[jordanmkasla2009]

Finch West is not dense enough for a tram, and unfortunately it doesn't look like it will be dense enough any time soon.

The Line 6 Finch West corridor is as dense as the iON LRT corridor and many said it didn't need an LRT either, yet the iON LRT is the most used transit route in KW now and is spurring further development along the corridor and the Region there is moving forward with it's stage 2 expansion down to Cambridge.

 

[hawc]

Snow on switches caused it to be shut down as well as communication issues.

Maybe it would be a good idea to have crews actually proactively clean the switches. It's not like they didn't know it was going to snow.

Seems like a no brainer

Love that the back up service (buses) was faster than the service it was saving them from. Haha. "Don't worry folks, we hope to have the slower service repaired soon."

 

[turbanplanner]

When you say Mississauga BRT, are you referring to the Transitway?

Why upgrade a bus Transitway to an LRT? Why repeat the mistake that Ottawa made?

Why not upgrade it to something like the Merseyrail in Liverpool? Or the Tyne & Wear Metro in Newcastle? A light Metro. Have it go underground when it passes through the Square One area. Heck, if we were smart, we would even have the Hurontario line use the same rolling stock and offer seamless transfers. Travel on elevated lines south to Port Credit, and go underground in downtown Brampton.

When it comes to adding ridership the BRT is probably the most useless transit decision in our province. I think I've seen at most 5 cars? In any of the parking lots.
For bypassing traffic it's great but that's about it IMO

 

[FW36]

These stops don't need to be removed to improve service. All you would accomplish by doing so is removing service from areas that are currently in the works for redevelopment and intensification.

1. Currently zero proposals for redevelopment near Stevenson. I understand albion mall could be redeveloped, but any condo built On Albion Mall property would still be at most 300 meters away or closer from either Stop at Kipling or Albion. That translate to a 4 minute walk or less to get to a stop. That is not a lot.

2. Currently zero proposal near Duncanwood station. The only two residential proposals are closer to Pearldale and Milvan. If there is a development proposed near Dancunwoods in the future luckily it would only be 5 minute walk to either Pearldale and Milvan.

3.Now for Driftwood station I understand Jane and Finch mall is being redeveloped along with surrounding area. From any point of all the proposal for new condos it would be 300 meters or less to Jane and finch station. Again that translates to a 4 minute walk or less to get to a stop from any new development.

I'm not saying remove station that would lead to additional 10 minute or longer walk, that would be to long. The amount of people who think a 5 minute walk or less is to much concerns me. For people with disabilities there is wheeltrans, or TTC could offer a local bus service. For those who are able and willing I recommend going on 5 minute walk get fresh air. 5 minutes is not long.

 

[turbanplanner]

1. Currently zero proposals for redevelopment near Stevenson. I understand albion mall could be redeveloped, but any condo built On Albion Mall property would still be at most 300 meters away or closer from either Stop at Kipling or Albion. That translate to a 4 minute walk or less to get to a stop. That is not a lot.

2. Currently zero proposal near Duncanwood station. The only two residential proposals are closer to Pearldale and Milvan. If there is a development proposed near Dancunwoods in the future luckily it would only be 5 minute walk to either Pearldale and Milvan.

3.Now for Driftwood station I understand Jane and Finch mall is being redeveloped along with surrounding area. From any point of all the proposal for new condos it would be 300 meters or less to Jane and finch station. Again that translates to a 4 minute walk or less to get to a stop from any new development.

I'm not saying remove station that would lead to additional 10 minute or longer walk, that would be to long. The amount of people who think a 5 minute walk or less is to much concerns me. For people with disabilities there is wheeltrans, or TTC could offer a local bus service. For those who are able and willing I recommend going on 5 minute walk get fresh air. 5 minutes is not long.

I agree with you about stops though I wanted to interject and mention wheeltrans is useless for anything you can’t schedule a day in advance!

 

[EnviroTO]

4 months to study speeding up the line. Good lord!

Why does it need to take 4 months. Step 1: Plan to remove all speed restrictions below 40 km/h except for the Highway 27 and Finch curve. Step 2: Test the line with all Alstom execs on board.

 

[Burnt creek]

3.Now for Driftwood station I understand Jane and Finch mall is being redeveloped along with surrounding area. From any point of all the proposal for new condos it would be 300 meters or less to Jane and finch station. Again that translates to a 4 minute walk or less to get to a stop from any new development.

To add, the Jane and Finch Mall, which can nowhere near be considered a huge mall, stretches from the Jane and Finch stop to the Driftwood stop. If you wanted to go to the Tim Horton's, you would get off at the Jane & Finch stop. If you wanted to go the McDonald's at the other end of the Mall, you would get off at Driftwood. That's how close these stops are.

 

[Bordercollie]

When it comes to adding ridership the BRT is probably the most useless transit decision in our province. I think I've seen at most 5 cars? In any of the parking lots.
For bypassing traffic it's great but that's about it IMO

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That's not true. It allows buses to travel without being impeded by traffic or traffic lights. Just because people don't park to use the system doesn't mean it's useless.

 

[6ixGod]

When it comes to adding ridership the BRT is probably the most useless transit decision in our province. I think I've seen at most 5 cars? In any of the parking lots.
For bypassing traffic it's great but that's about it IMO

View attachment 705389

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The number of cars in a parking lot is a poor indicator of station use. In an ideal public transport system, the goal is that you do not need a car to access transit in the first place, so low park-and-ride usage is not a failure. Park-and-ride is a legacy concept rooted in car-dependent planning. Modern transit success is measured by walk-up access, cycling, feeder buses, and connections to surrounding neighbourhoods, not by how full a parking lot is. A busy station in an urban or suburban context should ideally have few or no cars associated with it.

If anything, empty parking lots often indicate that people are accessing the station by means other than driving, which is precisely what transit-oriented planning is supposed to encourage.

That being said, the location of the Mississauga Transitway can be questioned and has been raised.

Mississauga’s Transitway a white elephant in the eyes of city-building expert Gil Penalosa

One of Mississauga’s greatest transportation initiatives is also its biggest mistake, says Gil Penalosa, a world-renowned expert on creating vibrant and healthy cities.

www.mississauga.com

https://www.insauga.com/528-million-mississauga-transitway-ridership-dropped-by-91-during-the-pandemic/

Mind you, these articles were written post pandemic. In 2023, the ridership rebounded and I believe 2024 numbers are similar to that of 2023 (haven’t been published yet).

 

[6ixGod]

Why does it need to take 4 months. Step 1: Plan to remove all speed restrictions below 40 km/h except for the Highway 27 and Finch curve. Step 2: Test the line with all Alstom execs on board.

It does not need to take four months. That’s the problem: LRT defenders have completely normalised mediocrity.

“Oh, the entire line is shut down because of snow? That’s fine, it’s not as if cold weather is a known condition here.”
“Oh, the trains are running at a crawl? No problem, wouldn’t want the LRT getting a speeding ticket.”
“Oh, another speed restriction? Safety first. The priority is clearly protecting the rails from the trains.”
“Oh, signal issues again? Understandable. We only had a decade to plan this.”
“Oh, testing takes months? Of course. This is cutting-edge 19th-century technology.”

At this point, expectations are so low that basic reliability is treated like a bonus feature. If a system cannot operate in winter, at reasonable speeds, on a straight alignment, then who asked you to build this? Did the Great Leader force it upon Finch West? When’s the military parade?

I’ll keep beating the dead horse and posting comments here and anybody who has a problem can go ride Line 6 and cry about it for 55 minutes (ONE WAY).

That being said, Line 6 can be salvaged, but only if it is treated like real transport infrastructure rather than a toy.

1. Remove unnecessary speed restrictions - Addressed and in progress
2. Implement real signal priority - Addressed and in progress
3. Winterise it properly - not addressed. Snow shutdowns are unacceptable in Toronto. Heated switches, proactive storm protocols, and no discretionary closures for routine weather. I’m sorry, but nobody forced you to build this above ground. Were the people behind this so confident it would be delayed that by the time it opened, Climate Change would eliminate snowfall in Toronto? Please. Also, what are these shelters?
4. Simplify operating rules. Safety culture should prevent accidents, not suppress performance. Over-proceduralisation is killing the line.
5. Run frequent service and build ridership.

Points 1, 2, 4, 5 have been addressed….only 1 and 2 are “in progress”. God only knows when they plan on actually implementing any of these points but even one of these before spring would be a miracle.

As for removing stations, that’s political suicide. That’s just something this line will have to deal with and I hope this is a lesson for all the LRT fanboys here. This is clearly an unsuitable model for Toronto and we don’t need anymore of this crap in the city.

 

[Bojaxs]

When it comes to adding ridership the BRT is probably the most useless transit decision in our province. I think I've seen at most 5 cars? In any of the parking lots.
For bypassing traffic it's great but that's about it IMO

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I don't want to derail this thread, but IMO, the issue with the Mississauga transitway is that it's still incomplete.

I've talked about this further in the Misissauga Transitway thread, and made suggestions on how to improve it.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

I don't want to derail this thread, but IMO, the issue with the Mississauga transitway is that it's still incomplete.

I've talked about this further in the Misissauga Transitway thread, and made suggestions on how to improve it.

Just like Line 4 Sheppard Subway, is incomplete?

 

[dowlingm]

Have been catching up on this thread and a few points:

1. A Bolton GO train station at Emery was mentioned a few times. I think Bolton GO would be a good project but Metrolinx clearly doesn’t, at least not in the foreseeable future. Look at the times they have produced maps lately with pencilled in projects, some of them pretty new and speculative, but no Bolton. Clearly even with the LRT interconnection, it’s not a quick or easy win
2. Dropping stops and how it would be quick and easy if the City would just get out of the way, and it’s cold waiting at stops. It’s the Province’s project! If they didn’t want stops they could have just not built them! It was the Province’s build consortium who built the curve with a significant speed restriction! It was the Province who built transit stops on Lines 5 and 6 without enclosed or at least full width shelters! It feels like for some posters on here, anything good is the Province’s doing and anything bad is the City’s. Not to mention that if the City needs to add back bus capacity to reduce walking distances to transit, that cost falls solely on the municipal taxpayer.

This is less about Finch but as an aside: I see on the Eglinton thread people complaining that service won’t happen until February at earliest. I find it hard to credit that anything else would be the case given how Finch launched. It makes all sorts of sense for the TTC to take additional time to work with the contractor to avoid aggravating design issues with avoidable operational snags.

 

[T3G]

What is the basis for declaring the Mississauga transitway to be a success? Sure, it's useful as a bypass, but as far as I can tell that's where it ends.

The speeds are artificially low (the buses on the part in Mississauga definitely don't come anywhere close to reaching their top speeds, not with the inane amount of schedule padding, and especially on the Metrolinx owned section, where they so rigidly demand that the 20 km/h speed limit be followed in the area around Renforth station that the TTC actually swapped the division that dispatches the 112 so they could send out buses with geoblocked speed limiters on them, which shows that low speeds are a product of living in a nanny state and not an inherent feature of the mode of transit), most of the stations are located in the middle of nowhere and are thus total ghost towns (especially Dixie, Cawthra, Tomken, and Central Parkway), even the stations that are near something useful are still far enough away that getting to them is a pain in the ass, exiting the transitway via a left turn, thanks to a lack of TSP, takes just as long as it does on the Finch LRT, and the costs of the project, by the end, more than doubled, proving that cost overruns are not a feature of LRT as some people on here are claiming.

I would think the lesson here is that Ontarians just really, really suck at transit, no matter the mode.

N.B. Viva and ZUM also suck.

 

[ThenWhat]

Snow clearing should be Mosaic’s responsibility. And it appears both times we’ve had snow, they’ve done a shit job.

It would be interesting to see those contracts. "Trust us, we know what we are doing. But we cannot trust you with that information."