[Obsidian]

I’ve been saying this for years now: LRTs work great in mid-sized cities like Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Calgary, Edmonton, and soon Quebec City. In those cities, the scale, street layout, and density match what an LRT can realistically support. But Toronto is operating at a completely different scale, and that’s where the problem lies.

If people thought Line 5 problems will end when it opens, they’re in for a big surprise. I predict overcrowding issues within a year of opening.

The thing is Line 5 was always an awkward compromise. Eglinton is one of the city’s major east–west corridors, and building a half-subway/half-surface LRT on it feels underbuilt for what that corridor actually needs. When you compare it to what Toronto has become (the fourth-largest metro in North America) it’s easy to see the mismatch.

There’s also still this lingering mentality (especially among certain political circles downtown) that Scarborough, North York, and Etobicoke are somehow “less Toronto.” But history keeps proving that whenever you extend real rapid transit into any part of Toronto, density follows immediately.

Examples are everywhere:

• North York Centre: basically nothing until the Yonge Subway ran through it. Now it’s a full secondary downtown.
• Yonge–Eglinton: exploded along Line 1.
• St. Clair West: major mid-rise and retail revitalization after ROW upgrades.
• Davisville/Mt. Pleasant: steady intensification due to Line 1 access.
• Scarborough Town Centre: now booming with proposals since the subway extension became real.
• Finch West: already seeing development pressure even before the subway/LRT combo is fully stabilized.
• VMC (Vaughan Metropolitan Centre): an almost absurd example — a skyline built practically from scratch because Line 1 was extended there.
• Exhibition/Liberty Village: GO service + Ontario Line plans triggered a massive wave of proposals.

Toronto grows wherever you give it high-capacity rapid transit. That’s why Line 4 (Sheppard) is one of the most misunderstood examples in the city. For years people mocked it as a “stubway to nowhere” because it ends at Don Mills, but the reality is Sheppard East has densified heavily in the last two decades with continuous condo development from Bayview to Don Mills. And more proposals still coming despite the line being short and incomplete and with planning for the extension to STC.

If four stations can reshape an entire corridor, imagine what the full Sheppard East subway would’ve done if it were built out originally?

This is why I was never a fan of Transit City. It wasn’t a bad plan for a smaller, slower-growing city,,,,but Toronto already wasn’t that city by the 2000s. It was driven by a political generation at City Hall and Queen’s Park whose view of Toronto was still rooted in the 1960s–70s: low density, car-first, and spread out. Toronto isn’t that anymore.

And Line 5 (like Line 4 before it) shows exactly what happens when we keep building transit that’s too small for the city we actually live in.

I would not be remotely surprised in my lifetime (possibly when I’m watching re-runs of The Expanse in retirement) that they rebuild Line 5 into a subway.

Transit didn't cause the density you speak of, it was rezoning that caused the density. just look at Bloor street to see that transit alone doesn't cause density as it's illegal to built denser on Bloor. Anywhere in the city that is zoned for density will get it. it has nothing to do with transit.

 

[urbanclient]

A correlation between good transit and growing density certainly exists. However, there is no 1:1 match. You can find examples of subway stations that existed for several decades, and did not prompt much density. Look at Dupont, Rosedale, or Summerhill. Maybe, zoning bylaws are the obstacle.

Conversely, there are growth zones with limited transit options. King West and to a lesser degree Queen West are building density, quite far from the Exhibition GO or any GO station, supported just by the streetcars. There are clusters of highrises at Steeles & Bathurst, and at Steeles & Weston, and along the north of Kipling, supported just by mixed-traffic buses (not even BRT).

I wouldn't venture to predict how fast Eglinton East gains density, based just on the ECLRT design. The truth is, we won't know until after the fact.

@6ixGod made a good point though. I'm sure they know it's not a 1:1 directly proportional thing. Transit can be both a cause and effect of densification.

Also, given that Queen was the East-West to Yonge's North-South 70 years ago, it's obvious Queen should have gotten the subway, and not Bloor. You could argue Queen and King are less dense than they should be, precisely because the Queen subway was never built.

The growth zones you cited at Steeles are a drop in the bucket compared to the secondary CBDs that Line 1 extensions led to.
North York Centre was specifically rezoned by Mel Lastman and Metro Toronto encouraged development in response to the extension up to Finch. Thus, it can almost be argued that politicians in car-brained Toronto pre-almagamtion would only upzone streets that had subways running underneath i.e. transit development led to rezoning which led to density.

https://neptis.org/publications/cha...tified two new,in the Metro Toronto document.

 

[nfitz]

The link you cited says no such thing:

This is literally from the April 1, 2009 funding announcement. I'd suggest you read back this thread to April 2009, if you can't remember the context.

If you recall, TTC themselves endered the tunnelling contract in 2010, and this was always intended to be City-led until the Province's change in direction.

Can I suggest you read the thread about 28,500 posts before you start telling us things that contradict the previous discussion.

Here's confirmation that the funding announcement was in April 2009.

Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes

Today, Queen’s Park announced that it would fund three of the Transit City projects — Eglinton, Finch and the Scarborough RT rehab/extension — as well as upgrading of York VIVA BR…

stevemunro.ca

 

[Obsidian]

@6ixGod made a good point though. I'm sure they know it's not a 1:1 directly proportional thing. Transit can be both a cause and effect of densification.

Also, given that Queen was the East-West to Yonge's North-South 70 years ago, it's obvious Queen should have gotten the subway, and not Bloor.

The growth zones you cited at Steeles are a drop in the bucket compared to the secondary CBDs that Line 1 extensions led to.

Zoning is what determines density in Toronto not Transit.

 

[urbanclient]

Zoning is what determines density in Toronto not Transit.

Considering the timeline of Line 1 Finch 1974, Lastman/Metro Toronto 1980-2000s densification plans for NY Centre, it would appear transit development came first. Whether you believe the existence of the subway had any influence on their decision to make NY Centre a secondary CBD is up to you. I will admit though, low density zoning around Line 1 stations between Bloor and Eglinton definitely had an effect on curtailing density.

 

[Steve X]

If you look at the documents going back 17 years, you'll see that TTC's Eglinton Crosstown was fully funded from Pearson to Kennedy station.

Ontario Newsroom

news.ontario.ca

The phase "fully funded" was also falsely used.

The initial estimated was 2.2B when Miller revealed the Transit City plan. By 2009 as the EA progressed, it was revised to 4.6B. Then they realized that 4.6B can only cover Weston to Kennedy. By that time, Queen's Park decided they need to take over the project to control cost and convert the spending into an investment in the books to balance the budget. By the time ML was ready to tender the project, it was expected to cost 5.5B. They tendered it with the 30 year maintenance attached at 9.1B. At that time, ML thought they got a deal as it was expecting 11B. Fast forward to 2018, it was at 11.8B. In 2022, the cost is revised to 12.8B and we still don't know how much they spent.

I think if Queen's Park was to remake that decision, they would just handed TTC the money and tell them to cover any overspending. The 12.8B figure includes maintenance cost which is billed to the City of Toronto to recoup the money. So the city doesn't actual save on money nor do they have a choice on how decisions are made.

 

[urbanclient]

Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes

Today, Queen’s Park announced that it would fund three of the Transit City projects — Eglinton, Finch and the Scarborough RT rehab/extension — as well as upgrading of York VIVA BR…

stevemunro.ca

You've missed my point entirely from earlier. I claimed the project was realistically always going to be majority, if not fully funded by upper levels of government, not the city (barring politically untenable municipal tax increases). You linking a post from April 2009 "Ontario Funds Three Transit City Routes" is not incompatible with what I said earlier. Your earlier link had nothing to do with what you claimed: that the project was funded and planned for Pearson to Kennedy (a claim that still doesn't appear to be mutually exclusive to what I said). Before replying it'd be better to actually read carefully, figure out what posts actually mean.

 

[chrisw]

I find this to be interesting messaging over by Eglinton and Allen where the line is entirely underground. I guess they gotta fill those bus shelter ad spots somehow.

They also have the ads at Finch Station, they're all over.

 

[Jonny5]

True. It was always meant to be funded but the provincial government, or the province + the Feds. Failing that, the project would not even begin.

Funding is one thing, project management is another. It could be funded by the province, and the construction still managed by the TTC. My guess it would be completed somewhat sooner than in the hands of Metrolinx, but not dramatically sooner.

That was the whole game at the time. The province was chugging along well pre-2008 with coin to spare, and they basically told all the municipalities "we can fund some big things in the next budget, but you need a plan of what to build, and if you don't have a plan to build something, we can't fund it," so there was a mad race to get something, anything, setup that would be quick and easy to build, essentially the "build something" plan. Then 2008 happened and there was economic panic and then Rob Ford arrives and the rest is well documented history.

 

[cplchanb]

GENTLEMEN.....are we having slow news cycle syndrome that we have to harken back 15 years ago for meaningless discussion?
lets get back on track with figuring out where they are at with the present day RSD (or allegedly still not resumed)

 

[pleaseLRT]

GENTLEMEN.....are we having slow news cycle syndrome that we have to harken back 15 years ago for meaningless discussion?
lets get back on track with figuring out where they are at with the present day RSD (or allegedly still not resumed)

Well I can confirm that trains were running yesterday and are running today. This could be meaningless though, as we haven't heard any updates about RSD since smallspy's post about it still being paused

 

[SkyScraaaper]

I love this thread for updates and insights as to when this line will open. I find the needless debate on personal opinions and pure conjecture (from what I can see they are just that) to be tiresome as well.

GENTLEMEN.....are we having slow news cycle syndrome that we have to harken back 15 years ago for meaningless discussion?
lets get back on track with figuring out where they are at with the present day RSD (or allegedly still not resumed)

 

[UntitledCyclist]

They also have the ads at Finch Station, they're all over.

Is that one specific for Line 6? Kind of wild given the line stops 6 km west of Yonge.

I guess this all stems from that one unfortunate incident with the pedestrian on Eglinton East a while back. I hope they are ok!

 

[GenerationLee]

I started noticing those ads last week in my area, near the current Eglinton station...I thought it was patently absurd to have them there as the nearest surface track for the LRT is two miles away, but I digress.
I initially thought this was a generic ad about railway safety, until I saw another ad nearby...and the smallish graphic for the crosstown. Not a great piece of graphic design, but for Mwtrolinx, its more of the same.
Anyways, I've not seen anything different on the digital screens outside a few stations.

 

[smallspy]

And why have they not been able to build up to the amount of service needed to resume the RSD?

They are still experiencing problems with the signal system, which are related to the in-yard accident from a couple of weeks ago.

Because of this, trains are not able to run at full speed in the tunnels, and the headways need to be kept longer than they would otherwise be. This has led to long backups of trains entering the terminals, and made it difficult to insert additional trains into the system.

Dan