In Boston, the biggest thing they did to get people to take the subway to events is to run more trains.
Red Sox games are still a disaster where there are never enough trains, the station won’t let enough people in, the sidewalks are too narrow. It almost makes you try driving
Biggest issue for me is the commuter rail leaves South Station no later than like 11:30, so leaving an event that ends late is impossible or very close to impossible. I don’t mind getting home after midnight but if I have to take the subway to South Station first I have to leave early. That’s why I dont bother going to concerts at TD Garden if they’ll run that late. I will not drive into Boston unless I absolutely have to (Microcenter is an exception).
For Valentine’s day we did an event at the Museum of Science for an adults only night, but it ended well within that window so it was fine. That was the latest we took the commuter rail.
Frequency is the metric most related to people actually using public transit.
I don’t care if it goes half the speed. I’m not going to take a bus to the grocery store if just the wait is over three times the drive.
Maybe if they actually added some service at the appropriate times it would help? Especially when the concert ends.
And for sports events, IME a lot of the people coming in are from the suburbs. Firstly, a lot of the trains stop before the event is even over. Secondly, when there are still trains they’re incredibly infrequent and massively over-crowded.
Changing prices isn’t going to fix this. It’s a capacity problem spread over multiple regions and transport authorities
In my experience, the LW trains typically aren’t very loaded during events. They are typically packed during rush hour commute. That said, of course we should increase service if there’s capacity needed, or service window covered.
How late do sporting events run? I don’t attend sporting events. But from checking TTC’s subway schedules, the last train is after 1:00. Is that not late enough?
The problem is that a lot of the people that attend sporting events come from the 905 areas outside of TTC service. There are commuter trains to those areas, but they taper off as the limits of “working late” are hit.
Where I live, a baseball game should end technically early enough, but
- there’s never enough trains and it can take a long time to even get into the station, much less on the train
- the last train pulls into the last station at 1am, which means it passed your station earlier
- you need all the infrastructure to stay open long enough to get home
I actually have tickets for an upcoming 7pm game. I expect it to be done by around 11pm, but there’s no commuter train that late. The ballpark is on a tram line which doesn’t go anywhere I need to go, so I need too get to that transfer before it shuts down. In the ideal case it may take 45 minutes to get from the ballpark to a park and ride, but given the amount of time to get on a train, the shut down is uncomfortably close
It’s been a long time since I cared about sports, but I remember when I used to watch them that a lot of games on the East coast (and Toronto counts, being in EST) would start relatively late so that they could be televized during prime time on the West coast. I could easily imagine a baseball game ending after 1AM if it went into extra innings or something.
Two replies:
Sporting events can often run until 10pm or later - If I use the trains, I usually am heading to Oakville. If I am lucky, there may be three trains within 90 minutes of the game ending (all hideously crowded), and are often full of drunken ass-hats you know are driving when they get off… But Richmond Hill? Vaughan? Hamilton? Further afield? Your train-line usually stops after the commuter rush, which explains why the highways are so awful
And as for TTC stopping at 0100, Bah - Most pubs and clubs are open later than that. While I don’t personally frequent them myself, I am reminded of growing up in the UK when you could generally still catch a bus or train after 0300 because many services ran all night. It also would also massively help those who work late shifts.
Toronto may have more subway stops than many American cities, but from a “serve the needs of the people” perspective, its transport system alone makes it a complete shit-hole to live in.
I noticed that the Milton Go line occasionally gets late night trains on event nights. (Usually it’s rush-hour only, and only in one direction at any given time of day)
In San Francisco, a ticket for any event at the big arena (Chase Center — home of the Warriors) gives you free Muni transportation: https://www.sfmta.com/fares/your-chase-center-event-ticket-your-muni-fare
It’s a start.
How long until Doug Ford tries to dismantle this and somehow makes it about alcohol?
Public transportation should be free for all
That’s a phenomenal idea, and one that many other cities have used to make their venues usable for big events.
We used to ride the MAX train into events in Portland. Trying to drive to a huge stadium and park is just a huge mess for everyone involved, including the surrounding city that’s impacted by it.
TriMet would run extra trains at the start & end of the event. Back then the stadium was also in the Fareless Square area so you didn’t even have to pay. Yes, the trains were packed, but that’s a good thing. Over time they would run more and more trains, and now the area has trams as well. Downtown event arenas are 100% doable with modern public transit.
i visited toronto ~2 years ago, and convinced the travel party we should take public transit for a day. most of it was great until we realized that red line commuter rail (seen in the photo) had no notice of some of its rails being under construction.
i planned everything out perfectly, but had to walk an hour back to our airbnb because that stretch if the line was out :(
other than that, we were able to visit the greek district, the cool/famous street(s) with all the shops (i forget what it was called), the stadium area, & the brewery district - all from that red line (and a subway to get there). i really enjoyed it : D
