News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 11K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
EarthCam Time-Lapse Documents Rafael Viñoly-Designed New Stanford Hospital Construction
 43K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
Resort Town
 6.8K     0 
zang said:
If we’re to read between the lines, square that with Matlow’s own statement:

“The TTC is often told, rather than consulting with the Metrolinx organization, that it is accountable only to premier [Doug] Ford and the transportation minister, it seems, rather than us and the people of Toronto,” he said. “The behaviour of Metrolinx has been bullyish.”
Click to expand...
That is one anecdotal quote, and you earlier inferred that Dougie was almost solely responsible for this mess because he has openly railed against automated traffic enforcement in 2025. This is despite him only being elected in June 2018, when Line 6 works started in 2016 and Mosaic signed onto the project in April 2018. Don't get me started on Line 5. Your statements are tantamount to admissions of confirmation bias. You not even arguing against information presented to you, only to bring up two anecdotal pieces of evidence is bad faith. If I ignored all the evidence and context behind what has happened with 𝙻̶𝚒̶𝚗̶𝚎̶ ̶𝟻̶ ̶𝚊̶𝚗̶𝚍̶ ̶𝟼̶ Ontario, I too would conclude Doug Ford was the root of all human evil. I think you'll find among Urban Toronto members, that the vast majority of us are pro public healthcare, pro public education, pro-transit. We're not bootlicking Doug just because we're pointing out the facts.

Steve Munro: "Although the TTC takes the blame for rotten operations, their shuttle buses keep service available to riders. The overwhelming cause of delay is with systems provided and maintained by Metrolinx’ P3 partner, Mosaic." emphasis mine.
stevemunro.ca

6 Finch West: Six Days of Delays

Line 6 Finch West opened for service on Sunday, December 7. Beside the basic issue of glacial train speed are questions of vehicle and infrastructure reliability. This post summarizes the delays th…
stevemunro.ca stevemunro.ca

At the end of the day, results matter, I could care less what anyone thinks what the exact percentage allotment of blame each responsible party should get. If anyone wants to factor this LRT blame calculus into how they vote, that's their freedom. All the stakeholders involved suck. Virtually none of us like Metrolinx, not even some of the Metrolinx employees on this forum.

@zang: "Ford shouldn't be normalized or underestimated, simply because he gives folksy vibes to 905ers." I can't believe I am saying this, but an ad hominem doesn't prove a thing.
urbanclient said:
Splitting hairs as to who is to blame more for this and that isn't productive, since all parties seem to be pointing the finger at anyone but themselves. In reality each party involved probably carries some of the blame. City council, city departments, TTC and its board, Metrolinx. And if the stupid idea(s) originated from one party, it's the other party(s) duty to keep those stupid ideas in check, not to complacently yes-man rubber stamp decisions. Even if they don't have the power to countermand decisions, they at least have a duty to voice discontent and dissent to stupid ideas. Death by committee isn't just about wasting time flapping gums, it's about metaphorical committees, organizations that are supposed to work together, but not critically evaluating each other's plans and intentions.

View attachment 702307
Click to expand...

Here is another post on operations, namely TSP, being mostly the fault of the TTC et al rather than Metrolinx. I also already cited a city transportation services report on this, please read it. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-254795.pdf#:~:text=For these reasons, and in consultationwith the City and TTC the Metrolinx consortia are implementing Conditional TSP on Line5 Eglinton and Line 6 Finch West. . We have unconditional TSP at 300 intersections, mostly for streetcars; and they barely work, if at all, find @reaperexpress post on this. Conditional TSP is even worse.
crs1026 said:
Not meaning to yank ML out from under a bus of their own making - but - the first mention of signal priority for Eglinton in this thread was made in message # 162 posted on April 6, 2009. (reading the first few pages of this thread from that era is actually quite thought provoking - some things have sure changed, others have not).

Over the years where EAs and plans were done and redone, plenty of commentary about signal priority happened.

it's worth noting history - how in that planning and replanning, TTC and ML were at loggerheads, to the extent of spawning talk that ML would take over TTC altogether - a silly idea, but evidence that many were convinced that nothing less than a total takeover would uproot TTC and City policy. One has to assume that ML was more amenable to using the technology, and the City was the opposing authority. This is reflected in the original speed and trip timing projections.

It is ludicrous that TTC staffers are now portraying signal priority as something new and unfamiliar in North America. That ought to be dealt with as deliberate attempt to mislead TTC Commissioners and City Councillors. Or incompetence.

Either way, had this project not included a handover to TTC, and had ML had a freer rein to override City decisions, one has to think there would be lots more signal priority included. Perhaps the valid criticism of ML is that they played too nice.

- Paul
Click to expand...
TTC = bad operations; Metrolinx = bad build quality
 
Last edited:
Okay, so so far the only evidence I have seen that the TTC is not at fault for slow ops is that they are claiming that *any* operational change of 6 FW needs to be OK'd with Metrolinx and Mosaic.

Despite this, Metrolinx has disagreed and said they can just go and do TSP if they want to, sans approval from Mosaic.

Can anyone actually explain what is going on here? Has the TTC even *attempted* to ask Mosaic if they can enable TSP or faster ops, or is this just an excuse from TTC to do nothing?
 
1765820997023.png

lastcommodore said:
Okay, so so far the only evidence I have seen that the TTC is not at fault for slow ops is that they are claiming that *any* operational change of 6 FW needs to be OK'd with Metrolinx and Mosaic.

Despite this, Metrolinx has disagreed and said they can just go and do TSP if they want to, sans approval from Mosaic.

Can anyone actually explain what is going on here? Has the TTC even *attempted* to ask Mosaic if they can enable TSP or faster ops, or is this just an excuse from TTC to do nothing?
Click to expand...
For TSP and streetcar-like speeds in some sections, it's clearly TTC. As for operating it to meet the original contracted trip times and speeds, that's not 100% clear, but logic would tell you that maintenance costs were accounted for when Metrolinx asked for 33-38 minute trip times when it drafted the 30 year contract in 2018. We're asking for a return to the norm, not an "increase" to maintenance costs. Increase from what? Maintenance costs if one way trips were 2 hours instead of the current 50-60 minutes? Get real here people. If by some quirk of legalese, the TTC were contractually obligated to be subservient to all other parties to simply drive the tram 1 km/h faster than opening day, then that would be insane, but STILL would not absolve them of not even hitting the scheduled 46 minute trip times, even accounting for occasional reliabilty delays. It's not like every trip on every tram is delayed by the bad build quality cited by Steve Munro.
 
Last edited:
lastcommodore said:
Okay, so so far the only evidence I have seen that the TTC is not at fault for slow ops is that they are claiming that *any* operational change of 6 FW needs to be OK'd with Metrolinx and Mosaic.

Despite this, Metrolinx has disagreed and said they can just go and do TSP if they want to, sans approval from Mosaic.

Can anyone actually explain what is going on here? Has the TTC even *attempted* to ask Mosaic if they can enable TSP or faster ops, or is this just an excuse from TTC to do nothing?
Click to expand...
Isn't this incredible? No one seems to know who's responsible for what regarding Line 6. How many people does it take to turn on TPS?

How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
 
Bojaxs said:
How many people does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Click to expand...
In Toronto? 7.
One for the environmental assessment
One to create the big sign saying "Your Tax Dollars at Work: Part of our $10 billion plan to replace lightbulbs."
One to replace it
One to operate the Lightbulb Revenue Service Demonstration for 40 days
And Doug Ford, the Minister of Lightbulbs, and the Olivia Chow at the replacement ceremony.
 
Frankietls said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/13mytb2/exclusive_look_at_the_unopened_eglinton_crosstown
Click to expand...
To be fair, that was posted 3 years ago.

Before MX handed operations of Line 5 over to the TTC, they should have posted a more recent video demonstrating how fast the trams can travel underground. Including a speedometer, etc. That way, should the trams travel slower under TTC operations, MX can rightfully put the blame on the TTC for slow operations and riders know who to call out.

But I suppose that ship sailed on December 5th.
 
Last edited:
zang said:
If we’re to read between the lines, square that with Matlow’s own statement:

“The TTC is often told, rather than consulting with the Metrolinx organization, that it is accountable only to premier [Doug] Ford and the transportation minister, it seems, rather than us and the people of Toronto,” he said. “The behaviour of Metrolinx has been bullyish.”
Click to expand...
Inferring from a selective quote, along with vibes and moral judgements due to political bias does not come close to any standard of proof, and is unconvincing even for Urban Toronto.
 
Last edited:
The TTC seems to be going out of it's way to make this line as slow as humanely possible but, once again, who controls the TTC? The City! The TTC is just a glorified branch of City Hall. They control their budget and when you control the money, you control. Full stop. The TTC has to do what the City tells them to do.

This is NOT a operational issue but a political one and the blame lies at the foot of City Hall.
 
lastcommodore said:
Okay, so so far the only evidence I have seen that the TTC is not at fault for slow ops is that they are claiming that *any* operational change of 6 FW needs to be OK'd with Metrolinx and Mosaic.

Despite this, Metrolinx has disagreed and said they can just go and do TSP if they want to, sans approval from Mosaic.

Can anyone actually explain what is going on here? Has the TTC even *attempted* to ask Mosaic if they can enable TSP or faster ops, or is this just an excuse from TTC to do nothing?
Click to expand...
I think we’re mostly dealing with semantics.

From my perspective, because Metrolinx owns the vehicles and infrastructure and holds the contract with Mosaic, Metrolinx is the sole party who can direct Mosaic on any potential change. Any change from the baseline contract Mosaic will treat as a contract variation, and the change will be scoped and priced and charged back to Metrolinx. On that basis, TTC isn't permitted to deal with Mosaic directly without Metrolinx in the loop, which is why TTC is saying they need to confirm with both Metrolinx and Mosaic that they have permission to proceed.

That said, if Metrolinx’s contract already includes specific performance requirements, and Mosaic has already demonstrated that the delivered infrastructure can meet them, then there’s no change to authorize. Unless the change falls outside the project specifications, nothing new needs to be requested from Mosaic or approved by Metrolinx, because the capability is presumably already part of what was contracted, delivered, and accepted.

In my opinion, TTC’s statement that they need to discuss with Metrolinx and Mosaic was simply cautious and appropriately courteous (although perhaps a symptom of a general observation that TTC staff haven't fully wrapped their heads around how to work in an AFP setting and what changes are viable versus not). It would be awkward for TTC to appear to make absolute statements regarding what can and can't be done with infrastructure they don't own, even if they know the infrastructure already supports whatever performance the contract specifies. If Mosaic hadn’t delivered to the required specifications, the project wouldn’t have been accepted. And if anything sits outside the letter of the contract, it becomes a variation, paid by Metrolinx, regardless of who initiates the request.
 
Kyle Campbell said:
He wants it faster, but not to affect traffic. A have your cake and eat it too situation.

I don't think any Ontario or city government even gave a passing thought to giving line 5 absolute priority, like Calgary or Edmonton with crossing gates and flashing lights
Click to expand...

Well, then he does not want it faster. He just wants to say he wants it faster. He has many options at his disposal, and the only think he seems to be doing is saying he wants it faster.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top