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Amare said:
Sorry, but there's absolutely no justification for this laughable excuse of slow institutionalized molasses garbage that's about to be implemented on Finch West (speaking solely on vehicle speed here) but the TTC. I suspect the recovery time will also be a laughable joke as well because of whatever idiotic reason as well.

If the TTC isnt interested in providing travel at speeds that are actually decent and competent, then outsource the operation to someone who will. This non-sense has gone on for far too long, and it's simply inexcusable to spend billions of dollars to not maximize this line's operation because the TTC is too scared to do it.

This doesn't excuse Toronto Transportation Services for their own idiocy, but enough is enough. It's time someone takes responsibility for this abject stupidity going on.
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If only we had gone through this whole sham decades ago, in which a "LRT" was constructed on a wide arterial with frequent bus service in mixed traffic, which turned into infamously infrequent and slow light rail service, before being quietly redesignated a streetcar.....

1764609266033.png


Toronto's (and Ontario's) public service, from the members of David Miller's admin to the "Transit Planners" employed by Metrolinx, are without a doubt some of the most incompetent in any city of our size, and deserve a through gutting by any politician actually wishing to see the city improve.
 
While I agree that the streetcar designation makes more sense than "Line 6" I also feel that the "Bus is faster" thing to be very overplayed.

The vast majority of Finch riders will experience much shorter travel times. Not to say they shouldn't have proper LRT priority and even level crossing gates (ala Calgary and Edmonton) and remove 3-4 stops. My point is not that there is nothing to critisize, it's that, even in this flawed state, we will see a substantial improvement over the bus service. My guess is that most of the people arguing otherwise haven't spent much time on the 36.

jmi22 said:
If only we had gone through this whole sham decades ago, in which a "LRT" was constructed on a wide arterial with frequent bus service in mixed traffic, which turned into infamously infrequent and slow light rail service, before being quietly redesignated a streetcar.....
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The silver lining on finch is that it will already be better than Spadina or St Clair, and will require less to upgrade. Both of those require much more in terms of stop removal and require switch upgrades. Line 6 has a larger stop spacing (although there are a few that should have been cut) and it doesn't have messy switch areas at every intersection where it has to grind to a halt.

In general, I think the residents and commuters along Finch will have a different reaction than the online community even if things should be better.
 
Ward8 said:
While I agree that the streetcar designation makes more sense than "Line 6" I also feel that the "Bus is faster" thing to be very overplayed.

The vast majority of Finch riders will experience much shorter travel times. Not to say they shouldn't have proper LRT priority and even level crossing gates (ala Calgary and Edmonton) and remove 3-4 stops. My point is not that there is nothing to critisize, it's that, even in this flawed state, we will see a substantial improvement over the bus service. My guess is that most of the people arguing otherwise haven't spent much time on the 36.
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Adding "RapidTO" style bus lanes on Finch would have achieved the same thing as the LRT, but at a cheaper cost. Plus it would have been built much quicker.
 
Bojaxs said:
Adding "RapidTO" style bus lanes on Finch would have achieved the same thing as the LRT, but at a cheaper cost. Plus it would have been built much quicker.
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At the currently scheduled speeds - yes. But if they can get the transit priority up, and remove TTC from the operations, then no.
 
jmi22 said:
If only we had gone through this whole sham decades ago, in which a "LRT" was constructed on a wide arterial with frequent bus service in mixed traffic, which turned into infamously infrequent and slow light rail service, before being quietly redesignated a streetcar.....


Toronto's (and Ontario's) public service, from the members of David Miller's admin to the "Transit Planners" employed by Metrolinx, are without a doubt some of the most incompetent in any city of our size, and deserve a through gutting by any politician actually wishing to see the city improve.
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They're incompetent because they decided to use an affordable technology that was well established globally? The opportunity to build a network for the price of a subway line (at the time)? The technology is good and corporate culture and operations can change. But nah, instead let's discredit the entire thing because the service and culture are immutable.
 
Initial travel time estimates of Finch West were at 33-34 minutes or 38 minutes in this oddly contradictory Metrolinx doc from 2 years ago. This would have meant a speed of 10.3/(34/60) = ~18 km/h or ~16kmh respectively. This is still slower than ion (16.26/(44/60) = ~22 km/h but a lot faster than the current proposed time. Not sure what would have changed for the 46 minute run time to be approved.
 
Ward8 said:
While I agree that the streetcar designation makes more sense than "Line 6" I also feel that the "Bus is faster" thing to be very overplayed.

The vast majority of Finch riders will experience much shorter travel times. Not to say they shouldn't have proper LRT priority and even level crossing gates (ala Calgary and Edmonton) and remove 3-4 stops. My point is not that there is nothing to critisize, it's that, even in this flawed state, we will see a substantial improvement over the bus service. My guess is that most of the people arguing otherwise haven't spent much time on the 36.


The silver lining on finch is that it will already be better than Spadina or St Clair, and will require less to upgrade. Both of those require much more in terms of stop removal and require switch upgrades. Line 6 has a larger stop spacing (although there are a few that should have been cut) and it doesn't have messy switch areas at every intersection where it has to grind to a halt.

In general, I think the residents and commuters along Finch will have a different reaction than the online community even if things should be better.
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I think the problem most of us here have (the one's who are complaining about the speed) is that when you've spent billions to upgrade a line to have better and more reliable transit, only to operate in such a way that doenst fully maximize the potential.

It's akin to buying an electric screwdriver for $100, but choosing to try and use it as a manual screwdriver because you're too scared to press a button because it goes too fast. So instead of maximizing the value and productivity of that $100 electric screwdriver, you're using it as if it's a $10 tool because you're too scared of what it can really do.

Does it sound idiotic? Yes, because it is.

The TTC, Toronto Transportation Services (and city to an extent) doesnt see a problem with this kind of idiocy.

The service will be more reliable than the 36 Finch West yes, but when you spend billions and end up neutering a line's operation because of stupid reasons, it's right to question said stupidity.
 
christine said:
They're incompetent because they decided to use an affordable technology that was well established globally? The opportunity to build a network for the price of a subway line (at the time)? The technology is good and corporate culture and operations can change. But nah, instead let's discredit the entire thing because the service and culture are immutable.
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What decade are you responding from? Nothing about Line 6's construction has been affordable, or in-line with international best practice regarding modern tramways/light rail, and the "promise" of a network for the same cost as one subway line fell to pieces about over a decade ago.

Yes, spending over half a decade building a streetcar that is *barely* faster than a bus *sometimes* for twice the amount of money per km than another Canadian city has spent on a automated metro network is incompetence. What an absolutely asinine refusal to engage with the reality of a situation as it stands today, instead clinging to political slogans from the turn of the century.
 
jmi22 said:
What decade are you responding from? Nothing about Line 6's construction has been affordable, or in-line with international best practice regarding modern tramways/light rail, and the "promise" of a network for the same cost as one subway line fell to pieces about over a decade ago.

Yes, spending over half a decade building a streetcar that is *barely* faster than a bus *sometimes* for twice the amount of money per km than another Canadian city has spent on a automated metro network is incompetence. What an absolutely asinine refusal to engage with the reality of a situation as it stands today, instead clinging to political slogans from the turn of the century.
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Just to reiterate 10.3/(46/60)= 13.43 km/h, not 13.53 km/h as seen in the widely spread Twitter typo.

And according to the Star, the estimated cost of Line 6 is now $3.585 billion. So the line doesn't cost $240 million per km, it costs $350 million per km. That is nearing or even higher than full blown metro/subway costs in Spain according to this UofT study:


Toronto Star Line 6 cost: https://archive.ph/lILv8

P.S. The REM cost $9.4 billion/67km = $140 million per/km according to Quebec auditor general.
 
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Without comparing the price per kilometre costs for a new subway, that's a meaningless statistic in the context of transit construction in Toronto.

LRT may be expensive, but there's no chance the price of LRT has ballooned while subway has remained fixed. So it stands to reason that a Finch subway, apart from being massively overbuilt for the urban form, would also break the bank.
 
urbanclient said:
And just to reiterate, according to the Star, the estimated cost of Line 6 is now $3.585 billion. So the line doesn't cost $240 million per km, it costs $350 million per km. That is nearing or even higher than full blown metro/subway costs in Spain according to this UofT study:
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Thank you for highlighting this, such levels of needlessly inflated spending on public transit projects that deliver so little is a good way to kill public support for rapid transit expansion.
 
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