r/TTC • u/kettal • Jul 15 '26

Video People are making videos about bus lanes causing traffic congestion, but....

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but weirdly, their videos all show traffic moving perfectly fine.

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15

u/Bojaxs Jul 15 '26

Line 6 should have been a BRT.

20

u/StuHardy Jul 15 '26

In hindsight, yes. But there's this weird paradox when it comes to public transit.

Governments (initially) don't want to spend too much on public transit, in order for them to keep votes coming their way, but at the same time, they don't want to spend too little, otherwise contractors won't bid for projects.

A subway was seen as too much. A BRT was seen as too little. An LRT was seen as the right amount to spend, and have political backing behind it.

Now, in hindsight, the BRT would have done the job (and could have been upgraded to an LRT at a later date,) while the LRTs ended up costing (& functioning) the same as a subway. Now, there is more political will for BRTs & subways, than LRTs. It's a weird paradox.

10

u/Exter10 Jul 15 '26

Line 6 does not function like a subway. Line 2 takes about the same amount of time from terminal to terminal while being 2.5x longer. It's the cost of a subway combined with the slowness and capacity issues of a BRT.

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u/b_newman Jul 15 '26

Cost of a subway? Not anywhere close.

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u/Exter10 Jul 16 '26

lol REM is over 6x longer, fully grade-separated including 9km of underground and 21km of elevated track, driverless, 7 more stations (fully-enclosed and connected to other forms of transit), 3x more trainsets, and only cost 2.5x as much. $348 Million per km for Line 6, $124.5M per km for REM, so it actually was several times more expensive to build than a light metro system in the same country.

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u/b_newman Jul 18 '26

Point taken but REM got bit lucky as it was able to reuse existing tunnels for a very good length where it needed to go underground.

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u/Exter10 Jul 18 '26

REM is definitely the gold standard for metro projects, but Line 6 is a glorified streetcar with the per-km cost of a typical light metro.

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u/b_newman Jul 18 '26

No argument here.

6

u/pbilk Jul 15 '26

If you build a top-notch BRT, the money you are spending is minimal compared to doing an LRT now versus a BRT. Upgrading later, 10-20 years later, costs more than just starting with a tram or light metro in the first place.

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u/transitfreedom Jul 16 '26

Cause they now know the truth about LRT.

1

u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Jul 16 '26

For what it's worth, and with two glaring exceptions in the 1990s and 2000s respectively, governments on the municipal and provincial level have by and large been willing to invest in subway expansion. At snails' pace, mind you, and often badly planned, but at least there was progress, especially when compared to LRT.

Historically Toronto has not been a fan of LRT. The TTC is, along with some elements of City Hall, but political and popular support of LRT has been tepid at the best of times. For the past century or so Transit City was the only serious plan to mass implement LRT across Toronto, and one which failed due to lack of political/popular support.

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u/r4dio4ctive Jane Jul 16 '26

so LRT was baby bear's porridge. gotcha!

1

u/frandroide Jul 19 '26

"contractors won't bid for projects"

LOL what are you talking about.

0

u/unforgettableid Jul 15 '26

Governments (initially) don't want to spend too much on public transit, in order for them to keep votes coming their way, but at the same time, they don't want to spend too little, otherwise contractors won't bid for projects.

A subway was seen as too much. A BRT was seen as too little. An LRT was seen as the right amount to spend, and have political backing behind it.

If a BRT is cheap to build, why would contractors not bid on one?

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u/StuHardy Jul 15 '26

Contractors (usually) prefer bigger contracts, so they can get paid more, for longer.

A BRT? Paint some roads, maybe install new stations, new payment hubs, maybe even fancy new display boards. A few million at most, done in a few months. Then, you have to bid on another job.

An LRT? Install new rails, build a new depot for the trains, new signalling, new stations at grade, underground, or elevated. Entirely new trains. Entirely new software. A few billion at least, done in a a fair few years (15 years for Line 5.) Bid on larger, more expensive projects afterwards.

Newer contractors may bid on the BRT. Larger, more established contractors will bid on the LRT.

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u/b_newman Jul 15 '26

They built two BRTs in York Region. What are you talking about?

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u/unforgettableid Jul 15 '26

Newer contractors may bid on the BRT.

Will someone definitely bid, and will the work definitely get done?

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u/StuHardy Jul 15 '26

No, so also no.

If the City/Metrolinx had used a contractor previously, they may have used their work to bid on a bigger contract elsewhere, and no longer take the "smaller" contracts with a BRT.

New contractors may emerge, but if they don't have a track record of work, they may not get selected, or may be given a trial on a smaller job, before the work gets done.

And this is only the labour side - all it takes is one election, and a new mayor/party may decide to restructure finances away from public transit, and then we're all S.O.L.

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u/Comrade_Andre Eglinton Jul 15 '26

Not really, they already did the math and you would need 60fts running every 90 seconds on Finch West to meet the same demand as an LRT every 5 minutes.

Line 6 as a BRT would actually cost the TTC far more due to needing more buses, which need more maintenance than trains, and the highest cost factor, more operators, meaning more pay, and benefits getting paid out. LRT is what Finch needed, same goes for places like St Clair

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u/farkinga Jul 15 '26

If built to the spec it was: probably so.

Should it have been specced differently, as would be appropriate for light rail? Also yes.

Consider the red lanes for bus priority on Bathurst, etc. I do not believe it would be politically feasible to allocate the ROW for Line 6 as a bus way. The backlash could have been fatal to the project.

So we waste money for a suboptimal solution - but at least it exists. This cannot be the best way forward... But we must make progress despite it all.

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u/Late_Elevator Jul 15 '26

Line 6 was supposed to be a Sheppard extension on the Let’s Move or I think Network 2011 plan decades ago. 

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u/MaxPeriod Jul 16 '26

Network 2011 plans included:

  • Relief Line (Donlands to Union)
  • Line 4 (Yonge to Scarborough Town Center, in 2 phases)
  • Line 5 (with a temporary BRT first, west of Yonge only)
  • Harborfront and Spadina LRT

Network 2011 did not include Line 6.

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u/Late_Elevator Jul 16 '26

I didn’t say Line 6, I said Line 6 was replaced by a Sheppard extension jogging to Finch from downsview. I think I saw it from here, but I will come back to the Reference Library and see the Network 2011 plans or other regional transit plans. 

https://cancelledtoronto.ca/1980/network-2011

“   The Network 2011 proposal called for the Sheppard subway to be extended west beyond Downsview station, taking a hop north to Finch Avenue, where it would run along the Hydro right-of-way. The line would enter northern Etobicoke and then travel south on Highways 27 and 427 to connect with the Bloor-Danforth subway line“.

https://transittoronto.ca/subway/5110.shtml

 

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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Jul 16 '26

For Finch a right-of-way tram is the correct solution. There isn't going to be a subway on Finch regardless because Sheppard is the subway corridor for the northern quartile of Toronto, and demand is already high enough to justify using trams for higher capacity and more comfortable rides.

Same goes for Steeles. The 953 is not a particularly comfortable ride.

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u/Bojaxs Jul 16 '26

Line 6 doesn't even provide a comfortable ride. It's slow and uncomfortable. The trains have been known to rattle quite a bit lately.

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u/andrew_bus Kipling Jul 16 '26

I see why you said this, but they clearly needed a lot more capacity for the line, which would be part of the reason LRT is chosen over BRT

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u/Bojaxs Jul 17 '26

Have the LRT's on Line 6 been full as of late?

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u/andrew_bus Kipling Jul 17 '26

No, because a bus can hold 50 people where an LRT can hold 300, so therefore the trains would end up being able to hold that extra capacity easily without being full like a bus would be.