Bordercollie
Senior Member
The SRT was another missmanaged project from the start
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Finch West Line 6 LRT
- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
robmausser
Senior Member
I mean no one has to look further than Vancouver and the Sky Train.
Everyone who says the SRT was crap clearly haven't seen whats possible with the technology when its managed properly.
urbanclient
Active Member
Pardon the nitpick, but I think what @Bordercollie meant was that the SRT replaced an earlier (cheaper) Line 2 extension to Scarborough Town Centre, and kind of replaced GO-ALRT. A network of elevated LIM metro would've made sense. A short line like the SRT was decent, but not optimal.
JSF-1
Active Member
Ok hold on that's not at all what happened. Firstly while a Line 2 extension to Scarborough was considered it was quickly shot down after the bill for the 1 stop extension to Kennedy came in. That extension alone cost nearly as much as the extensions to Warden and Islington 12 years prior and at the time Metro was still responsible for the bulk of construction costs. This dramatic cost increase shouldn't have been a surprise considering the Spadina Extension to Wilson came in at around $200 Million and blew way over budget. While the Province could pitch in they had no obligation too and there wasn't a set funding model like the 1/3 split we have today. It should be no surprise then that by the time the 80's came around Metro and the TTC wanted out of the subway game and looked at LRT as an alternative since without provincial support Metro alone couldn't afford to build any more subways. Secondly what the SRT replaced was the originally an LRT (or "High-Speed Streetcar" as it was called) using coupled together ALRV's running from Kennedy to Milner & Sheppard (with a possible branch line to Markham & Progress). This would have been replicated out in Etobicoke with the Etobicoke RT with a line running from Kipling to Pearson with a possible branch to York University utilizing the hydro corridors in the area. The SRT change was imposed on us by the Province as they needed a guinea pig for their ICTS trains and after Hamilton told them to pound sand they came here and "reminded" Metro and the TTC that they were paying for 2/3 of the TTC operating budget. That said the province did fully pay for the conversion and the eventual rebuild of the Kennedy platforms so it cost the TTC and Metro nothing upfront.
Finally ALRT had nothing to do with any of this as that was a seperate provincial project. The ALRT trains were not LIM based but were conventional using standard traction motors powered by an overhead catenary and would have been completly automated. The only similarity here was that the ALRT trains used the same model of vehicle as the SRT trains, only the ALRT trains were of similar dimension to the TTC's subway trains (75' long, 6 doors per car, 2 car married sets coupled into a 6 car train, 2x2 transverse seating, capacity of about 200 people (156 seated) per 2 car set (1,200 passengers across a 6 car consist), automated using SelTrac CBTC, and finally powered by conventional 600v DC motors (4 per car) drawing power from a 25kv AC powered catenary). Basically ALRT was Toronto's REM before the REM. What killed was the combination of Bill Davis retiring, Frank Miller immediately abandoning the idea for whatever ungodly reason, and finally David Peterson deciding it would be easier and cheaper to just expand the pre-existing GO network then build something new. I'll admit the SRT was pointed to since it wasn't living up to expectations but this comparison ignored the fundamental difference between the trains. The SRT trains were a brand new technology that had never been done before at that scale using LIM which was a bespoke system at the time; while the ALRT trains were just conventional EMU's that drove themselves. Peterson did also say that he didn't want the bi-level coaches tossed aside as they were only like 10 years old at the time even though this ignores the fact that the ALRT Northern Line was the first to be built and wouldn't have displaced any bi-levels since it was a brand new line. Secondly the Southern Line which was to be a full conversion of the Lake Shore lines wouldn't have been built for another 20-30 years so by the time it was done the bi-levels would have been ready for retirement anyways. Basically the Liberals didn't want to pay for it which is also why they killed Network 2011; although they conveniently had enough money to funnel into the Highway 407 project.
Also if you are wondering I believe the 8 stop extensions to Warden and Islington cost about $76 Million while the 1 stop extension to Kennedy cost about $74 Million. If you include the 1 stop extension to Kipling (about $36 Million) then these two stops alone cost Metro around $100 Million. So you can see how subway construction in Toronto was unsustainable without provincial help.
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urbanclient
Active Member
Appreciate the nuance and you picking up the slack. I tried to keep my post as short as possible.
robmausser
Senior Member
Yes, I've always suspected the reason that the SRT was crap compared to the Skytrain was because it was basically forced onto the TTC and the city. They didn't want it and so they mistreated it.
smallspy
Senior Member
That's a big part of it, no doubt.
But a large part of it was that they had to shoehorn the line into a corridor that was never designed for it. The curves at Kennedy were bare-minimum radius for the rolling stock, and even the curve at Ellesmere would likely have been made larger if they had the chance to plan the line from scratch, rather than use the corridor that had already been allocated to it.
Dan
Northern Light
Superstar
Down again.....Martin Grove to Humber College due to a mechanical issue.
taylortbb
New Member
The media is starting to notice the difference in LRT operations between Toronto and KW. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/01/29/ion-lrt-kitchener-lessons-for-toronto-transit-projects/
Yes, ION uses some rail right-of-ways with no traffic, which Finch West doesn't have. But ION also has some very slow twisting curves in the on-street sections, which Finch West doesn't have. Yet ION still manages double the average speed.
Yes, ION uses some rail right-of-ways with no traffic, which Finch West doesn't have. But ION also has some very slow twisting curves in the on-street sections, which Finch West doesn't have. Yet ION still manages double the average speed.
6ixGod
Active Member
Yes look no further….and that is kind of the point. Outside of Vancouver almost nowhere else in the world adopted that technology. SkyTrain works because it is a very specific, tightly managed, fully grade separated system, not because the technology itself scaled well elsewhere.
You clearly do not live in Scarborough or have ever ridden the former Line 3 as a commuter. The entire thing was a terrible fit from day one. We already had an existing heavy rail subway network and forcing riders to transfer at Kennedy between Lines 2 and 3 was a massive inconvenience. EDIT: and by massive I mean….forcing commuters who scale two entire levels, mainly by stairs or narrow escalators. Add chronic reliability issues, poor performance in snow and zero interoperability and the SRTs failures were not surprising; they were structural.
In Vancouver they are essentially stuck with it, which is why people there pretend it is flawless. Billions have been sunk into the system, contracts and infrastructure are fixed, and walking away is politically and financially impossible. That does not mean it is the right technology; it just means they are committed to living with the consequences.
LRTs and SRT style systems can work in smaller cities or greenfield builds. They do not work in Toronto. The headlines around Line 5 and Line 6 speak for themselves. This experiment has already failed and pretending otherwise does not change reality.
T3G
Senior Member
Transferring is an inherent part of using public transportation. Why don't you ask the people who live along Eglinton Avenue East, or in south Scarborough, or further northeast than Sheppard and McCowan, whether the amount of transfers they have to make will go down post SSE? And what difference is there exactly between having to transfer from subway to bus vs. subway to LRT/SRT?
urbanclient
Active Member
I think you might be misreading whatever hyperbolic point they're making. Which I don't even fully agree with because I think the Skytrain is great, and its technology family (called Innovia now) has produced half a dozen light to full metro lines around the world.
The Skytrain tech did not scale well because LIM propulsion has many flaws that made it 'obsolete' according to some critics, compared to traditional steel-wheeled metros using third rail or overhead wire. Obsolete is kind of inaccurate because Skytrain technology was invented long after steel-wheeled metros were invented. But LIM does have its advantages, like being more resistant to slippery conditions, and being able to climb steeper grades than steel-wheeled metro, but less than monorail, and similar to rubber-tired metro.
The transfer in itself is not the biggest issue with Line 3. IMO it's the opportunity costs and the lack of driverless operation. A transfer to a short spur line makes sense. A transfer for an extension of the main line less so. A Line 2 extension would've cost a lot less in the 1980s, even adjusted for inflation.
Correct me if I'm wrong @6ixGod is saying the SRT implementation was flawed (see posts above), and should've been a Line 2 extension. In an ideal world, that's what should have (and will) happen, but the 1980s political environment foisted SRT onto Toronto. But the city didn't have much choice. They were broke.
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