Not that I fully agree with the statement: "light rail can be just as fast as a subway" technically.... Just out of curiosity, have you ever been on a subway and tram/LRT in the same city, outside of Canada and the USA?

ION LRT got 15,000 boardings per day in 2024. The 36 Finch West bus got 39,000 boardings per day in 2024. But Kitchener-Waterloo is a unique case and arguably the Regional muncipality had more discretionary spending room than Toronto. Even then they only paid $800 million for 19 km of tram...

@jordanmkasla2009 They're ragebaiting anyone who still has some sympathy for trams in Toronto. Out of the 4 current LRT projects, the only real defence IMO should be for the Hamilton LRT at this point, even if its 2023 routing change is highly suspect. The Hamilton LRT's route has significantly...

I concur with @goodcitywhenfinished @6ixGod . It's not that Mike Harris wasn't awful, it's that a lot of people are not cognizant of the opportunity costs associated with building a tram instead of a metro. Especially if the corridor becomes dense enough to require a high capacity metro in the...

@6ixGod 's long post got as many positive reactions as @T3G 's reply which shows how polarized this forum is on tram vs. subway. 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...

It does matter... with context. If Toronto were a denser, more populated, and geographically larger city than Paris, then in that case it would more plausibly have a dense area like Finch West, much farther away from any CBD, downtown or otherwise. Generally speaking: it also matters because...

Frankfurt Rhine-Main or Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region is ~14,700 sqkm with just under 6 million people. GTHA is 8,200 sqkm with 8.3 million. GTA is 7,100 sqkm with 7.7 million. Regionalverband Frankfurt Rhein-Main is 2,458 sqkm with 2.5 million people. Toronto proper is 630 sqkm with 3.3...

Good anecdote. Yes Europe is not some tram-lined walkable utopia everywhere you go. IMO, another pertinent issue none of us have mentioned with Line 6* (and trams in Toronto) is the distance of the average commute in part caused by zoning. Not that many people are living and working along 10 km...

The premise of your argument is flawed. Vancouver's metro system is already very adequate for a city of its size, at roughly 1/3rd that of Toronto but with 80 km and soon 100 km of metro. The only place lacking metro-tier rail transit is the Millennium line to UBC and an extension/new line along...

Sorry for the ambiguity, by "nominally cheaper" I meant cheaper than building an LRT on Dufferin, Wilson/York Mills or Lawrence for example. It was cheaper to build on Finch West instead, but what we got was negative ROI at this point in time. It would've been better to put that money on...

The premise of your statement is flawed. There basically are no corridors in Toronto that have demand too high for a well-implemented BRT, but too low demand for a metro of any kind. The only areas trams would be suitable are in the areas near or adjacent to downtown. And even then, the roads...

36 bus ridership has not recovered to 2019 levels due to more online courses and less international student growth at Humber College. Also I don't buy the mainstream, pro-corporation narrative that already downplayed record breaking population growth in 2021-2022 by parroting PR issuances of...

A nitpick, Toronto's population is at least 3.3 million as of July 1, 2024, and probably more like 3.5 million due to growth and undercounts of NPRs e.g. visa renewals. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710015201

As an aside from Line 6, which I still think does not deserve a tram: If you look at comparable cities in magnitude and density, among developed and near-developed countries: Toronto has the smallest subway network. There are many cities (metro areas) smaller (less dense) than Toronto with more...

I think I have brought up Paris T9 about two dozen times now, and not one person has explained why the larger and denser Paris has a tram line 15 km closer to downtown than Line 6 of Toronto. Is it at all possible Line 6 was chosen because it was nominally cheaper to build, but this...