[FW36]

A quick thought experiment assuming the Finch West LRT is given full priority, 20 second dwell time , speed limits increased to 50 km per hour, and 3 stations removed (Driftwood, Dancunwoods, stevenson).

1. Distance between Finch west station and Sentinel is 800 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

2. Distance between Sentinel and Tobermory is 660 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute

3. Distance between Tobermory and Jane
Is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

4. Distance between Jane and Norfinch is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

5. Distance between Norfinch and Signet is 970 meters.

Travel time for LRT: 1 minute 22 seconds

6. Distance between Signet and Weston rd is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

7. Distance between Weston Rd and Milvan is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

8. Distance between Milvan and Pearldale is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

9. Distance between Pearldale and Islington is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

10. Distance between Islington and kipling is 1100 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 32 seconds

11. Distance between Kipling and Albion is 720 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 minute 3 seconds

12. Distance between Albion and Martin grove is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

13. Distance between Martin Grove and Westmore is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

14. Distance between Westmore and Humber College is 700 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 3 seconds


Time between stations: 15 minutes 37 seconds
Dwell time: 4 minute 33 seconds
Total travel time : 20 minutes 10 seconds

Now the LRT becomes a more efficient transit line. Also Finch not being a dense corridor can easily be changed by changing zoning laws and making it easier for developers to build along transit corridors.

Long-term if Ontario builds Emery GO station for a future Bolton line it would mean travel time along corridor to dowtown would decrease to less than an hour. This would probably help encourage more residential development and improve the overall transit network

 

[chrisw]

I think we can all agree that of all of the Transit City lines the Don Mills LRT was the most flawed and is better served by the DRL/OL. You can make cases for and against the other lines but when examining all the facts the DMLRT is the hardest to justify considering the alternative already on the table and the overall needs of the city.

Haha, if we wanted to argue whether the Sheppard LRT is a worse idea.

 

[MidtownKW]

A quick thought experiment assuming the Finch West LRT is given full priority, 20 second dwell time , speed limits increased to 50 km per hour, and 3 stations removed (Driftwood, Dancunwoods, stevenson).

1. Distance between Finch west station and Sentinel is 800 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

2. Distance between Sentinel and Tobermory is 660 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute

3. Distance between Tobermory and Jane
Is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

4. Distance between Jane and Norfinch is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

5. Distance between Norfinch and Signet is 970 meters.

Travel time for LRT: 1 minute 22 seconds

6. Distance between Signet and Weston rd is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

7. Distance between Weston Rd and Milvan is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

8. Distance between Milvan and Pearldale is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

9. Distance between Pearldale and Islington is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

10. Distance between Islington and kipling is 1100 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 32 seconds

11. Distance between Kipling and Albion is 720 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 minute 3 seconds

12. Distance between Albion and Martin grove is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

13. Distance between Martin Grove and Westmore is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

14. Distance between Westmore and Humber College is 700 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 3 seconds


Time between stations: 15 minutes 37 seconds
Dwell time: 4 minute 33 seconds
Total travel time : 20 minutes 10 seconds

Now the LRT becomes a more efficient transit line. Also Finch not being a dense corridor can easily be changed by changing zoning laws and making it easier for developers to build along transit corridors.

Long-term if Ontario builds Emery GO station for a future Bolton line it would mean travel time along corridor to dowtown would decrease to less than an hour. This would probably help encourage more residential development and improve the overall transit network

I don't think it's realistic to expect to be able to remove stations. I know you said "ideal world," so I'm not accusing you of thinking this.

That is way too many stations, though. 600 metres is far too close for a corridor that, yes, really is not that dense. I didn't realize until now that some of the stations (Duncanwoods and Pearldale, for instance) are barely 400 metres apart. I can't see how that can be considered reasonable.

You're exactly right about redevelopment. Has the City done anything to proactively upzone this area? If this line is made to run at a reasonable speed, there would be a lot of impetus for redevelopment around stations, and the investment would quickly look a lot more justifiable.

 

[Burnt creek]

I don't think it's realistic to expect to be able to remove stations. I know you said "ideal world," so I'm not accusing you of thinking this.

That is way too many stations, though. 600 metres is far too close for a corridor that, yes, really is not that dense. I didn't realize until now that some of the stations (Duncanwoods and Pearldale, for instance) are barely 400 metres apart. I can't see how that can be considered reasonable.

You're exactly right about redevelopment. Has the City done anything to proactively upzone this area? If this line is made to run at a reasonable speed, there would be a lot of impetus for redevelopment around stations, and the investment would quickly look a lot more justifiable.

A number of people in this thread have mentioned the " 20 minute number" and i agree with that. Twenty minutes for the whole 10KM distance should be the goal, not the 30-33 mins that the Metrolinx specs indicated when the project was conceived. At 20 mins that's a average speed of 30-32 Km/hr and, at that speed, the service can now compete with alternative forms of transportation.

Problem is: How do you get that number without removing stops? I don't see how. The biggest factor in commuting times is the number of stops that you have to make. You are right that this might not be realistic. I would say that its unrealistic due to optics and political pressures. I think that they will have to get creative by: 1) varying the service perhaps , skip some stop during certain time of the day like rush hour (ie.: like the express busses on some routes). Or, have some trains stop at certain stops and others at alternate stops. But I don't know if this is even possible from a logistics standpoint. .

 

[FW36]

A number of people in this thread have mentioned the " 20 minute number" and i agree with that. Twenty minutes for the whole 10KM distance should be the goal, not the 30-33 mins that the Metrolinx specs indicated when the project was conceived. At 20 mins that's a average speed of 30-32 Km/hr and, at that speed, the service can now compete with alternative forms of transportation.

Problem is: How do you get that number without removing stops? I don't see how. The biggest factor in commuting times is the number of stops that you have to make. You are right that this might not be realistic. I would say that its unrealistic due to optics and political pressures. I think that they will have to get creative by: 1) varying the service perhaps , skip some stop during certain time of the day like rush hour (ie.: like the express busses on some routes). Or, have some trains stop at certain stops and others at alternate stops. But I don't know if this is even possible from a logistics standpoint. .

Some of the stations are 400 meters or less apart. Removing these stations would mean an extra 3 to 4 minute walk to the next station which I think is reasonable. The TTC can run local bus service for people who don't feel like walking an additional 4 minutes.

 

[Parkdalian]

There are too many stops. I think it’s politically impossible to remove stops right now, but I think in a couple of years it will be feasible.

 

[T3G]

I don't see how it is feasible to nix any stops other than Stevenson and Pearldale. I would think more time savings would be had if they moved to a request stop system like on the entire rest of the network, there is no reason to stop anywhere if there is no one waiting - and severely reduce the dwell time at each stop that is served (seriously, if the subway people don't need to idle for upwards of a minute at a station, neither do these guys. What the hell is this).

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

43 minutes from Humber College to Finch West - must be a new record

 

[MidtownKW]

I don't see how it is feasible to nix any stops other than Stevenson and Pearldale. I would think more time savings would be had if they moved to a request stop system like on the entire rest of the network, there is no reason to stop anywhere if there is no one waiting - and severely reduce the dwell time at each stop that is served (seriously, if the subway people don't need to idle for upwards of a minute at a station, neither do these guys. What the hell is this).

I just assume that removing stops is politically untenable, at least for now. Maybe there are exceptions. And I don't think express trips are logistically practical. Maybe a request stop system is. This shouldn't be called "LRT" if the situation is that there might be stops that at times have no one embarking or disembarking. But that's beside the point.

I have to admit that I paid no attention to this during planning because I don't live in Toronto and would never ride this except for curiosity's sake. What insanity that the average station spacing is actually 600 metres.

You're right that dwell time is the answer, or a big part of it. With 18 stations, cut 20 seconds and you've saved six minutes. And there is no possible reason for dwelling for a minute or more.

 

[ssiguy2]

A number of people in this thread have mentioned the " 20 minute number" and i agree with that. Twenty minutes for the whole 10KM distance should be the goal, not the 30-33 mins that the Metrolinx specs indicated when the project was conceived. At 20 mins that's a average speed of 30-32 Km/hr and, at that speed, the service can now compete with alternative forms of transportation.

Problem is: How do you get that number without removing stops? I don't see how. The biggest factor in commuting times is the number of stops that you have to make. You are right that this might not be realistic.

You can't get the rapid transit speeds with the ridiculous number of stations on this line. A MINIMUM of 4 of these stations should be closed preferably 6 or 7. The reality is that it can be done but that would require Chow & Company to grab a pair and make it so. They can run a bus every 20 minutes along the route for people on much shorter trips. Being a bit faster than the bus is an insult to taxpayers who have paid for this line and an affront to the people along the corridor who were promised, after years of construction, that they would be getting rapid transit. What a slap in the face.

 

[Bordercollie]

You can't get the rapid transit speeds with the ridiculous number of stations on this line. A MINIMUM of 4 of these stations should be closed preferably 6 or 7. The reality is that it can be done but that would require Chow & Company to grab a pair and make it so. They can run a bus every 20 minutes along the route for people on much shorter trips. Being a bit faster than the bus is an insult to taxpayers who have paid for this line and an affront to the people along the corridor who were promised, after years of construction, that they would be getting rapid transit. What a slap in the face.

Closing stations would be a waste of money. If the trains can hit 50kmph that alone is a huge difference.

 

[6ixGod]

Closing stations would be a waste of money. If the trains can hit 50kmph that alone is a huge difference.

There are no “stations” on Finch West….just stops. Even Google Maps doesn’t show a station symbol, because in reality it behaves no differently to the Spadina, St. Clair, or Lakeshore streetcars. The bigger problem isn’t Finch West alone…..it’s that the TTC/Metrolinx approach to streetcar and LRT lines across the city is inconsistent and half-baked.

Finch West pretends to be a subway by giving it a numbered line, pretends to be an LRT stopping at every stop and pretends to be a streetcar, with stops spaced only 500 m apart. The result is a hybrid that fails at all three.

And the same issues exist on other streetcar lines: Spadina is frequent and mostly in dedicated lanes but still slow; St. Clair suffers from mixed traffic in parts; Lakeshore is a mix of streetcar and rapid transit infrastructure. Stop spacing, signal priority, and dedicated lanes are all inconsistent, so no line functions as true rapid transit.

My proposal: drop the Line 6 designation altogether. All streetcar and LRT lines with dedicated rights-of-way should get lettered designations, clearly distinguishing them from subways. And rather than addressing each line in isolation, TTC/ML should tackle them all together….optimise stop spacing, fully separate where possible, implement signal priority, and define the mode clearly.

 

[FW36]

Three obvious stops to remove are
1. Driftwood
2. Duncanwoods
3. Stevenson

1.Driftwood is 300 meters from Jane. It's ridiculous to have stations that close to eachother. To keep the line connected to the Driftwood bus, the bus line could be rerouted to Tobermory.

2.Duncanwoods is 380 meters from Pearldale and 380 meters from Milvan, with no bus connections. Pearldale is already serving the neighborhood, and there is an employment zone north of Milvan station. its clear Duncanwoods is the weak link.

3.Stevenson is 360 meters from albion station and 360 meters from kipling. Stevenson really is not needed at all being so close to Kipling and Albion.

Giving the lrt full priority and a reasonable speed limit would do wonders. I also think it should have followed a request to stop model because outside of rush hours, the stops in industrial areas are not used. With all those changes the line could run at 20 minutes end to end or less.

 

[ARG1]

What this debates gets wrong is this. Finch west needed an upgrade. So many times a bus would be full and people would need to wait for multiple buses to pass before getting on one. It's true other corridors probably needed to be looked at first but the solution is not do nothing on Finch. The solution is invest in transit. Toronto's population is approaching 3 million. It should have more subways, but also more LRT's, more elevated rail , more bus lanes, and better regional rail integrated with the TTC. The city could introduce congested pricing to raise revenue, provide aggressive transit priority for surface routes, push Ontario government to fund GO train 15 minute sevice at least for toronto proper, and encourage development along transit routes to get the highest ridership possible. It's not rocket science, it just about politicians making the right choices.

The question I raise is whether other solutions could've been found that solved the capacity issue without even building much infra along Finch. Easy Example (completely theoretical): Imagine if we had a jump start on projects such as the Bolton Line and Kitchener Line expansion (more frequent trains, maybe moving Etobicoke North to Woodbine Racetrack). Having more North/Southish corridor options that transform the Finch West bus from mixing short haul corridor users and longer distance Subway commuters, to distributing that latter group to one or two other points throughout the line would have a substantial impact on ridership patterns along the Finch corridor, all whilst not building anything on Finch itself. Then with this more evenly split Finch Avenue you can build a far cheaper BRT that would be able to handle the demands of the route for a longer period of time. Its important to remember that no transit project is an isolated bubble - anything you build will have downstream effects on other routes and services that it passes through in the general areas. The Finch Hydro corridor is right there, and plans have existed to build some sort of higher order transit on it for a long time. Sure GO ALRT would've far from covered every use case for the 36, and the the corridor would've remained busy - but it wouldn't have remained THAT busy, and would've turned it from a "Needs LRT for the capacity" corridor, to a "BRT works fine corridor". This is especially true if it was built in conjunction with say the Bolton Line.

 

[FW36]

The question I raise is whether other solutions could've been found that solved the capacity issue without even building much infra along Finch. Easy Example (completely theoretical): Imagine if we had a jump start on projects such as the Bolton Line and Kitchener Line expansion (more frequent trains, maybe moving Etobicoke North to Woodbine Racetrack). Having more North/Southish corridor options that transform the Finch West bus from mixing short haul corridor users and longer distance Subway commuters, to distributing that latter group to one or two other points throughout the line would have a substantial impact on ridership patterns along the Finch corridor, all whilst not building anything on Finch itself. Then with this more evenly split Finch Avenue you can build a far cheaper BRT that would be able to handle the demands of the route for a longer period of time. Its important to remember that no transit project is an isolated bubble - anything you build will have downstream effects on other routes and services that it passes through in the general areas. The Finch Hydro corridor is right there, and plans have existed to build some sort of higher order transit on it for a long time. Sure GO ALRT would've far from covered every use case for the 36, and the the corridor would've remained busy - but it wouldn't have remained THAT busy, and would've turned it from a "Needs LRT for the capacity" corridor, to a "BRT works fine corridor". This is especially true if it was built in conjunction with say the Bolton Line.

To be fair the set of facts before 2020 leaned towards building the LRT

1. The 36 bus ridership was steadily increasing and a lot of buses were running at capacity. I remember during rush hour sometimes multiple buses would pass-by without stopping due to capacity issues or up to 5 buses would be bunched together and all completely full.

2. Around 2010's Humber College announced they would focus there expansion project mostly on there north campus. York University also had expansion plans so it was safe to assume further increase in ridership from the greater amount of students

3. Interest rates before 2020 were low. The city wanted to encourage more private development for housing as there was a lack of new residential construction along the corridor. Historically LRT encourage more development than BRT. This would have resulted in more housing options for those who live around the area


So overall prior to 2020 the big picture was buses already having capacity issues, expected growth of post secondary education in the area, and potential for large scale redevelopment and population growth leading to even higher ridership.


Now let's look at the current set of facts.
1. Ridership for the 36 bus has decreased since the pandemic and has not recovered.

2. Currently there is a decrease in the enrollment of international students and increase in the amount of classes offered online. Humber College North has slowed down its plans as well

3. Interest rates are higher than before plus increase on development charges are making it is harder for developers to build. Most likely a lot of residential projects along the line will be delayed or canceled.

With current set of facts a BRT would be more justified, it would have been cheaper the build and provide required capacity.

However a lot of the draw backs were because the pandemic. If it never occured mostly likely the 36 would have continued to see increased ridership, I imagine online classes would not be as common, and if interest rates remained low I imagine there would have been more opportunities for redevelopment projects.

I don't think planners were thinking what impact a potential world shaking event would have on the Finch West LRT back in 2010.

As the line currently stands a BRT would be acceptable. But an LRT can still be also justifiable, it would just require the city to do more work. Giving the LRT priority, increasing speed limits, and better stop placement would mean faster transit encouraging more ridership. The city could lower development charges and change zoning laws to encourage redevelopment along the corridor. The city could also lower develpment fees for post-secondary institutions to encourage investment. With these changes I would say LRT is perfectly fine and acceptable, but if Toronto tries nothing to improve the current situation than it 100 percent Finch west should have been built as a BRT