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Three quarters of a year since opening to passengers in December 2025, the Finch West Line 6 LRT is benefiting from a new series of signal and operational adjustments designed to boost speed along the heavily scrutinized line. Running 10.3 kilometres from Line 1’s Finch West station to Humber College's North Campus at Highway 27, the surface route has delivered long-awaited rail connections to a broad swath of North York and Etobicoke.
When Line 6 opened in late 2025, it capped nearly 20 years of planning, debate, and construction following its initial proposal by then-Mayor David Miller in 2007. Conceived under Miller’s Transit City network to introduce light rail along major Toronto arterials, Finch West and the Eglinton Crosstown have been the only lines from the ambitious plan to ever break ground. Construction on Line 6 finally began in 2019, and after overcoming two years of delays beyond its initially projected opening, the line launched with the promise of replacing the chronically congested 36 Finch West bus with a faster, more reliable, and more comfortable rapid transit connection.
Marking Toronto’s first brand-new rapid transit line since Line 4 Sheppard opened in 2002, the launch of Line 6 brought together a high-profile group of public leaders and representatives. Among those attending the opening day ceremonies were Mayor Chow, Premier Ford, Minister of Transportation Sarkaria, and then-Minister of Infrastructure Surma.
Relief over the delayed opening, however, instantly turned to frustration as Line 6 underperformed straight out of the gate, and gained a reputation as Toronto's slowest and most wasteful rapid transit link. Nearly a third of all trips faced heavy delays during December 2025, while operational trains crawled along at a meager average of 11.2 km/h. One-way travel times along the 10.3-kilometre corridor regularly topped 55 minutes, making the multi-billion-dollar transit investment noticeably slower than the local bus service it was designed to improve upon: the line had been promoted on the promise of 22 km/h speeds and end-to-end runtimes of only 28 minutes.
Facing the public backlash, City Council passed a motion urging the TTC, Metrolinx, and Toronto Transportation Services to speed up the corridor. Key operational changes — like giving LRT trains priority over left-turning traffic at intersections and removing restrictive speed caps that forced light rail vehicles (LRVs) to run below the speed limit — were finally put on the table, something many riders had expected to be active from day one.
Three months later, Mayor Chow announced on social media that a suite of upgrades had been introduced to accelerate the Finch West LRT. Yet a test ride by the author shortly after showed that these much-publicized fixes came nowhere near delivering promised travel times. A end-to-end trip in March 2026 logged in at 41 minutes: a welcome 14-minute reduction from opening day, but still twice as slow as driving and well off the promised 28-minute benchmark.
Mayor Chow noted that additional upgrades were slated for later in the year, with a focus on optimizing signal timing at key intersections along the route. City and transit officials aimed to bring the number of red lights encountered by LRT trains as close as possible to zero, while maintaining a smooth flow of traffic and transit on intersecting arterials.
Another half a year later, and the long-promised changes to the City's traffic signalling system on Finch Avenue West were rolled out at the start of September, with the TTC announcing revised schedules that took effect on September 6th. This new schedule projected one-way travel times of between 36 and 39 minutes, with the higher estimate expected only during rush hour and the prolonged light cycles it necessitates.
In the weeks following the implementation of the new signalling system and schedules, full-length trips along the line consistently averaged between 33 and 36 minutes, beating TTC projections and coming remarkably close to the originally promised travel times. Furthermore, the once-chronic delays were largely resolved, with Metrolinx noting that on-time performance jumped from 64 per cent to 90 per cent between the line's opening and June, 2026.
Consequently, ridership along Line 6 has begun to surge, with Metrolinx reporting a passenger increase of over 30 per cent compared to the sluggish, unreliable conditions seen in February, 2026. While the long-term impact remains to be seen, these recent speed improvements are poised to drive usage even more, as the LRT now comfortably outpaces the former bus route in nearly every scenario and regularly matches or beats private vehicle travel times during peak rush hour.
Should the City and the TTC sustain this momentum, hitting the 28-minute target for a one-way trip appears well within reach. Granting Line 6 full signal priority so trains never face red lights along the corridor, combined with resolving route bunching and operational delays, offers the potential to trim another four to six minutes off total travel times. In doing so, residents of western North York and northern Etobicoke may finally get the genuinely rapid connection they have been promised for a generation, providing Toronto with a clear blueprint to improve its broader streetcar and transit network.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on Finch West Line 6, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database files, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Line 6 Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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