Finch West Line 6 LRT

[yrt+viva=1system]

Just taken my first ride on the new LRT. Here are my observations:

-Alstom vehicles are very smooth, feels as if they weigh more than the Flexities thus creating an almost like-Cadillac ride. Upholstered seats for the win.

-Usage of the 24H clock.

-Operations are far too slow. Numerous Finch buses zipping by.

-Did not ride all the way to Humber College. Ended up bailing at Pearldale as it was taking far too long to travel for the full route.

-The overall feel of the line seems almost to be a modern update of the 510 and 512. To be honest, there were times on the ride that felt like it was a polished version of the 512; a glorified version of the streetcar.

-TTC Streetcar culture has definitely permeated into the operations of this brand spanking new line. Operators are slowing down at every dip on the line that heads into a valley or underpass. This operations culture comes squarely from the period when the new Flexities got caught in underpasses and flooded due to poor storm drainage. This has no place to exist on a brand new modern LRT line that has also had significant sewer, storm and roadway construction to accommodate a new LRT.

-One can tell who is a veteran or came from the downtown Streetcar operations by their over timidness to slow down to a crawl at every intersection even with a green transit light. In addition, these operators are slowing to slight stop-and-proceed at all special trackwork. Once again this streetcar operations culture has absolutely no business being on a new modern LRT system with 100% operating switches.

It’s time to light a fire and smoke out all the incompetent managerial and personnel who refuse to adopt to a modern LRT operations and in general refuse to update their archaic streetcar operations.

I’m hoping that Metrolinx has stiff penalties against the TTC if operations are not satisfactory.


In addition:
Having just experienced the new Finch LRT and now on VIVA, it is completely night and day when it comes to speed. If only the frequencies were much better.

 

[thenorth]

Honestly, I’m not upset about the Disaster on Finch West. The embarrassment will force the TTC to evaluate its operating procedures on Finch West, and apply the same lessons to the rest of the streetcar and surface network. I hope the Eglinton Line will be a disaster as well.

In the meanwhile, we must keep up the pressure on City Council!

 

[Admiral Beez]

Thank you for this. Can't help but think we are circling back to the first post I made on this topic yesterday.

See the operational differences between how trams function in Europe compared to our streetcars in the below clip. It demonstrates how these delays add up visually. We may as well just replace the side-by-side clip of the TTC streetcar with the clip of the Finch West LRT in the above videos.

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It’s not a relevant comparison. You need to look at other tram/streetcar systems that run nearly entirely in traffic.

 

[crs1026]

I have it on good authority, neither the Mayor's Office, nor the Premiers are pleased by the reception here and negative media coverage. How they will respond, remains to be seen.

Without picking on any one level or partisan stripe - i have to wonder whether this is an indication that important people at both City and Province view transit merely as a bauble for voters, delivering nothing more than sizzle and good for nothing more than bragging rights.
If so, it must be disappointing indeed for Mayor and Premier to discover that voters are actually discerning, and can measure transit against a performance standard - and know non-performance when they see it.
To repeat myself, the performance standard for LRT is pretty simple: doors close, vehicle zooms, vehicle brakes sharply to a stop, doors open. It’s hard to understand how politicians and transit managers aren’t committed to delivering that instead of photo ops.

Collectively, we need to keep the pressure on everyone here, from the TTC to Mx, from the Mayor to the Minister to make clear this performance is not acceptable and must not be allowed to continue.

When I rode today, there were conversations all over the trams between perfect strangers about how slow we were moving. Average people, not foamers. Perhaps Line 6 is a unifying event that will help is all know each other and get along better. Politicians can only dream of accomplishing that.

 

[T3G]

It’s not a relevant comparison. You need to look at other tram/streetcar systems that run nearly entirely in traffic.

Why is it not a relevant comparison, when the infrastructure in both shots is nearly identical? They are taking off from their own platform and negotiating an intersection with traffic lights. Nothing here is inherent to running in mixed traffic and is the operational policy on every line with a private ROW in Toronto as well.

The only difference is the Amsterdam car appears not to be crossing switches, which is irrelevant, because I don't know of any system in Europe where they have to stop like fools to check the position of the switch, anyway. (Also incredibly stupid is the fact that stop/check/proceed can't be combined with servicing said stop... how poor do they think their drivers' vision is, if they can't check the position of the switch from the loading area?!)

 

[hw621]

I am going to put this debate to bed about whether it's red lights or excess station dwell times that affect the final travel time more.

For reference, I timed the average dwell times for Line 6 Finch West to be 49 seconds on average for the 16 intermediate stops, from door open chime to vehicle moving again. Line 1 dwell times are around 20 seconds, which in turn are longer than Line 2. So ~30 seconds excess dwell times for each of the 16 stops. Just under 8 minutes total time wasted.

52 minute (travel time average corroborated by TTC Instructor) Finch West to Humber College trip, video not mine:

Stop	Dwell Time (sec)	Notes
Sentinel	20	—
Tobermory	50	—
Driftwood	50	—
Jane and Finch	85	—
Norfinch	45	—
Signet	65	—
Emery	55	—
Milvan	90	—
Duncanwoods	35	—
Pearldale	20	Door-open buffer after vehicle fully stops is unusually 4 sec instead of 2 sec
Rowntree	53	—
Mount Olive	65	—
Stevenson	87	—
Albion	25	—
Martin Grove	23	—
Westmore	17	Door open chime→door close; then 40s additional delay at red light (not a dwell)

Here is the red light time wasted, only partially accounting for time lost to deceleration. I want to emphasize this, time lost due to having to decelerate/accelerate before/after a red light is not fully accounted for. I only listed the 23 vehicle intersection traffic lights. A pedestrian crossing light is omitted due to its likely disuse. Line 6 had to slow and stop for 15 out of 23 intersections, for a total delay of at least 620 seconds or 10 minutes, 20 seconds. Average red light time ~41 sec.
10 min 20 sec is a very conservative figure, in reality, the time lost is probably closer to 12 minutes.

Location	Sec	#	Notes
Finch West Portal	20	1	out of tunnel straight into red light lol
Sentinel	0	2
Tobermory	0	3
Driftwood	30	4
Jane	70	5
York Gate	75	6
Norfinch	0	7
400 East	5	8
400 West	20	9
Signet	0	10
Emery	0	11
Jayzel	10	12
Milvan	50	13
Duncanwoods	25	14
Pearldale	20	15
Milday	0	16
Rowntree (Islington)	40	17
Mount Olive (Kipling)	60	18
Albion Mall	80	19
Albion	75	20
Martin Grove	0	21
John Garland	0	22
Westmore	40	23

When you subtract the red light (10) and excess dwell time (8) from 52 minutes, you get 34 minutes, which is more than in line with what Metrolinx originally claimed ("33 to 34" and "38" minutes). This also disproves the other claims that acceleration and cruising speed is too slow for Line 6. @Bordercollie The bigger problem is lack of strong signal priority—the current "conditional priority" might as well be "no priority"—and asinine dwell times of up to 90 seconds.

Source:

https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/upload/v1663240053/Documents/Metrolinx/Finch-West-LRT-FAQs-Revised-June9.pdf

TL;DR red lights lead to 10 minutes of delays, which is more than the 8 minutes of excess dwell time. But, if both were removed, then this hypothetical 34 minute travel time would match Metrolinx's claims.


You are assuming the City isn't an incompetently weak negotiator at best or colluding with the TTC union at worst, maybe to protect good ol' boys' jobs. Case in point: Line 3 Scarborough RT inexplicably not being automated, as well as union push back anytime automation is discussed.

I am sure someone at the TTC is already collecting these data and seeking solutions, oh wait...

 

[AlxOptimism]

Saw CityNews about how people are already complaining about how slow the line is. They did a test comparison on time and the shuttle buses that were running along Finch temporarily as a back up stopped at all LRT stations and several more and took 31 minutes from Humber to Finch while the LRT took for 47 minutes.

This seems pretty anecdotal as most trips on bustime.ttc.ca are not taking 31 minutes. Even the 7:55pm shuttle bus departure today, which should be faster as a late evening departure, took 38-39 minutes from Finch West to Humber College.

 

[urbanclient]

Can everyone stop yapping about TSP when that isn't even the biggest issue this line faces?

This is borderline misinformation. See my post below:

TL;DR red lights lead to 10 minutes of delays, which is more than the 8 minutes of excess dwell time. But, if both were removed, then this hypothetical 34 minute travel time would match Metrolinx's claims.

In other news, we at least know Metrolinx isn't at fault apparently *shocker* for the lack of strong signal priority:

Without quips about Ford or the Province, can someone tell me why signal priority for the LRTs has not been set up? You only need to delay left turning cars every few sequences.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1998189403756515830

 

[ARG1]

According to TTCHelps, introducing TSP at intersections will reduce the total end to end travel time down to... 46 minutes.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1998196699672588553

 

[drum118]

It has been said that this is day one of real service, and TTC doesn't want Ottawa issues on this line to the point it may take 6 months to see a decrease in runtime to a point. Until there is a real transit priority signal system in play. Let's see what April will bring for service quality

 

[Aplus23]

well TransitThinker posted his video and at the end he reminded everyone who watches that a
BRT wouldn't work - (too much busses needed)
light Metro - not enough riders
Subway - too much money definitely not enough enough riders

TSP needs to be implemented, and left turn cars need to go 2nd

 

[Admiral Beez]

This is borderline misinformation. See my post below:



In other news, we at least know Metrolinx isn't at fault apparently *shocker* for the lack of strong signal priority:

Who runs this city’s mundane traffic signals, Metrolinx or City Hall?

 

[APTA-2048]

It has been said that this is day one of real service, and TTC doesn't want Ottawa issues on this line to the point it may take 6 months to see a decrease in runtime to a point. Until there is a real transit priority signal system in play. Let's see what April will bring for service quality

I’m sorry, but this sounds like an overreaction that may actually do more harm than good by undermining people’s confidence in transit in this city. If they have to be this careful for 6 months, the line should not be open to the public.

 

[Coolibop]

Is the limited TSP currently functioning on the line? Has anyone observed it in action? If the target travel time is 46 minutes, and trains are running behind schedule (many listed 50 mins+ travel times) ... which suggests that the TSP is active anyways and not really improving travel times?

Then again, the TTC response above re: enabling TSP suggesting it is not?

 

[hw621]

According to TTCHelps, introducing TSP at intersections will reduce the total end to end travel time down to... 46 minutes.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1998196699672588553

Like wtf. They have the guts to say that out loud...