[jmi22]

Ineffectual ??

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"I think at the end of the day, it's the number of people served. The higher number of people served — whether it's LRT or buses — they would take priority."

"If a bus is carrying 30 people, I think that bus should have priority over a car or two cars that are carrying two people. Would I give priority to 30 people versus two people? Yes, I would," says Mayor Olivia Chow.
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I think that's pretty clear.

Generally in life, people judge you based on your actions, not just your words.

Chow may have said this, but ended up doing nothing to make it happen. I'm baffled I even have to explain why people would be frustrated by this.

 

[PL1]

Hot take, the Mayor deserves to lose re-election solely because she has refused to use her strong mayor powers to enact active transit signal priority for streetcars (and Line 5 and 6), much less advocated this issue to the city council or TTC chair. She has been mayor since July 2023.

Are strong mayor powers allowed to be used for signal priority? I don't think so.

 

[urbanclient]

Pretty clear that she is enacting signal priority?

Ineffectual refers to the kind of failure that happens due to lack of effort or competence. I invite anyone to please present one single source that shows active signal priority will be implemented on any bus, streetcar or LRT line. The comments were tantamount to political pandering with no real progress so far despite 2 years+ in office and strong mayor powers.

Nothing has happened besides this reported in April: "The motion was then amended by Mayor Olivia Chow and Ward 12, Toronto–St. Paul’s Councillor Josh Matlow who directed the city to report back to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee in July on the implementation of signal priority along the above-ground section of the Eglinton LRT."

Green light ahead? Toronto takes first step toward giving Eglinton LRT signal priority - NOW Toronto

Toronto City Council is moving forward with plans to look into providing transit signal priority on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.

nowtoronto.com

No mention of streetcars. It is September now.

More sources:
"The Infrastructure and Environment Committee met on April 9, 2025 to discuss the Congestion Management Plan - 2025 Update. The Committee passed a motion to create a plan for more enforcement and towing of vehicles that block streetcars. Mayor Olivia Chow also wrote a letter in support of this initiative. Why should one or two drivers hold up hundreds of transit riders? This same principle should be applied to new LRT projects, by using active transit signal priority. At the meeting, Transportation Services staff confirmed that the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRT lines will use a "conditional" form of transit priority."

Give Transit the Green Light

www.ttcriders.ca

Conditional transit priority is borderline useless and has been in place on ̶T̶o̶r̶o̶n̶t̶o̶'̶s̶ the world's slowest streetcars for decades.

All this ineffectual talk in April actually led to this:
"Executive Committee backs plan to install priority transit lanes on Bathurst and Dufferin streets south of Bloor"

Executive Committee backs plan to install priority transit lanes on Bathurst and Dufferin streets south of Bloor

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow’s Executive Committee has approved a scaled-down plan to install priority transit lanes on Bathurst and Dufferin streets.

www.ctvnews.ca

Failure to implement active transit priority rests on the Mayor and the TTC Board voted in by City Council. Failure to get results can at least partially be attributed to the executive for not adequately advocating for this issue. As we have heard nothing about transit signal priority in any form since April. The physical infrastructure is already in place, but what is understood to be full, active transit priority internationally is not actually implemented in Toronto despite the City's claims about "unconditional TSP" already being implemented for streetcars. To think that prior to April, they hadn't even decided on Toronto's pitiful version of "conditional TSP" for the two LRT lines, much less the neutered "unconditional TSP" is insane.

"All of the City's current TSP locations are 'unconditional' in their operation."

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-254795.pdf

 

[Rainforest]

Ah, I see now.

You guys are not saying "her comments are messy", but rather "her comments point in the right direction, but are not backed by actions when it comes to TSP".

Unfortunately, that's correct.

 

[JasonParis]

Hot take, the Mayor deserves to lose re-election solely because she has refused to use her strong mayor powers to enact active transit signal priority for streetcars (and Line 5 and 6), much less successfully advocated this issue to the city council or TTC chair. She has been mayor since July 2023.

Aren’t strong mayor powers limited to issues the province deems important?

 

[Thaboss]

Hot take, the Mayor deserves to lose re-election solely because she has refused to use her strong mayor powers to enact active transit signal priority for streetcars

1. Elections are not zero sum games. The alternative could be worse - see john Tory's current poll numbers. Would you like to see him back ? Cause then you can kiss goodbye to even the miniscule progress made. In a province filled with backwater policies. Such as. Banning red lights and speeding cameras, banning bike paths on major roads, crazy NIMBYs, and a push to build a highway under the 401, you gotta walk before you can run, lest you freak out the ppl stuck on life in the 90s.

2. Strong major powers would not give her the ability to directly influence the change you're talking about unless signal priorty was designated a provincial priorty.

 

[Amare]

She doesnt need strong mayor powers to force Toronto Transportation Services to change their idiotic policies. She could do it tomorrow if she wanted to.

And frankly they do need to be forced into it, because the dinosaurs at TTS dont seem to comprehend something like that is of benefit to the entire city.

 

[rbt]

2. Strong major powers would not give her the ability to directly influence the change you're talking about unless signal priorty was designated a provincial priorty.

Infrastructure to support housing is an item strong mayor powers apply to, and provided examples included transit and roads. So I think that signal priority for increased roadway throughput would probably apply. I believe the mayor could propose a budget to include this and veto a simple-majority attempt by council to remove it.

1. I'm uncertain of the real-world benefits of signal priority alone. We've been doing simple transit priority for decades in a large number of intersections.
2. I doubt if council would amend such a proposal requiring use of a veto.
3. I've been told transit priority starts to fail when frequencies are better than 5 minutes. Any benefit to the current train/bus would slow down the next one as they're arriving at the intersection every 150 seconds on average which is roughly equal to the full signal cycle for a large intersection.

 

[A 6264]

1. Elections are not zero sum games. The alternative could be worse - see john Tory's current poll numbers. Would you like to see him back ? Cause then you can kiss goodbye to even the miniscule progress made. In a province filled with backwater policies. Such as. Banning red lights and speeding cameras, banning bike paths on major roads, crazy NIMBYs, and a push to build a highway under the 401, you gotta walk before you can run, lest you freak out the ppl stuck on life in the 90s.

2. Strong major powers would not give her the ability to directly influence the change you're talking about unless signal priorty was designated a provincial priorty.

You made a list of things you have an issue with, regarding the Ontario government. I could make a list too, and funnily enough, I don't think the top 5 items on my list, would be any of yours! I'd go on to give you my list, but that could throw this thread way off topic. Let's just say, most of my beefs would have the word "opaque" within them.

 

[Thaboss]

So I think that signal priority for increased roadway throughput would probably apply. I believe the mayor could propose a budget to include this and veto a simple-majority attempt by council to remove it.

Tbh I'm not 100 percent sure how broadly "strong mayor powers" legislation applies to issues that tangentially supports outlined provincial mandates. I also understand that chow does not support the concept of strong mayor powers so I'm not sure it ever would be enacted in the way you describe.

That being said, as you suggest, signal priorty might not be the pancea we'd like it to be. At least in the dt core. However, for crosstown and finch it has to be a no brainer!

Anyway, this issue has been littigated to death ay this point. I'm more eager to see how things turn out when our "rappid transit" street cars are open.