Transport committee  Typically the transit fares are used virtually exclusively for operating costs. Transit agencies look to other orders of government to provide contributions towards capital, so by and large you see the fare box covering the operating costs of the transit service.

Transport committee  Yes. It's important to have affordable transportation systems for different parts of the community. There's no question that it's something that Metrolinx and every other transit agency thinks about when it's looking at its cost structures.

Transport committee  It provides a venue and an opportunity for all orders of government to sit down and talk about what are the initiatives that could be pursued to make transit more attractive. I think that is an important part of any kind of a venue where the various orders of government sit down

Transport committee  Well, I think there's some value in having some national standards, a national approach to innovation, and a national approach to improving quality of service. I think that's important. It doesn't matter where you live in this country, I think there should be some expectation for

Transport committee  That's a great question. It's a difficult process, as you might expect. We did three steps. One, we looked around the world to see how other jurisdictions prioritized, and we tried to get some best practices. Then we sat down with each municipality, showed them our proposed meth

Transport committee  Thank you. I've been reflecting back on the questions from Mr. Watson about being more than a silent partner. I think one of the things that we would be looking for in support from the federal government in a national transit strategy is to drive things like quality, standards,

Transport committee  I would say that's fair. I would say that where we need I think a concerted effort across all orders of government is in the state of good repair and expansion of the service, and I think it should be expected that transit operators and the municipalities or regional authoritie

Transport committee  Yes, absolutely. It goes to the accessibility of the transit service to the public. The research shows that the further away you get from a transit service, the less likely a customer is to travel: to walk, ride a bike, or drive a car to the station, whatever the case may be. T

Transport committee  Absolutely. You'll recall that one of the other objectives was doubling the transit modal share, so the objectives actually work in conjunction with each other. To actually get to a doubling of the transit modal share, you actually need to make that transit closer and more access

Transport committee  I don't know the number. It will differ in different kinds of neighbourhoods. If you're in a highly dense mixed-use neighbourhood in Toronto itself, you'll likely make that trip to the transit service. If you're in a lower density environment--in a rural environment, for example-

Transport committee  I don't see a particular need for the federal government to get into coming up with the plan for the region. That doesn't mean the federal government should not be involved in developing the plan for the region. When we developed the Big Move, we engaged with the federal governme

Transport committee  What we've learned through our research is that, as you would expect, there is a reluctance on the part of the public to provide additional income or revenue to any level of government. At the same time, we see that it differs according to how the revenue is collected and how it

Transport committee  We haven't done any research with that specific kind of question. The Air Rail Link is a unique kind of service, because it's not really positioned as a commuter aid for your trip from home to work and back again. It's more a premium-level service to deliver people to the airport

Transport committee  We will be launching the service in 2015 with tier 4 diesel locomotives. That's the highest quality of emissions control. We're in a process to see whether or not we electrify that service in the future.

Transport committee  When I think of public transit, I think of delivery of service that is affordable, comfortable, frequent, safe and so on and so forth. I think of GO Transit as public transit. Our GO rail system is actually delivered by a private contractor on our behalf. There are a number of d