Finch West Line 6 LRT

[CapitalSeven]

When was this?

Steve Munro put together a good analysis in 2020, and the material indicates that the surface option with the intermediate stops would have the highest ridership. "At no point does the study explain why carrying fewer total riders at much greater expense constitutes a valid planning outcome."

But of course grade separation and fewer stops have advantages of their own. We didn't know in 2016 or 2020 how inept the agencies would be in actually operating lines that have to interact with traffic signalling systems.

 

[thenorth]

There is a transit signal priority trial at select intersections as of today. A friend did the trip in 39 minutes.

Is this the video in question (I recommend watching at 2x to 4x speed)?

I counted it stopping at 10 red lights.

That said, west of Mivlan Rumike Station, I counted only one red light (at Albion Road). The remaining nine red light stops were all east of Mivan Rumike.

So I would hypothesize that signal priority was only active on the western half of the line, at least in that video.

Assuming my hypothesis is correct, getting down to 34 minute (which was what MX expected during planning), or even 30 min end-to-end runtimes seems entirely plausible. West of Mivlan Rumike it was a very smooth and quick ride.

Here’s some quick maths on the average speed of the train, on the portion that presumably has signal priority implemented (Westmore to Milvan):

The train departed Westmore Station at 11:38 AM

The train arrived at Milvan Rumike at 11:52 AM

That’s 12 minutes to travel 4.7 km

Average Speed: 23.5 km/h

Now, if we extrapolate those speeds across the portion that presumably doesn’t have signal priority implemented (Milvan Rumike to Finch West), it will take 14 minutes to travel the 5.5 km.

So, between Westmore to Finch West, total travel time on the signal priority enabled line would be 26 minutes.

Note that this analysis intentionally excluded the excruciatingly slow curve between Humber College and Westmore. That portion of the trip took 3 minutes to complete (11:34 to 11:37). So if we include that portion in the above analysis, the extrapolated trip time for the fully signal priority enabled line will be 29 minutes.

Time estimates are corroborated by these stats posted on Reddit

Took them 25 minutes to get from Sentinel to Mount Olive. So, 29 minutes for the entire line is totally plausible.

 

[thenorth]

You've made this statement ad infinitum. Once they achieved the interim 46-minute service, it wasn't slower most times of day.

And now they've improved the travel times to 44 minutes, it's even faster at most times of the day.

With reports of vehicles achieving 41 to 42 minutes at times, before TSP implementation, there'll likely be more improvements.

Perhaps though, you can stop repeating this? I think we all know what your opinion is - whether it be correct or not.
View attachment 716751

Notably, with a presumed 29 minute runtime, the LRT should now be faster than the bus at all times of the day.

 

[thenorth]

We’re hearing from the Mayor, operators and others that signal priority is only enabled on a small number of intersections as of now. Does this mean operations could get even faster as rollout completes?

 

[nfitz]

Does this mean operations could get even faster as rollout completes?

Yes.

 

[generalcanada]

sometimes you gotta know what the bad looks like before you know what good is.

 

[thenorth]

Time estimates are corroborated by these stats posted on Reddit

Took them 25 minutes to get from Sentinel to Mount Olive. So, 29 minutes for the entire line is totally plausible.

View attachment 717075

Same guy on Reddit mentioned they hit a few red lights, so presumably there’s room for improvement here as TSP rollout completes

 

[thenorth]

We’re hearing from the Mayor, operators and others that signal priority is only enabled on a small number of intersections as of now. Does this mean operations could get even faster as rollout completes?

Yes.

I’m trying to temper my expectations here, because 29 minutes is already faster than what was promised during planning haha

I may cry tears of joy if we somehow get it to 25 mins

 

[nfitz]

I’m trying to temper my expectations here, because 29 minutes is already faster than what was promised during planning haha

I may cry tears of joy if we somehow get it to 25 mins

That seems very unrealistic. Metrolinx had been promising 38 minutes in recent years. And never better than 33 minutes when their plan was for full transit priority.

Even if they get it to 38 minutes, it's faster than bus service at all times of day except overnight. Note since this was published they already reduced the scheduled Line 6 time from 46 to 44 minutes.

 

[hw621]

sometimes you gotta know what the bad looks like before you know what good is.

They didn't know what bad looks like during testing?

 

[generalcanada]

They didn't know what bad looks like during testing?

they being toronto residents? how many people here actually knew?
it took thousands of complaints to chow for her to change city policies

 

[T3G]

They didn't know what bad looks like during testing?

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If they had TSP from the get go you'd have thousands of complaints about extra red lights from the car brained suburbanites who think that transit getting special privileges means that their personal rights are being violated.

 

[Bojaxs]

Did this Canadian company not have what the city was looking for? Toronto wanted signals along Finch with "Lidar" tech, and Miovision didn't offer such tech?

Also, is this contract being procured after Finch West's completion? Because I thought TSP was built into the line?

 

[hawc]

 

[Undead]

sometimes you gotta know what the bad looks like before you know what good is.

Can't have light without the dark

Are there any updates on whether they’ve improved operations? i.e. faster acceleration from stops and higher top speed in between them