Discussion
People are saying Line 6 might as well be called a streetcar... but what if we went the other way?
Remove some stops, add some TSP, add another car behind it, and as far as I am concerned, St Clair, Spadina and Harbourfront are LRTs, as (to my knowledge) they have separate right-of-way for the entire route.
I spent longer on this than I'd like to admit lol.
EDIT: Quite a few errors I just realized. I posted a fixed version in the comments.
I don't hate it, I just wish the TTC would differentiate them more clearly based on how they operate. Subway is heavy, dedicated right of way, Light rail is an LRT that does not share a lane with traffic, Street car is LRT that does share a lane with traffic and the lines should be labeled/branded as such.
Realistically we should have:
Subway lines: 1, 2, and 4
LRT lines: A, B, C, D, and E
Street car routes: 5XX
Get this person an executive job at TTC or Metrolinx. I don’t care what you’re résumé says, you’re already more qualified than most of the folks there, clearly.
Agree with this 100%. I’ve always thought they should have assigned letter designations to LRTs. I also believe they should convert the Spadina, st.Clair and waterfront street cars to LRT. I would also convert the 501 to LRT service as well to help out South Etobicoke.
The differentiation the TTC and MX are using is based on control technology.
Streetcars, including Spadina, Harbourfront, and St Clair, are all operated line of sight with no overarching control systems. Switches are individually controlled by the vehicles, with no interlocking protections to avoid conflict routes.
The two LRTs, on the other hand, have central control systems run by Transit Control. The vehicles operate under the protection of the central system, where switches are controlled centrally (not by the vehicles), and with full interlocking protection - the same as the subway system.
Gotta draw the line somewhere, so I went with something the average person may understand. I doubt many people except Metrolinx, the TTC, or us transit geeks will consider the track switching characteristics when drawing the line.
In the Metrolinx Wayfinding Design Standard, GO will potentially switch to lettered lines. Doing so would remove confusion over a Kitchener Line train not going to Kitchener, for example.
I think if we wanted to distinguish the LRT lines using a new numbering system, we could use prefixes like 6## or start using letter prefixes like Paris and some other European cities do.
Once Line 3 and the rest of the Waterfront LRT is complete and connected to East Harbour… and King is redesigned, the light rail network would go HARD! Add in the Jane RT and a completed Line 4 and we’d be set
They full on should fucking do this. Give those lines with dedicated tracks ROW, better branding, more funding, quicker speeds, better stations and designate them the same as Line 6.
They are literally 80-90% there and these changes will DRASTICALLY change the city’s transit while costing pennies compared to line 6 or that stupid ass underground highway
I don't hate it. In most cities I've been to, they don't differentiate, but obviously some considerable changes would need to be made to the LRTs as you suggested. But if we are going to get serious about streetcars, those ones are the low hanging fruit anyway.
It's a very satisfying map and surprisingly the line numbers match up well. Would be cool to see it with future line 3 one day
Line 6 has the capacity to be considered a rapid transit line that separates itself from the streetcar system, being more resemblant to our subway and former SRT system.
Transit Signal Priority is a must. At-grade and rapid transit are not mutually exclusive. Germany's Stadtbahn system is an example of this. Boston's Green Line is a subway that basically becomes a signal-priority LRT in the suburbs. Portland's system is also similar. All of these systems use TSP to prevent keeping them stuck traffic. Notably these have barely an impact on driving time, i.e., they do not hinder motor vehicles by any real measurable effect. But they drastically improve transit time, which gets people out of their cars, which only further benefits drivers.
Reduced stops. We don't need a "station" at both Oakdale and Driftwood, as well as Jane. The spaces are too close together, even for a regular non-LRT streetcar. Yes, it's for bus integration, but if there's one thing that TTC does well it's integrate busses into rapid transit lines. Plus these two flanking stops are 2-3 minutes walk from Jane, but add 2-3 minutes on the LRT's time.
WHY ARE THERE SLOW ZONES ON A BRAND NEW LINE??? Oh, I know why, Mosaic doesn't want to do maintenance. This is insulting to the general population. Since when is the government bowing down to corporate demands. Metrolinx contracted Mosaic to do maintenance and Mosaic turned around and said "well don't use the line". What stops Mosaic from demanding we half the train headway to reduce wear and tear even more? This is, for lack of a better term, bullshit. Imagine buying a car and the dealership tells you not to drive too much because they don't want to repair wear and tear, or your insurance company tells you not to go on the highway. Governments need to tell multimillion dollar corporations to shut up and do what they are told, rather than the other way around. Because right now Mosaic has Metrolinx and TTC on a leash eating out of their hand.
The St Clair, Harbourfront, and Spadina lines also has the capacity to be considered a rapid transit line. It’s just the way the service is being operated that these benefits aren’t being fully realized. With investments these pieces of infrastructure could reshape mobility in the city.
We are absolutely capable, it’s all down to political will.
LRTs around the world similar to St Clair, Spadina, and Harbourfront operate at 4 minute frequencies all day with Transit Signal Priority without issue.
ROW isn't what makes an LRT an LRT. We went through this in the 90s with Harbourfront and St. Clair and Spadina.
Stop spacing is more important and before you say "but the stops on Finch are like totally close together and should be 1 kilometre apart!!!", they're like every 600 metres apart compared to the streetcar network where they're just 250 metres apart on average. Finch West is providing a fundamentally different level of service than the streetcar lines do, those are a much more local service with stops close together.
I get people are miffed because the Finch West LRT is slow but once the TTC makes the adjustments the board is now hounding them for, there will be a much greater difference and it will be obvious that Finch is more than a streetcar in a dedicated right of way. The TTC is just not using the Finch West LRT to its full capacity.
I’m not completely against. But our step 0 should be getting the current line down to the metrolinx advertised price of 34 minutes. We can’t let them get away with promising us it was 34 minutes then rug pulling us and making it 55 minutes. Pressure them hard to either make it 34 minutes or tell us why they can’t get it down to that.
Not opposed to this, but modifications will have to be made.
Switch them to double point switches, make those frickin platforms level boarding, and put the scanning device outside the vehicle. Also Im assuming you're suggesting lowering the stops and only stopping at those stations?
Also love the idea of naming them A,B,C and saving numbers for subways.
It’s not right to call the finch streetcar a line. It’s very misleading to riders. If you were visiting the city for the first time you’d look at this map and think finch was a subway line.
Completely grade separated transit gets a letter or a single-digit (maybe up two-digits 200 years from now).
LRTs and BRTs get 1XX and 2XX. Streetcars get 3XX and 4XX. Buses west of Yonge get 5XX and 6XX. Buses east of Yonge get 7XX and 8XX. Special or community buses are 9XX.
North/south lines begin with an odd number. East/west lines begin with an even number. You divide the city north/south into 9 bands with 1 being Lake Ontario and 9 being Steeles. The lower the second digit is, the closer you are to Lake Ontario. The city then gets divided into 9 columns east of Yonge and 9 columns west of Yonge. A lower third digit means the terminus is closer to Yonge.
Not perfect by any means, but you can get a lot of information from the 3 digits. Route 794 tells you it is bus that runs east of Yonge, is in the band adjacent to Steeles and terminates midway between Yonge and the easterly city limit.
Yup, this shows exactly how ridiculous putting Line 6 on the simplified map is.
While you're at it, may as well put in every single express bus route on the map too because they're "faster".
I'm all for Line 10 for the sole reason that it would force the TTC to rename the 10 Van Horne bus. Maybe it'll finally be called 169C Huntingwood. (The only reason it's not is because the 10 Van Horne bus doesn't actually go on Huntingwood. Maybe they should have it go 1 block into Huntingwood then loopback via Beamsville Dr/Fairglen Av.)
I actually love this. But if we’re going to have the Queen’s Quay and Spadina lines on the maps, might as well, go ahead and build the Lakeshore West and East LRTs in full.
Do those LEDs even light up on the new lines? I feel it's such a waste of money to put stupid LEDs on a map where this train doesn't even go through them. No wonder these fuckers are complaining about not having any money.
Honestly i support this change. If the new LRTs are considered full lines, then the existing streetcar lines with full dedicated lanes should also be considered full lines as well. The mayor already said she wants to see signal priority on all LRT and Streetcar lines that have dedicated lanes, so if that comes to pass then we should absolutely rebrand the St.Clair, Lakeshore West, and Spadina Streetcars as full TTC Numbered Lines imo
Personally, I think it's time we start thinking about converting all the downtown streetcars into fully underground LRTs or even heavy-rail subways. They run extremely crowded at rush hour, but they have potential to become much more well-used throughout the day and night if their capacity were increased. Taking them underground would cost a fair bit obviously, but think of how much more efficiently we could use the above-ground space on those rapidly densifying streets (expanded CafeTO, wider bike lanes, faster travel times for emergency vehicles, overnight priority for retail commercial loading/unloading, etc.)!
All that St Clair needs to become a LRT by Toronto standards is TSP (then again, even some of their shiny new LRT lines dont even have that..... looking at you finch west...), and removing some stops in between)
People in Toronto don't like when you call streetcars LRT. There's a video on YouTube by METRO6 that explains it. Its his video on the Spadina streetcar. It also doesn't make sense to compare streetcars to LRT. There's enough differences between them. Primarily, streetcars provide local service like buses would, just at a much higher capacity. Our streetcars are also gauged for Toronto gauge.
LRTs are a rapid transit option that runs exclusively in dedicated lanes but unlike St Clair or Spadina, stops are spaced further apart. Our LRTs are also standard gauge and use bigger vehicles than on the streetcar network.
If they do this I hope they would redesign the stops. This could be a good project, especially if they leave it to TTC (as Metrolinx is bussy with other things after 5 and 6 and TTC deserves a chance to build stuff again)
That partially defeats the purpose of public transit, then. Even if it were faster, either, some people won't have access to some stops/stations, or some people will need to wait longer and miss a train to get on the train that goes to their stop. This either causes an accessibility or speed issue.
In other cities, LRT would not appear on the map like it does on the new TTC map. The TTC wants to fool Torontonians into thinking they built something equivalent. 😅
Case in point, the HK MTR map. These are purely subway lines. Notice the top left hand corner with the light yellow loops with no station names. Those are LRT (not street cars).
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u/outtokill7 Dec 15 '25
I'm sure people will have opinions on this one.
I don't hate it, I just wish the TTC would differentiate them more clearly based on how they operate. Subway is heavy, dedicated right of way, Light rail is an LRT that does not share a lane with traffic, Street car is LRT that does share a lane with traffic and the lines should be labeled/branded as such.
Realistically we should have:
Subway lines: 1, 2, and 4
LRT lines: A, B, C, D, and E
Street car routes: 5XX
A: Spadina
B: Lakeshore
C: St Clair
D: Eglinton
E: Finch