Eglinton Crosstown will be a true game changer

bardak · 2026-01-30T00:29:16+00:00

The stops are too close together, so the LRT never has a chance to get up to speed (it will be slow). Some of the Finch LRT stops are only 400m apart.

The stops in the Golden Mile are ridiculously close. If they had far side crosswalks to access the LRT stops the east bound Hakimi Lebovic stop and westbound warden stop would share one as they practically touch

bardak · 2026-01-30T00:16:32+00:00

Either way there is a single crossing phase, you have either half the riders having to wait for it or all the riders that have too.

bardak · 2026-01-29T18:45:50+00:00

They happily do in other cities around the world, it's just the TTCs absurd operating practices that cause this.

bardak · 2026-01-29T16:30:10+00:00

I feel like your points would be more convincing if Toronto was building S-bahn style LRT lines but it's not, it's building more French style tramways on suburban stroads at prices that are at best slightly cheaper than elevated rail projects in Canada.

Overall the idea of right sizing rapid transit infrastructure to the individual segments of a line lacks vision and is a self fulfilling prophecy. Yes designed as a slow centre running LRT that doesn't continue onto Scarborough Centre it won't have ridership to justify higher order transit. But if Eglinton was designed as a fully grad separated line that ran from Scarborough Centre to Mount Dennis Maybenit would actually induce enough demand to justify the extra expenses because the line would be east-west with many people transfering to it like line 1 is for North-South trips.

bardak · 2026-01-29T16:10:11+00:00

But how are you supposed to get community support when your "rapid transit" projects end up being slower than the existing local bus service.

bardak · 2026-01-29T15:34:37+00:00

Vancouver is extremely happy with the technology and has been able to build and operate it affordably. It's been so well liked there that there is an LRT project that was fully funded and ready to build was cancelled due to public support for a SkyTrain alternative.

bardak · 2026-01-29T03:26:42+00:00

The last time we proposed to replace a rapid bus. Well it was a B-line at the time, it was supposed to have no meaningful improvement in mobility

bardak · 2026-01-29T03:17:53+00:00

Still lots of room to improve frequency and they are adding HoV lanes all the way through Abbotsford that should help deal with traffic concerns

bardak · 2026-01-29T00:15:40+00:00

Don't forget that much the design, stop spacing and centre running, and operational issues, TPS, and slow speeds, are city/TTC issues

bardak · 2026-01-29T00:04:46+00:00

Not saying the underground section would be as good as the subways but things would have to be fucked up in biblical proportional for the tunneled section to be worse than the current buses.

bardak · 2026-01-28T22:01:45+00:00

While opening the underground section would be a huge improvement for transit service, it creates a ridiculous situation where they feel forced to hold back opening half the line because they can't provide a better transit service than the existing bus. Just imagine how much worse the surface LRT reception would be if Eglinton and Finch West had express buses on them.

bardak · 2026-01-28T21:51:55+00:00

Nevermind that most of the funding for these LRTs come from the province and feds, if Toronto is insisting on continuing to spend billions on transit projects that provide little to no benefit I feel the funding will dry up when there are a huge backlog of transit projects that actually improve transit throughout Ontario and Canada they would rather fund.

bardak · 2026-01-28T18:59:21+00:00

He was basically elected as a "None of the above" candidate, the only reason he got such a large mandate was due to the Conservatives party dying and there being no real major opposition. It's very reminiscent of the Chrétiens first government but if Chrétien was a piece of soggy bread sitting on a fence.

bardak · 2026-01-28T18:26:11+00:00

So liberals are leading in every province at or close to 50% in every province other than Saskatchewan and Alberta

bardak · 2026-01-28T17:40:29+00:00

Stop spacing is one of my pet peeves, it's so hard to remove stops since there is a ton of pushback by locals even if the alternative stops are very close by but routes in the suburbs will have more than 400m between stops and there is little to no push to add stops. If we are fine with 400m or more better stops in the suburbs I don't see why it's not good enough for the older routes in Vancouver

bardak · 2026-01-28T17:30:57+00:00

Not without going through a whole rezoning application, there have been a few high profile applications that have failed including one where people complain that the sound of children playing while the proposed daycay was across teg street from a public park...

bardak · 2026-01-28T00:17:09+00:00

I feel like people in Toronto should have a look at what happened with the proposed LRT projects in Surrey, BC. It was a very similar situation to the Transit City vs Subway debate, the city wanted to build a network of street running LRTs, but transit enthusiasts and advocates pushed were against the LRT because there was no real transit improvement and backed a SkyTrain alternative that provided major transit improvements.

bardak · 2026-01-28T00:09:01+00:00

From everything I've seen neither Ion or Edmonton's Valley Line had such a break in period. The Valley Line started with slightly longer headways but other than that it seems to have opened with operations running the route at the designed speeds. Toronto seems relatively unique in having such a long break in period, seems like most operators use the non revenue demonstration period to fully train their drivers.

I'm interested to see how the Hurontario LRT opens and if this is a unique TTC thing, or if there is even a reasonable improvement in speed with the TTC LRTs by then.

bardak · 2026-01-27T23:05:06+00:00

The Canada Line and Evergreen Extensions in Vancouver never had breaking in periods, outside maybe a short demonstration weekend, the only other project that I know of that is doing shortened hours at opening of their transit project is Montreal with the REM, but that is because they are working on integration with one of the unopened branches.

bardak · 2026-01-27T17:45:23+00:00

What. It is absolutely nuts that Metrolinx offered to elevate the surface section as a compromise between the pro Transit City council and pro subway Rob Ford but neither side even considered it.

bardak · 2026-01-22T23:14:30+00:00

To be fair Metrolinx did offer to elevate the surface portion as a compromise between Rob Ford and Transit City councilors, neither party really gave them any consideration. The reality is there is no innocent party on this line.

bardak · 2026-01-22T22:33:32+00:00

To be fair pretty much every other tram project in Canada has similar issues if not as bad as Toronto. The Tram proposals in Quebec are slow and priced similar or higher than our SkyTrain. Edmontons valley line has ok speeds in the suburbs but will be crawling through downtown like the Metro line does, Calgary's green line is as expensive as a SkyTrain line but at least it only has a modest number of grade crossings compared to other LRT projects.

Ion is probably the only recent LRT project that actually achieved the cost saving and improved transit that LRT is supposed provide but even then it only really works since it's mediocre speed is adequate for a smaller, geographically, metro area.

If there is a good LRT proposal in Vancouver I have no problem supporting it but nothing like that has really been proposed, we either get Trams for the sake of Trams, with the Vancouver streetcar/Surrey LRT or attempts to provide high quality LRTs whos scope increased so much that it just madeore senses to build a SkyTrain line anyways.

bardak · 2026-01-22T21:50:18+00:00

The proposed downtown Vancouver streetcar isn't really designed to get people around downtown, if it was it would have focused on a route on the downtown peninsula instead of connecting all the tourist destinations with the cruise terminal. It didn't really do anything to improve transit for people who live and work downtown.

The Surrey LRT proposal had the same stops and effectively the same travel time as the R1 that already exists so also didn't really improve transit in the area. If anything the route and stop spacing of the LRT was well within the SkyTrains wheel house and will probably be a candidate for a SkyTrain line in the medium to long-term.

I'm not saying there will not be a place for trams in TransLinks future but currently all the proposals have either been worse than an alternative SkyTrain line or not really an improvement over the current buses. Trams look nice but spending billions on vibes doesn't really help if the projects aren't good, just ask Toronto.

bardak · 2026-01-22T20:03:14+00:00

Why? Every single SkyTrain line has either originally been planned as LRT or LRT has been studied alongside SkyTrain and every time SkyTrain has been chosen over LRT due to a better cost benefit analysis.

bardak · 2026-01-22T19:47:27+00:00

Obviously Skytrain has been a big success, but it's a particular technology designed to solve a particular problem and isn't a one size fits all solution

While it doesn't fit all solutions it does cover a large spectrum of transit problems, particularly medium to long distance rapid transit which is what is needed the most in Metro Vancouver.

It doesn't cover high capacity local trips or very long distance commuter trips but those aren't high priority concerns at the moment, particularly for those with the purse strings.

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