TTC Unveils its Plan for the Future - LRTs

I'm not sure I understand where the rails are supposed to go - I live at Pape and Danforth, and we aren't exactly looking at a gigantic swath of urban territory ripe for the construction of a new RT system to run up to Steeles. Are they going to have to buy out neighbourhoods to make room?

Not sure about the logistics of how and where exactly the tracks will be laid.

Elevated tracks (like monorails) cost a lot more, and might be required in some sections of the city, I presume.

The LRTs might be skinny vehicles, and only take up one lane on existing roads? I guess the use of the LRTs (and hence reduced car traffic) is supposed to offset the space taken up by the ROW lanes?

This is great news (in theory). This is the kind of planning we need to do for transit . . . I just hope it doesn't end up on the trash heap with all the other plans and fantasy maps that have appeared over the years.

Its terrible. All those new LRT lines will feed into the subway which is already over crowded. Yonge/Bloor and scary after 3 in the afternoon. It will feed into existing streetcars which are over crowded. The College, King and Queen cars should be fixed up first. They need rights of way and the snappy lowrider cars.

Buses already feed the system, and some of these lines will actually divert subway use, won't they?

There are some open questions with this, not the least of which is what to do with the southern termination of the Don Mills one, the stated plan of following the route of the 25 bus is NOT going to work, what may work is a small amount of tunneling between the valley and the Danforth line to connect at say Donlands or Coxwell.

If they think they're running the new line on the 25 route they're dreaming. There's no way the residents in the Browning/Pape area are going to let their substantial property value be destroyed by the addition of railway lines. Does nobody remember the Allen Road fiasco?

I like this proposal we need much more transit in the East and West ends of the city.

Mike Joes >>

This will alleviate some of the distress on the subways system. People will not take the subway now if they can take an LRT across part of the city. Especially those folks in Etobicoke and Scarborough.

It will also allow the subway ridership to grow (becuz it will take riders off the subway).

The whole idea is to make it easier to get around. The more riders means more money which means more cars. Especially if the TTC moves to automated trains we can move the subways quicker.

In areas that have no room for dedicated LRT lanes, the rail will go underground. I think that includes Pape.

It is expected to be underground in the Pape area, but on Don Mills Rd. it will take the centre lane of the road.

Matt let me guess you drive everywhere? and live near pape and dont want any inconveniences, but just cheaper gas prices.

some of us will not like the changes, but the city needs to be upgraded.

Expanding streetcar service has got to be one of the worst ideas ever! If TO was serious about improving public transit, subways are the only effective choice. Streetcar service has already bankrupted the TTC since maintenance costs are extremely high (a complete rebuild of tracks every 10 years). The streetcar service is extremely slow and prone to frequent outages. Streetcars are a menace to all other modes of transportation, including pedestrians.

I don't think any of these plans will go anywhere. Under Miller's rein TO will continue to be insolvent, running up the deficit .5 billion per year in office (currrently at 1.5 billion) and hope that no other level of government is prepared to bail TO's incompetent city council out.

My final comment is on jobs, and the lack of jobs in the city core. TTC riders have to have a destination, and unfortunately jobs have and continue to migrate out of the city. Public transit funding should be devoted to the areas at the city's edges. There is absolutely no point in building any infrastructure within the core, the existing infrastructure is sufficient.

I don't drive anywhere. I don't have a car. I agree with TTC expansion in theory, I just don't think they can pull this off in that neighbourhood. Screwing around with homeowners' property value has failed many, many times in the past.

Paul: This plan doesn't call for cumbersome streetcars, it call for LRTs in dedicated Right-Of-Way lanes.

Furthermore, subway construction costs over 10x as much as LRT implementation. It's looks nearly _impossible_ to get $6billion to fund the ambitious LRT plan... imagine trying to to fun a $60billion upgrade!

Jerrorld: For all proposed street routes, which is most of the plan, LRT = Streetcars, which are anything but Light & Rapid, even with their own right of way. I understand that Spadina Ave is still one of the slowest TTC routes in the city.

Although subway construction is expensive, in the long run it is far less costly to operate. When was the last time they had to tear up the subway to re-build it, but this is an ongoing issue with streetcar tracks, every 10 years. Subways are also far more efficient method of transit, and this will pull people out of their cars, if they can shave significant amounts of time off their trips. Surface vehicles simply can't compete with subways. If the TTC had concentrated on expanding the subway system, instead of wasting money on streetcars, adding a couple of subway stops a year, the cost would not have been/be prohibitive, and we would have a much better system in the long run.

Paul: LRT does not equal slow streetcar! We're not talking about adding 120km of track and 240 streetcars that are the same as our current model (CLRVs and ALRVs built in the late 70's and late 80's respectively).

Newer, smaller, lighter, and much faster right rail vehicles are now out there. Putting them in dedicated lanes and making stops 500m or more apart makes for light rapid transit.

Jerrold: LRT or whatever you want to call it, on shared roads, equals a streetcar. If they bury the track then this is a subway, regardless of what vehicle is on the track. Any vehicle running on a shared road will never operate as efficient as a subway. Almost every street in the inner city is posted down to 40Km/hr, and with traffic lights every 100-500 metres or so, how is anything going to move.

Spadina Ave is the model the city is talking about, and it's a pretty poor model. There are dedicated lanes, synchronized traffic lights every 100-200 metres, and it still only moves people at a rate that is about twice as fast as walking. You can put whatever vehicle you want on the track and call it whatever you want, but it will still be a streetcar.

We haven't even talked about cost of these new cars and track. The estimated cost of a new streetcar is 1.5 million, compared to a new subway car at 1 million, and a diesel bus is around 1/4 million. Add to this the track upkeep costs of 100K per year per km (estimate based on 1km = $1.5 million to construct, and it will last 15 years - very optomistic). So if the city adds 120km of track, then they will have to budget an additional 120 million a year for track maintenance alone. There are already 300kms of track, so the total annual upkeep for all the track will be close to 1/2 billion dollars a year. And you thought your taxes are high now!

All projections are based on ridership increases as well. What happens if this does not occur? With streetcars I can guarantee ridership will not increase, so the existing customer base will have to pick up the tab. How does $10 a fare sound?

Looking at the Spadina ROW as a model for the new LRT system isn't really all that appropriate and easily leads to some misconceptions.

The Spadina ROW line runs along one of the busiest, densest streets in the downtown core, and joins the Annex to Queen West. It's slow because of the volume of passengers, the high number of stops separated by short distances, and the high number of traffic lights.

These new LRT lines are similar in that they will operate on the surface and within their own dedicated lanes. BUT they'll differ greatly in efficiency because they'll be running along streets that are not at all like Spadina in the core.

Sorry about the math, that should be only $50 million a year to maintain all the track work. Too many zeros. Still, this is a hefty number.

In regards to the ROW on Spadina, do you think St. Clair is going to work out any better? What about Eglington, is Eglington not congested today? Are there not traffic lights every 300 to 400 meters today? The city will have to slice that length in half, to allow vehicles to cross the ROW. Businesses will still be furious.

If the plan is to run the Finch line off -road then, this line will work! It should be the line the city starts first. Most of the jobs in TO are now situated around the corridor of the 400 series of highways, and Finch would be a good point to build a real "LRT" off-road.

I think the city is making a big mistake.
Although the plan may look good with respect to financing and attractive to many, it still will not solve the problem of congested mornings on most of Toronto's streets. I completely agree with the 3rd post just above me.

Subways certainly have a lot of fans, but those of you who're advocating them instead of on-street LRT aren't saying anything that Steve Munro hasn't already made convincing arguments against.

Digging tunnels is expensive, building underground stations is expensive, and the whole shebang costs more to operate and keep up than on-street LRT. If you're going to go to the trouble of doing it, you'd better be doing it with heavy rail, the capacity of which isn't required on the routes under discussion.

Paul: when was the last time you took LRT transit in europe? My guess is not anytime recently, because it works really well.

Your other argument is that streetcar tracks need to be repaired too often. But, if each km of track is 1/10th the cost of a subway, and the track lasts for 10 years, then you should be able to repair the track many times before even coming close to the cost of the subway.

Your other arguments are flawed too but I won't get into it.

I agree that ROW street car is a good solution - for connection to subway. I use the queens quay line that link up harbourfront with union station. But we have to remember that we have a long winter in Toronto. Very often snow trapped on streetcar trap will affect its operation. It is not uncommon to see a whole line of streetcar trapped along Spadina in the snow. They have to dispatch servicepeople to manually dig snow up to keep it running. For shorter line, it is doable. It would not be as practical for long lines like Eglinton, crosstown.
The winter factor also affect how many people use the TTC. Waiting outside at -30C versus in a subway station.
I support streetcar use. But I believe for the longer run, we should make our financial commitment to subway development on an ongoing basis. For the short run we can consider prvoding ROW bus services along Eglinton or Don Mills. But we should aim to extend and link such long route to our subway system.
Cities like Montreal, NYC, London and Paris have a good subway system. We would, one day, be able to have ours as well.
Bravo to the new York U line!

Paul: LRT is not the same as a TRUE streetcar. See below for the differences.

Jerrold: LRT vehicles may be a lot of things, but they are certainly not smaller than "cumbersome" streetcars. They are bigger, they are faster, they have more capacity, they usually run in trains of more than one car, their internal seating layouts are usually closer to trains than buses, and are better suited for longer runs.

That's good! Faster means more people will fund LRT trains useful, more people will take LRTs and leave their cars at home. Bigger means the trains will carry the capacity to move all those new riders. Longer runs mean a bigger pool of potential riders. All good things.

Will everybody abandon their cars? No way. But any decline or even lack of an increase in cars on the road will help those that remain in their dinosaur burners. And it's been proven that trains get higher ridership than buses.

What you really want are totally separated rights or way, but failing those being available, reserved lanes in the center of the street are the next best compromise, and they allow riders to patronize stores on the street and connect with their own neighborhoods the way that subways DON'T. There: one advantage of streetcars over subways.

Toronto winters the enemy of cross-town streetcars? Maybe, but what was I riding on a recent visit if not the 506 Carlton, which trundles along, what, 15 km of city streets? It's not a seasonal route -- and let's not pretend that the subway stations are warm and dry in winter, either.

Ottawa had a thriving and profitable streetcar service up until the ascendancy of the automobile put it out of business in the mid 20th century. Ottawa has nastier winters than Toronto does -- they coped with track sweepers.

Winnipeg, for heaven's sake, used to run streetcars, and that's a city that might actually get down to minus 30.

I just dont see the point in a Long Branch line when the 501 Queen Car already runs out there and is on a ROV lane for a large part of the trip already. What's the point? If the new line runs along the GO train route, I could see the time savings, but I still dont think it's worth the trouble.

Until there's a direct rail link from Union to Pearson, everything else should come secondary.

I am hopeful and skeptical of what this new system will mean for the city. Clearly, we need to dedicate resources to expanding public transit service, but I am not sure that dedicated lanes will be enough to guarentee speed.

On an unrelated transit note, what is with leaving a gap between the ground and glass walls in bus shelters? It's murder when you're wearing a skirt. Thanks for freezing my knees and ankles, TTC.

Paul said: "What about Eglington, is Eglington not congested today?"

Shirley said: "They have to dispatch servicepeople to manually dig snow up to keep it running. For shorter line, it is doable. It would not be as practical for long lines like Eglinton, crosstown."

The Eglinton LRT, as currently proposed, would run below grade between Laird and Keele, essentially making most of the line an Eglinton Subway Lite.

People should really read the report before they start sniping.

I was going to write a long comment here, but given the above comments I think most readers are simply, to be polite, too unfamiliar with how to build cities, plan transit and leverage development to make it worthwhile. If anyone would like to have an educated discussion about this interesting but somewhat flawed transit plan, I'm all ears.

PARTY AT DAVE'S HOUSE!!!

wait... Dave throws lousy parties. All he ever wants to talk about is building cities and leveraging development.

Re Paul's comments, he is totally in error about streetcars bankrupting the TTC. Until the first subway opened in 1954 the TTC operated wholly from the farebox. Paying for the subways has kept the TTC in the hole. And due to improved technology the streetcar track rebuilds now occur about every 20 years, not 10. And don't forget that subway tracks wear out and need to be replaced as well. Subways are too expensive to build and the best way to provide transit service to the edges of the city is with streetcars, whether in mixed traffic or on separate ROW. And low-floor buses just wont cut it, they are a real pain for the average passenger.

FYI - here's another discussion blog where the contributors make some very good comments regarding the TTC, Subways, LRT & other related issues.

Sorry, the html hyper-link didn't work! Here's the URL: http://toronto.metblogs.com/archives/2007/03/where_should_su.phtml

Why is the city still considering upgrades within the city when new money is in the outlying areas. We need to bring the commuters from the outer GTA, into the city (and back) with good service.

New money will only generate new ridership if it goes where the new riders are. the perimeter of the city.

Maybe we cant build in Mississauga or Vaughan but we can build up to it and let their buses connect with ours at decent stations instead of desolate corners where the arbitrary borders happen to be. There is so much territory dispute between transit systems it is ridiculous.

I don't mind paying the extra money as long as I'm not forced to take 4 buses and be dropped in barren wastelands for 30 minute waiting times.

This is a ridiculous idea!

Toronto is freezing for 5 months of the year!!! Who wants to wait in sub zero temperatures for streetcars?

The thought of it just makes me want to get into my warm car.

What we need is more subways in the downtown core!

Why can't our politicians see how important this is. We need to start a protest or demonstration or letter writing campaign to raise public awareness on this topic. We need to stop accepting such insane, ridiculous ideas. This is our city. We live and work here. We deserve a proper subway system, not this ridiculous idea!!

Don L, - This might be a shocker but a lot of people live far from the downtown core and may only ride buses on a weekly basis because of the lack of REAL rapid transit anywhere else but Yonge and Bloor. Fact of the matter is most people within the City of Toronto don't live in the downtown core and they need access to transit as well.

This plan is desperately needed to connect communities to the rest of the city that currently sit in isolation.

The cost is reasonable - it also includes the purchase of vehicles.

The maintenance cost will be much lower - the tracks can be built for streetcars-only and won't have to include support for cars and big-rig trucks, which tear up the concrete and over time disturb the track foundations. (for evidence check out the condition of Spadina's tracks - it's been over ten years and they're still in mint condition)

Also, the cars they'll be using are much, much lighter than the current fleet and will wear the tracks much less.

As for the cold factor - the routes are scheduled to come often enough in most places that people shouldn't be waiting in the cold for more than 5 minutes. And hey, maybe it's time for someone to come up with a new kind of transit shelter that protects from the cold. Maybe a heated one? Using the momentum of an approaching streetcar to power an electric heater?

I cant say that I disapprove of this LRT plan: if new, efficient, and frequent LRT's are implemented than, there is a strong possibility it will relieve some congestion,but I must say its not a great solution, why not put in ROW buses? Although its costly, too much on and off, transferring from subway, to train, to bus, waiting times, will truly frustrate riders, and lower numbers. Focus should be on installing new subways to on both ends of the city or extending it. JOBS are not in the city anymore!! For the largest city in Canada, and one of the "best" countries to live in, and don't forget 47% of immigration in Canada goes directly to the GTA, (stats can), our transit system should be parallel to other major cities in the US and Europe.

In regards to the Eglington line, wasn't space reserved for a subway plan years ago? why not put in a LRT possibly above ground that will directly be linked to the Yonge-University line? It will only cost a little more? I hope someone in a real decision making position will read these comments....