[Milaisacat]

The LRT vs Subway debate was the wrong framing to the right fundamental question, which is at-grade vs grade-separated, with grade separation being a prerequisite for something to be considered rapid transit. Thus, it all comes down to a philosophical view of the objective of transit: slow vs fast. While no credible person is saying that transit has one-size-fits-all solutions, when it comes to cross-town, city-knitting main lines, fast transit is the way to go and that means grade separation.

 

[CharmAlarm]

Weather affecting Ottawa LRT and Montreal REM as well: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-montreal-ottawa-lrt-winter-snow-9.7047495

 

[Westey]

The LRT vs Subway debate was the wrong framing to the right fundamental question, which is at-grade vs grade-separated, with grade separation being a prerequisite for something to be considered rapid transit. Thus, it all comes down to a philosophical view of the objective of transit: slow vs fast. While no credible person is saying that transit has one-size-fits-all solutions, when it comes to cross-town, city-knitting main lines, fast transit is the way to go and that means grade separation.

In a public debate, you need short words.
Everyone understood "subways" to be grade-separated fast, reliable transit.
"LRT" meant the Transit City plan that was developed in the 2007 to 2009 era. On street, interactions with vehicles, close stop spacing, slow.

I always thought the "subway" supporters did not have enough knowledge to know the various types of subways that exist - but had common sense to know the LRT would not work.
and I though the LRT people were smarter, and deliberately never mentions mini-metros as an option since they wanted the options to be on-street LRT vs. 100% underground, 150m long train, subway. That way their LRT looks better in comparison. and that they had zero common sense.

 

[urbanclient]

Weather affecting Ottawa LRT and Montreal REM as well: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto-montreal-ottawa-lrt-winter-snow-9.7047495

Delays like the severe ones on Line 2 Bloor yesterday is nowhere close to being as bad as a full shut down. Please let's stop this pedantry over the last two days. "Ummm acktchually, Line X was delayed by 10-50 minutes in City X because of the snow".

Look at that, day 2 and the subway is back to its usual on-time performance, compare to yesterday and the TTC CEO's report::

but Line 6 is MIA again...

The new Line 6 Finch West LRT has been shut down for the second day in a row because of yesterday's snowstorm! Given all the mishaps over the new transit line and how other LRT lines like Waterloo's ION run fine in the snow, who feels it's time to call for a public inquiry?

Alternatively, I would also be open to covering both Finch West and Eglinton at the same time when the latter opens given Councillor Josh Matlow has been calling for one for a while now.

Rob Ford was a joke. He didn't even know what he was talking about.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. A clown saying random things will eventually say something mostly correct. A monkey mashing a keyboard for an infinite amount of time can produce any text, including Shakespeare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

In a public debate, you need short words.
Everyone understood "subways" to be grade-separated fast, reliable transit.
"LRT" meant the Transit City plan that was developed in the 2007 to 2009 era. On street, interactions with vehicles, close stop spacing, slow.

I always thought the "subway" supporters did not have enough knowledge to know the various types of subways that exist - but had common sense to know the LRT would not work.
and I though the LRT people were smarter, and deliberately never mentions mini-metros as an option since they wanted the options to be on-street LRT vs. 100% underground, 150m long train, subway. That way their LRT looks better in comparison. and that they had zero common sense.

Forget the impending capacity problem, driverless metro of any rolling stock width would've been cheaper to maintain and operate than Line 5 Eglinton.
High floor vehicles are much easier to maintain. Labour costs are ~70% of the TTC operating budget. https://stevemunro.ca/2024/06/12/ttc-draft-financial-results-for-2023/

 

[LNahid2000]

Goodbye to that Eglinton East LRT, it will never be built.

Good. I thought this was a waste of money even before Finch became a boondoggle.

 

[nightstreak]

I was never a fan of Rob Ford, but Josh Matlow’s relentless push for LRTs makes him look pretty foolish in hindsight. Ford was right about one thing: Toronto should have been building more subways instead of LRTs. The Finch West LRT has turned into a textbook example of why - so much disruption for a deeply underwhelming result. I’d genuinely love to hear Matlow try to defend this mess.

I'm glad Line 2 is being expanded further into Scarborough instead of what Matlow wanted.

My comment about Ford being right was very tongue in cheek. He was absolutely clueless. The issues we're seeing now on Finch are a direct result of his meddling. The St. Clair streetcar ROW has no issues in winter weather and neither does the Spadina ROW, both of which operate very much like an LRT. At the time it was devised, David Miller's Transit City LRT project was meant to connect the entire city with the very limited budget he managed to convince the province to fund. We didn't have $50B to build subways everywhere.

His view was spot-on prophetic: connect the city with light rail transit in anticipation of an affordable housing crisis we were inching towards at that time and inevitably arrived at unprepared because he was ignored. A TTC-built LRT line would not have come with the PPP issues of a private developer, including technology disconnects and private litigation that delayed both Finch and Eglinton. We would have been riding LRTs on Finch, Eglinton, Jane and in Scarborough since the mid-2010s had Ford not cancelled everything.

One critique of Miller's views is that he could have and should have also pushed for a downtown relief line (a subway) while also prioritizing transit city. Subways aren't bad, they're just very very expensive and LRTs all over the city was what we could afford to quickly catch up on the backlog before moving to long term subway development.

 

[Voltz]

he was hilarious and his soundbites will live on forever. but his common sense approach was bang on when it came to grade separated vs not for transit (which I think was what the subway v lrt debate from that era was about). the "downtown elites" overcomplicated transit building by incorporating a social engineering to it.

the proof is in the pudding - I agree w other posters here that Finch West LRT will kill any political will to ever build at grade transit again. a painful lesson that cost ~ $4bn, and I feel for the people who rely on Line 6 and soon to be Line 5

He falsely ranted and raved against the grade separated Scarborough LRT, you can't call something common sense when its completely not true.

 

[just east of the creek]

My comment about Ford being right was very tongue in cheek. He was absolutely clueless. The issues we're seeing now on Finch are a direct result of his meddling. The St. Clair streetcar ROW has no issues in winter weather and neither does the Spadina ROW, both of which operate very much like an LRT. At the time it was devised, David Miller's Transit City LRT project was meant to connect the entire city with the very limited budget he managed to convince the province to fund. We didn't have $50B to build subways everywhere.

His view was spot-on prophetic: connect the city with light rail transit in anticipation of an affordable housing crisis we were inching towards at that time and inevitably arrived at unprepared because he was ignored. A TTC-built LRT line would not have come with the PPP issues of a private developer, including technology disconnects and private litigation that delayed both Finch and Eglinton. We would have been riding LRTs on Finch, Eglinton, Jane and in Scarborough since the mid-2010s had Ford not cancelled everything.

One critique of Miller's views is that he could have and should have also pushed for a downtown relief line (a subway) while also prioritizing transit city. Subways aren't bad, they're just very very expensive and LRTs all over the city was what we could afford to quickly catch up on the backlog before moving to long term subway development.

There is nothing inherently wrong with LRT's and they work in countries around the world in varying situations of density and weather. What is wrong in this city, well country, is the political meddling, the ineptness of the designers and builders given all the LRT building models to draw on, the car first mentality (i.e. transit priority and other influences leading to abysmal running speeds), and the day to day maintenance and operations requirements. The idea that this line is down for the second day because we cannot plow snow and keep switches operational is just so ludicrous, aggravating, frustrating and abysmal..... Its all nonsense and the lot of them (Mosaic, Metrolinx etc) should be turfed and the complete operation turned over to the TTC. Then we have one operator to deal with. Of course it would be nice if they had a budget and with slippery Doug in charge, he'll probably be advocating for reductions in service.

This country is so pathetic at times.

And I think all of this experience, the years of fumbling and ineptness does colour our outlook on Alto. We can't build an LRT line that exceeds the speed of a jogger, yet we are going to build hundreds of km's of high speed rail? And if it snows? They will run shuttle buses?

I remember being in China in poor weather - snow, ice etc - going to or from Harbin. And the train had slowed somewhat - perhaps 2/3'd of what it had been doing, so perhaps from 300+ kmh to 200 and something. Anyways the English speaking attendant came to my seat an apologized for the decrease in speed due to the weather and the fact that we would be x number of minutes late getting in. Can i see Alto running like this? That is a tough tough call right now.

 

[lastcommodore]

The LRT vs Subway debate was the wrong framing to the right fundamental question, which is at-grade vs grade-separated, with grade separation being a prerequisite for something to be considered rapid transit. Thus, it all comes down to a philosophical view of the objective of transit: slow vs fast. While no credible person is saying that transit has one-size-fits-all solutions, when it comes to cross-town, city-knitting main lines, fast transit is the way to go and that means grade separation.

Bang on, repeat this from the hilltops a thousand times over. I am frankly tired of "LRT vs Subway" because 99% of the conversation actually has literally nothing to do with light rail vs. heavy rail. Nearly nobody actually argues the cost-benefits of using low-floor vs high-floor vehicles, using smaller rolling stock, etc. etc.
99% of the conversation is on stop spacing, at-grade intersections, operational procedures, speeds, etc etc etc and unfortunately people associate LRT (a technical designation based on rolling stock) with Toronto tram-like operations (at-grade, frequent stops, lower speeds, median ROWs, etc). Thus, people (inc. Rob Ford) maligned totally grade separated rapid transit because it was called (and by technical standards, is,) LRT.

I genuinely want the term LRT to leave the public consciousness. It needs to die, to be relegated to engineering documents a thousand pages long. The average layman should not even know what the term "LRT" stands for. It should be considered as nerdy a term as the exact manufacturer and rolling stock used on each line.

Use tram, or streetcar, or subway, or elevated metro, or just metro. An "LRT" can be all of these things.

 

[Bordercollie]

The technology which refers to the trains is not the problem.

It's the way they are operated is the problem. There is no plan. They didn't even think that not being able to plow the yard would be an issue.

All they need is a HI rail pickup truck with a plow or a brush to run the line to clean the snow. You would also need crews with brooms to clear switches of ice.

Obviously heaters help but they are not sufficient.

I hope that they don't get paid if the trains don't run. That should be an incentive to get off their ass and do something.

Remember Ottawa didn't have a diesel powered truck powerful enough to tow a train. It was only after the inquiry that they decided that this should be something they should invest in.

 

[urbanclient]

Apparently they didn't plow the snow so the trains couldn't get out of the yard.

And the switches was an issue.

The sheer incompetence is mind boggling.

Considering the possibility that the trains were stuck in the yard, unlike Lines 1 through 5, there might be a genuine lack of physical and human resources to clear the snow for Line 6, i.e. yard switches not heated (properly), no TTC workers assigned to clear snow for Line 6's yard, intersections etc. The stratified bureaucracy forgetting about winter operations is not something I would put past Metrolinx or the TTC.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they had to call in a private snow clearing contractor last minute to move the snow off the line and blowtorch the switches.

In other news, Line 6 is running now?

 

[Bordercollie]

There might be a genuine lack of physical and human resources to clear the snow for Line 6. I.e. yard switches not heated (properly), no TTC workers assigned to clear snow for Line 6 etc. The stratified bureaucracy forgetting about winter operations is not something I would put past Metrolinx or the TTC.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they had to call in a private snow clearing contractor last minute to move the snow off the line and blowtorch the switches.

In other news, Line 6 is running now?
View attachment 709212

They do it for the legacy network. They have those sidewalk type tractors that go around and clean switches.

 

[JSF-1]

The technology which refers to the trains is not the problem.

It's the way they are operated is the problem. There is no plan. They didn't even think that not being able to plow the yard would be an issue.

All they need is a HI rail pickup truck with a plow or a brush to run the line to clean the snow. You would also need crews with brooms to clear switches of ice.

Obviously heaters help but they are not sufficient.

I hope that they don't get paid if the trains don't run. That should be an incentive to get off their ass and do something.

Remember Ottawa didn't have a diesel powered truck powerful enough to tow a train. It was only after the inquiry that they decided that this should be something they should invest in.

Genuine question... Does either the EC or FW have any Maintenance of Way vehicles like the subway and streetcar network does? It feels like that would be a massive omission from these lines (and another thing to add to the list of why Metrolinx is the worst thing to happen to transit in the GTA).

 

[jmi22]

"Pedantic" is your histrionics like all the others who want the TTC to serve them and not anyone else.
You're being pouty over people not agreeing with you and actually wanting what you apparently despise. Welcome to reality. We can't all get what we want, and in this case you can't. It's not a failure, it's life. Grow up and deal with it.

You know you've won the argument when the other person fails to engage with a single point you've made.

Try to keep the thread on topic, via argumentation with relevant information as opposed to this pathetic attempt at ad hominem, and please save what ever personal frustrations you're having for your journal.

 

[nfitz]

How does the Waterloo LRT deal with cross street/intersection snow?

Why go to Waterloo. TTC has 100 or so km of track running with few problems - including sections that you can't run snowploughs down - like along Queensway.