[urbanclient]

The metro area of Barcelona is 6 million in an area smaller than downtown Toronto. This is the issue with throwing around population, its not apples and oranges. Whats important is population density.

Can y'all please at least fact check yourselves before posting outrageously false information? Instead of throwing around info off a cursory glance that confirms your biases of Toronto being a smaller global city, do better. The fact this misinformation was blindly upvoted 5 times is even more disappointing.

Barcelona city proper is 1.7 million over 100 sqkm. Barcelona's metro area is 5.8 million over 4,268 sqkm, an area notably NOT smaller than 630 sqkm Toronto proper, let alone 16.6 sqkm official downtown Toronto.

Toronto's 1,829 sqkm 'population centre' has well over 6 million people across an area less than half the size of Barcelona's 4,268 sqkm metro area.
Sources (posted extra as some StatsCanada pages are down): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_population_centres_in_Canada
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810001101
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710015201

Population and dwelling counts: Canada and population centres - Open Government Portal

This table presents the 2021 and 2016 population counts and the 2021 dwelling counts, land area and population density for population centres. It also shows the percentage change in the population...

open.canada.ca

That is all not to mention that Toronto's 16.6 sqkm downtown is denser than any European downtown because of the sheer quantity of skyscrapers in such a small area.

Toronto would be the 3rd largest monocentric-y metro area (some would call this a city) by population in Western Europe, behind only London and Paris. 5th largest in Europe when including Istanbul and Moscow. Since these comparable metro areas are usually around the same land area, it naturally follows that Toronto's nominal densities within the inner core i.e. downtown, city proper are still easily in the top 5 in Western Europe.

Even the Barcelona "Polynuclear Urban Region" of 6.6 million over 6000 sqkm is less populated than the GTA with 7.7 million over 7100 sqkm.

Wonder whether those electric switch heaters were also used for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT? This is bonkers!

Thankfully, as other posts have mentioned, they apparently have not been used on Eglinton.

 

[robmausser]

Wonder whether those electric switch heaters were also used for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT? This is bonkers!

Luckily they have not been used. The Crosstown switches are different, arent buried in concrete and use different heaters, and can be easily heated with portable gas heaters if needed.

 

[nfitz]

The metro area of Barcelona is 6 million in an area smaller than downtown Toronto.

Barcelona's 1.7 million people are in that small an area - about 100 km² compared to the 840,000 in the old City of Toronto - 97 km².

But the 6 million people is for a much larger area metro Barcelona area - about 4,000 km². Compare to the 6 million people in the Toronto CMA - about 6,000 km².
No surprise that when you double the population density in such a large area, you have more lines.

The comment also ignores, than in addition to the 12 metro lines (L1 to L12) (165 km), they ALSO HAVE LRT LINES! Since the turn of the century they have opened 46 km of LRT (Lines T1 to T6). According to Wikipedia, the average speed on Line T4/T5/T6 is a whopping 19 km/hr - using the Alstom Citadis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trambesòs

As usual, people are deliberately choosing to compare apples and oranges. Including that some of the Metro lines are more like commuter rail lines than downtown subway lines. So where do we add the 500 km and 7 lines of Toronto commuter rail.

Ironically some of the issues on Line 6, is the Spanish engineering companies involved in the design - who have no clue about winter. What works in Barcelona, won't work when it's below freezing for weeks on end. Or when exposed to salt. Though how they didn't fix this and the Citadis issues after Ottawa, I don't know.

Barcelona - note the vast snowbanks

 

[urbanclient]

Barcelona's 1.7 million people are in that small an area - about 100 km² compared to the 840,000 in the old City of Toronto - 97 km².

But the 6 million people is for a much larger area metro Barcelona area - about 4,000 km². Compare to the 6 million people in the Toronto CMA - about 6,000 km².
No surprise that when you double the population density in such a large area, you have more lines.

The comment also ignores, than in addition to the 12 metro lines (L1 to L12) (165 km), they ALSO HAVE LRT LINES! Since the turn of the century they have opened 46 km of LRT (Lines T1 to T6). According to Wikipedia, the average speed on Line T4/T5/T6 is a whopping 19 km/hr - using the Alstom Citadis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trambesòs

As usual, people are deliberately choosing to compare apples and oranges. Including that some of the Metro lines are more like commuter rail lines than downtown subway lines. So where do we add the 500 km and 7 lines of Toronto commuter rail.

Again you are not reading before replying to further your own biases. The official Statistics Canada Toronto 'population centre' is 1,829.05 sqkm and has a population of 5,647,656 as of the 2021 Census. I am sure you are aware that the 2021 Census undercounted a lot of people and the population of the GTA has since grown almost 15%. A conservative 13% growth would put the Toronto population centre's population at 6.38 million. I posted 3 StatsCanada sources for you to no avail. Here is the most pertinent source again:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=9810001101

I am well aware of the fact that 1.7 million Barcelona city proper is denser than Old Toronto at around 1 million as of 2026 for the same area. The outrageously false claim was '6 million over an area smaller than downtown Toronto'. A cursory glance by a mathematically inclined person would ring alarm bells. Pedantically, 6 million over 16.6 sqkm would be a density of over 360,000 per square kilometre. That would make Barcelona the densest city on the planet by an order of magnitude, no exaggeration. 6 million over <630 sqkm is not much better of a claim to those with knowledge of what the densest and largest cities are. The latter scenario would mean Barcelona is denser than Hong Kong, even though Barcelona has about 570 fewer skyscrapers than Hong Kong.

Seriously, has anyone here actually been to Barcelona? Get real people. Fact check yourselves. @nfitz you as well, like when you claimed Metrolinx had nothing to do with the TTC's 'fully funded' Eglinton Crosstown with no evidence, before being corrected by @Steve X and me.

 

[Bojaxs]

The whole motivation behind constructing Transit City was to bring "European" style transit to Toronto. Yet lines 5 & 6 weren't even constructed to European standards. So the city can't even operate them in a European manner. Which in some ways defeats the very purpose of having constructed Transit City.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

The more mind bogglingly part is not the overbuilt catenary IMO. there is at least some reasoning behind that decision. Toronto gets the rare freezing rain that is more common than in Paris. The more mind bogglingly part is the CBTC signalling. Line 6 is the only surface-only street running tram in the world that has CBTC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_control#List

The massive MSF yard also makes no sense.

Didn't Edmonton try (and fail) with CBTC on the surface with the Metro line?

 

[cplchanb]

Wonder whether those electric switch heaters were also used for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT? This is bonkers!

yea but do you honestly think they could afford to rip up all the switches and redo the infrastructure? going from electric to gas aint cheap when everything is already in place? dont forget these lines have been under construction for years. adding gas lines to 10km of road is extremely time consuming and expensive after the fact. Enbridge takes forever to review and approve applications for 1 building let alone an entire stretch of road.

any lessons learned is for ECTW and beyond. Even ontario line may be past that point already since it is a very fundamental change.

 

[urbanclient]

Didn't Edmonton try (and fail) with CBTC on the surface with the Metro line?

Hence why I said surface-only street running tram to make this distinction clear. A few metro-like trams use CBTC to achieve very short headways in tunnels etc. That's less than 10 out of almost 600 trams/LRTs in the world.

The Edmonton Metro line doesn't remotely look like Finch West. 6 out of 10 current stations are underground and it has a much higher level of grade separation in general, to the point of being mostly a metro/subway as opposed to your typical street running tram.

Again these clowns at Metrolinx decided to re-invent the wheel by wasting money on CBTC for a manually operated tram. If you shell out money for CBTC, then you should at least be achieving GoA2, semi-automatic train operations like Line 1. But of course, that's not possible when you have a median-running tram with 24 level crossings over <10 km of surface track...

 

[cplchanb]

The whole motivation behind constructing Transit City was to bring "European" style transit to Toronto. Yet lines 5 & 6 weren't even constructed to European standards. So the city can't even operate them in a European manner. Which in some ways defeats the very purpose of having constructed Transit City.

this is what you get when you rely on north american expertise. they dont have any clue how things work in europe/asia.

 

[Bojaxs]

this is what you get when you rely on north american expertise. they dont have any clue how things work in europe/asia.

Have the folks at Metrolinx actually gone to Europe to see how trams work? I've already made multiple posts about how the LRT lines in Toronto lack two phase pedestrian crossings. Something that is common with a lot of tram lines across Europe.

I'm back in London, England and I'm planning to ride the TfL Tram from Wimbeldon to Croydon to see how it compares to my recent riding on the Finch West Line.

 

[urbanclient]

this is what you get when you rely on north american expertise. they dont have any clue how things work in europe/asia.

Let me correct you there, they don't have any clue how things work. Period. They don't know how things work on planet Earth. They are clueless.

Ignorance can be forgiven, not even attempting to learn from those before you, not attempting to stand on the shoulders of giants, is negligence if not outright malice.

 

[nfitz]

Have the folks at Metrolinx actually gone to Europe to see how trams work? I've already made multiple posts about how the LRT lines in Toronto lack two phase pedestrian crossings. Something that is common with a lot of tram lines across Europe.

With Toronto converting the (few) existing two-phase crossings to single-phase to improve safety and reduce pedestrian injuries, I don't see how they'd even consider adding any - especially when Finch is little if any wider than some existing crossings that were never two phase.

Yes, you have already made multiple posts.

 

[urbanclient]

With Toronto converting the (few) existing two-phase crossings to single-phase to improve safety and reduce pedestrian injuries, I don't see how they'd even consider adding any - especially when Finch is little if any wider than some existing crossings that were never two phase.

Yes, you have already made multiple posts.

Single-phase crossings are not safer and do not reduce pedestrian injuries (can I get a source for your claim?), especially in the case of a wide stroad like Finch West. If this is the reasoning behind the alleged conversions, then the reasoning would be very questionable.

The City's documentation on multi-stage pedestrian crossings and crossovers does not mention the alleged safety benefit of a single stage over multi-stage. It just mentions the City's attempt at car-centrism (IMO) by requiring single-stage crossings at most intersections, which leads to wider lanes for cars:

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/u...perations-Policies-and-Strategies_Final-a.pdf

On the contrary, it's widely accepted that pedestrian refuge islands and two-stage crossings increase pedestrian safety and are recommended for roads 4 lanes or wider by the US DOT:
https://highways.dot.gov/media/11851
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/pro...trian-refuge-islands-urban-and-suburban-areas
https://highways.dot.gov/safety/pro...andum-consideration-and-implementation-proven
https://legacy.trafficalm.com/artic...s-uncontrolled-pedestrian-crossing-treatments
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447993/

Two-stage signalized crossings are far from perfect, but they are decidedly safer than single-stage signalized crossings. Especially for a 6 lane wide Finch Avenue West.

 

[TRONto]

Aside from Signal priority how could the TTC do better for St Clair?

The speeds now are LOWER than with mixed traffic

I was only referring to the construction.

I would guess it's also slower due to political interference (I have to have my stop!).

The TTC would probably have preferred to rip everything out and run a bus.

 

[urbanclient]

"Early impressions of Toronto's line 6 are overwhelmingly negative according to a new poll."