[IRT_BMT_IND]

- Capacity is an issue. I rode this line a couple times between 4pm-530pm ( took a break and ate at the Yonge & Eg food court) and the trains we

Metrolinx/TTC will probably increase frequencies before adding a third car. Remember that frequencies will increase after the soft launch period is done (if crowding is a problem and the line operates without the same kind of drama Finch West has maybe this should be moved up), and the underground segment can support trains around every 2'30" (I would hope Metrolinx procured enough trains to allow this).

I'm surprised they didn't put some kind of barrier or walls like on Line 4, where the trains don't stop - I don't think there's any plan for 3-car trains in the forseeable future. Especially when they've bothered to stick barriers on the platform between the cars (!).

When the Blue Line in Montreal ran with short trains the STM used railings on the platform, though I can't find any pictures of this.

 

[mikey7767]

Ah, but declaring on behalf of the line's users that actually, buses were enough for them until such time as a full subway was feasible is quite a bit more than merely criticizing the line.

Thanks mods for censoring basic communication both from him and from me....I'm sure y'all will keep up deleting posts your sensitive souls don't like.

Anyways, I'll respond to the portions that they removed that I believe you said from memory.

"Not a frequent user" -> Yes, I'm a frequent user of transit and I am from Scarborough.

"Preferring over crowded buses over an LRT with it's own lane" -> Not when the cost is half that of a subway but doesn't even provide half the benefits, and is in reality slower than the buses it replaces.

Most of all "eating up transit dollars with overpriced subways" -> I could argue the same point here. We could have had a BRT and ran multiple buses to meet the demand. And the heavy and expensive costs of these LRTs eat up transit dollars so we can't have buses on their own dedicated lanes throughout the city because these rails are eating up the transit dollars. The benefits of the BRTs are very close to that of the LRT, but at one tenth or less the cost. And as for the capacity, running more buses would fix the problem. There isn't a major gap from the max capacity a BRT can provide and the capacity that would justify a subway after. Best of all, you can build these BRTs throughout like ten corridors for the cost of one LRT.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Metrolinx/TTC will probably increase frequencies before adding a third car.

I spoke with a TTC supervisor about that on sunday and they said they are working on adding the third car. Apparently, there was a software problem that was causing them to not work well in a three car tarin set, but they are hoping to have it solved by the summer

 

[kotsy]

Avenue is the deepest on the whole line and even the escalators, you have to take like 5 to street level. In fact it has dethroned Highway 407 as the deepest on the whole TTC network.

This got me curious as to both stations depths. Highway 407 is 21.1m deep and Avenue crushed the record with 32m. This record will be smashed again when Queen Station opens on the Ontario Line at a depth of 45m. And like the previous record, it may not be able to enjoy being the deepest for long as Royal Orchard Station on the Yonge North extension is proposed to be 50m deep!

For reference, the deepest station in the London Underground is Hamstead Station at a depth or 58.5m and the U.S.'s record is 79m at Washington Park Station in Portland. Then there's the deepest in the world - located at Hongyancun Station in Chongqing in China at 116m.

/waste of everyone's time

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

Can they run 3 car trains instead of just 2 cars? Are the platforms long enough?

The stations are 100% built to accommodate a third car. Just a matter of, well, getting more vehicles, which is much easier said then done....

 

[thettctransitfanatic]

This got me curious as to both stations depths. Highway 407 is 21.1m deep and Avenue crushed the record with 32m. This record will be smashed again when Queen Station opens on the Ontario Line at a depth of 45m. And like the previous record, it may not be able to enjoy being the deepest for long as Royal Orchard Station on the Yonge North extension is proposed to be 50m deep!

For reference, the deepest station in the London Underground is Hamstead Station at a depth or 58.5m and the U.S.'s record is 79m at Washington Park Station in Portland. Then there's the deepest in the world - located at Hongyancun Station in Chongqing in China at 116m.

/waste of everyone's time

I knew about Queen. It has to be due to the utilities but holy smokes about that Yonge North extension station. Maybe the next new station will be dug to the Earth's core, haha.

 

[nfitz]

Not when the cost is half that of a subway but doesn't even provide half the benefits, and is in reality slower than the buses it replaces.

With the cost to date of $9.3 billion for Line 5, and $2.9 billion for line 6, the cost is about a third of that of subway, not half (yeah, even when you correct for the length of surface vs underground and the line lengths - two equations two unknowns).

And that's just the construction. The long-term O&M (not including TTC operations cost) is closer to one-quarter.

Meanwhile the 18-km Mississauga transitway cost $600 million a decade ago. And about a decade ago the 19-km Waterloo ION LRT cost $820 million.

Perhaps it's not as simple as BRT is 1/10th the cost of an LRT. Perhaps you mean applying red paint on roadways?

 

[81-717]

Most rail vehicles ordered all over the western world are bespoke

Everyone knows which ones are the most bespoke...

A Flexity in Toronto is only supercifically similar to a Flexity in Vienna.

About the same as the TR vs the C20/C30?

If what they have in common is the propulsion, then they are basically the same vehicle.

 

[mikey7767]

With the cost to date of $9.3 billion for Line 5, and $2.9 billion for line 6, the cost is about a third of that of subway, not half (yeah, even when you correct for the length of surface vs underground and the line lengths - two equations two unknowns).

And that's just the construction. The long-term O&M (not including TTC operations cost) is closer to one-quarter.

Meanwhile the 18-km Mississauga transitway cost $600 million a decade ago. And about a decade ago the 19-km Waterloo ION LRT cost $820 million.

Perhaps it's not as simple as BRT is 1/10th the cost of an LRT. Perhaps you mean applying red paint on roadways?

The cost of Line 5 has been over $13 Billion. Finch West over $3.5 Billion. I don't know where you are getting your numbers from.

 

[Voltz]

The cost of Line 5 has been over $13 Billion. Finch West over $3.5 Billion. I don't know where you are getting your numbers from.

Those numbers include 30 years of maintenance and operations, previous costs for subway lines didn’t include that.

 

[Westey]

"Preferring over crowded buses over an LRT with it's own lane" -> Not when the cost is half that of a subway but doesn't even provide half the benefits, and is in reality slower than the buses it replaces.

I thought the LRT, the Eglinton Crosstown, cost about $8B at the time, and the "subway", the Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown, cost $2B more.
So saying 80% the cost of subway is more accurate.

 

[Johnny Au]

February 8, 2026:

Train Interior at Mount Dennis Station:

LRT Entrance to EMSF:

Black Creek Drive:

Black Creek:

 

[picard102]

The yonge line is currently at capacity; I guess we should’ve built catapults?

That happened after 50 years. Not at opening.

 

[zang]

Proper signal priority doesn't make a tram run at metro level speeds, nowhere in the world I can think of where that's the case unless it's in the stroadiest of stroads where it's basically a heavy rail line anyways. Most on street tram routes cap out at 25km/h average even with strong signal priority.

Or we could put up signal gates, and much stronger enforcement of blocking the box.

If heavy rail can do level crossings at that speed, what’s truly stopping an LRT beyond “cars”?

Who? Most of the vocal advocates here use the terms metro and subway interchangeably. Subway to most people is just the North American word for metro, and doesn't actually have to be underground. The New York City "Subway" has far more above ground sections than underground.

You can click buttons, can’t you? I’m not going to systematically name users here for reasons of not being that kind of a-hole. But they’re here.

And the people complaining “Ford was right” seem to forget Ford’s “subway” was a chained LRT vehicle entirely underground. Not heavy rail.

 

[nfitz]

The cost of Line 5 has been over $13 Billion. Finch West over $3.5 Billion. I don't know where you are getting your numbers from.

I'm getting my numbers from Metrolinx's quarterly report released this week for spending through the end of 2025.

I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers - but looking at Metrolinx's numbers, it appear you have used the cost to build what they've built to date PLUS all the O&M spending for decades into the future!

Why not use the current costs for construction, rather than all the future costs?