[hw621]

Based on my observations of delay sources on Finch, if they eliminate the speed restrictions at intersections/platforms and improve the TSP they should be able achieve Metrolinx's original 34-minute schedule, which is an 18 km/h average. That's faster than the bus, but still far short of any subway line. Eliminating a few stops could maybe get it down to around 31 minutes (20 km/h). The question then becomes whether a 20 km/h average is fast enough for a line that costs billions of dollars.

If they had built the line in the Finch hydro corridor, it easily could have averaged over 30 km/h with level crossings where it intersects other roads. In that case the line would have provided much greater benefit to the people of northwest Toronto who currently need to spend a ridiculously long time on the tram/bus/subway to get to their workplaces, appointments, etc.

They set the bar so low that you will accept anything that goes above it, happily...

 

[innsertnamehere]

That's a good catch on the existing vs. planned ROW width. But my point still stands, the vast, vast majority of Toronto streets are not wide enough to fit a median tram without major, politically infeasible, and currently unlawful changes. Having only one car lane in each direction is infeasible IMO due to snow plowed windrows in the winter.
View attachment 709850
But you are very wrong about Yonge/Finch being 36 metres wide property line to property line. The two through lanes and centre turning lane together are ~10 metres wide. Assuming the curb lanes are 4 metres wide each, that's 18 metres total curb-to-curb. Generously estimating 5 metre boulevards on each side puts the public ROW at 28 metres in this screenshot below. Even a worst case underestimate will not allow you to find an extra 8 metres between building faces on opposite sides of the road. There is always a setback between property line and building face. https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/9175-Lane-Widths-Guideline-Version-3.0-AODA.pdf

View attachment 709842
Take a walk around where I took the screenshots for Finch near Yonge. 36 metres would be right up against the house / commercial building with little or no room for sidewalks. And the narrow curb-to-curb width would certainly necessitate expropriation for the legacy, single family residential section. The curb-to-curb being narrower than 24 metres and whole public ROW including boulevards being narrower than ~30 to 32 metres would effectively preclude an upgrade to tram in residential areas. Unless you want to tell homeowners they won't have access to their driveway for an extended period. A tram being marginally more politically feasible in non-residential areas, but still infeasible for all intents and purposes. Widening the roadway and public ROW in these too-narrow corridors would violate current zoning laws and municipal code.

Besides Finch West, where can we find an ROW 36 metres wide that would actually have the transit demand to justify an upgrade to tram? Latent + current demand. The top 10 busiest bus corridors are all too narrow, except for maybe Steeles, but Steeles doesn't have the daily ridership per km to justify an upgrade.

Again you are confusing city property widths with the width of the actual roadway itself.

That stretch of finch west does indeed have a width of 36 metres. The city property extends far wider than just the phyiscal roadway itself.

Notice how further east there are narrower sections where the full planned ROW has not yet been provided through redevelopment.

The reality as well is that you do not need 36 metres to accommodate 4 lanes plus 2 transit lanes. St Clair does it with a 27 metre ROW (most of the street is 30m, but the portion from Yonge to Avenue is 27m), which is generally the real minimum. You can probably squeeze things as narrow as 25 metres in width mid-block, though intersections need more to accommodate platforms and left turn lanes.

There are many streets that can accommodate this configuration city-wide. Basically every major arterial in Etobicoke, Scarborough, and North York has the space.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

It is absolutely possible to have roads with one lane per direction in places with snow. It just means that the lane needs to be at least 3.7 metres wide to accommodate the blade of a full-size snowplow. If some snow falls back into the lane after the snowplow goes through that's fine, since 3.7 is a very wide lane anyway. After the plow goes through, the wheels of trucks and buses will keep the central 3.0m of the lane clear by spraying the slush off to the side.

If you want to argue that it's politically infeasible to narrow major arterials like Finch East to one lane per direction then I'd tend to agree, but let's not pretend that snow is what's preventing us from reducing the number of car lanes.


The right of way is defined as the distance between the property lines. You cannot definitively measure the right-of-way from Google Maps or Streetview. For the property lines you need to use Toronto Maps.

In Montréal, they REMOVE the snow...

Here are the stages involved in snow removal operations (in Montréal):​

• salt and gravel spreading as soon as the roads and sidewalks become slippery
• plowing as soon as there is 2.5 cm of snow on the ground
• loading as soon as there is 10 to 15 cm of snow on the ground

These operations are carried out continuously until the streets and sidewalks are cleared and safe. The amount of precipitation, weather conditions and equipment failure may slow the pace of operations.​

Toronto could do the same, except the property taxes would increase, because of the cost of snow removal versus snow plowing is higher.

 

[urbanclient]

If you want to argue that it's politically infeasible to narrow major arterials like Finch East to one lane per direction then I'd tend to agree, but let's not pretend that snow is what's preventing us from reducing the number of car lanes.

Fair point, I was thinking that snow cleared from the tram ROW would accumulate between the raised tram ROW curb and the car lane, and some of the snow cleared from the car lane might end up on the tram ROW. I have yet to see one car lane in each direction for a tram on a raised ROW in a similar winter climate. If the tram ROW is entirely at-grade / not exclusive like in downtown i.e. Bathurst RapidTO streetcar then of course it could work.

The right of way is defined as the distance between the property lines. You cannot definitively measure the right-of-way from Google Maps or Streetview. For the property lines you need to use Toronto Maps.

According to Toronto Maps, the property lines are not 36 metres apart for Finch near Duplex ave. And in practice the ROW is even narrower due to required setbacks and such. You can't strictly go off property lines when there are required driveway lengths and setbacks etc. I have walked the area, you can eye ball it given the distance between buildings is not double the width of the road surface.

That stretch of finch west does indeed have a width of 36 metres. The city property extends far wider than just the phyiscal roadway itself.

Right next door you can see the ROW narrows to 33 metres and even less closer to Yonge. And it's effectively narrower for reasons stated above.

Here is the legacy residential area in the other Google maps screenshot:

In cases like these, the narrowest sections determine tram upgrade viability. There is no way the city fits a tram and four car lanes on Finch East. In a theoretical best case scenario you need only 20.5 metres curb-to-curb, and maybe 25-26 metres property line to property line, but in reality you more than likely need at least 22-24 metres curb-to-curb and 30-32 metres property line to property line.

8 metres for tram ROW, 2x8 metres for car lanes in both directions with some buffer for ease of construction etc. and roughly 5 to 7 metres for sidewalks/boulevards. Plus the appropriate pre-existing building setbacks. They are not going to build 2.1 metre wide sidewalks sandwiched exactly between the property line and the road surface to cram in a tram + four lanes of traffic in a cross section of 25 metres.

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/upload/v1663240053/Documents/Metrolinx/Finch-West-LRT-FAQs-Revised-June9.pdf

 

[lastcommodore]

I don't have time currently but if someone else does it would be interesting to compare a selection of LRT segments in North America and overseas, comparing the average speed of:

- segments with median ROW without fencing or crossing gates
- segments with median ROW with fencing and crossing gates
- segments with ROW separate from roads.

We've seen a few examples of each type in this thread but it would be nice to have them all together in a single table with a larger sample size to get a sense of the typical average speeds associated with ROW types

Hard to think of examples off the top of my head but i have done so for Paris T9, ION segments, 6 FW, and CTrain Blue segments.
For the sake of my sanity i'm just screenshotting. UT can't copy paste from my spreadsheet.

Feel free to suggest LRT lines for me to measure.

Takeaways:
- CTrain Blue manages the downtown segment, with far more traffic signals, shorter stop spacing, and basically no significant barriers (but no car traffic) faster than 6 finch west.
- Paris T9 handily beats 6 Finch West with similar situation.
- ION Willis Way to Mill manages to handily beat 6 Finch West with perhaps even worse separation than 6 FW as some of this includes curbside. Although ION has higher spacing, it also has much, much more turns and traffic lights.

 

[urbanclient]

Hard to think of examples off the top of my head but i have done so for Paris T9, ION segments, 6 FW, and CTrain Blue segments.
For the sake of my sanity i'm just screenshotting. UT can't copy paste from my spreadsheet.

Feel free to suggest LRT lines for me to measure.

View attachment 709894

Takeaways:
- CTrain Blue manages the downtown segment, with far more traffic signals, shorter stop spacing, and basically no significant barriers (but no car traffic) faster than 6 finch west.
- Paris T9 handily beats 6 Finch West with similar situation.
- ION Willis Way to Mill manages to handily beat 6 Finch West with perhaps even worse separation than 6 FW as some of this includes curbside. Although ION has higher spacing, it also has much, much more turns and traffic lights.

Amazing data. I'll add a footnote that 'Median, Barrier' and 'Separate, Barrier' for Calgary's Blue line is not just a flimsy pipe fence like this. The CTrain functions like a full blown metro/subway for many segments.

 

[reaperexpress]

Fair point, I was thinking that snow cleared from the tram ROW would accumulate between the raised tram ROW curb and the car lane, and some of the snow cleared from the car lane might end up on the tram ROW.

Snow doesn't need to be cleared from the tram ROW other than at switches (which are supposed to clear themselves with the switch heaters*). As with railways, the tram itself keeps the snow from getting too deep. A tram is only 2.6m wide so if you have a 3.0m tram lane with a 0.8m buffer that's already a metre where you can leave the small amount of snow that gets pushed to that side of the tram. If we are talking about high speeds on the tram line there should really be a buffer anyway, potentially with fencing.

* key word "supposed to", given that the switch heaters on Finch have been failing a lot recently

I have yet to see one car lane in each direction for a tram on a raised ROW in a similar winter climate.

Waterloo, Helsinki and Tallinn all have road segments with one car lane in each direction for a tram on a raised ROW in a similar winter climate. What cities did you look at?

 

[urbanclient]

Waterloo, Helsinki and Tallinn all have road segments with one car lane in each direction for a tram on a raised ROW in a similar winter climate. What cities did you look at?

Good find, I supposed it was possible. Just wasn't sure where. I looked at Moscow, where trams can be found on non-raised ROW in inner-city corridors. And I meant to say raised median ROW, but I don't think that makes a difference in this case. Either way, I don't think it's very feasible to have 50, 60+ km/h stroads have only one car lane in each direction. Human geography is so different in Toronto.

Also don't shoot me, but isn't the Waterloo LRT not on a raised median ROW in areas that it is in the median? Although there does appear to be a curb separating the tram from the car lane, the tram row itself is at the same level as the adjacent car lanes. I would assume this helps with snow clearing. I haven't ever tried or even seen ION in person.

 

[reaperexpress]

Hard to think of examples off the top of my head but i have done so for Paris T9, ION segments, 6 FW, and CTrain Blue segments.
For the sake of my sanity i'm just screenshotting. UT can't copy paste from my spreadsheet.

Feel free to suggest LRT lines for me to measure.

View attachment 709894

Takeaways:
- CTrain Blue manages the downtown segment, with far more traffic signals, shorter stop spacing, and basically no significant barriers (but no car traffic) faster than 6 finch west.
- Paris T9 handily beats 6 Finch West with similar situation.
- ION Willis Way to Mill manages to handily beat 6 Finch West with perhaps even worse separation than 6 FW as some of this includes curbside. Although ION has higher spacing, it also has much, much more turns and traffic lights.

Thanks for this! I'll copy the data into my own spreadsheet so I can play around with it.

"Faster than 6 Finch West" is not interesting to me - pretty much everything is faster than 6 Finch West. What I'm much more interested in is how the best case scenario for a median ROW compares to the best case scenario for other ROW types. I see the C-Train averages 43 km/h from Bow Valley College to McKnight-Westwind, so it is in fact possible to achieve rapid transit speeds in the median of a road, as long as there are concrete barriers, railway crossing gates and two-stage pedestrian crossings. Interesting to see that the line only has 2-stage ped crossings rather than the 3-stage crossings more common in the Netherlands.

 

[urbanclient]

I see the C-Train averages 43 km/h from Bow Valley College to McKnight-Westwind, so it is in fact possible to achieve rapid transit speeds in the median of a road, as long as there are concrete barriers, railway crossing gates and two-stage pedestrian crossings.

Yes, and on the off chance anyone didn't know already, that section is mostly in the median of what could be a 10 to 12 lane wide road. Guesstimate around 36 to 45 metres wide curb-to-curb like Allen Road.

 

[dullturtle06]

Good find, I supposed it was possible. Just wasn't sure where. I looked at Moscow, where trams can be found on non-raised ROW in inner-city corridors. And I meant to say raised median ROW, but I don't think that makes a difference in this case. Either way, I don't think it's very feasible to have 50, 60+ km/h stroads have only one car lane in each direction. Human geography is so different in Toronto.

Also don't shoot me, but isn't the Waterloo LRT not on a raised median ROW in areas that it is in the median? Although there does appear to be a curb separating the tram from the car lane, the tram row itself is at the same level as the adjacent car lanes. I would assume this helps with snow clearing. I haven't ever tried or even seen ION in person.

View attachment 709905

*EDIT, now that I'm watching video of Helsinki and Tallinn tram, I am not seeing any raised median ROWs like Line 6 Finch West (so far)... Can someone point me to a photo or video?

 

[urbanclient]

[...]

The median ROW here doesn't appear to be raised to me. The near side almost looks like it's raised, but on street view, switching back and forth between west and eastbound lanes, you can see the far side is actually a thin raised curb on both sides; the tram ROW itself is not raised higher than the adjacent asphalt by any significant amount, if at all.

 

[reaperexpress]

View attachment 709914
The median ROW here doesn't appear to be raised to me. The near side almost looks like it's raised, but on street view, switching back and forth between west and eastbound lanes, you can see the far side is actually a thin raised curb on both sides; the tram ROW itself is not raised higher than the adjacent asphalt by any significant amount, if at all.

View attachment 709915

And why can't we do that in Toronto?

 

[urbanclient]

And why can't we do that in Toronto?

If anything, it's what we should do in Toronto, to make construction cheaper (and snow clearing cheaper/easier?)

 

[Rainforest]

Based on my observations of delay sources on Finch, if they eliminate the speed restrictions at intersections/platforms and improve the TSP they should be able achieve Metrolinx's original 34-minute schedule, which is an 18 km/h average. That's faster than the bus, but still far short of any subway line. Eliminating a few stops could maybe get it down to around 31 minutes (20 km/h). The question then becomes whether a 20 km/h average is fast enough for a line that costs billions of dollars.

Even that is better than nothing. At least, the residents of Finch West would know that their transit has slightly improved, rather than became worse.

Is 20 kph enough to justify LRT construction in the other corridors? I'd say, need to do better than 20 kph for that.

If they had built the line in the Finch hydro corridor, it easily could have averaged over 30 km/h with level crossings where it intersects other roads. In that case the line would have provided much greater benefit to the people of northwest Toronto who currently need to spend a ridiculously long time on the tram/bus/subway to get to their workplaces, appointments, etc.

The existing Finch LRT only runs parallel to the hydro corridor for 3 km, from Keele to Hwy 400. After that, the hydro corridor swings sharply to the south-west.

Potentially, an eastern extension towards Yonge (and past Yonge?) could use the corridor. However, would have to deal with:
- Reluctance on the part of Hydro who does not want to deal with LRT when they need to repair their lines
- Additional safety concerns; what happens if a hydro wire falls on the rail?
- Opposition of the residents whose houses are located right next to the hydro corridor
- Opposition of other residents who live south of Finch and will complain that the LRT is too far from them
- G Ross Lord pond east of Dufferin; the wires just run over, but the LRT would need a bridge or a diversion