Line 5 Eglinton may be a bit slow but it still crushes the TTC buses it replaced

The much-anticipated debut of Toronto's new Line 5 Eglinton this past Sunday came with scattered reports of slow service on the route's above-ground sections. But, based on initial experiences, it's still a whole lot faster than the bus service it replaced.

Before the Crosstown entered service this weekend, an end-to-end trip along the 19-kilometre route from Mount Dennis to Kennedy was an arduous journey requiring multiple bus transfers. 

It's not a trip anyone would really be required to make prior to the Crosstown, with Google Maps, and, more importantly, basic logic directing most riders to the Line 2 Bloor-Danforth. 

However, ahead of Line 5's opening, we wanted to see how long it really took to get across town before the Crosstown.

@blogto Lets find out how long this really takes 🚌👀 🎥🎙️💻 @antonwongvideo ♬ original sound - blogTO

According to the TTC Trip Planner, an end-to-end ride on the new Crosstown will take you 52 minutes, compared to the multiple bus trips and transfers pre-Line 5, which took a staggering one hour and 51 minutes to traverse — more than double the travel time on the city's newest transit route.

While the line's first-week speeds are reasonably faster than the several bus routes it replaced, the central underground stretch of Line 5 moves at much greater speeds than the surface section in the east, where light rail vehicles are forced to contend with cars at signalized intersections, eliminating many of the benefits of building a costly dedicated right-of-way.

However, the City and TTC have learned key lessons from the disastrous rollout of the Line 6 Finch two months earlier, and are rushing to implement transit signal priority that will drastically improve speeds along the surface section as early as May.