Bordercollie
Senior Member
That's not true. It allows buses to travel without being impeded by traffic or traffic lights. Just because people don't park to use the system doesn't mean it's useless.
|
|
|
Finch West Line 6 LRT
- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
6ixGod
Active Member
The number of cars in a parking lot is a poor indicator of station use. In an ideal public transport system, the goal is that you do not need a car to access transit in the first place, so low park-and-ride usage is not a failure. Park-and-ride is a legacy concept rooted in car-dependent planning. Modern transit success is measured by walk-up access, cycling, feeder buses, and connections to surrounding neighbourhoods, not by how full a parking lot is. A busy station in an urban or suburban context should ideally have few or no cars associated with it.
If anything, empty parking lots often indicate that people are accessing the station by means other than driving, which is precisely what transit-oriented planning is supposed to encourage.
That being said, the location of the Mississauga Transitway can be questioned and has been raised.
Mississauga’s Transitway a white elephant in the eyes of city-building expert Gil Penalosa
One of Mississauga’s greatest transportation initiatives is also its biggest mistake, says Gil Penalosa, a world-renowned expert on creating vibrant and healthy cities.
www.mississauga.com
Mind you, these articles were written post pandemic. In 2023, the ridership rebounded and I believe 2024 numbers are similar to that of 2023 (haven’t been published yet).
6ixGod
Active Member
It does not need to take four months. That’s the problem: LRT defenders have completely normalised mediocrity.
“Oh, the entire line is shut down because of snow? That’s fine, it’s not as if cold weather is a known condition here.”
“Oh, the trains are running at a crawl? No problem, wouldn’t want the LRT getting a speeding ticket.”
“Oh, another speed restriction? Safety first. The priority is clearly protecting the rails from the trains.”
“Oh, signal issues again? Understandable. We only had a decade to plan this.”
“Oh, testing takes months? Of course. This is cutting-edge 19th-century technology.”
At this point, expectations are so low that basic reliability is treated like a bonus feature. If a system cannot operate in winter, at reasonable speeds, on a straight alignment, then who asked you to build this? Did the Great Leader force it upon Finch West? When’s the military parade?
I’ll keep beating the dead horse and posting comments here and anybody who has a problem can go ride Line 6 and cry about it for 55 minutes (ONE WAY).
That being said, Line 6 can be salvaged, but only if it is treated like real transport infrastructure rather than a toy.
1. Remove unnecessary speed restrictions - Addressed and in progress
2. Implement real signal priority - Addressed and in progress
3. Winterise it properly - not addressed. Snow shutdowns are unacceptable in Toronto. Heated switches, proactive storm protocols, and no discretionary closures for routine weather. I’m sorry, but nobody forced you to build this above ground. Were the people behind this so confident it would be delayed that by the time it opened, Climate Change would eliminate snowfall in Toronto? Please. Also, what are these shelters?
4. Simplify operating rules. Safety culture should prevent accidents, not suppress performance. Over-proceduralisation is killing the line.
5. Run frequent service and build ridership.
Points 1, 2, 4, 5 have been addressed….only 1 and 2 are “in progress”. God only knows when they plan on actually implementing any of these points but even one of these before spring would be a miracle.
As for removing stations, that’s political suicide. That’s just something this line will have to deal with and I hope this is a lesson for all the LRT fanboys here. This is clearly an unsuitable model for Toronto and we don’t need anymore of this crap in the city.
Bojaxs
Senior Member
I don't want to derail this thread, but IMO, the issue with the Mississauga transitway is that it's still incomplete.
I've talked about this further in the Misissauga Transitway thread, and made suggestions on how to improve it.
Monarch Butterfly
Superstar
Just like Line 4 Sheppard Subway, is incomplete?
dowlingm
Senior Member
Have been catching up on this thread and a few points:
- A Bolton GO train station at Emery was mentioned a few times. I think Bolton GO would be a good project but Metrolinx clearly doesn’t, at least not in the foreseeable future. Look at the times they have produced maps lately with pencilled in projects, some of them pretty new and speculative, but no Bolton. Clearly even with the LRT interconnection, it’s not a quick or easy win
- Dropping stops and how it would be quick and easy if the City would just get out of the way, and it’s cold waiting at stops. It’s the Province’s project! If they didn’t want stops they could have just not built them! It was the Province’s build consortium who built the curve with a significant speed restriction! It was the Province who built transit stops on Lines 5 and 6 without enclosed or at least full width shelters! It feels like for some posters on here, anything good is the Province’s doing and anything bad is the City’s. Not to mention that if the City needs to add back bus capacity to reduce walking distances to transit, that cost falls solely on the municipal taxpayer.
T3G
Senior Member
What is the basis for declaring the Mississauga transitway to be a success? Sure, it's useful as a bypass, but as far as I can tell that's where it ends.
The speeds are artificially low (the buses on the part in Mississauga definitely don't come anywhere close to reaching their top speeds, not with the inane amount of schedule padding, and especially on the Metrolinx owned section, where they so rigidly demand that the 20 km/h speed limit be followed in the area around Renforth station that the TTC actually swapped the division that dispatches the 112 so they could send out buses with geoblocked speed limiters on them, which shows that low speeds are a product of living in a nanny state and not an inherent feature of the mode of transit), most of the stations are located in the middle of nowhere and are thus total ghost towns (especially Dixie, Cawthra, Tomken, and Central Parkway), even the stations that are near something useful are still far enough away that getting to them is a pain in the ass, exiting the transitway via a left turn, thanks to a lack of TSP, takes just as long as it does on the Finch LRT, and the costs of the project, by the end, more than doubled, proving that cost overruns are not a feature of LRT as some people on here are claiming.
I would think the lesson here is that Ontarians just really, really suck at transit, no matter the mode.
N.B. Viva and ZUM also suck.
The speeds are artificially low (the buses on the part in Mississauga definitely don't come anywhere close to reaching their top speeds, not with the inane amount of schedule padding, and especially on the Metrolinx owned section, where they so rigidly demand that the 20 km/h speed limit be followed in the area around Renforth station that the TTC actually swapped the division that dispatches the 112 so they could send out buses with geoblocked speed limiters on them, which shows that low speeds are a product of living in a nanny state and not an inherent feature of the mode of transit), most of the stations are located in the middle of nowhere and are thus total ghost towns (especially Dixie, Cawthra, Tomken, and Central Parkway), even the stations that are near something useful are still far enough away that getting to them is a pain in the ass, exiting the transitway via a left turn, thanks to a lack of TSP, takes just as long as it does on the Finch LRT, and the costs of the project, by the end, more than doubled, proving that cost overruns are not a feature of LRT as some people on here are claiming.
I would think the lesson here is that Ontarians just really, really suck at transit, no matter the mode.
N.B. Viva and ZUM also suck.
Last edited:
ThenWhat
New Member
It would be interesting to see those contracts. "Trust us, we know what we are doing. But we cannot trust you with that information."
Monarch Butterfly
Superstar
Wonder if the liquidated dihydrogen monoxide free falling from the atmosphere will cause predicaments for Line 6 today, tonight, and tomorrow
Last edited:
turbanplanner
Senior Member
Notice I mentioned for speed they’re great but for adding passengers I’d call them a dismal failure.
The nearby Dixie GO station is packed to the last row so people are happy to get out of their cars if trips are faster and transfers are minimized!
A 6264
Active Member
No worries, this thread derailed long ago.
P.S., never say "derail" on a transit forum.
A 6264
Active Member
You're reminding me of someone I know. He reads minds, and knows exactly what every car driver or truck driver or cyclist or pedestrian or politician in Toronto thinks, word for word. And it's always something nobody would ever say.
Monarch Butterfly
Superstar
People forget that during the Boxing Day snowstorm, there were 200+ automobile collisions just in Toronto from the snow. Collisions that were "reported", not counted the unreported ones.
T3G
Senior Member
Literally no one on here has ever written ANYTHING that remotely resembles this.
It is a mystery to me that you are able to get away with so much trolling. Go away.
FW36
Active Member
OK I have insight on mississauga transit way as I work along the line. I would say as a frequent user it is a success. Buses could run more frequent but Buses are packed. Stations get decent usage from people working in nearby employment areas, buses usually fly at 50 km per hour or sometimes faster. That only section that is slow is renforth station mostly from the amount of buses that pull in and out of the station. I would say that it could be improved by adding bus routes the feed into transitway, but overall it is successful.