[swampymudkip]

There is no excuse for Finch West to start early works in 2016, 9 years before Dufferin got a small bus lane segment. A logical timeline would be to optimize the other corridors, within a reasonable budget...well before spending even a dime on Finch West. I am genuinely hard pressed to find a similar tram built in such a low-density, low latent transit demand area as Line 6, anywhere in the world. Finch West should've gotten an LRT after the other corridors got bus lanes, and after another downtown subway was built, to say the least. Not the other way around.

Line 6 was cheaper to build on Finch West than on a closer-to-downtown corridor, but that also resulted in the proportional ROI being lower. And as of now, ROI is basically 0 since more people ride the 36 buses than Line 6. There is a strong pro-LRT bias on these threads to the point of irrationality. In what world would it make more sense to build Line 6 before the Ontario Line, before improving higher density routes with high latent demand. Almost no one is saying Finch West should never get an LRT ever—the timing is what’s really in doubt. Building it earlier, before the density warrants it and/or before improving denser routes is a poor use of taxpayer dollars.

"The city and province have tight budgets, they need to prioritize higher social ROI projects instead of vanity projects in the suburbs."

How can you quantify ROI as a measurable metric when the system hasn't even operated for one month? Just because other corridors have higher ridership does not mean project ROIs will be higher, especially if extensive infrastructure improvements and expropriation is required.

Providing higher order transit in a lower income neighborhood is not a "vanity project".

 

[lastcommodore]

I've written this elsewhere, but I think "Where should we prioritise what to build?" is far less important to me than "How much can we actually build it for?"

6FW cost as much per km as Sheppard did. Paris T9 was built at 1/6th of 6FW.

You can argue that X corridor should be getting an LRT before Y corridor. If we had our stuff together, X,Y,Z,W,A, and B corridors would all have their LRT.

 

[urbanclient]

How can you quantify ROI as a measurable metric when the system hasn't even operated for one month? Just because other corridors have higher ridership does not mean project ROIs will be higher, especially if extensive infrastructure improvements and expropriation is required.

Providing higher order transit in a lower income neighborhood is not a "vanity project".

Feel free to disagree, my hypothesis rests on higher latent demand from the corridors that are more densely populated. Finch West is a comparatively low density area, and yet historically has had disproportionately high bus ridership. I attribute this to the 36 bus feeding Humber College during the academic year. The powers-that-be prioritizing transit for post-secondary students, lower income areas, lower car ownership households is actually something I very strongly support. But that also would mean there isn't much latent demand to be realized on Finch West. And even if there were more latent demand than I predict, it would not be captured since the planned headways on Line 6 are so awful. T9 took a 50k bus route to up to 100k ridership per day. I would be very surprised to see Line 6 average even 50k in its first year, barring some kind of TSP+operations+reliability improvement miracle.

I hope I'm wrong, and Line 6 gets 70k+ ridership per day, but all evidence I've found points otherwise. Going with the 51k cited by the province, that's still an incredibly low ROI for the $3.7 billion to build and maintain. Hence the much higher proportional ROI along other corridors; even if they aren't getting LRT, a painted bus lane grants huge social benefits for very little financial cost. It's not a novel concept I'm espousing when I advocate for transit to be prioritized where there is more people. Not pointing to any particular person, but it feels like there is some system-justification-manufactured-consent going on. Just because the government said it was a good idea to build Line 6 since 2015 (or earlier), doesn't mean it was a good idea in hindsight. Especially not in its current form failing to connect to Finch station on Line 1 Yonge.

"Province relieving gridlock and connecting more than 51,000 daily riders to more convenient transit" ... The 36 bus averaged 54,870 riders per day in Fall 2019. They're bragging about worse projected ridership than 2019 after upgrading to LRT... The GTA's population has grown up to 20% since 2019. The implication is Line 6 will not capture any latent transit demand.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006817/ontario-opening-new-finch-west-lrt

 

[nfitz]

The argument that Finch West is a short route so the buses are the most packed doesn't hold water either (I've circled Finch West). https://stevemunro.ca/2024/02/15/overcrowding-on-ttc-bus-routes/
View attachment 703676

That figure shows routes that are overcrowded. Not routes that are busy. If a route had 100 passengers per hour, and only ran once an hour, it would be very yellow on this map.

The figure neither supports nor doesn't support the thesis. You need a ridership figure - not a crowding figure.

 

[ARG1]

Very large cities like Paris and Istanbul do LRT quite well actually. An LRT should work fine on this corridor, even at grade. It's somehow been implemented spectacularly badly. It's like they looked at a static image of other cities LRTs and said nice looking stops (they actually are nicer than a lot of other cities) , nice right of way, etc and built it. But never looked at how those other systems actually operated

The difference is that other cities build trams either for short haul trips, as feeders to other transit lines, or make use of extensive off street segments. Paris is a perfect example of this, many of its Tram Lines run in dedicated Rail ROWs, or in cases like the T9 - the RER C is literally 1km to the east of the line. If you live in Orly and want to commute to the city, you're not going to take the T9, you're going to take RER C. The T9 is only used for short haul trips along the T9 corridor, and isn't meant to be used as a way to connect a far flung borough to the rest of the city.

Finch West isn't like this, it is literally the only form of "Rapid" Transit to Northern Etobicoke other than *maybe* Etobicoke North GO station, and thus has to do the heavy lifting for that section of the city. Don't forget that even in the best case scenario where we can get Finch West down to a 35m travel time, that's still 35m just to get to Finch West, then however long it takes to get wherever you want to go whether its downtown or midtown or whatever.

 

[lastcommodore]

The difference is that other cities build trams either for short haul trips, as feeders to other transit lines, or make use of extensive off street segments. Paris is a perfect example of this, many of its Tram Lines run in dedicated Rail ROWs, or in cases like the T9 - the RER C is literally 1km to the east of the line. If you live in Orly and want to commute to the city, you're not going to take the T9, you're going to take RER C. The T9 is only used for short haul trips along the T9 corridor, and isn't meant to be used as a way to connect a far flung borough to the rest of the city.

Finch West isn't like this, it is literally the only form of "Rapid" Transit to Northern Etobicoke other than *maybe* Etobicoke North GO station, and thus has to do the heavy lifting for that section of the city. Don't forget that even in the best case scenario where we can get Finch West down to a 35m travel time, that's still 35m just to get to Finch West, then however long it takes to get wherever you want to go whether its downtown or midtown or whatever.

I feel like 6 FW could become a feeder/short haul line if it was extended down to Woodbine, and especially so if/when GO manifests 7m30 headways on the UPX.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The difference is that other cities build trams either for short haul trips, as feeders to other transit lines, or make use of extensive off street segments. Paris is a perfect example of this, many of its Tram Lines run in dedicated Rail ROWs, or in cases like the T9 - the RER C is literally 1km to the east of the line. If you live in Orly and want to commute to the city, you're not going to take the T9, you're going to take RER C. The T9 is only used for short haul trips along the T9 corridor, and isn't meant to be used as a way to connect a far flung borough to the rest of the city.

Finch West isn't like this, it is literally the only form of "Rapid" Transit to Northern Etobicoke other than *maybe* Etobicoke North GO station, and thus has to do the heavy lifting for that section of the city. Don't forget that even in the best case scenario where we can get Finch West down to a 35m travel time, that's still 35m just to get to Finch West, then however long it takes to get wherever you want to go whether its downtown or midtown or whatever.

I feel like 6 FW could become a feeder/short haul line if it was extended down to Woodbine, and especially so if/when GO manifests 7m30 headways on the UPX.

The crazy thing is, you two are right, and this will have to be extended to any value. The trip is just as long now, but if this had opened to Yonge, then we would not be here, or at Woodbine. The plan is a way off, but this will have to become a trunk line to have a decent ROI. Which means they need to go to Don Mills, or all the way to Neilsen and tie it in with the SMLRT. Same thing with Woodbine and the Airport/ECLRT in the west.

 

[Bordercollie]

View this content on Instagram

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Edmonton knows how to manage an LRT system. Why can't we learn from that?

 

[nfitz]

The plan is a way off, but this will have to become a trunk line to have a decent ROI.

If it went to Don Mills - or even Meadowvale, that wouldn't make it be a trunk line. Just a long collector line. You won't see trips from one end to the other - the same way that extremely few people take the Queen streetcar from Woodbine to Mimico.

If you want an east-west trunk line, then extend the Sheppard subway in both connections, build the 407 Transitway/east-west Ontario Line. Or run an express train from 404 to 427 in Dougies crack tunnel!

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

If it went to Don Mills - or even Meadowvale, that wouldn't make it be a trunk line. Just a long collector line. You won't see trips from one end to the other - the same way that extremely few people take the Queen streetcar from Woodbine to Mimico.

If you want an east-west trunk line, then extend the Sheppard subway in both connections, build the 407 Transitway/east-west Ontario Line. Or run an express train from 404 to 427 in Dougies crack tunnel!

All good options. And at some point corridors like Kipling, 427/27, Warden, Kennedy, Markham Rd, Victoria Park need higher order North south transit cause that's whats causing the bottle necks, the lack of north south transit outside central Toronto.

 

[TwoWheelPoli]

Since I had today off, I finally got the chance to ride the new Finch West LRT a.k.a. Line 6. To add a twist to this journey, I did a return trip via bike share to find out which was faster given early reports of the LRT being slow.

I Fought the Train and the … Train Won?

A blog about cycling and political advocacy based in Toronto, Canada. (#BikeTO)

www.twowheeledpolitics.ca

 

[Bojaxs]

View this content on Instagram

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Edmonton knows how to manage an LRT system. Why can't we learn from that?

Am I misunderstanding your post? The guy in the Instagram you posted is critiquing the Valley West line, not praising it, and he brings up a good point.

Billions spent on a transit line, and they have to resort to bringing out guys with brooms to clear the tracks. More excessive labour and "man hours" to keep the line running in the winter. Not to mention they probably have to shut the line down temporarily to allow these guys to do this work.

EDIT: For all we know those workers may have been out there for 30 minutes while the tram waited to move. The Instagram was edited to make it look like it was a quick job.

Does the high floor LRTs in Edmonton have this issue or just the Valley West line?

 

[ownthesky]

Am I misunderstanding your post? The guy in the Instagram you posted is critiquing the Valley West line, not praising it, and he brings up a good point.

Billions spent on a transit line, and they have to resort to bringing out guys with brooms to clear the tracks. More excessive labour and "man hours" to keep the line running in the winter. Not to mention they probably have to shut the line down temporarily to allow these guys to do this work.

EDIT: For all we know those workers may have been out there for 30 minutes while the tram waited to move. The Instagram was edited to make it look like it was a quick job.

Does the high floor LRTs in Edmonton have this issue or just the Valley West line?

Don't look into what is required to clear a bus shelter or a sidewalk for people to use in the winter, the answer might shock you!

Jesse's post is some "jUsT aSking quEstiOns" gish gallop from a wannabe Edmonton politician. Infrastructure requires some manual labour to keep working well. Considering the massive backlog of manual labour work that is due to reduce the TTC subway's slow zones, I think arguing over what transit mode reduces the cost of manual labour is a little silly.

 

[Bojaxs]

Don't look into what is required to clear a bus shelter or a sidewalk for people to use in the winter, the answer might shock you!

Jesse's post is some "jUsT aSking quEstiOns" gish gallop from a wannabe Edmonton politician. Infrastructure requires some manual labour to keep working well. Considering the massive backlog of manual labour work that is due to reduce the TTC subway's slow zones, I think arguing over what transit mode reduces the cost of manual labour is a little silly.

Most bus stops can be cleared by a sidewalk plow, and and one city worker. Usually relatively quick.

You didn't answer the question. Does the high floor LRT lines in Edmonton have the same issue with snow & ice as the Valley West line experiences? I couldn't care less how silly you think my question is.

 

[chrisw]

Since I had today off, I finally got the chance to ride the new Finch West LRT a.k.a. Line 6. To add a twist to this journey, I did a return trip via bike share to find out which was faster given early reports of the LRT being slow.

I Fought the Train and the … Train Won?

A blog about cycling and political advocacy based in Toronto, Canada. (#BikeTO)

www.twowheeledpolitics.ca

Wow, 41 minutes for your LRT trip.