[hw621]

why the hell are they doing a study???
Just make the change then study it.

Maybe the city should have used all that time they were bitching at Metrolinx about an opening date they should have been studying TSP so that it would be implemented while test started.

And why study now? Shouldn't this be done at the design phase?

 

[Obsidian]

I am glad city officials are the one taking much of the heat for this mess and not metrolinx.
They have had all this time to speed up rail transport in the city ie streetcars and have refused to. so it nice to seem them fumbling over themselves now that the public is fully aware of what they have not been doing for rail transport in the city. A similar opening of the Eglinton line should bring a whole bunch of more criticism on them.

 

[6ixGod]

The videos of these LRTs crawling along at turtle speeds are honestly embarrassing. I’ve been saying for the past couple of years that the problems with Lines 5 and 6 wouldn’t magically disappear once they opened. I already had the bar set low, but this is somehow worse than expected. A week in and we’re already seeing a full line shutdown? Come on.

And yet people are still insisting LRTs are perfectly fine for a city the size of Toronto. These lines are constrained by intersections, lack signal priority, and operate at street level in a way that’s unforgiving when anything goes wrong.

What really drives this is the underlying attitude that the outer boroughs don’t “count” as real Toronto. The city centre gets treated as the city, while everywhere else is managed cheaply. When it’s the centre, subways are justified, disruption is acceptable, and costs are worth it. When it’s the outer areas, suddenly LRTs, compromises, and “good enough” solutions are pushed instead.

Scarborough and North Etobicoke, for example, have long been given scraps when it comes to public transport, areas that also happen to be some of the most diverse in the city. Finch West and Scarborough LRT are classic examples, cheaper, surface solutions designed without full consideration for long-term capacity or reliability. Even Line 3, when it was operational, was a stopgap from day one.

This isn’t about individual prejudice; it’s about systemic biases in how the city prioritises infrastructure investment. Political influence, cost considerations, and historic planning choices have all favoured the centre and left outer, diverse boroughs with substandard options. Until the city recognises that every area deserves transit built to proper standards, this kind of fiasco is going to keep happening.

Said it before and I’m saying it again….I don’t want another LRT ever built in Toronto again. If you MUST….stick it underground or above ground.

Also, I love how they did everything to say “this isn’t a streetcar” yet have stops on Line 6 that mimic TTC streetcar stops and follow the speed limit for cars. Absolutely hilarious.

I’m glad the outrage forced the city into growing the F up…..keep the pressure on them….maybe they’ll realise this isn’t 1972 Toronto anymore.

 

[JSF-1]

The videos of these LRTs crawling along at turtle speeds are honestly embarrassing. I’ve been saying for the past couple of years that the problems with Lines 5 and 6 wouldn’t magically disappear once they opened. I already had the bar set low, but this is somehow worse than expected. A week in and we’re already seeing a full line shutdown? Come on.

And yet people are still insisting LRTs are perfectly fine for a city the size of Toronto. These lines are constrained by intersections, lack signal priority, and operate at street level in a way that’s unforgiving when anything goes wrong.

What really drives this is the underlying attitude that the outer boroughs don’t “count” as real Toronto. The city centre gets treated as the city, while everywhere else is managed cheaply. When it’s the centre, subways are justified, disruption is acceptable, and costs are worth it. When it’s the outer areas, suddenly LRTs, compromises, and “good enough” solutions are pushed instead.

Scarborough and North Etobicoke, for example, have long been given scraps when it comes to public transport, areas that also happen to be some of the most diverse in the city. Finch West and Scarborough LRT are classic examples, cheaper, surface solutions designed without full consideration for long-term capacity or reliability. Even Line 3, when it was operational, was a stopgap from day one.

This isn’t about individual prejudice; it’s about systemic biases in how the city prioritises infrastructure investment. Political influence, cost considerations, and historic planning choices have all favoured the centre and left outer, diverse boroughs with substandard options. Until the city recognises that every area deserves transit built to proper standards, this kind of fiasco is going to keep happening.

Said it before and I’m saying it again….I don’t want another LRT ever built in Toronto again. If you MUST….stick it underground or above ground.

Also, I love how they did everything to say “this isn’t a streetcar” yet have stops on Line 6 that mimic TTC streetcar stops and follow the speed limit for cars. Absolutely hilarious.

I’m glad the outrage forced the city into growing the F up…..keep the pressure on them….maybe they’ll realise this isn’t 1972 Toronto anymore.

Ok so you are really going to come here of all places and peddle this suburban victim complex bullsh*t? Pleas explain to all of us here how there is some conspiracy to hold down the suburbs when we haven't opened a single new subway station in downtown Toronto since 1966? PLEASE explain to us how the "centre" is controlling things when old town Toronto hasn't had control over the TTC since 1954? PLEASE explain to us how the "centre" is controlling things when every expansion of the network since 1966 has seen the subway move deeper into the suburbs while we continued to kick the Queen Street Subway down the road in favour of suburban expansion? PLEASE explain to us how this is some grand conspiracy against the suburbs, when it was suburban councillors who helped restore the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRT's in 2012 after Rob Ford killed the Transit City project? PLEASE explain to us how there can be some conspiracy when the suburbs have had a majority on every council since the creation of Metropolitan Toronto in 1953, to the first round of amalgamations in 1967, to the second round in 1998, to this very day where the suburbs control 11 seats on City Council while "Old Toronto" only has 7?

If you want to debate the merits of the Finch West LRT that is fine because I think we can all agree that its implementation is flawed, however DO NOT bring this "Downtown elites" conspiracy crap to this thread or any thread on this site. Objective reality clearly shows that this is a nonsense belief that is not possible because the suburbs have been the majority voice in the city regardless of whether we were 13 municipalities, 6 municipalities or just 1 unified municipality. Every transit decision we have made since 1954 was done with the full knowledge and consent of a majority of suburban representatives from Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke, and at one time or another they have often voted in favour of them.

Finally there is NO reality in which the Finch West Corridor on its own can support a Subway or Light-Metro. There is NO justification to construct a Subway or Light-Metro on a corridor that is only expected to generate 2,800 riders per hour and may max out at 5-6,000 per hour if we extend it to the Airport and Yonge Street. LRT is the best solution for Finch West as it can comfortably handle the passenger demands now and in the future if we get off our asses and run it properly. If you want to talk about Subways and Light-Metro's then we can do that on Eglinton and Sheppard, but Finch West is not the place for it, and won't be the place for it in any of our lifetimes, or our children's lifetime, and possibly even our grand children's lifetimes.

I apologize if I come off a rude here, but come on man we can debate and argue about the merits of LRT until the heat death of the universe but there is no downtown boogie-man here. We have built what will arguably be the best form of transit for the area for the foreseeable future, what we have done wrong is implement it poorly but we can see that there is a growing call to change that. If we can fix this and Eglinton then it should not preclude future LRT's elsewhere in Toronto and the GTA. I couldn't tell you where they would be built considering the sprawling nature of the region makes it very hard to justify any kind of higher-order transit in most areas.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Finally there is NO reality in which the Finch West Corridor on its own can support a Subway or Light-Metro. There is NO justification to contruct a Subway or Light-Metro

That didn’t stop us from building the Shepard line as a proper subway

 

[JSF-1]

That didn’t stop us from building the Shepard line as a proper subway

I had to dig through my notes a bit for this, but the construction of a Subway along Sheppard wasn't done for shits and giggles. Back in 1985 the TTC noted that the buses along Sheppard were already moving 3,000pphpd which the TTC considered the upper limit of a regular bus route; that is to say Sheppard Avenue was already at capacity by the mid 80's. This was only expected to grow as NYC and STC continued to grow. North York for example had a target of 48,000 jobs in the NYC by 2011, while Scarborough had a target of 40,000 jobs at STC by 2011. In order to achieve these goals transit would need to carry 55% and 60% of riders respectively. This is corroborated by the GO ALRT project which showed that for the Northern Line, the section between Yonge Street and Scarborough would be where the bulk of the ridership within Metro as NYC and STC where to become the main employment areas in those parts of Metro as well as draw people in from York Region. Basically by 1985 transit use between NYC and STC was already pretty high and was only expected to grow. The TTC did examine a line along Finch East but noted that the Finch East corridor wasn't wide enough to accommodate and elevated structure while Sheppard Ave could accommodate both underground and elevated alignments. Sheppard was also closer to NYC and STC. As well in planning the TTC for some reason decided that a Light-Metro had to be elevated entirely, while a subway had to be underground. I don't know why they were so dogmatic in this regard but perhaps they thought that the purpose of a Light-Metro is to be cheaper to build, so why would we spend tons of cash putting it underground; that just defeats the purpose, or perhaps there were some political shenanigans going on to bury the idea of an elevated Light-Metro on Sheppard; I don't know. The TTC actually originally chose Light-Metro (or as they called it at the time "Medium Rail") for the corridor but for whatever reason went with a heavy rail subway in the end. Perhaps they were overestimating ridership growth, or perhaps there were political shenanigans like I said earlier; the truth is I don't know but I'll be digging deeper into it in the new year so maybe I'll have a better answer then.

All that is to say, the subway on Sheppard didn't come out of the blue. The conditions on the ground in 1985 showed that something needed to be done on Sheppard and there was a reasonable expectation that the Sheppard Corridor would become the main crosstown corridor in the north end of the city. This was only further justified when the ALRT project was cancelled. Now we can argue over whether the Sheppard Line is overbuilt and should have been a Light-Metro as the TTC originally planned but the logic behind the route is sound, its biggest flaw is that it wasn't built out entirely. Finch West by comparison was pretty unimportant in the 80's and the only way you could justify anything up there at the time was as part of a larger inter-regional line (e.g ALRT). It wasn't until the mid-2000's that the area became notable and even then ridership still wasn't as high as it was on Sheppard East in the 80's, nor was there as much growth and development potential in the north-west part of Toronto compared to north-east Toronto which was anchored by NYC and STC. Regardless this is a discussion better had in the Sheppard Subway thread.

 

[smallspy]

What's rough about Sunnybrook Park is that it introduced an at-grade intersection between Laird and Don Mills. Metrolinx had proposed to bypass the intersection south of Eglinton and maintain fully grade separated services to Don Mills by deleting the stop, allowing the underground frequencies and service reliability to extend to what is one of the most important stations on the line and the future transfer point to the Ontario Line.

I only recall two options - as it was eventually built, and an underground alignment with no station at Leslie.

When did they suggest a south-side surface option?

Dan

 

[Northern Light]

Well Line 5 is their first line, i would say the learning are already seen on the Ontario Line construction.

namelly building the stations first since they take the longest time than after the TBM have gone through like on Line 5.
This change alone will save 2 years of construction

The Ontario Line is years behind schedule, and wildly over budget. You haven't even begun to hear the extent of the problems.

All that for a project that will be over capacity early in its life, sigh.

***

Metrolinx are a poorly run organization, pushing a bad idea (P3s) and then hiding behind confidentiality built-in not to protect the contractor, but instead Mx officials from endless embarrassment.

 

[Northern Light]

why the hell are they doing a study???
Just make the change then study it.

Maybe you should better understand what's happening prior to commenting.

There will be a tightening of the Finch schedule no later than the March board period. You can't make additional staff appear out of nowhere.

There is no 'study' on the parts that are easy to change, those within the purview of TTC Service Planning and Operations.

They will report on what they are doing and have done.

There is some study required (not a formal 3rd party study) but staff modelling to figure out what turn restrictions to put in place, their impacts, and how to mitigate them

If you remove a left turn, demand for that traffic movement doesn't away; those cars will go left somewhere else, and create a longer queue etc etc.

You need to have some idea what will happen before you do it.

Other items such as aggressive TSP, and changes in door operations need to be trained for;

There's no excuse for the way Finch is being run, no argument it doesn't need to be run better, faster and soon.

But it isn't a snap of the fingers thing.

Maybe the city should have used all that time they were bitching at Metrolinx about an opening date they should have been studying TSP so that it would be implemented while test started.

Maybe you should understand what was said in those meetings and why before throwing people you've never met or talked to under the proverbial tram.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I only recall two options - as it was eventually built, and an underground alignment with no station at Leslie.

When did they suggest a south-side surface option?

Dan

You are right - I was misremembering. Thanks for the correction. The south side thing came from people saying that is what should have been done to avoid the intersection.

The Ontario Line is years behind schedule, and wildly over budget. You haven't even begun to hear the extent of the problems.

All that for a project that will be over capacity early its life, sigh.

***

Metrolinx are a poorly run organization, pushing a bad idea (P3s) and then hiding behind confidentiality built-in not to protect the contractor, but instead Mx officials from endless embarrassment.

Case and point - Metrolinx has already spent more on the Ontario Line then they spent on the Crosstown.. and they identify the $29 billion budget as "not reflective if the full project cost", and are burning almost a billion dollars a quarter on the line right now:

I will disagree on the line being over capacity early in it's life however. We've had long conversations about why the OLs design is fine and despite Metrolinx's mismanagement, it would have been an even more bloated project if it had been designed for marginally higher capacities.

 

[mrgrieves]

When is the election and who's running against Chow?

Google it.

 

[FW36]

Theoretically if the Finch West lrt in toronto was given priority signal, closed 3 stations (stevenson, duncanwoods, and driftwood), and traveled just 45 km per hour it would be able to complete the journey in 25 minutes which would be more reasonable than today. Plus in the future if the Finch West LRT line is integrated to a future Bolton Go Train at Emery and Woodbine Go station it could still serve the majority with fast local trips but used to get people downtown or surrounding cities faster. As currently designed finch west lrt is bad , but it's not impossible to fix in the short or long term

 

[urbanclient]

I will disagree on the line being over capacity early in it's life however. We've had long conversations about why the OLs design is fine and despite Metrolinx's mismanagement, it would have been an even more bloated project if it had been designed for marginally higher capacities.

A lot of people here are optimistic about these things and that's great. I think a positive attitude is better than a negative attitude everyday. But looking into any underlying numbers makes you question if the demand projections weren't underestimates for both Line 3 and Line 5. And consequently the maximum future capacity would be inadequate. Don't let Line 6 fool you, it arguably never should've gotten a tram. Post-covid bus ridership on Finch West is lower than other bus corridors.

Moreover, the trend outside of CANUSA is to adopt ever larger capacity on new lines. Only in Toronto and New York do we see Eglinton, Ontario Line, IBX with smaller rolling stock and platforms than the existing network. I am not saying there was no future proofing done. I am saying there wasn't enough done. It's not a matter of if [Lines 3 & 5, and IBX] will reach overcapacity, but when.

 

[Thaboss]

What really drives this is the underlying attitude that the outer boroughs don’t “count” as real Toronto. The city centre gets treated as the city, while everywhere else is managed cheaply. When it’s the centre, subways are justified, disruption is acceptable, and costs are worth it. When it’s the outer areas, suddenly LRTs, compromises, and “good enough” solutions are pushed instead

The issue is hardly with the technology. LRTs can be a fantadtic solution if implemented correctly.

However, ironically, part of the problem is suburban politics which prioritize car comfort to good urban design that would allow for proper road design to favour rappid lrt operations.

Also you talk of elevated transit. I agree this would be fantastic. But do you know where elevated tracks are probably the least politically palatable in toronto ?

 

[Kyle Campbell]

What I don't understand is, ignoring TSP, why is it so much slower than the bus. The bus has to wait at all the lights too. You'd expect it to be a bit slower all things being equal because unlike a bus a train stops at every stop

Even the whole wheel bearing fear. Ottawa runs the same trains much faster through far more curves they aren't being this excessively cautious