will see more GO Trains to the GO Station with non stop service, increased rush hour service. Right now the current rush hour service isn't speculator timing.

GO Transit has 47,500 parking spots and it keeps growing. I have the guys plans but I'm trying to find a place that can hold pdf files and I can share it with everyone. He goes into very detailed information.

[FairHamilton]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

You will see more GO Trains to the GO Station with non stop service, increased rush hour service. Right now the current rush hour service isn't speculator timing.

Once the existing private lots are full, then I'll agree with the need for additional parking.

GO Transit has 47,500 parking spots and it keeps growing. I have the guys plans but I'm trying to find a place that can hold pdf files and I can share it with everyone. He goes into very detailed information.

But the vast majority are free parking spots, I'd hazard a guess that 95% are free.

At that number there would be 2,375 reserved spots priced at $58.95/month that means $1.68M in revenue each year. Maybe you were thinking they were making $2.0M/year, not $20M/year from parking

[SteelTown]

Converted the PDF to JPEG........

[markbarbera]

Attempting to use the downtown GO Centre as a transfer point for park and ride commuters would be a logistical nightmare. There simply isn't the existing road infrastructure to handle the amount of cars that would use a parking garage at this size. Even a parking garage of 3500 cars would cause serious traffic bottlenecks as commuters returned home in the afternoon. Imagine the idling going on while hundreds of cars wait to exit the garage, and imagine the congestion on James and John as they drive home! Inner city GO Stations should not be designed to accomodate park and drive commuters. It just does not make sense. Union Station has no parking provided by GO, and neither should the Hamilton GO.

Park and ride commuters should be using the Aldershot and (future) Stoney Creek GO Stations. The Hunter Street GO and (future) James North GO should be designed primarly for commuters transferrring to local public transit and other interurban transit systems.

[omro]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Attempting to use the downtown GO Centre as a transfer point for park and ride commuters would be a logistical nightmare. There simply isn't the existing road infrastructure to handle the amount of cars that would use a parking garage at this size. Even a parking garage of 3500 cars would cause serious traffic bottlenecks as commuters returned home in the afternoon. Imagine the idling going on while hundreds of cars wait to exit the garage, and imagine the congestion on James and John as they drive home! Inner city GO Stations should not be designed to accomodate park and drive commuters. It just does not make sense. Union Station has no parking provided by GO, and neither should the Hamilton GO.

Park and ride commuters should be using the Aldershot and (future) Stoney Creek GO Stations. The Hunter Street GO and (future) James North GO should be designed primarly for commuters transferrring to local public transit and other interurban transit systems.

Or perhaps park 'n' ride should be integrated into the LRT.

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by omro

Or perhaps park 'n' ride should be integrated into the LRT.

Exactly, but at their feeding points in the suburbs and exurbs. A well-designed central hub should have little or no need for car parks.

[Millstone]

Originally Posted by adam

I don't think anyone will take that drawing seriously. It looks like a grade school project. Also what does the phrase "NOT TO CHANGED" mean?

It means "not to be changed", is that better?

[adam]

Go to any urban centre and you'll find the majority of people either walk or take the bus to the train station. Given this, I assume the parking garage will be mostly for mountain residents? Mountain residents are already complaining about traffic, so increasing vehicular traffic with a giant parking garage makes no sense. Wouldn't it be more convenient for them to leave their vehicles on the mountain and take either a bus or LRT to the station? Toronto Union Station has far greater volume and has much less parking. Unless of course the only goal is to keep Hamilton as a bedroom city where everyone parks their car and goes to Toronto.

This kind of solution might work well in a suburban setting, but the station is in the middle of the urban setting. No offence to the author of the jpegs above, but 1982 was over a 1/4 century ago and needs have changed significantly since then. Downtown Hamilton is attracting new businesses and becoming a destination again, not simply a parking lot.

[emge]

Originally Posted by adam

Go to any urban centre and you'll find the majority of people either walk or take the bus to the train station. Given this, I assume the parking garage will be mostly for mountain residents? Mountain residents are already complaining about traffic, so increasing vehicular traffic with a giant parking garage makes no sense. Wouldn't it be more convenient for them to leave their vehicles on the mountain and take either a bus or LRT to the station? Toronto Union Station has far greater volume and has much less parking. Unless of course the only goal is to keep Hamilton as a bedroom city where everyone parks their car and goes to Toronto.

This kind of solution might work well in a suburban setting, but the station is in the middle of the urban setting. No offence to the author of the jpegs above, but 1982 was over a 1/4 century ago and needs have changed significantly since then. Downtown Hamilton is attracting new businesses and becoming a destination again, not simply a parking lot.

A park-n-ride could easily be situated along the (future) LRT line on the mountain, which would make the most sense for mountain commuters.

That said, a parking garage on one of the existing lots as has already been mentioned would be a good idea, but certainly not in the numbers this person was thinking in their plans.

[SteelTown]

Just a reminder tenders will be issued by March 2009 for the Downtown Transit Terminal.

[Jon Dalton]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

You will see more GO Trains to the GO Station with non stop service, increased rush hour service. Right now the current rush hour service isn't speculator timing.

I missed this. Are you referring to the TH&B station? One could only hope the new layover facility would result in more than one train.

[SteelTown]

If you noticed the City is requesting the feds spend $8 million for the new transit terminal. Therefore the feds could be paying the entire cost. If that's the case why not go ahead with expanding the terminal to the parking lot and have the city pay for it since they saved $8 million.

I believe the entire cost for the expanded terminal was $15 million, saving $8 million would be enough to go bigger.

[omro]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

If you noticed the City is requesting the feds spend $8 million for the new transit terminal. Therefore the feds could be paying the entire cost. If that's the case why not go ahead with expanding the terminal to the parking lot and have the city pay for it since they saved $8 million.

I believe the entire cost for the expanded terminal was $15 million, saving $8 million would be enough to go bigger.

Is there a hope that anyone would be sensible enough to think in those terms?

[SteelTown]

Simple answer.....no.

[omro]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Simple answer.....no.

Anyone have the ear of someone who would be receptive to such a piece of common sense?

[coalminecanary]

Originally Posted by adam

Go to any urban centre and you'll find the majority of people either walk or take the bus to the train station. Given this, I assume the parking garage will be mostly for mountain residents?

Put parking up the mountain and build a gondola/sky train/whatever you want to call it from the th&b to southam park (top of claremont) with a possible stop at st joes. max wait time could be like 2 minutes and probably a 5 minute ride.

[omro]

Putting more parking in or near the city centre is foolish as:

• Rather than reducing downtown traffic, it encourages more traffic to and from the car parks on already busy downtown roads, especially at rush hours.
• It discourages people from using public transit.
• It wastes valuable downtown land which could be used for much better buildings

I really think it's best to link park 'n' ride into the LRT/Rapid transit corridors.

[Jon Dalton]

James and John streets south of Main are already hostage to the demands of mountain residents and their councillors who expect free flowing traffic up and down the mountain at all times. It's unfortunate given the potential of these streets. If we add parking at the GO station traffic will worsen and we will hear more complaining about the fact that they're two way.

[adam]

As a recent letter in the Spec said about the north end, if people who visit the downtown don't have the common courtesy to slow down in traffic and enjoy their visit, then maybe they shouldn't visit at all... and it would be their loss too.

[SteelTown]

Permanent route changes effective June 28, 2009......

Routes 1-King, 2-Barton and 3-Cannon end-of-line be changed from the current MacNab Street Terminal to the Hunter GO Station.