[6ixGod]

I mean, what’s done is done. But honestly, the fact we’re even talking about basic things like proper transit signal priority and covered platforms shows how half-baked this whole thing was from the start. People are freezing at stops with no shelters, Humber Station isn’t even fully covered, and the trains crawl because the signals treat them like an afterthought. Brilliant stuff!

A lot of these things can be fixed, but with the amount spent already….this would have been better underground or dare I say a subway. But trying to convince some people is impossible. Let’s be real: “TrAnSiT CiTy” was never about building proper rapid transit for a growing metropolis….it was about doing it on the cheap. David Miller and the rest of that out-of-touch crowd genuinely thought you could run a mega-city like Toronto with bargain-bin surface LRTs and call it visionary. Just embarrassing….even when they first announced it I cringed at how patchy the entire thing would look.

And just imagine if the full Transit City plan had actually been built….it would’ve been a disaster on an industrial scale for Toronto. Dozens of KMs of slow, street-running LRT stitched across a city that was already bursting at the seams, no proper weather protection, no grade separation, and constant fights with traffic. Toronto would’ve ended up with a patchwork of half-measures pretending to be rapid transit, all because a few politicians were obsessed with doing everything on the cheap and refusing to think long term.

EDIT: Toronto would have ended up looking like the hot mess Los Angeles is right now actually.

I don’t ever want another “LRT” built in Toronto ever again. This city requires subways and the downtown neoliberal elites can suck a pear for all I care….stop treating the outer boroughs like they don’t exist. This is 2025, not 1955.

I hope you’ve all learned your lessons.

 

[hw621]

I can't speak to today specifically; but in general, Finch West has lots of surplus parking, I mean lots! Shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks!

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

I don’t ever want another “LRT” built in Toronto ever again. This city requires subways and the downtown neoliberal elites can suck a pear for all I care….stop treating the outer boroughs like they don’t exist. This is 2025, not 1955.

I have news for you. Not every major corridor in this city is suitable for a subway. Because of this simple fact, the likelihood of more subways being built along major corridors is very low. LRT is more the more suitable mode for many corridors outside of the downtown core.

 

[Towered]

I mean, what’s done is done. But honestly, the fact we’re even talking about basic things like proper transit signal priority and covered platforms shows how half-baked this whole thing was from the start. People are freezing at stops with no shelters, Humber Station isn’t even fully covered, and the trains crawl because the signals treat them like an afterthought. Brilliant stuff!

A lot of these things can be fixed, but with the amount spent already….this would have been better underground or dare I say a subway. But trying to convince some people is impossible. Let’s be real: “TrAnSiT CiTy” was never about building proper rapid transit for a growing metropolis….it was about doing it on the cheap. David Miller and the rest of that out-of-touch crowd genuinely thought you could run a mega-city like Toronto with bargain-bin surface LRTs and call it visionary. Just embarrassing….even when they first announced it I cringed at how patchy the entire thing would look.

And just imagine if the full Transit City plan had actually been built….it would’ve been a disaster on an industrial scale for Toronto. Dozens of KMs of slow, street-running LRT stitched across a city that was already bursting at the seams, no proper weather protection, no grade separation, and constant fights with traffic. Toronto would’ve ended up with a patchwork of half-measures pretending to be rapid transit, all because a few politicians were obsessed with doing everything on the cheap and refusing to think long term.

EDIT: Toronto would have ended up looking like the hot mess Los Angeles is right now actually.

I don’t ever want another “LRT” built in Toronto ever again. This city requires subways and the downtown neoliberal elites can suck a pear for all I care….stop treating the outer boroughs like they don’t exist. This is 2025, not 1955.

I hope you’ve all learned your lessons.

You actually think a full scale subway is justified on Finch? Have you seen the place??

 

[Towered]

I have news for you. Not every major corridor in this city is suitable for a subway. Because of this simple fact, the likelihood of more subways being built along major corridors is very low. LRT is more the more suitable mode for many corridors outside of the downtown core.

Precisely. The one good thing about all the ugly stroads blanketing the inner suburbs is that they're wide enough to accommodate transit ROW's without having to tunnel. Aside from extensions to lines 2, 3, and 4, it's hard to imagine any place in the city that will ever justify another full subway. Possibly another one cutting through downtown, but even that would be decades off.

 

[ARG1]

I mean, what’s done is done. But honestly, the fact we’re even talking about basic things like proper transit signal priority and covered platforms shows how half-baked this whole thing was from the start. People are freezing at stops with no shelters, Humber Station isn’t even fully covered, and the trains crawl because the signals treat them like an afterthought. Brilliant stuff!

A lot of these things can be fixed, but with the amount spent already….this would have been better underground or dare I say a subway. But trying to convince some people is impossible. Let’s be real: “TrAnSiT CiTy” was never about building proper rapid transit for a growing metropolis….it was about doing it on the cheap. David Miller and the rest of that out-of-touch crowd genuinely thought you could run a mega-city like Toronto with bargain-bin surface LRTs and call it visionary. Just embarrassing….even when they first announced it I cringed at how patchy the entire thing would look.

And just imagine if the full Transit City plan had actually been built….it would’ve been a disaster on an industrial scale for Toronto. Dozens of KMs of slow, street-running LRT stitched across a city that was already bursting at the seams, no proper weather protection, no grade separation, and constant fights with traffic. Toronto would’ve ended up with a patchwork of half-measures pretending to be rapid transit, all because a few politicians were obsessed with doing everything on the cheap and refusing to think long term.

EDIT: Toronto would have ended up looking like the hot mess Los Angeles is right now actually.

I don’t ever want another “LRT” built in Toronto ever again. This city requires subways and the downtown neoliberal elites can suck a pear for all I care….stop treating the outer boroughs like they don’t exist. This is 2025, not 1955.

I hope you’ve all learned your lessons.

I guess it's worth being fair and mention that a lot of issues with these LRTS came from value engineering. For instance I believe the original transit city plans called for heated lamps and more substantial protection, as well as strong TSP. However it's unclear whether a no-opposition Transit City AU would have still included them. It also doesn't address the fact that Transit City did a poor job evaluating alternatives and basically brute forced a one size fits all approach to transit planning.

 

[MisterF]

I agree but it should just show the Toronto city area and any GO train line past that should just show an arrow going outside the boundary, as well as show the streetcars.

Basically a combination of this map and this one

View attachment 701928

Why? The GTA is functionally one big city. Transportation demand doesn't stop at municipal boundaries. It's not like our system is so large that it can't be included in a single map.

 

[T3G]

I don’t ever want another “LRT” built in Toronto ever again. This city requires subways and the downtown neoliberal elites can suck a pear for all I care….stop treating the outer boroughs like they don’t exist. This is 2025, not 1955.

If this is the case, can Toronto do us a favour and secede from the province so that the rest of us don't have to pay for this nonsense with our tax dollars? I have zero interest in seeing subways built in environments that don't have the density to justify them, while transit outside the city continues to get shittier and shittier with every year.

Imagine paying billions of dollars on overbuilt infrastructure because Rob Ford invented a culture war that never existed before. What a ridiculous notion.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

You actually think a full scale subway is justified on Finch? Have you seen the place??

No subway, but I think a BRT would have left everyone here a lot happier given per-dollar-spend than this current iteration of streetcar-performing LRT.

At least the bus drivers would be able to floor it between intersections without traffic in the way.

If we assume that LRTs are operated by the TTC under their wisdom, then the equation in Toronto is probably Subway > Light Metro > BRT > LRT.

(I am embarrassed now that I ever advocated for the Scarborough LRT lol.)

 

[leopetr]

Monkey's paw curls. We'll next build a $6billion BRT that's slower than the bus it replaces

 

[innsertnamehere]

Yeah someone help me out here, does "no later than Q1 2026" mean by March 31, 2026 like I think it does?




Also, why are there so many people saying stuff, like "signal priority could help, but more importantly they need to drive the tram faster, slow as a snail/25/30 kph is too slow."

Let me ask y'all this. How do you think the tram is supposed to drive faster when it is met with a red light 200 metres down the tracks from a stop? Is it supposed to go pedal to the metal to 60 km/h in 100 metres at 1.3 m/s^2, then go hard on the brakes down to 0 km/h right in time to stop at a light? Y'all are being lazy and regurgitating the same talking points without actually thinking about basic physical realities or doing some basic math.





Yes, the overly risk-averse, streetcar style operations do waste time. But as I demonstrated, by analyzing a 52 minute Line 6 run (which is the average time confirmed to me by a TTC instructor), the main issue is getting stuck at red lights and ~50 second average dwell times.

but how much does the slow operating speeds add? Why do cars, which are held to those same restrictions regarding red lights, take 20 minutes to get across the corridor but the LRT takes 52? Are the physics of a car really all that different from a tram?

The fact that if you eliminate all stoplights and make dwell times ridiculously minimal (ignoring how trams have smaller doors than Line 1 and simply take longer to unload/load passengers) and still get a 34 minute travel time is indicative of a problem. With the tram barely stopping at stops and never stopping at red lights your hypothetical scenario still delivers a travel time over 50% longer than driving with stoplights and an average speed below 25km/h.

And as an FYI, those types of travel time savings are simply not realistic. Dwell times and red light time can definitely be reduced, but you aren't going to save 18 minutes off those. Even a very strong transit priority signaling system is still going to have some level of dwell time for vehicles as lights have minimum cycle lengths that have to be met. Similarly, not every stop is going to be able to get it's doors closed in 20 seconds. Maybe the quieter ones with minimal passengers, but stations like Kipling and Jane are just going to take longer.

All three (dwell time, red light time, travel speeds) need to be addressed. And honestly, if the TTC did nothing but operate the LRT to 70km/h on open stretches and took corners a little faster it would probably cut more time than either of the other two issues could by being addressed.

 

[eglinton1661]

Happening now: TTC Board debate on speeding up Lines 5/6 and streetcars

 

[duffo]

Are the physics of a car really all that different from a tram?

Yes. So clearly and obviously yes.

A Ford F-150 is something like 2-3 tons.

The Citadis Spirit loaded weight is 117 tons. https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/securite-safety/rail/2022/r22h0037/r22h0037-01-23.html

I'm pretty sure this means the LRV would need a braking force of ~40x to achieve the same deceleration as a Ford F-150. In practice, I think that force is not nearly that close.

 

[Adjei]

Monkey's paw curls. We'll next build a $6billion BRT that's slower than the bus it replaces

LOL. That’s so Toronto.

 

[Rainforest]

In the early days of Transit City, modeling was done for a surface LRT line with 400 m average stop spacing. The predicted average speed was 23 kph (and that includes the dwell time at stops).

Finch LRT, on the other hand, has average stop spacing of 630 m (10.7 km length / 17 stop distances). That should give a slightly faster average speed, let's say 25 kph.

At 25 kph, the one-way trip would take 10.7 * 60 / 25 = 26 minutes. That should be the goal. I get it, after the initial "soft opening" period, but eventually, that.

If the above goal cannot be achieved, then: either the original model was way off, or something is seriously wrong with the TTC operating practices.

The ability or inability to reach that 25 kph speed (or close to that) will definitely affect the public perception of LRTs. Many transit activists happen to be railfans, and will claim that LRT is always better, no matter how slow it runs. But the broader public will not buy that. People only have so many hours in the day, and want to get to their job / school etc faster, then get back home sooner. A bus ride may be rough and bumpy, yet not many riders will support spending quite a bit of money to replace their bus route with something that is even slower.

Finch LRT is a very important showcase. It will either confirm the viability of LRTs in this city, or bury the whole idea for a long time.