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Finch West Line 6 LRT
- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
hw621
Senior Member
Maybe this city will build nothing but bus lanes...
Admiral Beez
Superstar
The Ontario Line construction seems to be booming along. If we can build that subway, as well as the Scarborough Subway, we must have some money somewhere. The trick is for the Premier to think it's his idea.
maxt797
Active Member
Signal priority is one thing, but these stop spacings... Like 250 meters from each other. Every 10 houses ;-) This is a joke. I wonder who was the one that thought it would ever work for light rail transit?
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
We can get Olivia Chow the biggest potential political win by bringing operation improvements to not just Line 6, but also to the downtown streetcar network.
We could come out of this with not just one new "rapid transit" line but several, just by making operational changes.
urbanclient
Active Member
I am not particularly pro-subway beyond south of Eglinton as it stands now and likely for another 10-20 years (yes, we should have more new subways than just the OL south of Eglinton, the latent demand is obvious).
The cost of Line 6 is so atrocious, that it gives credence to the idea that there may be serious corruption in Metrolinx's procurement processes, to say the least. How is it acceptable for Paris, a true primate city with a similar or higher cost of living, higher minimum wage, higher GDP per capita, to build a tram line for less than 1/3rd the price, with cheaper, better trams from the same Alstom Citadis family of trams, in a denser, more expensive part of town, all on a corridor that is about the same width as Finch. AFAIK their T9 inflated in price by €50 million from 2015, HALF the amount that Line 6 has inflated in ONE QUARTER of 2025 (sources below).
Paris T9's ridership is 100,000 per day. You would think their much higher need for transit in that part of Paris would make them more susceptible to being taken advantage of by 'greedy' no-good corporations. But no, we are the ones getting shafted by a $2.5 + 1.2 billion dollar 30 year O&M contract that makes Darnell Nurse's contract look like a bargain. https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/keolis-secures-paris-t9-tram-line-operating-contract/
$160 million increase in price from $3,585 to $3,745 BILLION
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H4F33Z
Active Member
I think the biggest takeaway that I'm seeing from this discussion is that it won't be a simple fix to speed up the LRT, but will require a significant mindset shift and updates to operating procedures that has been ingrained in the City and TTC for decades. This has been something that transit advocates have been raising alarms for years about but no one took them seriously. Now that the line has opened and we've seen how ridiculous the current situation is, all stakeholders and elected officials are out of their chair to get this sorted. It's good to see them taking it seriously and now active signal priority is on the table but this is something they should have been proactive on.
The best part of this chaos is that this sentiment is now being pushed for the streetcar network too, which could finally make streetcars good again. So yes, it sucks but I'm also happy because this exposed a deeper wound that the city's been pushing off for so long and that will actually improve operations, not just here but in many more places.
The best part of this chaos is that this sentiment is now being pushed for the streetcar network too, which could finally make streetcars good again. So yes, it sucks but I'm also happy because this exposed a deeper wound that the city's been pushing off for so long and that will actually improve operations, not just here but in many more places.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Our streetcars have some of the dumbest spacing, with some stops being being about five or six 30m streetcar lengths apart. I suppose the LRTs would be no different.
lastcommodore
New Member
Im not going to hold water for MX- They are blatantly incompetent at holding costs down (though I refrain from assuming malice) but this is not isolated to MX, this is an Anglsphere thing. The entirety of the Anglosphere has seen costs skyrocket while even first-world non-anglo countries stay stable on costs.
UfT has a good paper on this, but a big part of it is budget mismanagement, safetyism, appeasement, and overbuilding.
ARG1
Senior Member
A few high capacity subway lines > lots of local LRT lines. The dichotomy that LRT supporters often throw around is the idea that X corridor has too much ridership for a BRT, but not enough for a Metro, yet few people discuss whether that demand can't be pulled away elsewhere. Bathurst and Bayview aren't high ridership bus routes, but the reason for that is because most people who are travelling or commuting take an east-west bus route to Yonge and use Line 1. Until Eglinton, the only East-West Rapid transit route we have is Bloor-Danforth which really isn't useful to anyone north of well, Eglinton. This leads us to having a lot of these high ridership East-West corridors in comparison to the North South corriodors.
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duty free
Active Member
Toronto is two cities (old Toronto + 5 suburbs). The mentality is overwhelmingly suburban generally amongst politicians, constituents, even many people working for transit agencies all over the region. There will probably always be massive pushback against any attempt at transit priority in my opinion. Personally I don't see light rail ever working here like it does in Europe, where it's fully optimized in a ROW.
I think the most successful and cost effective bang for our collective buck is building elevated rail when possible. Anything built on or north of Eglinton should be elevated rail or BRT if the projected demand is not sufficient.
What most exciting about the Ontario Line is a significant percentage of will be built elevated where possible. When they continue to expand the line north it will be elevated, as it should be. I think it will be a real eye opener for people who have some warped perception of what elevated rail is.
Line 3 Ontario future extensions should be built elevated north of Eglinton and west of Exhibition.
Line 4 Sheppard should be elevated where possible.
Line 5 Eglinton should be elevated east of the Don.
Line 6 probably should've been a BRT or elevated.
Line 7 Eglinton East should just be an elevated extension of Line 5
Line 8 Jane should be elevated north of St. Claire or Eglinton.
Pretty much any new line or extension one can think of.
APTA-2048
Senior Member
A lot of people really oversell how much of this project is elevated. It’s a small section, conveniently in Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park. I think many underestimate how much push back elevated will receive. I’m not saying it’s right. I would just like to warn people not to get their hopes up.
ARG1
Senior Member
Its a significant amount that it could be used as a self-reference. When trying to convince the public or management of an idea, its a lot easier to say "check out this thing we have already built and look how its not a loud clanky mess like Chicago", vs "Vancouver's elevated guideways are fine" to a room of people who have likely never been in Vancouver. The moment you have one remotely substantial segment, it will make it a lot easier to push for more of that.
KhalilHeron
Active Member
Yea the elevated sections of line 3 and 5 give me some hope but we are yet to see elevated rail near single family homes, which is where most of the pushback would come from. Its a whole other beast getting people on board in an environment like this
compared to this
doesnt help that a lot of people in Thorncliffe and Flemingdon park who may be opposed to the project dont speak fluent english or do not have the political power or no how to make their voices heard.
FW36
Active Member
In that instance government should ignore push back. Toronto is a major city that requires major transit improvements. Install sound barriers on elevated section. Easy solution