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Finch West Line 6 LRT

Finch East is the busiest bus route in the city, yes, but even that doesn't automatically mean it's among the highest priority corridors that need a billion dollars worth of light rail infrastructure. The 39 works. It could work even better, reducing travel time and adding capacity, and using virtually no added resources, by adding Rocket service. The bang for a billion bucks of LRT on Finch East would be very small, far smaller than it would be on, say, Dufferin, or Wilson. Finch East is simply not hobbled into oblivion by traffic like so many other routes are, so a ROW will be of rather minimal added value. In a way, a Finch East LRT is a solution where there's no problem.

Still, if we were planning a transit network that wasn't half-baked, a Finch East line would make some sense and would not be a blatant misuse of funds like other lines are. Finch East has no practical Avenues potential but the city could continue rewriting the official plan and create some potential to help justify a line.
 
Speaking about Finch East. Does anyone know if the city is planning to repave any sections of it any time soon? The section from Yonge to Willowdale is quite bad, and so is the section between the East Don River bridge to Leslie. The bridge itself has some gigantic pot-holes and the entire road surface is crumbling. It's beyond the patching stage folks.
 
lead82 said:
Speaking about Finch East. Does anyone know if the city is planning to repave any sections of it any time soon? The section from Yonge to Willowdale is quite bad, and so is the section between the East Don River bridge to Leslie. The bridge itself has some gigantic pot-holes and the entire road surface is crumbling. It's beyond the patching stage folks.
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Doesn't seem any point until they decide if they are going to run LRT down it from Yonge to Don Mills.
 
Even if they would like to run LRT from Yonge to Don Mills, I don't think it's feasible given the narrow road width and hilly terrain. As mentioned by others before, the hill from just east of bayview down to Leslie is VERY steep. I would think the best route would be to use the hydro field from Yonge to Don Mills.
 
lead82 said:
As mentioned by others before, the hill from just east of bayview down to Leslie is VERY steep.
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Why would the hill be a problem? Buses use it now, and streetcars do as well on hills than buses. Do the buses get stuck often?

lead82 said:
I would think the best route would be to use the hydro field from Yonge to Don Mills.
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But no one lives there
 
I honestly do not comprehend that argument. The whole "we need to put transit where the people are" to justify in-street running is a complete catchphrase that is completely meaningless. Look at Finch and Bayview for example, 7 tower blocks, ALL north of Finch, and a shopping plaza. All centred around the hydro corridor. At Finch and Bayview, people live on the Hydro corridor.

People live around the hydro corridor just as much as they live around Finch. And the hydro corridor offers the potential for far superior transit service.
 
putting the LRT in the hydro corridor would require a name change to the Cummer LRT. :)

my parents actually live at bayview and finch and was wondering how introducing transit such as LRT affects house prices? any good papers outlining this?
 
Finch East is a not an Avenue by any means. the small potential between Bayview and Yonge is basically townhomes built to face the street. There is no retail on this part of Finch, nor is any coming any time soon.

LRT vehicles do have a hard-time going up steep hills. This is because you can't build rail with such a steep incline, it's not pavement. The LRT vehicle would need a very high speed to get up that hill or else risk getting stuck.

I also don't buy the argument about people don't live in the hydro corridor but they live on Finch. The point of this LRT on Finch east would basically be an express service anyway to replace the existing express bus that comes every 2 mins. Thus, putting it in the corridor would allow just that. You would only need stops at Bayview, Leslie (connect to GO train), and Don Mills (connect to Seneca College). This would be far cheaper, faster/easier to build than tearing up Finch East, widening it and dealing with property acquisition. The local Finch East bus can remain, and the LRT can serve as an express route.

This is the fallacy with the whole Transit City planning. It's about making Avenues out of streets by adding LRT to them. However, Finch, nor Sheppard, nor Jane, nor Don Mills will ever become an 'Avenue'. Not unless they plan to rezone the entire stretches of these roads and bulldoze more than half of the existing homes, businesses and other buildings.

Eglinton is already an Avenue, it just needs better transit service.
 
That's my problem with TC as well. It's more about social issues than about transit. Mayor Miller says this about TC on Twitter: "Transit City will build a sustainable and inclusive city".... erm, what does LRT have to do with being inclusive? Well we can't build subways to every corner of the city, so let's settle with building LRT to every ward?
 
From the Ontario government announcement on Ontario To Get Started On New Transit Projects

The Finch LRT will extend from Yonge Street west to Humber College and east to Don Mills Subway Station. Construction is expected to start in 2010 with completion by 2013.
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By east, that would mean approximately 5 km from Yonge Street to Don Mills Road before going south to Sheppard Avenue West.

That would put the Don Mills/Finch East stop about 360m to 490m from the Don Mills Rd. eastward to Au Large Blvd, where Seneca College has its Newham Campus. Seneca College would provide a lot of passenger traffic for the line.

Could be a little far, except that people do walk the 700+m eastward from the Rogers Centre to Union Station. Others, of course, may walk the 250+m westward to use the 510 Spadina line instead.

Unless there is another routing being considered?
 
It's been almost a year since the last open house for this line. Has the city forgotten about this line or something? It has been fully funded by the province and is not nearly as complex to build as Sheppard East.

Does anyone know when we'll have the next set of open house meetings for the Finch line?
 
lead82 said:
Even if they would like to run LRT from Yonge to Don Mills, I don't think it's feasible given the narrow road width and hilly terrain. As mentioned by others before, the hill from just east of bayview down to Leslie is VERY steep. I would think the best route would be to use the hydro field from Yonge to Don Mills.
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Very good point that I was also thinking about, now that they seem to be set to build the LRT from Yonge to Don Mills (pretty stupid decision, imo). I don't think width is the main problem; except for the bridge over E Don, for the whole way there are strips of grass between the sidewalk and the road that can be razed (at a cost), and the section from Leslie to Don Mills is 2+3(+the left and right turn lanes) anyway. However, how are they planning to deal with those steep inclines? From Estelle (one street W of Bayview) all the way to Don Mills, that section of Finch is pretty much a rollercoaster.
 
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