You are questioning whether these corridors have the ridership to justify LRT, but also suggesting Toronto build subways everywhere like NYC and Tokyo?
I think Wilson-Rexdale-Derry, Lawrence East, and Kingston-Highway 2 are good candidates for future light rail. In 905, there Queen in Brampton. That's pretty much it.
Given Toronto's suburban nature, it's mostly a choice between building LRT or doing nothing. Scarborough ain't Queens, and North York ain't The Bronx.
When exactly did I ever say 'build subways everywhere'?? Give me the quote. I've made over close to two dozen posts saying Finch should have gotten tram
later in hindsight, and definitely not a subway.
What a wild and pervasive strawman against pro-subway / pro-grade separation people.
It's not really about pro-LRT vs. pro-subway. As I've said earlier: grade separation matters much more for speed and service reliability. It's a romantic notion to expect wide stop spacing and subway speeds on median or roadside trams. Wide spacing would necessitate parallel bus service, which decreases the environmental and economic benefits. Cases like Calgary have large segments that function like the surface and underground sections of the Toronto subway and also run high floor trains.
Rolling stock choice of narrower, shorter consists for tram vs. wider, longer metro, has more to do with
operational economics; the decision should be made based on projected transit demand.
Most of these bus corridors do not come close to the daily boardings per km to justify upgrade to tram (even if extrapolating for latent demand), let alone light or heavy metro.
Why no tram in hindsight? Finch West had just over 3,000 daily boardings per km in Fall 2019 when its boardings were 55,000. For reference, Line 1 and 2 are around 16,000 boardings per km in 2025. Finch West is down to 40,000 in 2024. Neither number is high enough to necessitate
immediate tram upgrade for 10 km of the route. There are only 3 mid and high-rise developments near Finch West, all in pre-construction. Densification isn't happening anytime soon unfortunately.
I'm still content with Line 6 being built as a learning opportunity and because Toronto always procrastinates on transit, so it's a good thing they built something
early for once.
"Given Toronto's suburban nature". Toronto would be the third largest city in Western Europe (population over a similar area), behind only London and Paris. And it certainly isn't smaller than most of those 34 Chinese cities (30 of which you've never heard of) that have only metro. It's only North American-ly suburban in that it has a lot of house-lined, comparatively narrow arterials.
China has very few tram lines due to robust alternative last-mile transport options, intentional urban design, and better economies of scale with metro and much more. People there like walking and China is huge on bike sharing services. Chinese urban arterials are designed with high capacity car lanes in the centre, while cyclists and pedestrians are segregated onto parallel side paths and sidewalks. Arterials in Mainland China are standardized and
significantly wider than Toronto arterials (think 40+ metres), both curb-to-curb and property line to property line. In many ways, China has city streets that are much more suited to trams, and yet they do not build them.
So many pro-LRT advocates fallaciously extrapolate that just because X city has half-decent trams, therefore they would work in Toronto. That is a false equivalence. They're treating fundamentally different urban contexts as if they were equivalent.
They are asking for a move away from car-centric design in a place with streets too narrow for fast trams, along with some of the highest car ownership rates in the world. Vast majority of Toronto arterials are no wider than 26 metres property line to property line at their narrowest segments. That will
not fit four car lanes, a tram, a meaningful sidewalk
and a stop platform. This is a big reason why Line 6 was not built towards Yonge and beyond. The ROW was already much wider west of Keele.
You cannot merely copy and paste fast trams like Calgary CTrain or the Utrecht Sneltram into Toronto, both of which are borne of compromise between low-density suburbs and mid-density downtowns with extensive use of pre-existing railway ROWs, massively wide streets (10 + lanes equivalent, 40+ metres) and wide tracts of land that don't exist in Toronto except for the hydro corridors. I've touched on this before, it's not feasible to run low or high floor trams on previous freight or Metrolinx rail through leasing or acquisition. Any urban rail run on railway ROWs would be metros or RERs like the Ontario Line or Line 1 Yonge extension. And there is little to no difference between high floor trams and metro in the first place.
Anything in red can easily support LRT, dark blue may be feasible (St. Clair was) but will likely have more trade-offs.
@Northern Light As we've discussed on an earlier page, the red cannot easily support tram/LRT,
those are planned widths, not actual widths. Steeles is the notable exception. Large segments, if not the majority of York Mills, Finch etc. are listed as 36 metres in the Official Plan but are only 25-26 metres wide property line to property line, which also leads to the issue of setbacks if expropriation is needed. The narrowest sections strongly influence tram retrofit viability, even if the widest parts approach or exceed 30 metres. You can check for yourself for potential LRT corridors on
https://map.toronto.ca/torontomaps/ and compare to the Official Plan ROW map
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/984d-cp-official-plan-Map-03_OP_ROW_AODA.pdf.
Here is an example of a '36' metre ROW section that is more like 20 metres. Even property line to property line doesn't account for geography like deep ditches, ravines, cliffs, and freight ROWs in south Bayview's case, so checking other sources or going there in-person helps. (Of course most trams are not going to climb Bayview's steep grade). The faster street running trams in Europe are usually built on comparatively wide ROWs, sometimes with slip roads. Slip roads are virtually non-existent in Toronto. Previously I've compared Finch to Brussels and Frankfurt, the latter highlighted sections ran on wider public ROWs.
For Jane LRT, we can immediately rule out Bloor to Dundas at-grade, the bare minimum is 25 metres property line to property line and that's mid-block with no extra room for tram stops or turning lanes. This is something I forgot to mention previously:
For mid-block with split side stops, you need closer to 30 metres minimum, even more with two-way centre platforms and at intersections for extra turning lanes. In these cases there is virtually no boulevard except the 2.1 metre sidewalk on each side. Jane does not get wide enough for tram until briefly near Eglinton Flats, becoming too narrow near Weston and Lawrence again.
(edit: I forgot to account for an extra 2-3 metres construction buffer on each side for street widening. Broadly 3 options: voluntary Temporary Construction Easements, as well as expropriations of a temporary or permanent interests. To rebuild a sidewalk right up against the property line, you would end up with equipment and workers standing on private property. The cost to do this legally would be more expensive than a redesign or reroute to a suitably wider street. Land owners can refuse a TCE, and expropriation compensation can be disputed in court, even after the 2020 Building Transit Faster Act. The true width needed is closer to 29-30 mid-block without stops, 32-33 mid block with stops, and 35-36 metres at intersections with stops and turning lanes)
The Jane LRT is dead. The ROW is not consistently wide enough south of Wilson. I can post screenshots showing the same thing on other potential LRT corridors later.
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