TORONTO — The latest update on commuter rail ridership between London, Ontario, and Toronto continues to show limited ridership, but provincial transit agency Metrolinx says it’s difficult to gauge the pilot program’s success because of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit.
The CBC reports total ridership for the first six months of the GO Transit service, through February 2022, has been 6,369, with a high of 1,862 in December 2021. Some 55% of the riders are making the full London-Toronto trip, even though the one-way travel time is almost four hours for the 118-mile route.
Metrolinx spokeswoman Anne-Marie Atkins told the CBC it will take some time to judge the program: “We still aren’t back to our normal ridership to give the pilot a really good test under normal circumstances, so that’s going to take some time. … It’s too soon to draw any conclusions.”
The pilot program — which extended existing Kitchener Line service by 50 miles for one round trip daily, is open-ended, with no set end date. It began in October 2021 [see “New GO Transit service …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 6, 2021].
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