[LINK] "GO expands its empire as coach operators retreat"

[rfmcdonald]

Sean Marshall's Spacing Toronto post seems as good a place as any to leave off the blogging for tonight. A Greater Toronto Area--a much greater Toronto area--is being knit together by public transit in spite of the disinterest of private businesses.

Yesterday, Tuesday, October 20 2009, the last Coach Canada bus departed the Guelph bus terminal for its run down Highway 6 to Waterdown, McMaster University, and Downtown Hamilton. The service, which Coach Canada claimed was a money loser, was reduced in August from four or five trips a day to one round trip a week.

On October 31, GO Transit will begin a new daily bus service between Square One in Mississauga and the University of Waterloo, making stops at Wilfred Laurier University, Downtown Kitchener, Highway 24 in Cambridge, and Milton (with two weekday round trips connecting to GO trains there).

These two pieces of news are more related than one may think.

This is the third time this year GO Transit has expanded its bus service well outside its traditional territory of Greater Toronto and Hamilton. In September, GO launched two new bus services connecting to the Lakeshore GO train; a route from Oshawa GO to Downtown Peterborough and Trent University, and from Burlington GO Station to Grimsby, St. Catharines and Niagara Falls. In addition, it has grand plans to extend GO train service to the VIA Station in Kitchener. One might be inclined to see these moves as empire-building.

GO Transit has provided service outside its area for many years, with some routes transferred from the TTC-owned Grey Coach Lines. These include: a local bus from Toronto through Brampton to Guelph; a bus extension from the Bradford GO Station (itself in Simcoe County) to Barrie; and a weekday bus connection to Orangeville via Brampton GO Station.

With this, we are seeing GO Transit transform even more from a commuter system to a regional transit provider.

There's more at the blog, of course.