> Strategy #3: Optimize the System | Metrolinx Engage

Strategy #3: Optimize the System

Building new infrastructure is not enough; much of what’s proposed in the Draft Plan focuses on how to use what we have to make travel easier. Whether it’s integrating services, improving the traveller experience or investing in new technologies to assist travellers, it’s about the quality of the experience. It’s about creating a better future for all residents, with your needs in mind every step of the way.

What’s just one example? Some of the greatest benefits for the region have been realized when employers embraced options such as flexible work hours, time shifting and remote work. The Smart Commute Program already assists over 300 large workplaces in changing how their employees travel to work. There are options; we just have to choose them. We have to challenge established ways of thinking.

What high-quality traveller experience looks like:

Seamless Service

Creating a seamless experience for residents in the GTHA means making it easier to travel across municipal borders and between different services. What does that look like? It’s about integrating services, schedules, fares and payment methods. People don’t want to think about their transit experience, they just want it to work as reliably and easily as possible. The Draft Plan makes that a reality.Read more

First and Last Mile

While an expansive rapid transit network is great, it’s only useful if it goes all the way — with stations and services near jobs and residents, with easier and faster access directly to stations and mobility hubs. It comes down to thinking about the entire journey, step-by-step, beginning to end. Your journey should be convenient from your point of departure to your destination. Fares and routes should be easy to navigate, and real-time travel information and self-serve options need to be expanded. We need to think about door-to-door journeys that might use various modes of transportation, across multiple city boundaries.Read more

Design and Safety

The Draft Plan adapts the approaches of Vision Zero — a way of planning that involves not only transportation planners and engineers, but public health, police services, community groups and others, all working towards zero serious injuries and fatalities. It asks stakeholders to look closely at how well they’re working together, and emphasizes that infrastructure design is critical to safety, but safer speeds, safer vehicles and safer practices are also important.Read more

Moving Goods

Did you know that $3.5 billion worth of goods are moved by rail and truck in the GTHA every day? And that amount is anticipated to increase as the region grows by approximately 35% between 2016 and 2041. There’s a lot we can do to advance economic prosperity and quality of life by making sure goods are moved efficiently, reliably, safely and with the environment in mind.Read more