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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:47 am 
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I’m shocked that anyone would find this so shocking. Busses are expensive, and burn tons of fuel. They don’t make sense unless you have the density for them, which Milton doesn’t.

Malboeuf is on the right track. I’ve said it before, and I wasn’t kidding - It would make more sense to just give people cab fair then run a transit system in Milton.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:25 am 
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Just look at all the empty buses driving around town and this should come as no surprise.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:44 am 
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fillerguy wrote:
But no-one mentions how long it will take for the bus system to earn enough profit to cover all the loses it created before being profitable.


When will our roads start to be profitable?

Frankly, our revenue-generation for our roads is pathetic. As far as I can tell, the users are simply not paying their fair share at all.

I feel the same about the parks. How are we breaking even on the parks? I see maintenance people there all the time, are they volunteers? Even if we put up electric-shock gates that need a credit-card to be disabled, it will take years before we start to make enough of a profit on the parks to cover all the losses we have incurred up to this point.

The yahoos in municipal council need to be kicked out so we can bring in some people with enough common sense to charge for everything.

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:53 am 
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As much as I’d love to see counsel shut down transit – or perhaps operate a few worthy routes, you have to cut them some slack. Nobody got elected on a platform of turning the place upside down. I’m not even sure if they are allowed to cut transit. It could be provincially mandated. I have no idea.

Look at the uproar from a handful of crybabies over the Bruce St Library. There’s at best a few hundred people in town who really give a crap if it stays open or not, but those people are the only ones writing the Champion and creating petitions. It looks like the whole town is on their side, when it isn’t.

Could you imagine the uproar if the town shut down transit? They’d have every senior in town telling their story about how they depend on transit to get groceries, and everyone would forget about the costs. All they would see is a picture in the Champion of some poor widow, dragging 15 bags of groceries down Main Street in her bare feet.

Don’t get me wrong, I really wish Counsel would do some things that really shake things up and set the trends, but realistically I think all they can do is minimize the burden of these ‘essential’ services, rather than taking a torch to them.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 9:55 am 
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Milton transit has done a poor job of promoting itself in my opinion.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 10:02 am 
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I think if they realistically can break even in 2-4 years that is fantastic news. I would focus on how to get there in that time frame (which I think is acceptable). I only need to see that the bleeding is temporary, not that they will re-coup the losses. Its a service and these things are rarely profitable (the arts centre will not be, neither is the library). I would be very surprised if much of the town services were profitable (sports centre, leisure centre).

If we can get them to the point where they are close or actually self sustainable, I think we've achieved a great deal.

I'm pretty sure GO & TTC aren't profitable -- lets get rid of them. And hospitals.. we'll just go elsewhere.. MDH is costing a bundle.

fillerguy wrote:
I also noticed that the defenders of the bus system say that it *should* start to break even in 2-4 years. But no-one mentions how long it will take for the bus system to earn enough profit to cover all the loses it created before being profitable.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:23 am 
That's a perfect example of no long term vision

Transit is key as milton grows, and its a whole lot more cost effective for it to start small, and improve over time, learn from mistakes and have something that works well by the time it is essential. Than try to rush something through when we all of sudden wake up 5-10 years from now and say holy smokes we need a transit system.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:27 am 
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I think the subsidy will go down dramatically if more people used it. So really its not how much we're subsidizing it, but more why people are so reliant on their car to move across town going to malls or grocery stores. Lets face it, its a behavioral problem that miltonians have (me included) to take their car everywhere and not take public transit and save the environment.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:32 am 
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They haven't planned for much in this town...why start now..?


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:43 am 
For me two things need to happen to help empower me (ive been trying but its enough out of sync with me schedule that it doubles my commute)

First:
For the go on the way home, I need a bus ready within 5m of me getting of the train. Waiting 15-20m is enough to prevent me from taking milton transit home.

Second:
Find a way to avoid me always having to carry odd change for the transfer from go to milton transit (preferably no change at all), there is a monthly "transfer" card but I only transfer on the way home so its costs me twice as much as it should to avoid carrying change if I want convenience.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:48 am 
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Location: Fifth Line (at Derry)
Devious wrote:
I think if they realistically can break even in 2-4 years that is fantastic news.


Devious

If they do they will be one of the very few transit authorities in North America who do! So please don't expect it. I know I have preached cost reduction in recent months but on this one I agree wholeheartedly with those posters who realise that Transit has to be part of our long term plan.

I spent 15 years dealing with transit authorities throughout the US and the most effective authorities were those who managed transit and their road network as a complete system. With regards to Transit Milton needs to look at itself as a Town with 200K residents, with a vibrant industrial/commercial sector and an education village.

I do agree that we should continually be looking at the most cost effective ways of delivering Town services but that doesn't have to and shouldn't mean a slash and burn approach.

Martin

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:50 am 
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Location: Milton
In many countries around the world, the public transportation - buses - is being subsidized by the government.

Public transportation is not for profit, it's for helping your people move around, fast. efficiently , for helping the air, less cars on the road.

Canada just don't see it, don't understand the concept. sad.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:54 am 
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I'm not a fan of using public transit anymore, especially after commuting downtown for a year, but I can see that it is a valuable resource for some to have.

Steve & Kelly wrote:
One other small tidbit to consider, what about the congestion that our roads will face as Milton continues to grow? According to Malbeouf, that does not matter, lets just cut transit. If he wants to cut transit, how does he plan to alleviate congestion on our roads? If you do not think that is going to happen in Milton, look at any other suburb (like Mississauga for example) and tell me what you think?


Having said that I think this point could be argued by saying that since there is (currently) such a small ridership and that the buses are often carrying few riders there wouldn't be a great increase in congestion.

I think money could be saved on transit by reducing or changing the operating hours, or by reducing the level of service on a couple of the routes that do not currently have a high volume of ridership.


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:55 am 
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I for one wouldn't use it.
I am not going to schedule my life around a transit schedule no matter how much money I save. My time is money.
I can't justify waiting around for 3 hours to catch a bus from the closest stop near my house, then travel all the way around some ridiculous route just to get me to the mall, I'll take my car and I'm there in 10 mins max.

Of course that's just my opinion....


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:07 pm 
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Everyone is talking about the ‘long term vision’, and building the transit infrastructure for the future by investing now. How much planning and time does it take to buy a couple of busses? Seriously. This is Milton, we’re not building subways. Even in 10 years when (if) we have the density to justify a transit system, we could easily go out and buy some busses and throw them on the road. Pissing away money today because in 10 years we may break even is a poor use of money.

Milton is a car town. It has to be, because it isn’t dense enough to justify anything else. I feel for people who depend on transit, but that doesn’t justify paying $10 a ride so they can get around. Walk, bike, buy a car, or move to Toronto where transit makes sense. You can move back when we hit 200K people.


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