Finch West Line 6 LRT

[doady]

Nope.

https://www.population.net.au/sydney-population/

http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/toronto-population/

As for Doady’s patriotic notion - Go Leafs! - that Sydney should follow Toronto’s lead because combined the GTA’s transit systems carry more passengers:

1. He’s obviously never used public transit in Sydney.
2. By extension, Toronto should follow the lead of every other transit system that carries more passengers. Actually, I’d agree with that if the comparable were HK, London, Berlin or Paris. NYC not so much. But I’m not sure why it follows Toronto can’t learn anything from systems with fewer boardings.
3. To clarify, the discussion was about how well the respective systems transport their passengers, not how many passengers they move.

Patriotic? I am merely presenting the facts. You're the one who seems swayed too much by emotion.

If you want to believe that a system that lost 20% ridership since the 50s has grown more than a system that has doubled ridership since the 50s, or that of two bus systems the one that moves more than twice as many riders is the less effective and less attractive system, more power to you. But I don't think you are fooling anyone.

You don't need to educate us, we are all aware of the problems of Toronto transit, otherwise we would not come to this forum. There would be no point posting here if improvements are not sorely needed. But there is also not helpful to exaggerate those problems or ignore the system's strengths or forget about what progress has been made. We should build upon what we already have. So I'd rather just stick to the facts.

 

[pman]

Patriotic? I am merely presenting the facts. You're the one who seems swayed too much by emotion.

If you want to believe that a system that lost 20% ridership since the 50s has grown more than a system that has doubled ridership since the 50s, or that of two bus systems the one that moves more than twice as many riders is the less effective and less attractive system, more power to you. But I don't think you are fooling anyone.

You don't need to educate us, we are all aware of the problems of Toronto transit, otherwise we would not come to this forum. There would be no point posting here if improvements are not sorely needed. But there is also not helpful to exaggerate those problems or ignore the system's strengths or forget about what progress has been made. We should build upon what we already have. So I'd rather just stick to the facts.

https://www.blogto.com/fashion_style/2019/01/unofficial-t-shirt-ttc/

 

[nfitz]

If you want to believe that a system that lost 20% ridership since the 50s has grown more than a system that has doubled ridership since the 50s, or that of two bus systems the one that moves more than twice as many riders is the less effective and less attractive system, more power to you.

Relatively similar populations. Don't really need to look to the past - if Sydney has much lower ridership than Toronto now, that says it all.

The past is difficult. Toronto population has far more than doubled since 1950s. So what does that say about us, if our ridership has only doubled.

Has Sydney grown as fast (I have no idea).

What about car ownership - if Sydney is like the UK, I suspect that car ownership has grown more than since 1950s than it has here, simply for economic reasons. Is it more like the UK - I have no idea ...

 

[pman]

I suspect the (long-suffering) moderator will soon rightly ask us to get back to the thread topic, so Finch West LRT...not dead yet!

To give a general answer to your question, the metropolitan area’s population has seen annual growth of 1% to 2% every year for the past decade. It’s forecast to grow from its current level of around 5 million to 7.5 million by 2050. It’s more North American than European in terms of its density and settlement pattern.

I think it would be interesting to have a new thread comparing Toronto with other cities that are either directly comparable or aspirational for us in some way. I would hope that even the most ardent civic booster would agree that we might have something to learn from benchmarking ourselves against best practice and results in other places.

 

[hw621]

I suspect the (long-suffering) moderator will soon rightly ask us to get back to the thread topic, so Finch West LRT...not dead yet!

To give a general answer to your question, the metropolitan area’s population has seen annual growth of 1% to 2% every year for the past decade. It’s forecast to grow from its current level of around 5 million to 7.5 million by 2050. It’s more North American than European in terms of its density and settlement pattern.

I think it would be interesting to have a new thread comparing Toronto with other cities that are either directly comparable or aspirational for us in some way. I would hope that even the most ardent civic booster would agree that we might have something to learn from benchmarking ourselves against best practice and results in other places.

Go start one.

 

[W. K. Lis]

We know of two projects along Finch Avenue West.

One is the 2370 Finch West project. See link.

The other is Casa—Emery Village project. See link.

We should expect more projects, once the shovels are in the ground and/or after the Finch West LRT is built.

 

[doady]

Relatively similar populations. Don't really need to look to the past - if Sydney has much lower ridership than Toronto now, that says it all.

The past is difficult. Toronto population has far more than doubled since 1950s. So what does that say about us, if our ridership has only doubled.

Has Sydney grown as fast (I have no idea).

What about car ownership - if Sydney is like the UK, I suspect that car ownership has grown more than since 1950s than it has here, simply for economic reasons. Is it more like the UK - I have no idea ...

TTC ridership has doubled since the 50s. But as I said there's also the GO and the 905 systems.

The Toronto area is served by 3943 buses (1926 TTC, 529 York Region, 512 GO, 463 Miway, 424 Brampton, 89 Oakville) while the Sydney area is served with only 1467 buses. And Toronto has an extensive streetcar network as well. It's just a much larger and more highly developed system than Sydney overall. If Toronto invested more on trains and streetcars and buses, maybe it invested less on cars.

Outside of London, the UK has bad transit ridership compared to Canada as well. But the transit there is mostly privatized. Less spending on transit so maybe more spending on cars.

Sydney's system is mostly suburban rail, getting suburbanites to the CBD. Even if the suburban rail has similar ridership to TTC subway, the suburbanites likely mostly drive their car to the rail station, judging from the low bus ridership and sparse bus service.

I think if Toronto's system was like Sydney's, we wouldn't even have this thread. FInch West is far more than just a feeder route to get people downtown. Same with Sheppard, Hurontario, Queen in Brampton, and so on.

 

[nfitz]

TTC ridership has doubled since the 50s.

Mostly because the population in Toronto (416) has more than doubled since the 1950s. From 1.18 million in 1951 to 2.73 million in 2016.

Also of note, back in 1951, TTC service was primarily in the Old City of Toronto (population only 676,000), with only a handful of routes leaving the city.

Normalized to population, TTC ridership has dropped since the 1950s.

 

[doady]

Mostly because the population in Toronto (416) has more than doubled since the 1950s. From 1.18 million in 1951 to 2.73 million in 2016.

Also of note, back in 1951, TTC service was primarily in the Old City of Toronto (population only 676,000), with only a handful of routes leaving the city.

Normalized to population, TTC ridership has dropped since the 1950s.

I never said the ridership per capita increased. I was just comparing to Sydney where total ridership peaked in the 40s vs Toronto where total ridership peaked in 2018. Why Toronto transit should aspire to be Sydney transit was what I was wondering.

Toronto's population more than doubled in the post-war era and TTC ridership has almost kept up. Not much drop-off, especially compared to Sydney. Toronto built its first subway in 1954, and Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough have similar transit ridership to the old city, York, and East York. That's why we are talking about replacing the Finch West with LRT, right? The buses on Toronto's post-war corridors aren't running empty.

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

I never said the ridership per capita increased. I was just comparing to Sydney where total ridership peaked in the 40s vs Toronto where total ridership peaked in 2018. Why Toronto transit should aspire to be Sydney transit was what I was wondering.

Toronto's population more than doubled in the post-war era and TTC ridership has almost kept up. Not much drop-off, especially compared to Sydney. Toronto built its first subway in 1954, and Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough have similar transit ridership to the old city, York, and East York. That's why we are talking about replacing the Finch West with LRT, right? The buses on Toronto's post-war corridors aren't running empty.

An LRT on Finch West really does makes sense. Unfortunately, DoFo and his cabinet don't think the same way...

 

[nfitz]

An LRT on Finch West really does makes sense. Unfortunately, DoFo and his cabinet don't think the same way...

Is there any recent indication of that? They could have killed this 7 months ago, when they killed other infrastructure work, just after the election. The longer they take to kill it, the more expensive it gets.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Is there any recent indication of that? They could have killed this 7 months ago, when they killed other infrastructure work, just after the election. The longer they take to kill it, the more expensive it gets.

These people just spent $100 Million+ to “save” taxpayers a few million dollars by firing tbe hydro CEO. Our government doesn’t seem to understand the basics of financial responsibility.

 

[robmausser]

Nope.

https://www.population.net.au/sydney-population/

http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/toronto-population/

As for Doady’s patriotic notion - Go Leafs! - that Sydney should follow Toronto’s lead because combined the GTA’s transit systems carry more passengers:

1. He’s obviously never used public transit in Sydney.
2. By extension, Toronto should follow the lead of every other transit system that carries more passengers. Actually, I’d agree with that if the comparable were HK, London, Berlin or Paris. NYC not so much. But I’m not sure why it follows Toronto can’t learn anything from systems with fewer boardings.
3. To clarify, the discussion was about how well the respective systems transport their passengers, not how many passengers they move.

Heres the problem with population comparisons; they are super inaccurate to just look at numbers.

The city of Sydney covers an area of 12,368 km² (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney)

The city of Toronto covers an area of 630.21 km2 (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto)

Thats such an apples to oranges comparison its not even funny.

The entire freaking GTA doesn't even cover that area, at 5,905.71 km2. Its not even half!

So looking at this, the entire GTA is 5,928,040 people. Thats still more than Sydney's population with half the area and double the density.

When looking at population for transit, DENSITY is whats important.

Torontos Desnity is: 4,334.4/km2 (11,226/sq mi)

Sydneys Desnity is: 415/km2 (1,070/sq mi)

1/10th of Torontos.

Mic drop.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Update from the Metrolinx Capital Projects report for the upcoming meeting.

Finch West LRT Mosaic Transit Group (Mosaic), the consortium delivering the project, submitted the first 60% design package on December 20, 2018. Construction continued to progress on early works including the relocation of Enbridge Gas lines and relocations/protection of oil pipelines.

 

[raptor]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1091399320979599361