Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[youngblood]

Drove along eglinton today and saw some graffiti on the station building at eglinton/bayview. Reddit post also shows one of the glass panels is cracked at eglinton station.

 

[StreetcarRider]

Lots of LRT vehicles in both directions around Bermondsey this afternoon.

 

[micheal_can]

Line size?
For the difference between subways,streetcars and LRTs?
What about buses?


From the TTC's website:
https://cdn.ttc.ca/-/media/Project/...1-11.pdf?rev=5c58eab8c6ba44a7bdf8fda9e81be754

 

[Kyle Campbell]

People's preferences vary. Shakiness is not a factor for me, but may be a factor for other riders.

On Eglinton, we can expect a massive inflow of riders, but it will be hard to classify what brought them to this line because multiple factors will be in play.

New residential construction => a greater pool of potential riders.

Much faster operation in the tunnel part => Eglinton route is more attractive for existing riders who previously chose other routes.

Plus, the comfort factor.

Not sure if this explanation would apply in Toronto, but in Ottawa line 2 is *slower* than the bus it replaced to the most popular destination: Rideau and the Byward market. But it's popular and has high ridership. Comfort is one factor, but reliability was the main reason it wins. The bus you could theoretically save 10 minutes, but the reliability was so poor it could be anywhere from a few minutes faster to 20 minutes slower. The train shows up at the same time every time, which is a huge deciding factor.

 

[crs1026]

This will obviously vary by route and time of day, but even as a transit lover I am more reluctant to take buses due to being more crowded and confining. Trams, especially the newer designs with wider doors and well spaced aisles and seating, at least allow one to board and find a place to stand without pushing through a crowd of people. Modern low floor buses are dysfunctional due to the narrow passages created by the cabinets over the front wheels, and the placement of priority seating (which translates into blockage due to walkers, strollers, and mobility devices) at the front where every rider must push past. One does not have to push their way down the length of a tram or subway as one does on a bus.
Seating at the rear is generally shoehorned - never adequate kneeroom, difficult to reach when there are standees. Aisle are narrowest of any type of vehicle. Where I can, I board via rear doors.
Personally I prefer standing to sitting especially when crowded - buses do tend to lurch a lot, which throws one off balance -although I find subways almost as bad especially when stopping.
I still encounter people (especially here in Etobicoke) who flatly declare “Buses are for poor people” - which is bollocks, but the attitude persists. However, don’t get me started about the Royal York bus when the schools let out ! If we are going to promote buses we need to manage overcrowding and redesign for greater passenger mobility.

- Paul

 

[T3G]

^Agreed with all of the above, but I will also add that our reluctance to give buses their own lanes does them no favours either.

The other day, I was taken ill at school and caught an early GO bus out of town. We were stuck on that thing for two hours due to rush hour traffic. If I had waited at Union for another hour for the first Milton train out, my journey would have been almost the same length. If you want people to feel like third class citizens whose time has no value, make them use mixed traffic transit.

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

If we're talking specifically about passenger comfort, then in the specific case of Eglinton, there's also a pretty significant push factor for a minority of riders.

To board the Eglinton Bus, you stand on a kerb, then step aboard the bus. To disembark, you stand at the door, then step to the kerb. In a lot of ways this is even easier than doing the same maneuver from a car, especially if you are travelling with stroller-aged children or you use a mobility aid.

To board the Eglinton Crosstown at the underground stations, you've got to descend 3-4 flights of stairs and escalators, or take at least 2 elevators. It's a thing.

This thing will not be offputting to most passengers, and it has other compensations. (A dry, well-lit waiting area. Little coffee shops at certain stations. Bike parking. Off-street bus transfers. An LRT...)

But there will be other people (especially those who will struggle most with the flights of stairs) who might reasonably prefer a bus. For these people, the above-ground platforms meet this specific need much better. (And, indeed, they have nothing to complain about on the Finch Line or the ION.)

Which is why there will be a "34 EGLINTON" bus running from Mt. Dennis Station to Kennedy Station, when Line 5 opens (allegedly). Useful when an elevator (or escalator) is out-of-service due to maintenance or mischief. The rush hour bus lane signs will be removed when Line 5 opens, so the 34 will be in mixed traffic.

 

[EnviroTO]

Kind of a shame about the Cedarvale signage. The stainless steel looks much more refined. Obviously this was done on the cheap.

Still, if they properly center the sign in the visible space it will look far better than the Don Valley renaming (using a big black background sign instead of a glass frosting treatment) or the TMU signs.

 

[Rainforest]

Not sure if this explanation would apply in Toronto, but in Ottawa line 2 is *slower* than the bus it replaced to the most popular destination: Rideau and the Byward market. But it's popular and has high ridership. Comfort is one factor, but reliability was the main reason it wins. The bus you could theoretically save 10 minutes, but the reliability was so poor it could be anywhere from a few minutes faster to 20 minutes slower. The train shows up at the same time every time, which is a huge deciding factor.

Line 2 - is it O-Train? Or, the new Ottawa LRT? I did not have a chance to visit and ride the new LRT since it opened. On the OC Transpo map, it shows the new LRT as Line 1, and O-Train as Line 2.

But if we are talking about the new LRT, then I am a bit puzzled how the underground line can end up being slower than the mixed-traffic bus via Albert St / Slater St.

 

[UntitledCyclist]

I'm not sure I'd call Etobicoke General Hospital and the 20,000 people at Humber Polytechnic – the western terminus – nowhere. Or the Jane & Finch neighbourhood. With almost 40,000 riders a day in Fall 2024, the 36 Finch West has the highest ridership of any bus route in Toronto, exceed only by the 504 King and even higher than Line 4. It was 55,000 pre-Covid in 2019. Admittedly some of the 36 traffic is between Finch West and Finch station.

Hey, I was referring to it's depiction on the map, as a nub with no terminal station or any other info.

 

[A 6264]

Still, if they properly center the sign in the visible space it will look far better than the Don Valley renaming (using a big black background sign instead of a glass frosting treatment) or the TMU signs.

I'm hoping the signage is temporary (the black background is there to hide the station's previous name), and will eventually be replaced.

 

[McGillicuddy]

Line 2 - is it O-Train? Or, the new Ottawa LRT? I did not have a chance to visit and ride the new LRT since it opened. On the OC Transpo map, it shows the new LRT as Line 1, and O-Train as Line 2.

But if we are talking about the new LRT, then I am a bit puzzled how the underground line can end up being slower than the mixed-traffic bus via Albert St / Slater St.

You're quite correct.

It's confusing, because Ottawa's Line 2 opened nearly two decades before Line 1. But it makes sense contextually.

Line 1 was a purpose-built transit corridor, featuring a tunnel through downtown and then broadly following a former busway into the suburbs at either end. It was designed to replace more than a thouand daily bus trips, with the entire bus network re-engineered around it, and most stations outside the downtown core having off-street bus bays. It is meant to be the spine of a growing transit network, fully integrated with other services.

Line 2 was the cheapest possible project that could plausibly be called a "rail pilot". It is a converted freight corridor, and it does not serve downtown Ottawa: in fact, before its recent expansion, the only major destinations it served were Carleton University and the large South Keys strip mall. There was no effort at bus integration except where the line already met the Transitway, many of the stations basically amounted to bus stops, and several portions of the line were single-tracked, forcing it to operate with 15-minute headways. Which is to say, hardly anybody used it, except for people who lived near stations and wanted to go to Carleton or the mall.

When Line 1 opened, Line 2 became much more useful by virtue of connecting: you could now reach Carleton and South Keys from downtown with a single off-street transfer. Line 4, which connects Line 2 to the Ottawa Airport, makes it even more useful, although with two transfers, this service is notably slower than the direct bus that used to run out of downtown. And double-tracking of the line now makes more useful headways practical, which has made it more generally attractive.

Of course, clever readers will have noticed that this means Line 4 has opened before Line 3, which does rather make this all more confusing. But that's what you get with OC Transpo.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

You're quite correct.

It's confusing, because Ottawa's Line 2 opened nearly two decades before Line 1. But it makes sense contextually.

Line 1 was a purpose-built transit corridor, featuring a tunnel through downtown and then broadly following a former busway into the suburbs at either end. It was designed to replace more than a thouand daily bus trips, with the entire bus network re-engineered around it, and most stations outside the downtown core having off-street bus bays. It is meant to be the spine of a growing transit network, fully integrated with other services.

Line 2 was the cheapest possible project that could plausibly be called a "rail pilot". It is a converted freight corridor, and it does not serve downtown Ottawa: in fact, before its recent expansion, the only major destinations it served were Carleton University and the large South Keys strip mall. There was no effort at bus integration except where the line already met the Transitway, many of the stations basically amounted to bus stops, and several portions of the line were single-tracked, forcing it to operate with 15-minute headways. Which is to say, hardly anybody used it, except for people who lived near stations and wanted to go to Carleton or the mall.

When Line 1 opened, Line 2 became much more useful by virtue of connecting: you could now reach Carleton and South Keys from downtown with a single off-street transfer. Line 4, which connects Line 2 to the Ottawa Airport, makes it even more useful, although with two transfers, this service is notably slower than the direct bus that used to run out of downtown. And double-tracking of the line now makes more useful headways practical, which has made it more generally attractive.

Of course, clever readers will have noticed that this means Line 4 has opened before Line 3, which does rather make this all more confusing. But that's what you get with OC Transpo.

I didn't mean to derail the thread with semantics about Ottawa. As an FYI the entire system is branded OTrain, both line 1 and the original, now né Line 2.

But the point is that the trip from South Key via Line 2 to Rideau is longer than the old (still existing) transitway bus as it takes a longer route.

However getting to the original point, people take the train because it's far more reliable schedule-wise than the bus. With the train you know exactly how long your journey will take, the bus it's a lottery ticket every time.

I'm assuming here with Line 5 people will prefer it to the bus journey for the same reason, people may even divert to line 5 from a journey that might be technically shorter by bus if they feel they are more likely to get to their destination at the expected time

 

[nfitz]

Hey, I was referring to it's depiction on the map, as a nub with no terminal station or any other info.

Ah.

Line 2 and 4 have been shown like that for years. And Line 5 is now too. I'm not sure what else would work easily and remain clear for a vertical strip mark. Often a system may only have the line symbol.

Context:

 

[UntitledCyclist]

A tragedy on Montreal's REM line in the wee hours this morning, during the non-passenger service period. Three young men were hit on the tracks, with two dying of their injuries. Early reports suggest they crossed a highway and hopped a fence before crossing the REM tracks, when a train approached in testing or technical operation. I believe those trains are unmanned, which spared at least the trauma of an operator.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/rem-train-dead-critical-condition-9.6989021

I don't imagine this will have a direct impact on the readiness for Lines 5 & 6, but I am sure TTC and Metrolinx and the city are watching very closely.