TTC: Jane (LRT) RapidTO

[Steve X]

I am also concern LRT will fail to meet future demand, if Golden Mile develop into a high density neighborhood like near Fairview Mall.

You can also search HK LRT, which resident always complain it is slower than bus, and always congested.

To be fair, those LRVs are the size of one CLRV. When coupled together, it'll be one Flexity length. The ultimate length of the Crosstown is 3 Flexity cars or the length of 6 of those LRVs. They also have many different routes going to different places, so the load are unevenly spread.

 

[afransen]

I believe the photos largely speak for themselves in this instance.

The T3, runs through a beautiful neighbourhood, that if it existed within Toronto would be one of the most urbanized and dense areas in the whole city.
View attachment 502475
It connects various other heavy rail and metro routes (Marked in blue) which primarily are used for cross city trips, and the tram is able to run reliably (due to signal priority) as a great last mile connector.
View attachment 502476

Now lets look at Finch. A gross, suburban arterial that has little fronting directly onto it. The roadway is very wide and serves as a regional connector across the north end of the city.View attachment 502478

As i'm sure I don't have to remind anyone here, the Finch LRT will run through a rapid transit dessert and have only a single metro connection at its eastern terminus. This line will be used as apart of commuters crosstown trips, not simply the last mile connection of faster RER or Metro.
View attachment 502479

The cost to benefit ratio on suburban arterials whose transit ridership is driven heavily by cross city commuters will always benefit elevated metro over at grade trams. I no way do I think lrts don't have a place, however they work best in urban settings over smaller distances. I personally would love to see a Mount Pleasant LRT, Ossington LRT and a Parliament LRT as these are urban streets that would benefit from higher capacity transit in order to improve the streetscape and ride quality.

In terms of low ridership concerns, Toronto is the fastest growing city in the western hemisphere and anywhere we legalize high density, it will be built. This has already been seen on Eglinton East, and Finch has been getting quite a few tower proposals. The solution is not to build worse transit, but to allow more people to live near good transit.

That line is Paris is a whole 4-5 km outside the centre. That's equivalent to St Clair in Toronto, which also has an LRT/streetcar.

 

[jmi22]

I don’t see why even with the coming density on Eglinton and Finch that we would need an elevated subway/metro there. One only needs to look at Sheppard to see that even with some density, Line 4 is heavily underused and is basically empty. I recently rode it last week during rush hour taking my kids to the community centre at Bessarion. On my observations, eacb train maybe had about 200-250 people in peak direction and less than 100 the other way. This is during peak rush hours. Yes it maybe a bit lower due to summer but even if I double it for fall volume, that would still be 4-5K riders per hour during peak period. It’s a colossal white elephant to have a subway on Sheppard as it will likely never ever have any kind or ridership to meet its design capacity. It’s a stranded and wasted investment that drains the system of operating and capital maintenance costs.

So let’s come back to LRTs. Take Finch, yes the bus gets 42K riders a weekday. What’s that per hour? Maybe 3-4K per direction per hour? Even if that were to double we would not need grade separation. The issue you seem to be implying is that LRTs are slow. That is only the case in Toronto by design. LRT as a technology can be fast. Again if we take Finch, the stations are close in some locations and will slow down travel but the big issue is transit priority. If we got that then the Finch LRT would be very fast and a huge improvement in travel time.

Similar for Eglinton, the issue in the east is that stations are closely packed together. If Toronto transportation can provide transit priority so Eglinton LRT will have little stop time at lights it will go fast. We will have to see how it operates.

do u genuinely believe we should never build another subway again lol

 

[jmi22]

That line is Paris is a whole 4-5 km outside the centre. That's equivalent to St Clair in Toronto, which also has an LRT/streetcar.

Ya, its a bit difficult to do 1-1 comparisons from city centres, but I do like the St.Clair streetcar. Built form and density is really the key aspect, which the comparison with Finch demonstrates. As I mentioned in the post, lrt/streetcars in the core (lets say south of eglinton) make a lot of sense and I would like to see a return of the 512 streetcar up Mount Pleasant for example.

 

[ARG1]

I don’t see why even with the coming density on Eglinton and Finch that we would need an elevated subway/metro there. One only needs to look at Sheppard to see that even with some density, Line 4 is heavily underused and is basically empty. I recently rode it last week during rush hour taking my kids to the community centre at Bessarion. On my observations, eacb train maybe had about 200-250 people in peak direction and less than 100 the other way. This is during peak rush hours. Yes it maybe a bit lower due to summer but even if I double it for fall volume, that would still be 4-5K riders per hour during peak period. It’s a colossal white elephant to have a subway on Sheppard as it will likely never ever have any kind or ridership to meet its design capacity. It’s a stranded and wasted investment that drains the system of operating and capital maintenance costs.

This is called "Anecdotal Evidence", and it is useless because we can each share our own. Precovid the Subway was overcrowded during rush hours, and even today whenever I use the subway during rush hours, I find the subway to be standing room only (not sardine cans, but far from "nobody uses it").

This is before we address the fact that the Sheppard Line is a tiny stub that doesn't go that many places. When we put the ridership numbers into context (ie, riders/km), the line still exceeds entire metro systems in the US.

 

[W. K. Lis]

From link.

Hard to see (as expected), but there is a "pink" (Other routes under review) lines for Jane Street from Bloor to Steeles (and Annette Street/Dupont Street). Whatever that means (RapidTO?)?

 

[lead82]

This is called "Anecdotal Evidence", and it is useless because we can each share our own. Precovid the Subway was overcrowded during rush hours, and even today whenever I use the subway during rush hours, I find the subway to be standing room only (not sardine cans, but far from "nobody uses it").

This is before we address the fact that the Sheppard Line is a tiny stub that doesn't go that many places. When we put the ridership numbers into context (ie, riders/km), the line still exceeds entire metro systems in the US.

Anectodal evidence is all we got as the TTC doesn’t collect proper data. My comment about nobody uses it was for Bessarion station specifically not the entire line. I agree that the line as it is is short and doesn’t hit enough trip generators or destinations. Imagine we built it as a surface LRT. There is room for it on Sheppard. If we did that the line would have been running and connected from Sheppard West to Scarborough. Perhaps with some parts tunneled or grade separated (e.g. to cross the 401). This is exactly my point. We don’t build a proper transit to serve people and instead service politicians and their egos and get a crappy system that’s overbuilt where it’s not needed and under built where it’s actually needed. That’s Toronto.

 

[Rainforest]

Finch is probably OK as light rail. It is a capacity enhancement over the bus service, that tends to be crowded.

At the same time, the main trunk line for the area is Spadina subway. If you are near Steeles or near Sheppard, the fastest way to reach the subway is by taking the Steeles bus to Pioneer Village / Sheppard bus to Sheppard West, rather than first a north-south bus to Finch and then LRT to subway. Thus, it is very unlikely that Finch LRT will ever be over capacity.

The speed is a concern though, the TTC approach to route planning is somewhat underwhelming. It should be possible to speed up the LRT operation without affecting the cross roads too much. For example, adding a short 15-20 s LRT-only phase before the left turns. That phase only needs to be activated when an LRV is present at the intersection, and even then it will only add 15-20 s to the full cycle duration.

 

[anb]

Finch will probably appeal more to west end riders who are far from the subway. Martin Grove, Kipling, and Islington corridor riders might just transfer more often to the LRT. Weston, Jane, and Driftwood riders are about 50/50 as the Steeles and Sheppard corridor buses aren't too far from their respectable Subway stations at that point. Anything more east up to Line 1 is nearby anyway and probably won't use the LRT at all unless if they were heading west. Then there are the riders who will be transferring from Miway/BT at Humber College which will contribute to the overall ridership quite a bit especially when fare integration becomes a thing for the GTA.

 

[Rainforest]

Finch will probably appeal more to west end riders who are far from the subway. Martin Grove, Kipling, and Islington corridor riders might just transfer more often to the LRT. Weston, Jane, and Driftwood riders are about 50/50 as the Steeles and Sheppard corridor buses aren't too far from their respectable Subway stations at that point. Anything more east up to Line 1 is nearby anyway and probably won't use the LRT at all unless if they were heading west. Then there are the riders who will be transferring from Miway/BT at Humber College which will contribute to the overall ridership quite a bit especially when fare integration becomes a thing for the GTA.

Even if you are at Martin Grove & Steels and want to get to the subway, that's a 15-20 min bus #60 trip dependent on the time of day. You will not get there faster by taking a bus to Finch and then taking Finch LRT. An extra transfer = at least 5 min added, plus the Pioneer Village subway station is located further west than Finch West.

If transferring from Miway or BT, then yes, Finch LRT is the natural choice because those buses will connect to the LRT and will not connect to bus #60 at all. But the Miway and BT routes to Humber are not very frequent, and the majority of their riders are Humber students. A few new riders may be added once the LRT opens, who will transfer to the LRT and go somewhere in the TTC's territory; but that will be a small fraction of all LRT riders.

 

[lead82]

do u genuinely believe we should never build another subway again lol

Not in the Toronto suburbs no. Subways need to go where they belong - in dense urban areas. It’s a colossal cost to dig underground and there is no need to do this in the burbs. Ontario line makes sense as a subway. Anything beyond that and maybe some extensions of existing lines doesn’t make sense. Toronto needs other forms of transit like faster electric GO regional trains and more LRT with true transit priority and heck some good old good bus service.

Sadly right now Toronto should focus on keeping existing system running. As we speak this afternoon line 1 was out of commission for hours due to passenger at track level. It’s a joke that a city of 3 million can’t operate 2.5 subway lines without almost daily issues.

 

[jmi22]

Not in the Toronto suburbs no. Subways need to go where they belong - in dense urban areas. It’s a colossal cost to dig underground and there is no need to do this in the burbs. Ontario line makes sense as a subway. Anything beyond that and maybe some extensions of existing lines doesn’t make sense. Toronto needs other forms of transit like faster electric GO regional trains and more LRT with true transit priority and heck some good old good bus service.

Sadly right now Toronto should focus on keeping existing system running. As we speak this afternoon line 1 was out of commission for hours due to passenger at track level. It’s a joke that a city of 3 million can’t operate 2.5 subway lines without almost daily issues.

This is my whole point we don't need to tunnel, elevated rail works very well. The Ontario line is wholly elevated north of the Don valley. I feel like a broken record

 

[lead82]

Elevated maybe fine in some spots but the issue is grade separation. It’s not needed in most of the suburbs with wide arterials that can support simply a dedicated lane. Look at highway 7 brt. It’s more than fine for the needs of York Region. It’s just under serviced due to YRT poor decisions .

 

[Rainforest]

This is my whole point we don't need to tunnel, elevated rail works very well. The Ontario line is wholly elevated north of the Don valley. I feel like a broken record

Elevated makes a lot of sense where it can partly replace a tunnel for a fully grade-separate line. For example, Ontario Line, and some of the future Sheppard line extensions.

But with Finch West, it gets tricky. If you look at the obstacles on the Google maps, you can see the Bolton rail line bridge and the Hydro wires crossing over Finch just east of Weston Rd. Then, the massive Hwy 400 crossing over. Then ~ 3 km further east, there is an underground connection to Spadina subway. And for the future extension from Keele to Yonge, the Barrie rail line bridge crosses over Finch 1 km from Keele.

So, would have to choose between:
1. Tunneling for at least 5 km from Weston all the way to Chesswood Dr; that's a massive cost increase, especially since the elevated (presumably for the rest of route) is cheaper than a tunnel but still more expensive than at-grade.
2. Accepting at-grade from Weston to Chesswood Dr; that's not as expensive, but reduces the benefits of elevated. Plus the transition sections (each a few hundred meters long) need to be placed carefully as they completely prevent any street crossing.
3. Go for a roller-coaster, same as #2 but with an additional short elevated stretch between Jane and Keele. Basically, same problems as with #2, but in different proportions.

 

[jmi22]

Elevated makes a lot of sense where it can partly replace a tunnel for a fully grade-separate line. For example, Ontario Line, and some of the future Sheppard line extensions.

But with Finch West, it gets tricky. If you look at the obstacles on the Google maps, you can see the Bolton rail line bridge and the Hydro wires crossing over Finch just east of Weston Rd. Then, the massive Hwy 400 crossing over. Then ~ 3 km further east, there is an underground connection to Spadina subway. And for the future extension from Keele to Yonge, the Barrie rail line bridge crosses over Finch 1 km from Keele.

So, would have to choose between:
1. Tunneling for at least 5 km from Weston all the way to Chesswood Dr; that's a massive cost increase, especially since the elevated (presumably for the rest of route) is cheaper than a tunnel but still more expensive than at-grade.
2. Accepting at-grade from Weston to Chesswood Dr; that's not as expensive, but reduces the benefits of elevated. Plus the transition sections (each a few hundred meters long) need to be placed carefully as they completely prevent any street crossing.
3. Go for a roller-coaster, same as #2 but with an additional short elevated stretch between Jane and Keele. Basically, same problems as with #2, but in different proportions.

I promise you that the collective effort of Canadian engineering will be able to build a viaduct over an existing bridge. Have you seen the 401/427 interchange? This is giving me flashbacks to the "we can't build the ontario line because crossing the don valley is very hard".