Finch West Line 6 LRT

[Frankietls]

Just wanted to share my experience from riding Line 6 east at 17:45 on Saturday December 20. I rode the full eastbound service and the service was significantly improved versus opening day.

I observed the driver operating the vehicle more comfortably than before, with the vehicle reaching the full speed limit of 50-60 between intersections. Additionally, the driver slowed to just 30-35 at intersections and sped up after the front of the vehicle passed the halfway point of the intersection (technically violating the 25 km/h policy). The vehicle operated ahead of schedule for most of the route and observations show the schedule is extremely padded off-peak.

I recorded the stop arrival and departure times versus the scheduled times as well as light dwells and schedule padding holds.

Stop Name	Arrive	Depart	Scheduled	Light dwell	Schedule dwell
Humber College		17:45​	17:45​
Westmore	17:48​	17:48​	17:48​
Martin Grove	17:49​	17:49​	17:52​
Albion	17:52​	17:52​	17:55​	0:02​
Stevenson	17:52​	17:53​	17:56​
Mount Olive	17:55​	17:59​	17:58​	0:01​	0:04​
Rowntree Mills	18:01​	18:02​	18:03​
Pearldale	18:03​	18:03​	18:05​
Duncanwoods	18:04​	18:05​	18:07​
Milvan Rumike	18:07​	18:07​	18:09​	0:02​
Emery	18:10​	18:10​	18:12​	0:01​
Signet Arrow	18:12​	18:13​	18:14​	0:02​
Norfinch Oakdale	18:15​	18:15​	18:18​
Jane and Finch	18:18​	18:18​	18:22​	0:02​
Driftwood	18:19​	18:19​	18:23​
Tobermory	18:20​	18:21​	18:25​
Sentinel	18:23​	18:23​	18:28​	0:01​
Finch West	18:26​		18:31​
Total runtime	0:41​
Total light dwell	0:11​
Total schedule dwell	0:04​
Actual runtime	0:26​

Total end-to-end running time was about 40 mins 30 seconds, even with a 4 min hold from transit control at Mount Olive station and 11 mins worth of red lights.

This trip has improved my confidence in the performance of Line 6 and I think the design is actually fine. You could shave about 11 mins and 1 min off the running time if the city is able to revise the signal programming to permit aggressive TSP and from raised speed limits respectively, plus the 4 mins of schedule dwell giving a possible off-peak running time of 25 mins. I'd say during peak periods you could add 5 mins to that for heavier customer loading and traffic patterns.

This would raise the average speed of Line 6 to 25 km/h during off-peak and 21km/h during peak, which is respectable for light rail. More importantly, it would improve the speed of the LRT to be faster than the bus during almost all periods (except for late evenings).

Unfortunately some aspects of the speed cannot be improved such as during the curves between Humber College and Westmore, between Albion and Mount Olive, and between Sentinel and Finch West. The Alstom Citadis Spirit vehicles seem to not be able to handle curves of any sort and make terrible noises even when going at reduced speeds around them. Ironically, the Flexity Outlooks seem to handle curves in the track with much better comfort and performance.

Thanks for the update. Relying to bring this up because I had to go back through pages to find it.

 

[a2z]

There are too many pro-tram / pro-LRT idealists here that overlook the unfortunate realities of North American urbanism at hand. We can't just pretend car-centrism and its consequences accumulated for over half a century has no effect on transit usage patterns and transit mode suitability. I know it's not malice, but system justification ignorance. I would LOVE for Toronto to have walkable tram lined streets. The REALITY is that just isn't going to happen anytime soon. Maybe not even by 2100. Simply pigeon-holing a tram onto a stroad is not going to magically turn it into a utopian European paradise.

If anyone has set foot in Frankfurt am Main, Rhine-Ruhr, and Stuttgart, they'd know that their non-tunnelled Stadtbahn areas are not at all like Jane & Finch, even if the densities are ostensibly similar if we look at a small circle around Jane & Finch. Urban morphology aka street layouts, street widths, building heights, and zoning* play a much greater role than just nominal density figures.

*euclidean vs. mixed-use

Yea I worked in Eschborn Frankfurt, which led me to get rid of the perception that all of Europe is a singular medium density, super walkable, tram-lined entity, since I got more exposure to the outer parts & suburbs of the city that tourists usually don't touch.

I remember in my first day moving into my flat in Harheim, realizing that, hey, this is the same suburbia I'm used to at home (just with some more fourplexes and a closer grocery store). And in my second day, going to Niederrad to play football soccer, and realizing that, hey, this isn't a complete departure from North American urbanism.

In these outer areas, the Stadtbahn is able to cooperate in the middle of arterial/key roads (in Praunheim for instance, or along the northern part of Eschersheim Landstrasse, the city's main N-S axis, where they did pigeon-hole the at-grade section, because the city was too broke to afford tunneling here); it is used in areas with similar density to Jane & Finch where there are some larger apartment buildings in a sea of single-family residential (Preungesheim); and it is used in areas where there is really not much density at all, that is comparable to the bottom quartile of neighbourhoods by density in Toronto (e.g. Nieder-Eschbach, Bonames, the southern part of Bad Homburg; or the town of Oberrusel, which has ~45K people, yet has 10 stops over a ~5.1km stretch of U3 - this takes 15 minutes ==> so multiply this by 2 and add higher dwell times and that gets you to that Metrolinx number of 33-34 minutes)

So once signalling speeds up the line, then I imagine it will do the things necessary to get many of the people who live along the line to the places they need to be in a satisifactory way. My understanding, based on the demographics/data (and reputation & rumours people know them by...), is that for many in these neighbourhoods - they kind of live in their "own city" that is a bit detached from the Toronto we think of (and definitely downtown - with the exception of some UofT students and perhaps some people who work in the PATH)

 

[urbanclient]

Yea I worked in Eschborn Frankfurt, which led me to get rid of the perception that all of Europe is a singular medium density, super walkable, tram-lined entity, since I got more exposure to the outer parts & suburbs of the city that tourists don't touch.

I remember in my first day moving into my flat in Harheim, realizing that, hey, this is the same suburbia I'm used to at home (just with some more fourplexes and a closer grocery store). And in my second day, going to Niederrad to play football soccer, and realizing that, hey, this isn't a complete departure from North American urbanism.

In these areas, the Stadtbahn is able to cooperate with arterial roads (in Praunheim for instance, or along the northern part of Eschersheim Landstrasse, the city's main N-S axis, where they did pigeon-hole the at-grade section, because the city was too broke to afford tunneling here); it is used in areas with similar density to Jane & Finch where there are some larger apartment buildings in a sea of single-family residential (Preungesheim); and it is used in areas where there isn't much density at all (e.g. Nieder-Eschbach, Bonames, the southern part of Bad Homburg; or the town of Oberrusel, which has ~45K people, yet has 10 stops over a ~5.1km line on their section of U3 - this takes 15 minutes)

So once signalling speeds up the line, then I imagine it will do the things necessary to get the people who live along the line to the places they need to be. My understanding, based on the demographics/data (and reputation), is that for many in these neighbourhoods - they kind of live in their "own city" that is a bit detached from Toronto (and definitely downtown - with the exception of some UofT students and perhaps some people who work in the PATH)

Good anecdote. Yes Europe is not some tram-lined walkable utopia everywhere you go.

IMO, another pertinent issue none of us have mentioned with Line 6* (and trams in Toronto) is the distance of the average commute in part caused by zoning. Not that many people are living and working along 10 km of Finch et al in Northwest North York and Northern Etobicoke. The difference between Toronto and a typical midsized European city is perhaps not as big as some people think, but Toronto is still a megacity, easily top 5 if it were in Western Europe. Toronto is much denser and bigger than Frankfurt am Main: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Rhein-Main_Regional_Authority

Frankfurt Rhine-Main - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's a multitude of factors that make metro the more optimal form of transit for Toronto as opposed to trams. Another factor is that density is concentrated along corridors and nodes to a greater degree and to a greater magnitude than in European tram or stadtbahn cities (but at the same time, commutes can be relatively long).

"The majority of people now work in a usual location, travelling an average of 22.8 km one-way in a straight-line distance. Thanks to modern vehicles that travel 50 km/hour or more, the average commute now takes 26.2 minutes." https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171129/dq171129c-eng.htm

"The average one-way commuting distance remained unchanged at 17.2 kilometres compared to the year before." https://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/EN/home/topnews/commuters-2023.html

*being built prior to transit improvements elsewhere

 

[a2z]

Good anecdote. Yes Europe is not some tram-lined walkable utopia everywhere you go.

IMO, the other pertinent issue none of us have mentioned with Line 6* (and trams in Toronto) is the distance of the average commute in part caused by zoning. Not that many people are living and working along 10 km of Finch et al in Northwest North York and Northern Etobicoke. The difference between Toronto and a typical midsized European city is perhaps not as big as some people think, but Toronto is still a megacity, easily top 5 if it were in Western Europe. Toronto is much denser and bigger than Frankfurt am Main: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Rhein-Main_Regional_Authority

Frankfurt Rhine-Main - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's a multitude of factors that make metro the more optimal form of transit for Toronto as opposed to trams. Another factor is that density is concentrated along corridors and nodes to a greater degree and to a greater magnitude than in European tram or stadtbahn cities (but at the same time, commutes can be relatively long).

"The majority of people now work in a usual location, travelling an average of 22.8 km one-way in a straight-line distance. Thanks to modern vehicles that travel 50 km/hour or more, the average commute now takes 26.2 minutes." https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/171129/dq171129c-eng.htm

"The average one-way commuting distance remained unchanged at 17.2 kilometres compared to the year before." https://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/EN/home/topnews/commuters-2023.html

*being built prior to transit improvements elsewhere

Toronto's borders overlayed onto Frankfurt via MapFrappe, i.e. two distinct cities (and capitals of their respective states), Wiesbaden & Mainz, as well as numerous mid-sized towns, fit into the same space as Frankfurt within these equivalent borders (in a different permutation, I can fit Hanau, Darmstadt and Offenbach centred around Frankfurt, so it's not like I'm rigging the output)

Here, it is the S-Bahn (in its semifunctional state), rather than the metro, that lets people GO places..... and links the region together.

And as was mentioned from a previous comment a couple days ago, the future state of Line 6 being able to connect UPX & GO at Woodbine, a future Bolton GO line, and Line 1 is exciting.

 

[urbanclient]

Toronto's borders overlayed onto Frankfurt via MapFrappe, i.e. two distinct cities (and capitals of their respective states), Wiesbaden & Mainz, as well as numerous mid-sized towns, fit into the same space as Frankfurt within these equivalent borders (in a different permutation, I can fit Hanau, Darmstadt and Offenbach centred around Frankfurt, so it's not like I'm rigging the output)

Here, it is the S-Bahn (in its semifunctional state), rather than the metro, that lets people GO places..... and links the region together.

And as was mentioned from a previous comment a couple days ago, the future state of Line 6 being able to connect UPX & GO at Woodbine, a future Bolton GO line, and Line 1 is exciting.

View attachment 704821

Frankfurt Rhine-Main or Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region is ~14,700 sqkm with just under 6 million people. GTHA is 8,200 sqkm with 8.3 million. GTA is 7,100 sqkm with 7.7 million.

Regionalverband Frankfurt Rhein-Main is 2,458 sqkm with 2.5 million people. Toronto proper is 630 sqkm with 3.3 million people.

By bigger, I meant comparing similar metropolitan areas, Toronto has the bigger population. As in common parlance, London is a bigger city than Toronto, not necessarily geographically bigger, but bigger in population. Toronto is also denser than Frankfurt Rhine-Main. So in both metrics that matter, Toronto is by far the bigger city.

 

[a2z]

Frankfurt Rhine-Main or Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region is ~14,700 sqkm with just under 6 million people. GTHA is 8,200 sqkm with 8.3 million. GTA is 7,100 sqkm with 7.7 million.

Regionalverband Frankfurt Rhein-Main is 2,458 sqkm with 2.5 million people. Toronto proper is 630 sqkm with 3.3 million people.

By bigger, I meant comparing similar metropolitan areas, Toronto has the bigger population. As in common parlance, London is a bigger city than Toronto, not necessarily geographically bigger, but bigger in population. Toronto is also denser than Frankfurt Rhine-Main. So in both metrics that matter, Toronto is by far the bigger city.

Buddy I think you might be arguing with yourself lol.

All I did was overlay that 630 sqkm border of Toronto across the Frankfurt area to show how large of an area that represents - and why regional & S-Bahn trains, rather than the U-Bahn, are the primary components that connects people living across that wide space; and thus why I am excited about Line 6 connecting a couple of these lines together one day. Nothing else from me!

+++

I presume that when planners were thinking about the Line 1 expansion in the 80s/90s, they never considered the option of it wrapping onto Finch West as it wasn't worthwhile vs. the corridor loop or the eventual result?

 

[urbanclient]

OK, fair enough. But in that case, why does it materially matter how far outside the core the corridor actually is? It's not as though density is a function of how far removed from the core the area is, there are a lot of factors.

It does matter... with context. If Toronto were a denser, more populated, and geographically larger city than Paris, then in that case it would more plausibly have a dense area like Finch West, much farther away from any CBD, downtown or otherwise. Generally speaking: it also matters because with the way North American cities are, especially skyscraper heavy Toronto, the downtown density skews the overall density higher; even though the density significantly drops off outside downtown unlike say, Paris. That is to say, somewhere 15-20 km from downtown in a city like Toronto might be less dense than somewhere equivalently isolated from Paris' inner city, if that somewhere is not a secondary CBD like Mississauga City Centre, North York etc...

The reality is, Toronto is not a denser, more populated, physically larger city than Paris, and it just so happens that Finch West is not as dense as the T9 corridor even though they once shared almost identical bus ridership figures pre-covid. But I will admit, once you get to Finch West's distance, it doesn't matter as much how far or near it is to downtown. The original point being that I think Line 6 is not in a dense enough area to warrant a tram. It being far from downtown is only one factor of many for its modal upgrade unsuitability.

Buddy I think you might be arguing with yourself lol.

All I did was overlay that 630 sqkm border of Toronto across the Frankfurt area to show how large of an area that represents - and why regional & S-Bahn trains, rather than the U-Bahn, are the primary components that connects people living across that wide space; and thus why I am excited about Line 6 connecting a couple of these lines together one day. Nothing else from me!

Yeah I wasn't entirely sure what you meant, but I wanted to make it clear in general that Toronto is a different animal. Didn't mean to make it sound adversarial.

 

[jmi22]

OK, fair enough. But in that case, why does it materially matter how far outside the core the corridor actually is? It's not as though density is a function of how far removed from the core the area is, there are a lot of factors.

I read what you said very well. But despite the disclaimers you put, the entire rest of your argument is about how he got it more right than all the "experts". Your disclaimer goes against the entire rest of the content of your post, and it is very easy to see where your sympathies lie.


Because operational practices can change!!!

What part of this concept is so difficult for you to understand? All the pro-LRT folks are equally dismayed at the poor early performance of the Finch LRT, and want it to do better. You, and all the other subway foamers on this forum, seem incapable of comprehending, despite thousands of messages explaining to the contrary in great detail, that slowness is NOT an inherent feature of LRTs, and that the solution to that slowness isn't to give sprawling suburbia subways, but to improve the operational speeds.

You keep arguing against a strawman that doesn't exist. I repeat: slowness is NOT an inherent feature of LRTs. Suggesting it is is intellectually on the same level as saying that subways are bad because the H6 subway cars were unreliable lemons, or that buses are bad because the same could be said of the Orion hybrids. Maybe we wouldn't have to keep trotting out the same "inane points" over and over again if you actually mounted a coherent argument against them.

N.B. I am pro-LRT because it's a cheaper option of delivering high capacity transit. In a world that has limited amounts of money, the greedy suburbanites of Toronto should not have access to all the monies for new transit projects. If that strikes you as idolatry, that's your problem and should deal with it accordingly.

Back in reality, it runs at 11 kilometers an hour.

 

[FW36]

A quick thought experiment assuming the Finch West LRT is given full priority, 20 second dwell time , speed limits increased to 50 km per hour, and 3 stations removed (Driftwood, Dancunwoods, stevenson).

1. Distance between Finch west station and Sentinel is 800 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

2. Distance between Sentinel and Tobermory is 660 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute

3. Distance between Tobermory and Jane
Is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

4. Distance between Jane and Norfinch is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

5. Distance between Norfinch and Signet is 970 meters.

Travel time for LRT: 1 minute 22 seconds

6. Distance between Signet and Weston rd is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

7. Distance between Weston Rd and Milvan is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

8. Distance between Milvan and Pearldale is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

9. Distance between Pearldale and Islington is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

10. Distance between Islington and kipling is 1100 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 32 seconds

11. Distance between Kipling and Albion is 720 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 minute 3 seconds

12. Distance between Albion and Martin grove is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

13. Distance between Martin Grove and Westmore is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

14. Distance between Westmore and Humber College is 700 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 3 seconds


Time between stations: 15 minutes 37 seconds
Dwell time: 4 minute 33 seconds
Total travel time : 20 minutes 10 seconds

Now the LRT becomes a more efficient transit line. Also Finch not being a dense corridor can easily be changed by changing zoning laws and making it easier for developers to build along transit corridors.

Long-term if Ontario builds Emery GO station for a future Bolton line it would mean travel time along corridor to dowtown would decrease to less than an hour. This would probably help encourage more residential development and improve the overall transit network

 

[chrisw]

I think we can all agree that of all of the Transit City lines the Don Mills LRT was the most flawed and is better served by the DRL/OL. You can make cases for and against the other lines but when examining all the facts the DMLRT is the hardest to justify considering the alternative already on the table and the overall needs of the city.

Haha, if we wanted to argue whether the Sheppard LRT is a worse idea.

 

[MidtownKW]

A quick thought experiment assuming the Finch West LRT is given full priority, 20 second dwell time , speed limits increased to 50 km per hour, and 3 stations removed (Driftwood, Dancunwoods, stevenson).

1. Distance between Finch west station and Sentinel is 800 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

2. Distance between Sentinel and Tobermory is 660 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute

3. Distance between Tobermory and Jane
Is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

4. Distance between Jane and Norfinch is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

5. Distance between Norfinch and Signet is 970 meters.

Travel time for LRT: 1 minute 22 seconds

6. Distance between Signet and Weston rd is 600 meters.

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

7. Distance between Weston Rd and Milvan is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

8. Distance between Milvan and Pearldale is 800 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 10 seconds

9. Distance between Pearldale and Islington is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

10. Distance between Islington and kipling is 1100 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 32 seconds

11. Distance between Kipling and Albion is 720 meters

Travel time for lrt : 1 minute 3 seconds

12. Distance between Albion and Martin grove is 600 meters

Travel time for lrt: 55 seconds

13. Distance between Martin Grove and Westmore is 750 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 6 seconds

14. Distance between Westmore and Humber College is 700 meters

Travel time for lrt: 1 minute 3 seconds


Time between stations: 15 minutes 37 seconds
Dwell time: 4 minute 33 seconds
Total travel time : 20 minutes 10 seconds

Now the LRT becomes a more efficient transit line. Also Finch not being a dense corridor can easily be changed by changing zoning laws and making it easier for developers to build along transit corridors.

Long-term if Ontario builds Emery GO station for a future Bolton line it would mean travel time along corridor to dowtown would decrease to less than an hour. This would probably help encourage more residential development and improve the overall transit network

I don't think it's realistic to expect to be able to remove stations. I know you said "ideal world," so I'm not accusing you of thinking this.

That is way too many stations, though. 600 metres is far too close for a corridor that, yes, really is not that dense. I didn't realize until now that some of the stations (Duncanwoods and Pearldale, for instance) are barely 400 metres apart. I can't see how that can be considered reasonable.

You're exactly right about redevelopment. Has the City done anything to proactively upzone this area? If this line is made to run at a reasonable speed, there would be a lot of impetus for redevelopment around stations, and the investment would quickly look a lot more justifiable.

 

[Burnt creek]

I don't think it's realistic to expect to be able to remove stations. I know you said "ideal world," so I'm not accusing you of thinking this.

That is way too many stations, though. 600 metres is far too close for a corridor that, yes, really is not that dense. I didn't realize until now that some of the stations (Duncanwoods and Pearldale, for instance) are barely 400 metres apart. I can't see how that can be considered reasonable.

You're exactly right about redevelopment. Has the City done anything to proactively upzone this area? If this line is made to run at a reasonable speed, there would be a lot of impetus for redevelopment around stations, and the investment would quickly look a lot more justifiable.

A number of people in this thread have mentioned the " 20 minute number" and i agree with that. Twenty minutes for the whole 10KM distance should be the goal, not the 30-33 mins that the Metrolinx specs indicated when the project was conceived. At 20 mins that's a average speed of 30-32 Km/hr and, at that speed, the service can now compete with alternative forms of transportation.

Problem is: How do you get that number without removing stops? I don't see how. The biggest factor in commuting times is the number of stops that you have to make. You are right that this might not be realistic. I would say that its unrealistic due to optics and political pressures. I think that they will have to get creative by: 1) varying the service perhaps , skip some stop during certain time of the day like rush hour (ie.: like the express busses on some routes). Or, have some trains stop at certain stops and others at alternate stops. But I don't know if this is even possible from a logistics standpoint. .

 

[FW36]

A number of people in this thread have mentioned the " 20 minute number" and i agree with that. Twenty minutes for the whole 10KM distance should be the goal, not the 30-33 mins that the Metrolinx specs indicated when the project was conceived. At 20 mins that's a average speed of 30-32 Km/hr and, at that speed, the service can now compete with alternative forms of transportation.

Problem is: How do you get that number without removing stops? I don't see how. The biggest factor in commuting times is the number of stops that you have to make. You are right that this might not be realistic. I would say that its unrealistic due to optics and political pressures. I think that they will have to get creative by: 1) varying the service perhaps , skip some stop during certain time of the day like rush hour (ie.: like the express busses on some routes). Or, have some trains stop at certain stops and others at alternate stops. But I don't know if this is even possible from a logistics standpoint. .

Some of the stations are 400 meters or less apart. Removing these stations would mean an extra 3 to 4 minute walk to the next station which I think is reasonable. The TTC can run local bus service for people who don't feel like walking an additional 4 minutes.

 

[Parkdalian]

There are too many stops. I think it’s politically impossible to remove stops right now, but I think in a couple of years it will be feasible.

 

[T3G]

I don't see how it is feasible to nix any stops other than Stevenson and Pearldale. I would think more time savings would be had if they moved to a request stop system like on the entire rest of the network, there is no reason to stop anywhere if there is no one waiting - and severely reduce the dwell time at each stop that is served (seriously, if the subway people don't need to idle for upwards of a minute at a station, neither do these guys. What the hell is this).