Finch West Line 6 LRT

[APTA-2048]

I'm putting this here, rather than the Bikeshare thread, as I have a question for those who have taken the new LRT.

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Bikeshare has not yet reinstalled any of its stations directly along the Finch West Line 6 route; which were removed to facilitate wrap-up of the project.

View attachment 701701

My question for riders here, is the road still a mess or does the sidewalk/boulevard area appear complete? It seems bizarre to have opened the line, implying project completion, yet have no Bikeshare integration on a route that was well served until 2 months ago.

I was hanging around Jane and the MSF and the streets and sidewalk looked complete to me.

 

[abovegrade]

It would be nice to see more urban regeneration from some Scandinavian/UK firms along finch (i'm looking at you SLA), to really make this a transit-oriented and pedestrian-friendly corridor.

 

[Bojaxs]

I just rode Line 6 westbound. Clocked in at roughly 47 minutes from Finch West to Humber College. Speed aside, my biggest gripe is that they automatically open the doors at every stop and leave them open. It's freezing in the train at Humber College.

Why not utilize the buttons on the doors? Keep them closed if no one is at the stop. This is what they do in Calgary with the C-trains.

EDIT: Heading back eastbound, a lot of riders don't seem to be paying their fare. I've lost count of how many people I've seen run and walk across the pedestrian crossing to catch the train and completely ignore the presto machines on the platforms.

 

[6ixGod]

'I know it can be faster': Mayor Chow looks to speed up Line 6 Finch West LRT amid complaints

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says she's taking steps to address complaints from TTC riders that the new Line 6 Finch West LRT is too slow.

toronto.citynews.ca

Your complaints and suggestions have made a difference.

 

[6ixGod]

I just rode Line 6 westbound. Clocked in at roughly 47 minutes from Finch West to Humber College. Speed aside, my biggest gripe is that they automatically open the doors at every stop and leave them open. It's freezing in the train at Humber College.

Why not utilize the buttons on the door? Keep them closed if no one is at the stop. This is what they do in Calgary with the C-trains.

I have this same issue with GO Trains. They literally have buttons on the doors, but they open them up at every station and everyone in the lower carriage gets a whiff of that Arctic burn. It’s ridiculous.

 

[Tuscani01]

'I know it can be faster': Mayor Chow looks to speed up Line 6 Finch West LRT amid complaints

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says she's taking steps to address complaints from TTC riders that the new Line 6 Finch West LRT is too slow.

toronto.citynews.ca

Your complaints and suggestions have made a difference.

Let's see what comes out of this motion. If its just asking staff to go back and study ways to make it faster, I wouldn't be surprised to see push back and the status quo remain. Hopefully it's worded in a way that requires the changes as opposed to asking staff to consider.

 

[T-Bor]

Is this ignorance or a fifth column?

The bus goes as low as 23 minutes with no traffic. See @T3G 's post. As I showed earlier, 10+8 minutes of time is wasted stopped at red lights and stops, who knows how many minutes are wasted due to the braindead speed limits. Even if driven slowly for safety and lowered maintenance (among other overstated reasons), the LRT should easily average in the low 30s.

After doubling back, it would appear that my fellow Fifth Columnists and I horribly mis-read T3Gs data.

The fact that the average trip time on the bus is like 35 minutes makes this whole debacle so, so much sadder

 

[Bojaxs]

I have this same issue with GO Trains. They literally have buttons on the doors, but they open them up at every station and everyone in the lower carriage gets a whiff of that Arctic burn. It’s ridiculous.

I kind of give the GO train a pass because it's not level boarding. For some people it might be difficult to traverse the steps and have to hit a button. Plus the Bi-levels don't have buttons (I think).

The Alstom trains do have buttons, but they've de-activated them.

 

[APTA-2048]

I kind of give the GO train a pass because it's not level boarding. For some people it might be difficult to traverse the steps and have to hit a button. Plus the Bi-levels don't have buttons (I think).

The Alstom trains do have buttons, but they've de-activated them.

Bilevels have buttons, but their placement and operation is inconsistent. Some cars only have them at one door on each side. Some don’t have buttons on the inside.

GO Transit only uses them for passenger access when the train is on a long layover.

 

[robmausser]

I just rode Line 6 westbound. Clocked in at roughly 47 minutes from Finch West to Humber College. Speed aside, my biggest gripe is that they automatically open the doors at every stop and leave them open. It's freezing in the train at Humber College.

Why not utilize the buttons on the door? Keep them closed if no one is at the stop. This is what they do in Calgary with the C-trains.

EDIT: Heading back eastbound, a lot of riders don't seem to be paying their fare. I've lost count of how many people I've seen run and walk across the pedestrian crossing to catch the train and completely ignore the presto machines on the platforms.

They want these LRTs to operate and look and feel as little like a streetcar and as much like a subway as possible. Its all about optics. Thats why they painted them grey (no seriously, to match the subway trains stainless steel look. No, I'm serious this is not an opinion, Metrolinx stated this for real. Like its going to fool anyone)

Optics asside, you are right, its better. But everything in politics is about optics.

Ironically, you know what WOULD make them seem more like a subway? Transit priority and driving them faster than 30kmh

 

[jacnel]

I just rode Line 6 westbound. Clocked in at roughly 47 minutes from Finch West to Humber College. Speed aside, my biggest gripe is that they automatically open the doors at every stop and leave them open. It's freezing in the train at Humber College.

Why not utilize the buttons on the doors? Keep them closed if no one is at the stop. This is what they do in Calgary with the C-trains.

EDIT: Heading back eastbound, a lot of riders don't seem to be paying their fare. I've lost count of how many people I've seen run and walk across the pedestrian crossing to catch the train and completely ignore the presto machines on the platforms.

The Region of Waterloo also uses the door buttons with the ION. During the winter the doors remain closed unless you press the button. I think people would understand if the TTC did the same.

 

[jacnel]

Also the ION, despite having a more complex route with many more turns, conflict points, and 9km of additional track, can go end-to-end in 44 minutes scheduled. So the TTC has zero excuse for running Line 6 this slowly. A 10km straight, centre of the road, LRT (even with the additional stops) should be faster than the ION, it's half the size!

 

[hw621]

The Region of Waterloo also uses the door buttons with the ION. During the winter the doors remain closed unless you press the button. I think people would understand if the TTC did the same.

The ION also does the signal priority right. Why is the ION doing everything right but the TTC isn't, when the TTC has been operating a much bigger network and supposed to be more experienced?

 

[hw621]

Also the ION, despite having a more complex route with many more turns, conflict points, and 9km of additional track, can go end-to-end in 44 minutes scheduled. So the TTC has zero excuse for running Line 6 this slowly. A 10km straight, centre of the road, LRT (even with the additional stops) should be faster than the ION, it's half the size!

also built at a fraction of the cost too.

 

[T3G]

Also the ION, despite having a more complex route with many more turns, conflict points, and 9km of additional track, can go end-to-end in 44 minutes scheduled. So the TTC has zero excuse for running Line 6 this slowly. A 10km straight, centre of the road, LRT (even with the additional stops) should be faster than the ION, it's half the size!

That's an average speed of 25.91 km/h, in line with the best practices of Finch-style suburban lines in Prague, and that's with the bizarre speed restrictions around the last few stations at the south end (including the inexplicable slow zone right past Fairway) Imagine that number if they sorted out... whatever tf is going on in Kitcehener, you'd start to get pretty close to the average speeds of Lines 1 (29.2) and 2 (30.0)!