The Future of subway and rapid transit in the GTA

[ARG1]

A "massive parkway/car sewer" - you just described Finch Avenue! No, this design isn't necessary at all if you want to run a tram quickly. It can also look like this. Maybe not a "surface subway" with 100% priority over cars, but trust me, it's a huge improvement over Line 6.

A huge improvement over Line 6, maybe. A form of rapid transit that gets you across town at reasonable speeds, no not really. I'll be the first to admit as @T3G pointed out to me that Prague's trams do feature much higher speeds than many of its contemporary "Type B" trams, such as those in Paris and western Europe, however that's not to say that Prague's trams are that fast in general. In Urban areas (so sections that aren't in the middle of nowhere with barely any development or basically no intersections) Prague caps out at around 22km/h average speed, with top speeds reaching around 40-45km/h. In fact I found a few cab ride videos of trams running through the section that you linked, and I used landmarks such as streetlights and wires to measure the speed of this specific section. Lo and behold, it averages out to around 46km/h. Meanwhile measuring the speeds of the 36st NE section of the blue line, the line seems to cap out at 70-80km/h. Even if we take the lower number, I shouldn't have to tell you that 70km/h is significantly faster than 45km/h.

Either way, you're missing the point. The point is that LRT can be built to be fast and with priority over other traffic. Whether you find faults with specific examples isn't relevant.

The fact that you're saying this shows that you're completely missing the point that the rest of us are saying. Yes LRT can be built fast with priority over other traffic, however it entirely depends on what the ROW looks like, the environment it runs in, and what additional infrastructure is built to support it. Building Light Rail like a sort of mini S-Bahn where it reused dedicated ROWs or features significant separation from the rest of the street like Calgary does will yield significantly better results than an Urban Tramway such as Prague or Finch West. Trying to compare the two and claiming that one can be like the other with "proper priority" is misleading and a big game of comparing apples with oranges. You've tried to counter this point, but every example you bring up completely fails to demonstrate this. This is something that can be seen in virtually every city that has light rail. Look at LA, compare the speeds of the A Line when its running down Flower Street near Downtown or Marmion in Highland Park, and compare it with every other section that's either built on a freight corridor or a former Interurban ROW - the speed difference is night and day.

 

[urbanclient]

A huge improvement over Line 6, maybe. A form of rapid transit that gets you across town at reasonable speeds, no not really. I'll be the first to admit as @T3G pointed out to me that Prague's trams do feature much higher speeds than many of its contemporary "Type B" trams, such as those in Paris and western Europe, however that's not to say that Prague's trams are that fast in general. In Urban areas (so sections that aren't in the middle of nowhere with barely any development or basically no intersections) Prague caps out at around 22km/h average speed, with top speeds reaching around 40-45km/h. In fact I found a few cab ride videos of trams running through the section that you linked, and I used landmarks such as streetlights and wires to measure the speed of this specific section. Lo and behold, it averages out to around 46km/h. Meanwhile measuring the speeds of the 36st NE section of the blue line, the line seems to cap out at 70-80km/h. Even if we take the lower number, I shouldn't have to tell you that 70km/h is significantly faster than 45km/h.

The fact that you're saying this shows that you're completely missing the point that the rest of us are saying. Yes LRT can be built fast with priority over other traffic, however it entirely depends on what the ROW looks like, the environment it runs in, and what additional infrastructure is built to support it. Building Light Rail like a sort of mini S-Bahn where it reused dedicated ROWs or features significant separation from the rest of the street like Calgary does will yield significantly better results than an Urban Tramway such as Prague or Finch West. Trying to compare the two and claiming that one can be like the other with "proper priority" is misleading and a big game of comparing apples with oranges. You've tried to counter this point, but every example you bring up completely fails to demonstrate this. This is something that can be seen in virtually every city that has light rail. Look at LA, compare the speeds of the A Line when its running down Flower Street near Downtown or Marmion in Highland Park, and compare it with every other section that's either built on a freight corridor or a former Interurban ROW - the speed difference is night and day.

I subjectively prefer walkable tram lined streets actually, but that doesn't take away from the fact that for some trips in some parts of the world, only metro can be time competitive with driving. I prefer tram streets in Amsterdam because for short trips around town, I can hop on and off a tram with ease. For metro, you have to actually get in and out of the stations from street level. This can take an extra 3 to 15 minutes (interchange stations in China) for a one way trip, depending on the city.

 

[Burnt creek]

I go back to what I said before - opposing transit expansion because it doesn't meet the standard you want is counterproductive. It will give worse results, not better. Especially given how dire the transit expansion situation was in the 2000s. Transit City, for all its faults, helped lay the groundwork for the more substantial expansion that is now underway.

What is the goal of Public transit? To me its: to transport people effectively, conveniently and in timely manner from home to their desired destination & back. Principally, it should effectively provide transportation to and from home to place of work in a safe, convenient and timely manner and thus providing significant economic benefits to the people/city through time saving.

For example, with good public transport, you should not feel that you need to move to a far more distance suburb because your commuting time to work (through public transit like GO) would be faster.

But the minds behind Transit city did not quite see it this way. Here is the vision of Transit City through a direct quote from its architects (see video proof at 2:15)

Quote: "The importance of transit city was to try to build a city in which people did not have to own a car. A cars is an expensive thing and in order to live in a city where you are not obliged to have a car you need transit network."

So what's the difference between what I said and what they said? I referenced mobility and giving access to adequate mobility whereas they did not. They referenced the car and not needing to own a car and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with actual public transit or mobility. That was/is the problem with the vision behind Transit City. For people in Toronto or anywhere on the planet, nothing can beat the Truck or auto as far as ground level mobility because it and its passengers are going to go to and from their destination at faster speeds and not make unnecessary stops. And a majority of people either own a car, have a car in the household or have easily access to transportation by car through friend and family. Plus, if you who wish to visit people and places outside the city, the vast majority will prefer the car. This is not disputable anywhere on the planet, ppl will drive whether we like it or not. And those who do not have any access to an auto? Well a lot of those will aspire to owning car. So now whose left? A very very tiny minority.

The only way to build a city(and public transit) in which people did not have to own a car would be to slow down the car and/or making auto mobility as inconvenient as possible. But how does that improve anybody's (transit users or motorist) mobility? it does not. Those who do not own cars, have no access to cars, and have no desires to ever own a car are the only ones who's mobility is not adversely affected by the Transit CITY vision even though their mobility is likely worst. In the GTA & the western world, that is a very tiny per centage of people.

See quote at 2:15

 

[urbanclient]

What is the goal of Public transit? To me its: to transport people effectively, conveniently and in timely manner from home to their desired destination & back. Principally, it should effectively provide transportation to and from home to place of work in a safe, convenient and timely manner and thus providing significant economic benefits to the people/city through time saving.

For example, with good public transport, you should not feel that you need to move to a far more distance suburb because your commuting time to work (through public transit like GO) would be faster.

But the minds behind Transit city did not quite see it this way. Here is the vision of Transit City through a direct quote from its architects (see video proof at 2:15)

Quote: "The importance of transit city was to try to build a city in which people did not have to own a car. A cars is an expensive thing and in order to live in a city where you are not obliged to have a car you need transit network."

So what's the difference between what I said and what they said? I referenced mobility and giving access to adequate mobility whereas they did not. They referenced the car and not needing to own a car and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with actual public transit or mobility. That was/is the problem with the vision behind Transit City. For people in Toronto or anywhere on the planet, nothing can beat the Truck or auto as far as ground level mobility because it and its passengers are going to go to and from their destination at faster speeds and not make unnecessary stops. And a majority of people either own a car, have a car in the household or have easily access to transportation by car through friend and family. Plus, if you who wish to visit people and places outside the city, the vast majority will prefer the car. This is not disputable anywhere on the planet, ppl will drive whether we like it or not. And those who do not have any access to an auto? Well a lot of those will aspire to owning car. So now whose left? A very very tiny minority.

The only way to build a city(and public transit) in which people did not have to own a car would be to slow down the car and/or making auto mobility as inconvenient as possible. But how does that improve anybody's (transit users or motorist) mobility? it does not. Those who do not own cars, have no access to cars, and have no desires to ever own a car are the only ones who's mobility is not adversely affected by the Transit CITY vision even though their mobility is likely worst. In the GTA & the western world, that is a very tiny per centage of people.

See quote at 2:15

I second this and would like to expand on this idea further.

This is from both personal and secondhand experience: in Tier 1 and Tier 1+ Chinese cities, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and a dozen others, the rapid metro/subway expansion over the last 10 years has not actually reduced car congestion by much. In fact congestion is still just as bad as Toronto, if not worse. And the stats back me up, car usage rates and metro expansion appear to be positively correlated in China. The most rabid Amsterdam-bike-urbanists would think the opposite would be true, wouldn't a fast and efficient transit system reduce demand for personal cars?

I’m intentionally simplifying this for the sake of discussion; basically, a gargantuan amount of fast public transit did not reduce demand for cars in China, what it did instead was allow more people, especially the less privileged to travel more. A lot more. Private jets and helicopters are a much smaller thing in China, if you are ultra-wealthy, you'll still travel by common carrier like commercial airline and high speed rail.

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.” —former Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa Londoño

And here I ask, why not both? In an ideal world, the rich and poor can use cars and public transit as they please.

To each their own, but to me cars are for convenience, for trips too far for metro, but too short for intercity or high speed rail, best time of use would be non-peak. The metro is for rush hour and medium distance trips that stay within the city. Shorter trips you walk, ride a bike, or catch an Uber or bus.

 

[T3G]

Where are you getting Zlicin to downtown in 20 minutes on the tram? That sounds like Metro Line B trip times, not Tram 9 from Zlicin to Prague 1 or 2. Tram 9 is supposed to take 50-56 minutes to travel 17.4 km, nowhere close to 30 km/h, even for the faster segments, like the 10 to 12 km trip from Zlicin to downtown. IMO this is clearly a false claim. Maybe someone more familiar with Prague can chime in just in case I'm wrong.

There are no trams to Zličín. The closest tram terminus is a few kilometres over at Sídliště Řepy, and the travel time is supposed to be 23 minutes to Karlovo náměstí, a major exchange point downtown.

 

[6ixGod]

A friendly suggestion - look up what an order of magnitude is. Toronto isn't even a single order of magnitude denser than Calgary, let alone multiple. And since many larger, denser cities than Toronto are building LRT, it's not obviously true that the overall density of a city has anything to do with the appropriateness of LRT on specific routes. In any case, suburban Toronto is typified by the exact characteristics you describe - wide, limited access arterial stroads and low density environments. You're making the case for Alberta-style LRTs in suburban Toronto.

Regardless, you're moving the goalposts. The point is that LRTs can be fast, even when they're built in the middle of a street. Clearly that's been shown in this discussion.


And yet we haven't built an LRT with proper priority and decent speeds in Toronto. Your opposition to that concept is puzzling.

Toronto is far denser, far larger, and far more important in every meaningful sense than Calgary. Denying that is either ignorance or willful trolling. So just stop.

Let’s also address this gem: “larger, denser cities than Toronto are building LRT, so density doesn’t matter.” Here’s the thing.......most of those so-called “denser” cities aren’t building LRT as their main transit spine. LRT in those places almost always bringing people to the real backbone: heavy rail, metro, or commuter lines. That’s exactly what Toronto’s streetcar network does downtown.

Trying to argue that Toronto’s density should somehow make surface-level LRTs “appropriate” is like saying a tricycle is sufficient for highway commuting just because it has wheels. It ignores the scale, capacity, and speed requirements that actually define a city’s backbone transit.

Finch West isn't the suburbs, this isn't 1978. So yes, you can name “denser cities” all you want....but most are not copying Toronto’s approach. And that’s why pretending Toronto’s experimental surface LRTs are anywhere near comparable to other global systems is just embarrassing.

Absolutely embarrassing take, but I'm glad your LRTs are getting schooled by the masses. Hopefully when Line 5 opens up, the final nail in the LRT coffin will be hammered.

 

[afransen]

I never said automated metro was the end all be all transit mode. But I'm not backing down from thinking Eglinton deserved a light metro at least.



I am well aware of trams being expanded in Paris and Istanbul.

I have brought up Paris building tram(s) in the periphery of its core many, many times on this forum (T9). Istanbul is in a similar situation. These are two megacities that already have extensive metro systems nearly the same length ~240 km; but they are both still expanding metro at a rapid pace. Paris' Grand Paris Express is a doubling of the Paris metro from 200 km to 400 km, and Istanbul is currently building another 105 km of metro in the next 5 years with another 125 km in planning. In both cities, they are building fast, express metro lines averaging 2+ times the average speed of the old Paris metro, which was often slow due to notoriously tight stop spacing in the Ville de Paris. Paris and Istanbul are also not building trams in their highest density areas.

They built and are building trams partly because they already have very adequate rail systems, as opposed to Toronto. They are also continuing to expand their metros and RERs, at a higher rate than their trams. Also note how Paris is expecting to hit Toronto subway ridership per km numbers for their 200 km metro expansion despite 3 km wide stop spacing, virtually all outside Paris city proper.

This is all not to mention the unsuitability of the streets outside downtown Toronto for tram expansion. If new trams were built in the areas adjacent to Downtown Toronto, they would be just as slow as any other street running tram, i.e. TTC streetcars, Line 6 Finch West. Magically transposing wishful thinking about 1.33 km stop spacing, dedicated ROW, high floor CTrain speeds onto low floor trams on narrow Toronto streets is not compatible with reality.

I advocate for Toronto to catch up on the metro and RER front before trying to complement its paltry rail system with trams in the periphery. I never said "never under any circumstances should the GTHA ever build a tram again."
I support the Hamilton LRT, even if it's being kneecapped with 2023 routing changes.

See attached images related to Istanbul and Paris:
View attachment 706360View attachment 706361View attachment 706362
View attachment 706363

Yes, Finch should have just been a BRT. There is this bizarre discourse that patches of dirt are 'underserved' and 'disadvantaged' because the communities that live there are lower income. Putting in high quality transit will tend to gentrify an area, particularly in a city starved for mobility. We should be making major transit investments where they matter most.

 

[MisterF]

The lack of self-awareness and confirmation bias is astounding. Do you not realize you arguing for trams is the other side of the same coin? Assuming equal merit to both arguments, arguing for trams does not make you superior in terms of being a bigger supporter of transit or moral righteousness. We're saying trams don't work well in Toronto's specific case, not that trams don't work ever on planet Earth...

If something doesn't work well then the solution is to make it work well.

Why do you think the Chinese dismantle trams at a faster rate than they build them? Is it because the way that they built trams didn't work well for their specific circumstances? Or would you accuse all of China as being anti-transit like you are to us?

"Surface LRTs in Toronto could have been designed the same way [as Calgary and Edmonton]". No, they literally could not be designed in the same way. This is a bad faith argument at this point, we've linked photos and a video proving this, among other discourse.

And yes, to be technically correct, Calgary is not an order of magnitude denser than Toronto, they were being hyperbolic.

You're the one moving goalposts by citing metro-like trams as why trams can be just as fast as metros when cases like Calgary have strong grade separation and wider stop spacing than the Toronto subway. The CTrain has 45 stops over 60 km, the TTC has 70 stations over 70 km of subway. Again I ask, at what point does a grade separated high floor tram become a metro? There is hardly any difference in their rolling stock in practice.

You disingenuously equated Toronto LRT corridors with the CTrain Blue line. You cherry picked fast trams out of a sea of slow trams and made overtly false claims (Finch-style corridor in Utrecht, Prague line 9) about trams being just as fast, while ignoring the vast majority of trams that are slower than 30 km/h subways, often 2-3 times slower. The few fast trams that do exist share many characteristics with metros, that's why they are fast. You haven't directly tried to refute this argument.

So you acknowledge that LRT can be fast, which is the entire point I've been making. I'm glad that we finally agree.

The fact you unironically cited the Blue line and Shanghai shows you know very little about the differences between these cities and Toronto, not to mention entirely overlooking the tram-pocalypse in China. You literally pulled "Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, Taipei, Istanbul" from an AI chat or a cursory look at an wikipedia article or something, because those cities are nothing alike in terms of trams. Shanghai has two street running slow tram lines 40 km vs. 906 km of metro, Paris has mostly slow tram lines with express tram-trains running on former railway ROW, Taipei and Istanbul have slow street tram lines. This would disprove your point that "some of the biggest cities in the world are building [fast] LRT to complement their subway systems".


"Saying all transit modes are equally great in their own way" is not a strawman. That's just a rewording of what you said:
You: "My entire point is that LRT has its place alongside higher capacity modes of transportation."

What I said and your rewording have two completely different meanings. When you're trying to refute someone's argument, maybe don't try to reword it to suit your purposes.

We are not denying this. You are strawmanning us as if we are denying that trams have a place in transit systems on planet Earth.

By "equally great", I partially meant you were imparting some intrinsic qualitative aspect onto transit modes of the world, when we're trying to have a pragmatic conversation about what would actually work best in one specific place. And I am wrong to say that you are imparting your own personal bias into this? It appears you think trams should be expanded in Toronto at the same time as metro, we disagree. We think metro expansion should take precedence, all things considered.

Of course trams/LRT should be expanded at the same time as metro in corridors that are appropriate for it. Halting LRT construction on routes appropriate for LRT just because the subway is underdeveloped makes no sense. This is exactly the kind of counterproductive advocacy I was talking about earlier.

The urban form, physical and human geography around CTrain Blue line's stroad running sections are very different from Finch West and Eglinton. In fact, they are also very different from stroads in Toronto city proper, contrary to what you are claiming.

Both are multi-lane arterial roads through low density suburban areas with intersections roughly every 300-400 m. They are very similar.

I'll just put you on ignore.

That's your choice.

 

[MisterF]

A huge improvement over Line 6, maybe. A form of rapid transit that gets you across town at reasonable speeds, no not really. I'll be the first to admit as @T3G pointed out to me that Prague's trams do feature much higher speeds than many of its contemporary "Type B" trams, such as those in Paris and western Europe, however that's not to say that Prague's trams are that fast in general. In Urban areas (so sections that aren't in the middle of nowhere with barely any development or basically no intersections) Prague caps out at around 22km/h average speed, with top speeds reaching around 40-45km/h.

I was specifically referring to the parts of Prague that are roughly equivalent to the surface sections of Lines 5 and 6.

Yes LRT can be built fast with priority over other traffic,

Thank you. This has been my point all along. The rest is beside the point.

What is the goal of Public transit? To me its: to transport people effectively, conveniently and in timely manner from home to their desired destination & back. Principally, it should effectively provide transportation to and from home to place of work in a safe, convenient and timely manner and thus providing significant economic benefits to the people/city through time saving.

For example, with good public transport, you should not feel that you need to move to a far more distance suburb because your commuting time to work (through public transit like GO) would be faster.

But the minds behind Transit city did not quite see it this way. Here is the vision of Transit City through a direct quote from its architects (see video proof at 2:15)

Quote: "The importance of transit city was to try to build a city in which people did not have to own a car. A cars is an expensive thing and in order to live in a city where you are not obliged to have a car you need transit network."

So what's the difference between what I said and what they said? I referenced mobility and giving access to adequate mobility whereas they did not. They referenced the car and not needing to own a car and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with actual public transit or mobility. That was/is the problem with the vision behind Transit City. For people in Toronto or anywhere on the planet, nothing can beat the Truck or auto as far as ground level mobility because it and its passengers are going to go to and from their destination at faster speeds and not make unnecessary stops. And a majority of people either own a car, have a car in the household or have easily access to transportation by car through friend and family. Plus, if you who wish to visit people and places outside the city, the vast majority will prefer the car. This is not disputable anywhere on the planet, ppl will drive whether we like it or not. And those who do not have any access to an auto? Well a lot of those will aspire to owning car. So now whose left? A very very tiny minority.

The only way to build a city(and public transit) in which people did not have to own a car would be to slow down the car and/or making auto mobility as inconvenient as possible. But how does that improve anybody's (transit users or motorist) mobility? it does not. Those who do not own cars, have no access to cars, and have no desires to ever own a car are the only ones who's mobility is not adversely affected by the Transit CITY vision even though their mobility is likely worst. In the GTA & the western world, that is a very tiny per centage of people.

See quote at 2:15

Just out of curiosity, was this intended to address my post? It doesn't appear to be directly related to what you quoted.

There are no trams to Zličín. The closest tram terminus is a few kilometres over at Sídliště Řepy, and the travel time is supposed to be 23 minutes to Karlovo náměstí, a major exchange point downtown.

The tram line in question terminates next to Zličín train station. Not to be confused with Zličín metro station, which is in a different location.

Toronto is far denser, far larger, and far more important in every meaningful sense than Calgary. Denying that is either ignorance or willful trolling. So just stop.

If you don't want people to point out when you're wrong, you should probably use accurate words to support your argument.

Let’s also address this gem: “larger, denser cities than Toronto are building LRT, so density doesn’t matter.” Here’s the thing.......most of those so-called “denser” cities aren’t building LRT as their main transit spine. LRT in those places almost always bringing people to the real backbone: heavy rail, metro, or commuter lines. That’s exactly what Toronto’s streetcar network does downtown.

So yes, you can name “denser cities” all you want....but most are not copying Toronto’s approach. And that’s why pretending Toronto’s experimental surface LRTs are anywhere near comparable to other global systems is just embarrassing.

You're attempting to refute positions I never took.

 

[ARG1]

Thank you. This has been my point all along. The rest is beside the point.

And the "but" has been our point all along. You can't just cherry pick a bit of the sentence you agree with and ignore the context, you are quite literally arguing in bad faith. Same thing with your response to @urbanclient. Light Rail is a vague term, and just because something is true for one Light Rail system doesn't mean it can be true for another. Trying to claim as such is lunacy.

 

[urbanclient]

And the "but" has been our point all along. You can't just cherry pick a bit of the sentence you agree with and ignore the context, you are quite literally arguing in bad faith. Same thing with your response to @urbanclient. Light Rail is a vague term, and just because something is true for one Light Rail system doesn't mean it can be true for another. Trying to claim as such is lunacy.

Thank you @ARG1 for your level headed response. I'm going to try keep my novel slightly shorter:

Let's recap quickly: @MisterF you cited two wide stop spacing, more than street-level grade separated systems using tram rolling stock, Calgary and Utrecht. I cited a dozen other cities before your reply. But that's, at most, a few dozen trams as-fast-as/faster than metro, compared to nearly 500 trams that are slower in the world.

If your only point was just to reiterate what I had already said earlier, that some trams can be faster than some metros, then you wouldn't be saying all the other things you said to us.

Can we stop implying that Toronto is too big for LRT? Some of the biggest cities in the world are building LRT to complement their subway systems. Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, Taipei, Istanbul - all have modern LRT. A city is never too big for LRT.

So to prove trams can be as fast as a metro, you picked two fast trams (I'll give you Utrecht, 27.5 km/h average speed in 2021 is close enough to my originally stated 30 km/h standard, but your claim about Prague's trams being just as fast is false).

Then to prove (bigger) cities than Toronto are using tram to complement metro, you cited 1 city with a small slow tram network (39 km) that has forsaken future trams altogether in favour of metro (906 km) to the point where they could dismantle their last 2 trams, Shanghai; 1 city with mostly slow trams and a handful of fast 'tram-trains' that were converted directly from other railways like Transilien commuter rail, Paris; 1 city that is actually less dense than Toronto for a comparable geographic land area (city proper, GTA, GTHA) i.e. a smaller 'city' by international standards and abysmal ridership despite having mostly, if not fully grade separated high floor trams that act more like metros, Los Angeles; 1 city with a tiny network of slow trams (15 km) and like Shanghai, a literal order of magnitude more metro (203.63 km), Taipei (metro area); and finally, 1 city with only slow trams (44.7 km) and much more metro (243.3 km) Istanbul.

You haven't actually proved that cities similar or bigger than Toronto are building more tram to 'complement' their metros. Instead, these cities tend to have a much higher metro to tram ratio, an order of magnitude more planned metro expansion than tram expansion, along with significantly more metro than Toronto to begin with.

Moreover, the Toronto streetcar network is 83 km, add Line 5 and 6 surface level sections and it's 102 km of tram. Conversely, the Toronto subway is only 70 km. In 2026, Toronto will have a metro to tram ratio of 0.69 to 1. Calling the underground section of Line 5 a tram or metro is highly contentious, but including it as either wouldn't change the ratio much.
70/102 = 0.69

In all 5 cities you listed, excepting the transit nightmare of Los Angeles, the ratio of metro to tram is much higher. It ranges from 23.2 to 1 in Shanghai, 13.6 in Taipei, 5.44 in Istanbul, 1.24 in Paris, down to 0.14 in Los Angeles. The Paris ratio is highly misleading, because it's the only city listed with a substantial RER network. It has 33 RER stations within 105 sqkm Paris city proper. That's another ~90km just in old Paris, but hundreds of km more metro-like RER in an area similar to Istanbul (5,343 sqkm) or Shanghai (6,341 sqkm).

Therefore, Toronto has proportionally much more tram than metro as compared to peer cities with similar populations for the same land area. To remedy this skewed ratio (among other important reasons), we should build metro at a much faster pace than tram. But unfortunately that will not be the case for the next decade.

Toronto will likely crack the top 15 in the world for skyscrapers 150+ metres by 2029, up from a current ranking of 18th, but won't even crack the top 75 in the world for metro by 2035 with 101.5 km after the Ontario Line + Line 1 & 2 extensions. Toronto currently ranks 86th in the world for metro system length.

We live in a place where we can't blow $100 billion on transit in 5 years and incur massive debt like China does so we can build trams to replace buses willy-nilly. The city is broke, the province is stingy and broke. Ontario already has one of the largest sub-national debts in the world, so it would behoove us to prioritize projects with higher ROI per $, projects that can move more people per $. Another argument @MisterF still has not addressed.

Every dollar spent on a low ROI tram on a not-so-dense stroad is a dollar less spent on a higher ROI metro for downtown. Choosing a cheaper tram to save today, but incur massive opportunity costs in the long-run is a false economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_economy Maybe try addressing this argument before pretending it doesn't exist for the third time.

@MisterF , also please try reading others posts and understand them before replying. @Burnt creek brought up a criticism of Transit City because you lauded Transit City for leading to Toronto's current transit expansion. Roughly paraphrasing, their criticism was that Transit City apparently envisioned a city where car ownership was not necessary, to the point where car mobility was to take a back seat to transit, slow transit. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this argument against Transit City. But in your case, instead of attacking the merits of this argument, you simply dismissed @Burnt creek 's post as irrelevant to what you said.

Transit City, for all its faults, helped lay the groundwork for the more substantial expansion that is now underway.

What is the goal of Public transit? To me its: to transport people effectively, conveniently and in timely manner from home to their desired destination & back. Principally, it should effectively provide transportation to and from home to place of work in a safe, convenient and timely manner and thus providing significant economic benefits to the people/city through time saving.

For example, with good public transport, you should not feel that you need to move to a far more distance suburb because your commuting time to work (through public transit like GO) would be faster.

But the minds behind Transit city did not quite see it this way. Here is the vision of Transit City through a direct quote from its architects (see video proof at 2:15)

Quote: "The importance of transit city was to try to build a city in which people did not have to own a car. A cars is an expensive thing and in order to live in a city where you are not obliged to have a car you need transit network."

So what's the difference between what I said and what they said? I referenced mobility and giving access to adequate mobility whereas they did not. They referenced the car and not needing to own a car and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with actual public transit or mobility.[...] *please read the full post*

But how does that improve anybody's (transit users or motorist) mobility? it does not. Those who do not own cars, have no access to cars, and have no desires to ever own a car are the only ones who's mobility is not adversely affected by the Transit CITY vision even though their mobility is likely worst. In the GTA & the western world, that is a very tiny percentage of people.

See quote at 2:15

Just out of curiosity, was this intended to address my post? It doesn't appear to be directly related to what you quoted.

Several of us, have tried to make the point that current subway expansion and plans in Line 3, extensions of 1, 2 and 4 have had nothing to do with Transit City. Your claim that Transit City "helped lay the groundwork for the more substantial expansion that is now underway" seems weak at best.

I've also demonstrated that unprecedented, world leading subway expansion to the point where more than half the world's subway is in China does not preclude a massive increase in car usage. Which is congruent with the argument brought up by @Burnt creek .

Instead of making an argument like China is different, or that Ontario can't afford this, etc...etc... Instead of acknowledging our arguments, you dismiss them without a real counter argument or evidence, and then continue your spiel of how CTrain Blue line is somehow replicable in Toronto city proper. There is no rationalism or empiricism from you.

 

[urbanclient]

This is simply incorrect. Large portions of the CTrain are in the street ROW. Especially the blue line, which follows 17th Avenue, the Bow Trail, 36th St, etc. Same story in Edmonton. Surface LRTs in Toronto could have been designed the same way.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Please tell us how urban morphology like that surrounding the Blue Line can be found in Toronto city proper, much less Finch and Eglinton. And if a similar morphology can be found, tell us how transit demand along that corridor would justify an investment in such a project. And if not, please acknowledge the possibility that just maybe, maybe you are wrong for once in your life.

If you can admit that the corridors are different at least in a few significant ways, perhaps you could go further and explain how Toronto's current cityscape can be changed to better match that of Calgary so as to fit a Blue line-like train. That is, assuming the transit demand could justify the costs of something similar to a mixed grade, partially running on old railway ROW, partially elevated, partially underground, partially 80 km/h highway median running, partially downtown crossing, wide gravel ballasted rail-bed high floor metro-like tram that has wider average stop spacing than Line 2 Bloor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NUC7XczthA

This is simply incorrect. Large portions of the CTrain are in the street ROW. Especially the blue line, which follows 17th Avenue, the Bow Trail, 36th St, etc. Same story in Edmonton. Surface LRTs in Toronto could have been designed the same way.

Being at the same altitude relative to sea level as the adjacent stroad or 80 km/h provincial highway does not mean it's on a "street ROW" in the way you suggest. The degree of grade separation on the CTrain high floor lines is much higher than that achieved on Finch West and Eglinton, much higher than what can feasibly be achieved on Finch West and Eglinton IMO. If you want to argue this point that's your freedom, but at least acknowledge that the CTrain Blue line is not built on the same sort of corridor as Finch West and Eglinton. More than one of us have posted photos and video proving this.
And the key to the CTrains high average speeds is not the slower downtown street sections, but the wider-than-some-subway stop spacing, old railway ROWs, the highway median sections, the elevated and underground sections. That's why some people have called it more of a mini S-Bahn than a typical tram.

And that's besides the point, we're not talking about the past, we're talking about the future. Where exactly do you propose future trams be built in Toronto? Noone has said Line 5 or Waterfront East should be cancelled as you have implied.

Halting LRT construction on routes appropriate for LRT just because the subway is underdeveloped makes no sense.

@MisterF Please name a Toronto corridor that you think is suitable for future 'fast' trams, and I'll be happy to argue why that is not the case. Heck, name a corridor that you think is suitable for future 'slow' trams, and I'll be happy to argue why that is also not the case.

This is an issue I have addressed multiple times before, Toronto's physical and human geography, as well as urban morphology precludes cost effective, beneficial tram expansion in areas like those adjacent to downtown whose nominal density could justify a tram over metro. The streets are too hilly, or too narrow, the buildings and houses are politically immovable objects thanks to corporate and NIMBY interests.

Do you understand why the Bathurst streetcar terminates at Bloor instead of St. Clair or Eglinton?

The Utrecht case is similar to Calgary, and I will admit, it's technically not impossible to make Toronto look like Utrecht/Calgary etc..., it's just completely financially unfeasible and certainly not realistic in our lifetimes. Utrecht also has elevated sections like Calgary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otIgXdE14Ao

I'm all for trams in the right places, and tram lovers should defend the inherent merits of trams like I have previously, instead of denying the very existence of their drawbacks.

The walk from a metro platform to street level can add a lot of time to a trip, trams are much faster from platform to street. This is especially noticeable on short trips. Walks out of larger deep-bore Chinese metro stations can take up to 10 minutes for an able-bodied adult.

But trams tend to be slower than metros, trams tend to be more prone to bunching, more prone to cascading delays and reliability issues. These are inherent in their surface running, less-grade-separated design. An exception to the rule does not disprove the rule.

Again I ask @MisterF . If a tram is no longer surface running partly or entirely, nearly fully or fully grade-separated, running high floor rolling stock, and has wider stop spacing than the Toronto subway, then is it really a tram anymore? There is a reason why the Seville Metro in Spain is called a metro even though it uses low floor tram rolling stock. It is fully grade separated and even has full-height platform screen doors.

 

[MisterF]

And the "but" has been our point all along. You can't just cherry pick a bit of the sentence you agree with and ignore the context, you are quite literally arguing in bad faith. Same thing with your response to @urbanclient. Light Rail is a vague term, and just because something is true for one Light Rail system doesn't mean it can be true for another. Trying to claim as such is lunacy.

I'll be the one to determine what my point was, thanks. And that point, as I've said repeatedly, is that LRT can deliver a fast, rapid transit style service. Whether you like the result is a different conversation entirely.

Thank you @ARG1 for your level headed response. I'm going to try keep my novel slightly shorter:

View attachment 706652

Let's recap quickly: @MisterF you cited two wide stop spacing, more than street-level grade separated systems using tram rolling stock, Calgary and Utrecht. I cited a dozen other cities before your reply. But that's, at most, a few dozen trams as-fast-as/faster than metro, compared to nearly 500 trams that are slower in the world.

If your only point was just to reiterate what I had already said earlier, that some trams can be faster than some metros, then you wouldn't be saying all the other things you said to us.

So to prove trams can be as fast as a metro, you picked two fast trams (I'll give you Utrecht, 27.5 km/h average speed in 2021 is close enough to my originally stated 30 km/h standard, but your claim about Prague's trams being just as fast is false).

Then to prove (bigger) cities than Toronto are using tram to complement metro, you cited 1 city with a small slow tram network (39 km) that has forsaken future trams altogether in favour of metro (906 km) to the point where they could dismantle their last 2 trams, Shanghai; 1 city with mostly slow trams and a handful of fast 'tram-trains' that were converted directly from other railways like Transilien commuter rail, Paris; 1 city that is actually less dense than Toronto for a comparable geographic land area (city proper, GTA, GTHA) i.e. a smaller 'city' by international standards and abysmal ridership despite having mostly, if not fully grade separated high floor trams that act more like metros, Los Angeles; 1 city with a tiny network of slow trams (15 km) and like Shanghai, a literal order of magnitude more metro (203.63 km), Taipei (metro area); and finally, 1 city with only slow trams (44.7 km) and much more metro (243.3 km) Istanbul.

In other words, I showed that the claim that Toronto is too big for trams is incorrect. You seem really focused on a handful of examples and what you perceive as their flaws and their inapplicability to Toronto. But that's a) missing the point of what an example is, and b) moving the goalposts. I'm not interested in kicking the ball into the new goalposts you've set up. The fact remains that there are a lot of cities bigger than Toronto that have trams and LRT, showing that Toronto is not, in fact, too big for trams and LRT.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Please tell us how urban morphology like that surrounding the Blue Line can be found in Toronto city proper, much less Finch and Eglinton. And if a similar morphology can be found, tell us how transit demand along that corridor would justify an investment in such a project. And if not, please acknowledge the possibility that just maybe, maybe you are wrong for once in your life.

If you can admit that the corridors are different at least in a few significant ways, perhaps you could go further and explain how Toronto's current cityscape can be changed to better match that of Calgary so as to fit a Blue line-like train. That is, assuming the transit demand could justify the costs of something similar to a mixed grade, partially running on old railway ROW, partially elevated, partially underground, partially 80 km/h highway median running, partially downtown crossing, wide gravel ballasted rail-bed high floor metro-like tram that has wider average stop spacing than Line 2 Bloor.

View attachment 706655View attachment 706656View attachment 706657View attachment 706658View attachment 706659View attachment 706660
View attachment 706661View attachment 706662
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NUC7XczthA

Being at the same altitude relative to sea level as the adjacent stroad or 80 km/h provincial highway does not mean it's on a "street ROW" in the way you suggest. The degree of grade separation on the CTrain high floor lines is much higher than that achieved on Finch West and Eglinton, much higher than what can feasibly be achieved on Finch West and Eglinton IMO. If you want to argue this point that's your freedom, but at least acknowledge that the CTrain Blue line is not built on the same sort of corridor as Finch West and Eglinton. More than one of us have posted photos and video proving this.
And the key to the CTrains high average speeds is not the slower downtown street sections, but the wider-than-some-subway stop spacing, old railway ROWs, the highway median sections, the elevated and underground sections. That's why some people have called it more of a mini S-Bahn than a typical tram.

And that's besides the point, we're not talking about the past, we're talking about the future. Where exactly do you propose future trams be built in Toronto? Noone has said Line 5 or Waterfront East should be cancelled as you have implied.


@MisterF Please name a Toronto corridor that you think is suitable for future 'fast' trams, and I'll be happy to argue why that is not the case. Heck, name a corridor that you think is suitable for future 'slow' trams, and I'll be happy to argue why that is also not the case.

This is an issue I have addressed multiple times before, Toronto's physical and human geography, as well as urban morphology precludes cost effective, beneficial tram expansion in areas like those adjacent to downtown whose nominal density could justify a tram over metro. The streets are too hilly, or too narrow, the buildings and houses are politically immovable objects thanks to corporate and NIMBY interests.

Do you understand why the Bathurst streetcar terminates at Bloor instead of St. Clair or Eglinton?

The Utrecht case is similar to Calgary, and I will admit, it's technically not impossible to make Toronto look like Utrecht/Calgary etc..., it's just completely financially unfeasible and certainly not realistic in our lifetimes. Utrecht also has elevated sections like Calgary:

View attachment 706663
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otIgXdE14Ao

I'm all for trams in the right places, and tram lovers should defend the inherent merits of trams like I have previously, instead of denying the very existence of their drawbacks.

The walk from a metro platform to street level can add a lot of time to a trip, trams are much faster from platform to street. This is especially noticeable on short trips. Walks out of larger deep-bore Chinese metro stations can take up to 10 minutes for an able-bodied adult.

But trams tend to be slower than metros, trams tend to be more prone to bunching, more prone to cascading delays and reliability issues. These are inherent in their surface running, less-grade-separated design. An exception to the rule does not disprove the rule.

There's nothing about the street width, topography, intersection spacing, or surrounding land uses that makes this city unsuitable for faster LRT. Your screenshots of the Calgary and Utrecht systems don't change that. LRT designers can and do get quite creative in fitting various LRT designs into various urban contexts. Thinking that's somehow not suitable anywhere in a city as vast as Toronto is a clue as to why our transit system has fallen so far behind. This bizarre all or nothing attitude typically results in nothing.

Everything you've said in bold misses the point. Whether LRTs tend to be slower isn't the point, the point is that LRTs can be faster. See the difference?

Again I ask @MisterF . If a tram is no longer surface running partly or entirely, nearly fully or fully grade-separated, running high floor rolling stock, and has wider stop spacing than the Toronto subway, then is it really a tram anymore? There is a reason why the Seville Metro in Spain is called a metro even though it uses low floor tram rolling stock. It is fully grade separated and even has full-height platform screen doors.

Your question is misleading but it shows why the concept of modern LRT was invented in the first place - to provide a metro-style service for cheaper than a full metro by making certain compromises on things such as full grade separation while minimizing impacts on service. Such vehement opposition to the very concept makes no sense.

 

[6ixGod]

@urbanclient – I feel like your comments would be more welcomed on places like r/TTC Reddit and Discord. Really detailed stuff. Appreciate your patience too.

 

[Bojaxs]

What is the goal of Public transit? To me its: to transport people effectively, conveniently and in timely manner from home to their desired destination & back. Principally, it should effectively provide transportation to and from home to place of work in a safe, convenient and timely manner and thus providing significant economic benefits to the people/city through time saving.

For example, with good public transport, you should not feel that you need to move to a far more distance suburb because your commuting time to work (through public transit like GO) would be faster.

But the minds behind Transit city did not quite see it this way. Here is the vision of Transit City through a direct quote from its architects (see video proof at 2:15)

Quote: "The importance of transit city was to try to build a city in which people did not have to own a car. A cars is an expensive thing and in order to live in a city where you are not obliged to have a car you need transit network."

So what's the difference between what I said and what they said? I referenced mobility and giving access to adequate mobility whereas they did not. They referenced the car and not needing to own a car and a bunch of other things that have nothing to do with actual public transit or mobility. That was/is the problem with the vision behind Transit City. For people in Toronto or anywhere on the planet, nothing can beat the Truck or auto as far as ground level mobility because it and its passengers are going to go to and from their destination at faster speeds and not make unnecessary stops. And a majority of people either own a car, have a car in the household or have easily access to transportation by car through friend and family. Plus, if you who wish to visit people and places outside the city, the vast majority will prefer the car. This is not disputable anywhere on the planet, ppl will drive whether we like it or not. And those who do not have any access to an auto? Well a lot of those will aspire to owning car. So now whose left? A very very tiny minority.

The only way to build a city(and public transit) in which people did not have to own a car would be to slow down the car and/or making auto mobility as inconvenient as possible. But how does that improve anybody's (transit users or motorist) mobility? it does not. Those who do not own cars, have no access to cars, and have no desires to ever own a car are the only ones who's mobility is not adversely affected by the Transit CITY vision even though their mobility is likely worst. In the GTA & the western world, that is a very tiny per centage of people.

See quote at 2:15

Between 3:40 - 5:00, at no point during Jennifer Keesmaat's lackluster spiel does she mention that transit should be rapid or fast.