The Future of subway and rapid transit in the GTA

[6ixGod]

Well, maybe if we had built the proper transit in the first place?

There is definitely a yearning by some transit advocates to correct this mistake.

I hear you all the way and this is the type of bold vision we need in the corridors of power not only at City Hall but at Queen’s Park. Toronto has grown far faster, economically and socially, than the thinking behind these projects has managed to keep up with. The decision making is still rooted in a version of the city that no longer exists.

At this stage the only thing left is to let Line 6 and Line 5 play out as designed. The frustration you are already hearing around Line 6 is just the trailer. Line 5 will be the main event. Once both lines fail to meet expectations, this kind of implementation will become politically toxic, which is usually the only thing that forces real change here sadly.

Finch West is also not an affluent corridor. It is people working one or two jobs just trying to get by, and they are the ones being slowed down by a line that cannot consistently deliver the basics: reliable service, predictable travel times, signal priority. Meanwhile, a lot of the loudest defenders are commenting from a place of comfort, treating it like just another line on a map they can draw.

People should go ride Line 6 and talk to actual riders. The frustration does not need a consultant’s report.

 

[urbanclient]

Finch West is also not an affluent corridor. It is people working one or two jobs just trying to get by, and they are the ones being slowed down by a line that cannot consistently deliver the basics: reliable service, predictable travel times, signal priority. Meanwhile, a lot of the loudest defenders are commenting from a place of comfort, treating it like just another line on a map they can draw.

People should go ride Line 6 and talk to actual riders. The frustration does not need a consultant’s report.

This exactly. Lots of comfortable people who have the privilege to not ride transit or have never had the privilege to ride good transit are vocal defenders. Affluent enough to not need transit, affluent enough to not care if tax dollars are wasted so long as we "saved" on not paying "more" for a subway. The very definition of a false economy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_economy

Again, I don't think Finch West deserved a tram in retrospect, much less a subway.

I'm tired of hearing people bring up cities that have at most half the density of Toronto city proper (~3 million over 630 sqkm) as shining examples of effective tram lines. It's shortsighted at best and bad faith at worse. I am sure those European trams are effective, but Toronto is not the same. Nominal density is just the tip of the iceberg.

How about we bring up less populated, less dense European and Asian cities with more subway than Toronto instead. And what about Vancouver and Montreal? I tried doing this before and the response I got was a made up alarmist number about Toronto subways costing $10 million to maintain per km aka. $700 million per year aka. a quarter of the TTC operating budget. Not to mention a knock against other cities for having lower ridership per km, which is a direct effect of Toronto having a smaller subway system in comparison.

At the risk of derailing this thread, I'll address the subway issue you have brought up. I firmly believe the issue is we have NOT invested enough in subways historically. Bear in mind, I actually do not think any part of Finch deserves a subway right now or shovels in ground for the next 10 years. The density is just too low. As an aside, Finch LRT was executed mediocrely with travel times likely above the advertised 34 minutes.

I will compare Toronto and its subway to cities/urban areas/metropolitan areas that are similar in land area and population density. To make things fair, I will exclude China and compare to near peer developed nations. *Subways = Metro, short for metropolitan railway which can be elevated, on or under the ground, as long as it's grade separated.

Data from Stats Canada July 1, 2024 estimates.
3.3million 630 sqkm: Toronto city proper
7.1 million 5900 sqkm: Toronto CMA
7.7 million 7123 sqkm: Greater Toronto Area (GTA)
8.3 million 8244 sqkm: Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA)

Toronto: 70.1 km of subway

Vienna: 83.9 km of subway;
2 million 414 sqkm, smaller, less dense city proper, metro area much smaller and less dense

Busan: 116.5 km subway;
3.3 million 770 sqkm, less dense city proper, metro less dense

Madrid: 296.6 km subway;
3.3 million 604 sqkm, slightly denser city proper
7 million 8028 sqkm, smaller and less dense Community of Madrid

Chicago: 165.4km 'L';
2.7 million 607 sqkm, smaller, less dense city proper, similar density urban area?
"Urban area" is cherry picked heavily making comparison difficult: https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US16264-chicago-il-in-urban-area/

Randstad: 145.8km subway;
7.15 million 6296 sqkm, similar density constituent cities, urban areas, and wider "conurbation" area

Athens: 91.7km subway;
3.05 million 412 sqkm, denser urban area,
3.7 million 2928 sqkm, less dense metropolitan area

It's fair to say, Toronto is lacking in subway network length compared to peer cities. The fact that Toronto currently has less subway than Vancouver and Montreal and will have less or equal subway for the foreseeable future is absolutely pitiful. Roughly speaking, Montreal is 2/3rds the size and Vancouver is 1/3rd the size of Toronto.

 

[MisterF]

Please correct me if I am wrong:

I'm aware of some, just not many. Trams and the like averaging ≥30 km/h stop to stop speeds seems to be a rarity. I assume even moreso when a city has both metro and tram since they tend to fill different roles.

I was trying to figure out what their firsthand experiences were with fast trams, because the impression I get on UrbanToronto is that some, not all, have hardly left the North American continent. As such, some views on transit appear to be NA-centric.

Technically, some trams can hit subway average speeds, blurring the line between the two. But as far as I know Calgary C-Train-like speeds are virtually unheard of outside North America, outside of Baltimore, LA, Salt Lake, Edmonton, Dallas.

There are stadtbahns in Germany that are 30 km/h +/- a few km/h, and Bergen in Norway, but I doubt many Urban Toronto posters have been on these systems. Your typical tram in say Berlin or Moscow is not going to hit those speeds. If they were to hit those speeds, then the trams would have large stretches of dedicated ROWs, some in tunnels, some re-using old railway ROWs, which is not realistic for Toronto. At that point, Toronto would likely build a subway or keep the ROW for GO trains instead. Case in point Ontario Line and Yonge North extension. So I mostly disagree with this: "And they don't even need to be fully grade separated to do it." Actually AFAIK any trams hitting faster than subway speeds have a lot of grade separation. Maybe not fully grade separated for the whole length of the line, sure.

A street-running tram is definitely not going to hit subway speeds. And since Toronto's not going to turn a CN/CP/GO ROW into a tram-train like Paris, if we were to elevate or tunnel just for a tram, we might as well build a light metro, as is the case for modern systems in many cities.

Bergen is a very small city in a very wealthy country. AFAIK it is the only non-North American city to build a subway-speed tram in the 21st century that did not mostly consist of a pre-existing dedicated ROW. The 5 German Stadtbahns that approach subway average speeds are legacy systems initially built 35 to 50 years ago.

Well since you mention Calgary, yes it operates at a high speed for urban transit. And a lot of it is at street level, not grade separated and has headways of 5 minutes last time I was there. That alone proves that it can be done. But since you want more examples, how about that study that made the rounds earlier in the year that compared the average speeds of tram (not LRT) systems? It showed that the average speed of the Utrecht system was 28 km/h and noted that in most cities the speeds were higher in the suburbs, so a Finch-style corridor in that city would undoubtedly be faster than the overall average. Prague is another one - their trams are very LRT-like outside the city centre. You can get from Zlicin to downtown in around 20 minutes, an average speed of around 30 km/h. And it doesn't have the fancy railway gates that you see in Alberta.

So again, LRT or even just old fashioned trams can be fast if you do them properly.

Modern automated metro is the way to go for a city the size of Toronto. It's not likely that Metrolinx would pigeonhole a tram into a dedicated ROW like Eglinton again... right? Right?

Modern automated metro is a way to go. Not every route has the same needs. Not every part of the city needs a full metro. Street-running LRT is adequate for some areas while a metro, light metro, or regional trains are better solutions for others.

Can we stop implying that Toronto is too big for LRT? Some of the biggest cities in the world are building LRT to complement their subway systems. Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, Taipei, Istanbul - all have modern LRT. A city is never too big for LRT.

I'm tired of hearing people bring up cities that have at most half the density of Toronto city proper (~3 million over 630 sqkm) as shining examples of effective tram lines. It's shortsighted at best and bad faith at worse. I am sure those European trams are effective, but Toronto is not the same. Nominal density is just the tip of the iceberg.

How about we bring up less populated, less dense European and Asian cities with more subway than Toronto instead. And what about Vancouver and Montreal? I tried doing this before and the response I got was a made up alarmist number about Toronto subways costing $10 million to maintain per km aka. $700 million per year aka. a quarter of the TTC operating budget. Not to mention a knock against other cities for having lower ridership per km, which is a direct effect of Toronto having a smaller subway system in comparison.

The subway system being underbuilt doesn't mean that LRT has no place. Arguing against transit expansion because it's not the kind you want doesn't help transit expansion, it hurts it.

 

[urbanclient]

Well since you mention Calgary, yes it operates at a high speed for urban transit. And a lot of it is at street level, not grade separated and has headways of 5 minutes last time I was there. That alone proves that it can be done. But since you want more examples, how about that study that made the rounds earlier in the year that compared the average speeds of tram (not LRT) systems?

Trams, LRTs, they mean the same thing for most inhabitants of Earth exposed to this transit mode. LRTs are just a made up term in the North American and Asian context, meaning two different things in two different places. In Asia, LRT means light metro. Consequently, a tunnelled German stadtbahn might be called literally 'light rail' by someone from Asia. But I digress: most places, including Europe and Asia could and would refer to North American LRTs as trams. Certainly Line 6 would be called a tram. That's literally what it is. If LRT means upgraded tram to you, Line 6 wouldn't even qualify, especially since it is physically forced to run slower in its tunnelled sections than its median surface sections.

I mentioned Calgary specifically to say it was just as fast as a subway, why are you bringing this up like a "gotcha" moment? It appears you completely missed my point about Toronto not being able to reuse railway ROWs for trams. The majority of the CTrain lines run in dedicated ROWs, much of it old railway, notably excepting the downtown section. I also mentioned Baltimore, LA, Salt Lake, Edmonton, Dallas and 6 European examples of trams that are as fast as subways. I asked others to chime in with more examples. The point was that dedicated ROWs (even if they have level crossings e.g. CTrain) are one of the key factors that allow trams to hit subway speeds. If the CTrain had short stop spacing and only street running segments, it would be much slower. In reality, the CTrain actually has wider stop spacing than the Toronto subway...

To say in broad strokes that trams can be as fast as subways by only mentioning trams that partially run in old railway ROWs is highly misleading in the context of future GTA transit.

There are also proportionally more fast trams in North America compared to Europe. And North America has less trams than Europe to begin with. The vast majority of Europe's trams, many of which are done well, like Amsterdam, are slower than subways. Look at the plethora of trams (and LRTs) listed for the whole world, the vast majority of which are slower than a typical subway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tram_and_light_rail_transit_systems

Conversely, the vast majority of trams that happen to be faster than metro are at least partially running on previous railway ROWs, if not using other grade separated ROWs like tunnels. Just because an ROW isn't fully grade separated doesn't meant it's not a dedicated ROW.

For clarity, I'm going to refer to 'subway' as 'metro' below:
I don't like hearing this denial by exception fallacy, as if an exception to the rule that metros are faster than trams somehow disproves the general rule.

And it's not just about the rule, we need to think about why exactly metros are faster than trams. Wider stop spacing, dedicated ROWs, high floor rolling stock with door width, seating and floor layouts that are conducive to fast boarding and alighting which reduces dwell times. If we take a modern high floor tram, which is hardly different from a high floor metro train, and give it wide stop spacing and dedicated ROWs, at what point does it become a full blown metro? Full grade separation? Hypothetically, is a high floor tram running in a tunnel with 2 km stop spacing and platform screen doors** any different from a metro? **see Seville Metro PSDs
The point is: what we call something doesn't matter as much as that something's substance.

Straight from wikipedia: "Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology [...] Narrowly defined, light rail transit uses rolling stock that is similar to that of a traditional tram, while operating at a higher capacity and speed, often on an exclusive right-of-way. In broader usage, light rail transit can include tram-like operations mostly on streets.[10] Some light rail networks have characteristics closer to rapid transit. Only when these systems are fully grade-separated, they are referred to as light metros or light rail rapid transit (LRRT)." Emphasis mine

Changchun China has Lines 3, 4 and 8 running low floor tram vehicles, but they are functionally metros and are often referred to as such. Calling it a tram just to prove that trams can be as fast as metros would be farcical.

 

[urbanclient]

It showed that the average speed of the Utrecht system was 28 km/h and noted that in most cities the speeds were higher in the suburbs, so a Finch-style corridor in that city would undoubtedly be faster than the overall average.

That study showed that Utrecht's system actually slowed down on average from 30.5 to 27.5 km/h from 2010 to 2021 (for several reasons). I would consider this slower than a metro, albeit not by much. Utrecht's sneltram has stop spacing approaching 1 km, so it's no surprise that it's fast. The spacing makes it closer to a metro than most trams, including Line 5 and 6 in Toronto. The claim that a Finch-style corridor in Utrecht would undoubtedly be faster is a false inference. Utrecht has lots of dedicated ROWs and level crossings on top of wider stop spacing. Just because something isn't fully grade separated doesn't mean it's not grade separated at all. Line 6 Finch West is hardly grade separated in comparison.

Prague is another one - their trams are very LRT-like outside the city centre. You can get from Zlicin to downtown in around 20 minutes, an average speed of around 30 km/h. And it doesn't have the fancy railway gates that you see in Alberta.

Where are you getting Zlicin to downtown in 20 minutes on the tram? That sounds like Metro Line B trip times, not Tram 9 from Zlicin to Prague 1 or 2. Tram 9 is supposed to take 50-56 minutes to travel 17.4 km, nowhere close to 30 km/h, even for the faster segments, like the 10 to 12 km trip from Zlicin to downtown. IMO this is clearly a false claim. Maybe someone more familiar with Prague can chime in just in case I'm wrong.

My point is, and the point of many other knowledgeable UrbanToronto members for many years is that trams that run with wide stop spacing, with large stretches of dedicated ROWs do indeed blur the line between tram and 'metro'. But when you start building dedicated ROWs like tunnels and viaducts for a greenfield transit project, you might as well use metro, because a high floor tram is essentially the same thing. The upfront cost difference is negligible AFAIK. And running metro rolling stock doesn't have to mean running 3+ metre wide, 140 metre long trains like the Toronto Rocket. Many large European cities run shorter and narrower metro trains compared to even Line 4 Sheppard's 90 metre trains.

All of the faster-than-metro 'tram-trains' in Paris are literally running on recently used passenger railways. As mentioned before, unfortunately, Toronto is not going to repurpose railway ROWs for any future trams, high floor, low floor or otherwise. Thus in Toronto, a hypothetical fast tram would very likely be predicated on building tunnels or elevated guideways i.e. Line 5.

Consider how appropriating CN and CP ROWs for GO trains is harder than pulling teeth on more than one level: political, financial etc... Not to mention the plethora of reasons behind the unsuitability of GTA freight and GO ROWs for conversion to tram.

As an aside, something that many UrbanToronto members (including myself until recently) probably don't know is that LRT or Light Rail Transit, doesn't even use 'light' vehicles. By 'light' I mean lower in mass or lower in weight than say, an equal length metro train car. Case in point: Toronto Rockets vs. Line 5 Eglinton Flexity Freedoms.

A 30.8 metre long Flexity Freedom trainset weighs 48,200 kg or around 1565 kg/metre. A 137.82 metre long Toronto Rocket weighs 205,500 kg or around 1491 kg/metre. The low floor Freedom is only 2.65 metres wide, the high floor Rocket is 3.137 metres wide. Freedoms are 3.6 metres tall, Rockets are 3.645 metres tall. Narrower, shorter LRVs somehow weigh more per metre than wider, taller subway trains in Toronto. Feel free to fact check this.

IMO, what 'light' really means in practice is 'light' duty, as opposed to 'heavy' duty, heavy rail or heavy metro. In Toronto's case, we're literally paying more to get less, not just less room inside, but slower boarding & alighting due to the narrow doors, seat-heavy layout, and floor hump from the bogies.

So again, LRT or even just old fashioned trams can be fast if you do them properly.

Do them properly? What does that even mean? As I've demonstrated, doing them "properly" by your count would actually mean some combination of more grade separation like the CTrain, wide stop spacing every 1 km like a metro, and oftentimes, but not always, high floor rolling stock like a metro. At which point the tram is borderline a metro. This isn't a groundbreaking revelation. Hence why automated light metro would make more economic sense at that point. Not to mention lower labour costs as well as added safety + reliability from PSDs. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. So let's commit to it being an automated duck with platform screen doors.

 

[urbanclient]

Modern automated metro is a way to go. Not every route has the same needs. Not every part of the city needs a full metro. Street-running LRT is adequate for some areas while a metro, light metro, or regional trains are better solutions for others.

I never said automated metro was the end all be all transit mode. But I'm not backing down from thinking Eglinton deserved a light metro at least.

Subway expansion over tram expansion for a city of its weight class is not a regressive, Fordian neoconservative doctrine or conspiracy to ruin transit. 8.3 million people, 100 skyscrapers downtown and growing, Toronto is top 20 in the world for total skyscrapers, easily top 20 for high-rise density in its downtown, and yet Toronto is far from a top 20 city in terms of rapid transit.

We're not saying trams shouldn't exist anywhere, but that trams don't work well for Toronto [right now]. Even if you save on upfront costs with trams, you lose big on marginal benefits.

Trams work great in many medium density, medium sized cities. Toronto today is not a medium density, medium sized city. It is no longer a small skyscraper downtown surrounded by disparate, unconnected suburbs and municipalities. Furthermore, Toronto's street layout and geography adjacent to downtown* are not conducive for more tram expansion. *where the nominal density may justify trams

The GTHA no matter how you classify it, is either a megalopolis or megacity, currently 8.3+ million up from 6.8 million in 2014, and easily approaching 10 million by 2040, the latter of which Metrolinx concurs [1]. If you were to look at the largest monocentric cities in Western Europe, Toronto would rank 3rd only behind London and Paris. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, Toronto is going to have a metro system 4 to 7 times smaller than Paris and London.

In an unlimited budget utopia, would Toronto have dozens of fast trams in low density suburbs instead of buses? Maybe. But considering the realities at hand, a limited budget, growing population, urban morphology, human geography....prioritizing futureproof subway expansion in denser areas just makes more sense. [... continued]

Can we stop implying that Toronto is too big for LRT? Some of the biggest cities in the world are building LRT to complement their subway systems. Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, Taipei, Istanbul - all have modern LRT. A city is never too big for LRT.

The subway system being underbuilt doesn't mean that LRT has no place. Arguing against transit expansion because it's not the kind you want doesn't help transit expansion, it hurts it.

I am well aware of trams being expanded in Paris and Istanbul.

I have brought up Paris building tram(s) in the periphery of its core many, many times on this forum (T9). Istanbul is in a similar situation. These are two megacities that already have extensive metro systems nearly the same length ~240 km; but they are both still expanding metro at a rapid pace. Paris' Grand Paris Express is a doubling of the Paris metro from 200 km to 400 km, and Istanbul is currently building another 105 km of metro in the next 5 years with another 125 km in planning. In both cities, they are building fast, express metro lines averaging 2+ times the average speed of the old Paris metro, which was often slow due to notoriously tight stop spacing in the Ville de Paris. Paris and Istanbul are also not building trams in their highest density areas.

They built and are building trams partly because they already have very adequate rail systems, as opposed to Toronto. They are also continuing to expand their metros and RERs, at a higher rate than their trams. Also note how Paris is expecting to hit Toronto subway ridership per km numbers for their 200 km metro expansion despite 3 km wide stop spacing, virtually all outside Paris city proper.

This is all not to mention the unsuitability of the streets outside downtown Toronto for tram expansion. If new trams were built in the areas adjacent to Downtown Toronto, they would be just as slow as any other street running tram, i.e. TTC streetcars, Line 6 Finch West. Magically transposing wishful thinking about 1.33 km stop spacing, dedicated ROW, high floor CTrain speeds onto low floor trams on narrow Toronto streets is not compatible with reality.

I advocate for Toronto to catch up on the metro and RER front before trying to complement its paltry rail system with trams in the periphery. I never said "never under any circumstances should the GTHA ever build a tram again."
I support the Hamilton LRT, even if it's being kneecapped with 2023 routing changes.

See attached images related to Istanbul and Paris:

 

[urbanclient]

Can we stop implying that Toronto is too big for LRT? Some of the biggest cities in the world are building LRT to complement their subway systems. Shanghai, Paris, Los Angeles, Taipei, Istanbul - all have modern LRT. A city is never too big for LRT.

The subway system being underbuilt doesn't mean that LRT has no place. Arguing against transit expansion because it's not the kind you want doesn't help transit expansion, it hurts it.

The GTHA is not too big for trams in every square inch of its area, but right now, more focus should be put on higher ROI projects that can move more people per $ i.e. metros.

Los Angeles is also a weak example with absolutely abysmal ridership relative to its population and route length if you're trying to claim its 'complementary' effect. LA's 'Metro Rail' also *surprise surprise* reuses lots of old railway ROW and uses high floor trains. LA's C line 'LRT' is fully grade separated like Ottawa's Line 1. The K line is their CTrain equivalent. 130,000 of LA Metro Rail's 200,000 daily ridership comes from 32 km of 'subway', the remaining 60-70,000 daily ridership comes from 163 km of 'LRT'. For reference, the 26 km Line 2 Bloor gets 400,000 daily ridership. TTC streetcars get more than 220,000 daily ridership from 83 km.

Shanghai (and China in general) is also an awful example, probably the worst example on Earth as trams have not been received well there, whereas metros have been very well received; and Shanghai's first modern tram that opened on Dec 31, 2009 actually closed down 2.5 years ago and was fully dismantled over a matter of days.

Everyone there, from the politicians to the average citizenry are aware of how bad the demolished trams were, that's why the ridership was so low compared to the metro, that's why so many tram plans have been mothballed whereas metro plans have been further amplified.

Even 10 years ago, many Chinese cities had congestion so bad, that it made Toronto streets look like the 407. So why exactly do they prefer metros over trams to such a degree? There are other examples in China of new trams being dismantled, tram plans in limbo or plans cancelled outright. https://www.hzzx.gov.cn/content/2023-06/01/content_8547242.htm

Zhuhai's tram closed in 2021 about 3.5 years after opening in 2017, despite it being a growing city near the top 30 in the world for skyscrapers. Zhuhai is not some rural backwater, it's a tourism and university city next to Macau, near Guangzhou and across the bay from Shenzhen & Hong Kong.

The issue with China's trams is similar to Toronto, it either isn't feasible to widen or change existing streets to suit (fast) trams, and/or it isn't feasible to reappropriate railway ROWs. China is desperately building more freight rail lines to satisfy demand, and more passenger rail to spur the economy; they cannot spare any ROWs for conversion into metro, much less tram. The logic is the same: if they have to build tunnels or viaducts to get a fast tram, they might as well build a metro. Therefore, it's not surprising that China has 12,000 km of metro, but less than 600 km of tram.

Canada and China share another similarity in urban population growth; although China now faces a declining total population, it has a rapid urbanization rate which leads to high population growth in cities. In a similar guise, Canada still has a high immigration rate relative to most countries, which also leads to high population growth in cities.

It's this population growth rate that stands in contrast with comparatively stagnant or declining European tram cities. In light of the Century Initiative, is it unreasonable to assume Canada's population could at least double by 2100? If the Initiative comes to fruition, hypothetical tram lines could be overwhelmed by demand. Conversely, areas that should get tram in anticipation of the Initiative may not get tram early enough. Ironically, that's why I am not even that upset that Line 6 got built.

Believe it or not, metro is not my preferred mode for transit. But IMO it is the pragmatic choice for Toronto for the foreseeable future, at least until Toronto's metaphorical metro backlog gets cleared.

@MisterF you're only demonstrating a *surface level* knowledge of how these trams fit in these cities you mentioned. Maybe you know more than you're letting on, but I haven't seen any counterarguments against running metro instead of fast trams beyond pointing out the obvious: that a tram running in old railway ROW with wide stop spacing is just as fast as metro.