How NOT to build public transit (Toronto’s Streetcars)
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2024
- Streetcars in North America have a bad reputation for being slow and "causing traffic". But trams can be a fast, reliable, and efficient transit option, as long as we prioritize just like the rest of the world.
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➜ References:
The real story behind the demise of America's once-mighty streetcars
www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/...
Fighting Traffic - The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City
mitpress.mit.edu/978026251612...
Toronto's First Subway
torontopubliclibrary.typepad....
www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/...
transittoronto.ca/archives/we...
Downs-Thompson Paradox
• Do Your Buses Get Stuc...
Transit Signal Priority Lecture
• 19. Transit Signal Pri...
Transit Ridership Statistics
www.ttc.ca/transparency-and-a...
www.apta.com/research-technic...
Traffic violations on King St.
schoolofcities.github.io/king...
➜ Timestamps:
0:00 Transit in America sucks
1:19 The rise and fall of streetcars
3:33 Toronto's car-centric mindset
4:52 Streetcars do not cause traffic
6:48 Giving streetcars priority
10:31 User experience & accessibility
11:51 Wasted opportunity
13:08 King St Transit Priority Corridor
15:35 Conclusion
➜ Disclaimer:
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#urbanplanning #publictransport #toronto
I'll never get over how nice grassy tram tracks are
I agree it looks so much nicer than some hot pavement
GRASS YOU GOT GRASS OMG.thats like the ol saying 'We once had tress in London'
@@MasterPuppets206 Eglinton crosstown has it. The tracks are rusting, but the grass looks nice!
@EvelynSaungikar Exactly, it looks nice but it rusts, not worth extra money that comes from the people's pockets for a nice look, maybe around the tracks instead, on elevated platforms, but that's also money for maintenance...
They're incredibly beautiful
toronto's streetcar network was built in the late 1800s. theres nothing wrong with how it was built, they're just not meant to co-exist with automobiles.
Also not meant to coexist with IDIOTS in automobiles
There is so much wrong with how it was built.
Did you know they STILL use HUMANS for track switching at junctions. This means that the driver must get OUT OF HIS VEHICLE and VISUALLY CHECK that the tracks are aligned, and USE A LITERAL STICK to switch the tracks before proceeding at a MAXIMUM SPEED of 5 MPH!!!!
This is downright stupid and any other developed country would use an electronic, automated system. Toronto is run by buffoons who are technologically incompetent and clueless with how to spend money. A true disasterclass in every imaginable way.
cities wer built around the street car. then the car came.....
I have literally walked up Spadina faster than the streetcar. It's insane that they put them on the separated tracks but then didn't give them priority at the lights.
May as well get rid of them. Toronto is a world class of embarrassment, and corruption. The world laughs at how broken and dysfunctional Toronto is.
I own a book detailing how cars took over the streets in my own country. It's excellent, the only reason I haven't finished reading it is it makes me too angry.
Have you considered that the only reason you have streets is due to cars?
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl Eeeeeh, no. No I haven't. What on earth gave you that idea? What's even your point?
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl Streets existed before cars.
What is the book?
@@limjaheybobandy Et land på fire hjul by Ulrik Eriksen. I think it's only in Norwegian, sadly. It does tell the same story I think a lot of countries experience, though. A tiny minority of rich and influential car drivers were able to transform the streets from something everyone shared to something that was exclusively for cars.
The problem is in our politics. And I don't mean that in a party political partisan way. The problems with Public Transit in North America is that the decision makers-- from the city councillors, city administrators/planners-- don't think of Public Transit in terms of providing service to the public or even in service of creating an efficient city. They think of it in terms of how much taxpayer dollars can be funnelled to Engineering/Contractor firms that both contribute to political campaigns and also hire cooperative city administrators when they want to cash in in the private sector. That's why these projects-- none of which seem bad or faulty when proposed-- fail in the execution in our eyes.
LIE-berals/ NDPees /civil service unions and Woke RADICALS have become the enemies of the general public!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in Berlin and take the tram every day to work. The ride itself is about 3km, 7 stops, and takes maybe 10 minutes. The tram has a dedicated lane with prioritized signaling, so it's typically faster than taking a car. By the way, we're getting new trams next year that can fit 312 people, and they come roughly every 5 minutes. It's hard to beat.
trams in berlin are the least reliable but probably most comfortable local transit type, due to the air conditioning and not vibrating like busses. The only thing that can beat them are the ring bahn. But even then, their reliability is just too low to take over the subway a lot of the time
Cycle also takes 10 mins minus waiting time
Toronto's trams are actually a bit better than that except for... you know... traffic.
The trains in Stuggart are fantastic!
That 9km/hr. That is very slow. Add wait time, and it's 2x faster than a brisk walk.
This is why I love Toronto. You'll have cars blocking the streetcar tracks mixed with the transit operator dealing with a belligerent passenger over why the streetcar is going slow.
I have found that public transit being exclusively for the poor is more specifically a U.S. thing than a Canadian thing. My experience riding the bus to Miami Beach when I was in Miami for a conference showed this--it was cheap, worked perfectly fine, the same speed as driving, but yet I was the only tourist on the bus both ways.
Some people think buses are for the poor, but I think a wealthy country would be full of infrastructure actually.
Not Just Bikes has a video on trains in Japan. Some of them are fancy.
your experience may be good. But that's exactly the problem tho. If Bus vs Car takes the same amount of time, most people (in your case US), will pick Car due to comfort, accessbility, car infrastructure. Buses/Public Transportation should either save people a few minutes vs driving or much more connected with connections or cover large area.
@@InV1sible9688 I actually had a rental car on that trip, but chose transit due to exorbitant parking fees. The cost of parking MASSIVELY tips the scales in favour of public transit, even if time is the same.
Yeah... I went to detroit and rode transit there. Even during the day I felt unsafe and out of place. It felt like Robocop's detroit. Everyone else on transit looked homeless/alcoholic/mentally ill/high on drugs.
You are right. Poor people in Toronto can’t even afford TTC
I took the 509 Waterfront streetcar and was shocked at how slow it ran - despite having a dedicated right of way. The 511 Bathurst streetcar which runs in mixed traffic runs faster lol. They must have completely botched the signalling, and shocked they haven't fixed it yet.
Queens Quay has signal lights for private driveways which requires everyone to wait while someone who can afford waterfront property can park their car.
the 509 is the WORST!
Well yes, what did you expect?:- you're supposed to get behind it and push it, ok?
Everybody hates traffic, but some people don't realize that's what they become when they drive.
Cars cause more congestion in all areas of Toronto than all others forms of transit. Drivers aggressively block busy intersections on a daily basis, which backs up buses and street cars.
Driving in downtown Toronto is a FK NIGHTMARE, it's a complete mess.
Since the new streetcars have been put into use, track repairs have syrocketed. It's clear that the rail system in Toronto was never designed for the larger cars.
The streetcar tracks on Spadina were completely upgraded 10 years ago, to accommodate the poorly chosen Bombardier streetcars. Now, just a decade later, the streetcar tracks have to have massive repairs again, meaning the dedicated streetcar lanes can’t be used for 6 months, and the replacement buses are stuck in the heavy traffic in the remaining lanes. It’s all ridiculous. The quickest way to get anywhere downtown is to walk.
The tracks aren't being replaced, the overhead catenary is, as well as preparations for expanding the underground platform that was showcased in the video (the actual expansion will happen at a later date).
The real failure was not building the corridor to accommodate bus replacement service, because now buses are operating in mixed traffic. Why don't they put in a temporary bus lane?! It's a no-brainer.
@@cmmartti oh, well, THAT’S all right then. /sarc Traffic can’t move on Spadina, Yonge, Queen, Adélaïde, or King.
The quickest way by far to get around downtown Toronto is by bicycle. I take transit only when road conditions become hazardous and unsafe on a bike and it's not as bad as what it is made out to be.
I do agree that the city puts car traffic ahead of pedestrians and cyclists. One example is at the crosswalk. Pressing a button is a 'request' to cross safely but you are not given any priority. Unlike in Europe when doing the same thing would mean a short wait, in Toronto, you could wait a while before the lights change. It's even worse in the suburbs where I had the displeasure of visiting.
@@Antinous99 I bike sometimes, but there’s too much construction, the bike lanes are full of Ubers and delivery trucks, and I’ve had too many close calls. My husband got doored and needed stitches in his chest from where he hit the door, I have a friend who lost control on a bike, hit a parked car and broke 5 teeth and her eye socket. I’ve seen the ghost bikes, no thank you.
Lets not forget that the cars keep on being delayed so it’s not like we are even going to be able to use them. (The transit in my area was meant to finish 4 years ago….)
I've always wondered why they removed all of the North South streetcars. Now I know. It's because they put the Yonge line in thinking that it made the surface level lines redundant.
SMH
I have not yet used Toronto’s streetcars, but I personally didn’t have any issues riding their public buses and subway trains!
It travels at close to a walking pace downtown. That makes sense if you remember the downs-thompson paradox.
They are exponentially worse than any other form of transit in any part of the world.
I take the streetcars everywhere and they are extremely reliable. I have no idea what people are talking about when they call them slow. The only problem is when there are car accidents which can shutdown a line, fortunately you can just walk a block to another line.
The biggest problem with transit in Toronto right now is BlogTO, they are constantly posting click bait articles that damage people’s perception of transit (reliability, safety, cleanliness).
@@Coltoid not the King line. Utterly useless, any time of day. It’s a 20 minute walk for me from Yonge to where I live, close to Sherbourne. Usually, I make it home before a streetcar passes me. Most of the cars on that line are now Queen cars and Kingston road cars, which turn north on Church.
Commenting to boost this vid in the algorithm, more people need to see this.
hugh so the robots read comments now.. Giggles
@@AMPProf did I just get accused of botting?
RMTransit has a nice video on Bergen's light rail system. It's been a huge success. I think the video is called something like The city where light rail actually works.
I totally agree with this video! This can be applied to TTC busses as well! In many of the suburban parts of Toronto where subways and LRT’s aren’t necessarily feasible, busses are still heavily used compared to other North American cities. We should be implementing RapidTO lanes on roads and transit signal priority at intersections across the city. Unfortunately as you said, the mindset of prioritizing cars prevents this, especially when we have idiots like Holyday and Perruzza, car brain gonna car brain. Sad.
I used to live in New Toronto (Lake Shore and Kipling). Taking the streetcar was brutal. Average 90 minutes to get downtown. Most of that was the trudge along Queen through Parkdale. You're right, streetcars and cars don't mix.
Me too and then they would make you change car at the loops . There was nothing there and sometimes had to wait a long time for a connection again , in the winter .
I honestly think that Toronto's streetcars get a bad rep. Sure, they are slow and unreliable, but I think they're still miles ahead of the alternatives most American or Canadian cities choose (the bus), which would not carry nearly as many people and are less efficient.
They are also insanely expensive.
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl As in to buy/maintain them, or to use?
A single bus ride here costs 3.50$
I live near King. Between short turning vehicles, and clumping of streetcars, it takes three vehicles and 15 minute connections each time to get from Parliament to Dufferin. 45 minutes. Garbage.
They are exponentially worse than any other railed system in the world. I've been to many cities in the US and Toronto's are laughably slower that it's embarrassing.
And they are supposed to be experts at this. For a city that kept them alive for many years, you'd expect them to have a leg up on the competition. But they're worse in every way imaginable from reliability to speed.
The city of toronto should be named and shamed for this.
I remeber when i showed and guided a american friend coming here to Bangkok firsttime..He was shocked how easy and cheap u get around in a 14 million mega city with skytrains subway busses and even insanely cheap scooter taxis.. sitting in a car is only to be stuck in traffic
Toronto’s streetcars are inconsistent but features like shelters, platform markings and next vehicle displays are present at a lot of stops; it feels unfair to criticize this while many other ‘good’ tram systems similarly have stops without all these features.
Agreed, they seem to love blaming everything on Streetcars but not on the environment surrounding them. Both culturally and when it comes to infrastructure
Torontonian here. Great video. The most important thing I learned was about the mentality of the city, that when the subway was built, the focus was on making the streets better for cars, not on the wonder of moving all those people by transit. I’m 61 years old, have lived downtown since 1986, and never bought a car. When transit is working, it’s a joy. I love being with my fellow citizens, all going places. I love knowing we are building community and helping to fight the blight of cars. I love people-watching, I love being a piece of society, not an atomized cog, going it alone in my mini-tank.
I don’t get why people think cars are better than public transport. They’re not.
Within cities, I 100% agree with you. . . But I also really enjoy driving on a nice twisty section of a rural road.
@@MorganMagnus Agreed. Cars are good for a nice road trip. But nothing beats storming in impossible speeds on a high speed train without worrying about anything. 😎
They’re 100% on demand; public transportation can be better then driving but in most cases it’s not
Depends. In the city yes. If you live outside… hell no. I need 15 mins to work by car. I would need 45mins (if everything works correctly or over an hour when it doesnt) with public transport.
Privacy and safety and mobility
Damn that Houston streetcar looked so nice!!!! If we had that kind of thing in Toronto I'd probably legit go ride streetcars just for fun on my days off
@@cheeseburger118 no snow or cold weather in Houston
@@Hogtownboy1 What if I told you light rail and buses can still operate during snow or cold weather. I live in Bergen, Norway, and the LRT is more reliable than the buses, running nearly 100% of the time. That's not hyperbole, that's an actual statistic.
@@Coffeepanda294 In Toronto, Streetcars are more unreliable than McDonald's ice cream machines.
It's a literal coin flip whether one will show up on time, and another coin flip if the streetcar doesn't go out of service mid ride.
You really can't find anything worse in any other part of the world.
@@henryludvor6275 Sorry to hear that. Where I live it's the trains that are often delayed, lol. No one's bothered to upgrade the ageing signal systems and other critical infrastructure, because there's more votes and prestige in building shiny new stuff elsewhere than there are in maintenance.
saw you on St. Clair near Keele earlier this week, shooting for this video it seems. I wasn't sure if it was you, but after seeing this video i know i was correct.
I appreciate that you add references in the description of your videos. Really makes it easy to learn more about the topics! Do you have any more books/sites/videos to recommend on urban design and public transit?
There is a certain stigma against streetcars even within transit communities. For example, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia which actually has decent transit, at least by North American standards, there are no modern streetcar networks.
Vancouver used to have streetcars, but they were ripped out in the 1950s, the dark ages for transit.
Part of the reasons for the stigma against streetcars is what you've mentioned, people see them as slow, unreliable, and overall inferior to fully grade separated metros.
Of course, there are plenty of uses for streetcars, and the main way to improve their reliability is to give them transit priority and push personal automobiles out of the way. Heck, I would argue that cars should be outright prohibited in large cities, making them fully car-free. We can have free mobility scooter rentals to help folks out.
Rather than having this "class-divide" between streetcars and subways, we should unite against the real enemy, cars!
@@creaturexxii and that is why no one will listen to you. Hating cars
Yeah mobility scooters work so well in feet of snow and and minus 20 degrees. Therexare bigger issues, like growing up in Don Mills and Commuting to U of T downtown, no transit was allowed in the Rich bridalpath area, so we couldn't hop a Lawrence east bus to the lawerence subway, nopppe had to chug along eg,in ton to Egli gton station with rows and rows of other buses be ause of the Bridalpath. So 1.5hrs to get to school, using bus, subway, then streetcar. 3 hrs of my crowded day as a Nursing student, because of a ban on transit in one neighbourhood. I couldn't have used a mobility scooter to get there any faster.
I drive a streetcar in toronto and I agree with everything in this video.
Some many easy fixes to make streetcars more reliable but nah, lets prioritize cars instead 😅
Great video!
Love your videos! Always interesting and informative. Keep up the good work!
I really like your video. Great explanation of the phenomenon.
In Oklahoma City, we recently (Dec 2023) opened a BRT line that mixes with traffic but at a few key intersections with heavier traffic, there are dedicated signals for the buses. Usually there’s a curbside bus lane leading into a stop about 50 to 100-ft from the intersection and when the bus leaves that stop, all the lights at the intersection turn red and it allows the bus to proceed through the intersection without stopping or having to merge back into traffic within 100-ft of the light. It has been EMBARK’s (the city’s public transit agency) best performing route and two more BRT lines connecting the northeast and south sides of the city was approved in recent days.
Watching this while sitting on a Tram in Zurich. They are so good, even tho i finally got my drivers license (at age 30) and have car sharing avilable conveniently just across the street, i have only driven 7 times in that half year where i could. And even those 7 times i struggled to find a reason and mostly just did it for practice.
In Toronto, it's always better to drive 365 days of the year.
Not one situation will you find public transit faster than driving. It's embarrassing really.
hell yeah, enjoyed this
People have all kinds of weird ideas about streetcars and their history. That stretches from historical determinism (Streetcars went away, so streetcars had to go away) to confusing correlation with causality (Streetcars went away and transit is bad, so transit is bad because streetcars went away).
As someone who grew up with both trams and busses, I'm convinced (even though I adore the trams) that there is no fundamental difference between streetcars and busses from a customer perspective. Sure, there's differences in ride quality etc., but that depends a lot on rolling stock and isn't that important. What's important to me as a customer is routing, frequency, reliability, speed and capacity, and all local transit options are broadly similar in this aspect.
It's the same with questions of traffic and RoW. Without dedicated RoW, local transit suffers when traffic is high. This is true for busses just as much as it is for streetcars. This is not a problem on all corridors, but when it is, it can be solved by painting a transit lane, and that's basically it.
If rising traffic volumes were the reason American transit operators bailed on streetcars (it wasn't), that problem could have been solved by sending in the street painters on one sunny Saturday morning in 1940. Switching to rubber-tired operations on the other side did nothing do address that problem (it wasn't meant to).
Likewise, if Americans and Canadians want better local transit, they don't need to form a cargo cult around the trams they see in European cities. Steel wheels are not the secret to our success. it's sensible routing, decent frequency, and strategic use of dedicated RoW. All of this can be achieved with busses, and it regularly is.
I agree , buses are the real deal
@@LuckyAtom-dx5yf Not what I said.
Well buses are better
I think this is glossing over some key facts:
1. Trams are far higher capacity than buses per unit, meaning that they are much less expensive to operate to maintain a given level of capacity. This is important on busy routes like the 504/508 in Toronto, where we'd basically require buses every 20 seconds to match the same capacity that currently exists in the rush hours.
2. Customer experience isn't subjective--a low floor tram is far more pleasant to ride on than a bus, regardless of how nice that bus is, due to factors like accessibility, acceleration/deceleration on rail vs. tires, and higher quality/flatter ride surfaces (no road in Toronto will be smooth for more than 3 months LOL)
All this not to say that trams make sense in many North American contexts--I'd argue most new trams built in the last 30 years are totally useless (KC, OKC, Cincinnati). I would much rather that most cities invest in high quality bus networks before every putting down a single piece of rail. But there are certainly cities with corridors where there is such a high demand for transit that even BRT becomes unfeasible (especially since labour costs are so high in NA that super frequent BRT is basically cost prohibitive here, unlike Turkey/South America/South East Asia). And it's these corridors where trams begin to make a lot of sense, especially if they follow the design principles that the video discusses.
Well-said and clearly laid out. Great video.
As much as i like the Pokemon good old songs, i feel like they can be distracting and does not match the mood, but this is only my own preference, otherwise i find your videos very enjoyable to watch, thank you for the content !
Toronto is lucky to have even kept the street car system. its not perfect, but looking at cities without them, the amount of people thery can haul was worth saving
super well put, its incredible to see advocacy for a better transit future growing!
This was one of the most interesting videos I’ve seen in a while.
I noticed a shot of the GRT (Kitchener-Waterloo). I’m curious what your take would be on their implementation of LRT. It’s quite new. As far as I can tell, it’s petty signal prioritized.
There are a lot of things wrong with Toronto streetcars but I feel like you can figure out a lot of them by just watching the Church-King intersection in St James park. Why's there a stop there, so close to yonge? Why is the infrastructure so bad the streetcars must come to a near stop before crossing? Why does it have signal priority if the streetcar is stopping beforehand to avoid derailing? All good questions. Sadly, city council is gutless. The confusing signage is a tale of frustrating compromise. In a way, automated camera ticketing on the King corridor will be pretty similar to congestion pricing, as more people will use it and take the hit when traffic is bad. I guess I'll take that compromise.
The frequent streetcar stops are due to riders demanding them. If you were to eliminate them, forums like this would light up with complaints.
We'd never get detailed info screens on streetcars - they would have to show that it can take you anywhere between 5 - 20 minutes to next stop. Depending on traffic.
And, the wait is 20-45 minutes, then 5 arrive in a convoy.
Toronto's transit system is so incompetent that it took them DECADES to implement contactless fare payment systems.
These are things that other parts of the world have had for over 15 years. Toronto's transit system is worse in comparison to 3rd world countries. It's so dysfunctional that you can never go more than a day without some area of the system being broken or in a state of repair.
In Houston, only a small portion of the light rail route in the downtown corridor has cars blocked. The majority of the light rail route shares the streets with cars and blocked by left turning vehicles.
I like that quote "a developed country is where the rich use public transportation"
Here in Bangkok even the insane rich take the super advanced luxury clean skytrain and subway..its all about time..Train takes 15 minutes..car takes1 hour and a trip cost less than 1 $
On Adelaide street, priority traffic lights were installed to tell motorists when they can make left turns and when cyclists can cross an intersection. It took quite a while for everyone to get used to, but it made the flow of traffic better for everyone.
They took a 4-lane road and made it a 2-lane road. It’s a disaster.
@@PhilipSmith-hs3flWatch the video again.
Given what is being done on Spadina in Chinatown... the trams are on the way out.
The TTC should be on its way out for how unreliable it is.
But the City is too obsessed with protecting their dysfunctional monopoly.
Omg 0:09 Kitchener downtown spotted 👀 (It's okay, the parking lot on the left will eventually be the new transit hub/terminal.)
Making the streetcar companies pay for the maintanance and snow removal of the roads with tacks and fair caps really makes it government regulation the real reasons for the demise of streetcars . Some streetcar companies were bankrupt before the automobile came about , like in Port Huron .
Very good points.
From a motorist's perspective, Toronto should ban left turns on all streets where there are tram tracks and make those right lanes now used for parking bike lanes so everyone can get moving when the light turns green and not worry about bikes anymore. You are in a car already going around the block to go to your destination won't hurt and turning left on four-lane streets is dangerous as hell and you block all the traffic too.
What's the Hurry? Just give yourself an extra hour! .. LOL ...
We were scammed and coerced into cars, they were never the best choice, and I'm radical that I want cars banned within cities as they have no place except in rural areas. Cities are not loud, cars are loud. Car tires are responsible for 80% of microplastics in the ocean and it's safe to assume it's the same on land and in freshwater. Car tires "wear down" but no one considered where that matter was going? Cars are the biggest source of consumer pollutants and our planet is choking on fumes. Entire wars were fought to secure oil to fuel cars. And all this time we had a better option--trams and transit--and threw it away. Imagine the millions of needless deaths, millions of preventable cancer diagnoses, tens of millions of asthma cases, hundreds of millions of crashes, all that could have prevented if cars did not exist. Cars are killing us. We've run this experiment for a century and it's been a catastrophic failure.
Cars were forced onto us so I think it's justified to forcibly remove them.
I watched a video on Horatio Jackson, the first man to drive a car across America.
He did it to try to prove cars were great because many people DISLIKED and were skeptical of the car actually.
So no, people did not automatically embrace the car when it was first made.
Yes, I've seen history videos of how the auto industry lobbied and put out ads and propaganda to push cars on people.
Watch City Beautiful on how cars stole the streets.
There's old footage that streets were mixed use including walking with cars.
Then they started calling people jaywalkers to get them off the streets. Jay means stupid.
Bullying and threatening nondrivers off the streets for fear of getting injured by cars is not people consensually embracing cars. That's coercion.
If only I could like this a hundred times
Unfortunately cars ARE the best choice for Toronto - only because their transit system is so dysfunctional.
We don't hate drivers, we hate cars
Specifically, I dislike car dependency. I dislike the pollution and toxic bad smells from cars.
I dislike how tiring it is to have to be alert too much while driving. I dislike how expensive cars and gas for life are.
So good
Nice video.
They have been improving the screens on buses in toronto to show next stops and such and they even put them at the halfway part of buses
Great video.
In Detroit, we have the Q,Line developed by Dan Gilbert from Quicken Loans. It's a light rail transit system that runs on Woodward Ave.from the New Center Area to Downtown Detroit. It's free and it's not on the middle of the street and it has its own rail signal system and warning signs are put in place for cars and people not to park, cut in or block its traffic.
key word for Toronto...."stupid"
That was a really great summary of Toronto's poor public transit system. I'm still waiting for the Scarborough LRT to be built, which was long ago fully funded and approved.
It will never happen in your lifetime. Toronto's government is so corrupt that they haven't built a new transit line in over 20 years, and their subway line is more dysfunctional than McDonald's ice cream machines.
Laughable and embarrassing. Shame on Toronto.
no mention of automobile makers purchasing street car companies and then shuttering them? St Louis, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Oakland: all bought by GM...
You can come to Bangkok and take BRT. It's a public bus with mostly dedicate lane but it takes decade for people to understand it. At the beginning, many people said this transit stole 1 lane from car. But now people understand better
Great video. You’ve made excellent points. I took the TTC every day for decades. It has so much potential but they have to invest in maintaining it. There has been a lot of corruption and bad deals that have lead to its decline
TTC's potential has run out. The city put its priorities on cars that it will only be a matter of time before the whole system implodes upon itself.
You made a lot of good points, but the best point for not taking public transit is that no one is going to stab me in my car.
I completely agree, the streetcar system could be so much better if it was just given more attention and even just a sliver of the budget of these new rail lines. Actual dedicated stops would be so nice. One of my least favourite things when using the streetcar is just getting to it in the first place in the middle of busy streets, then waiting on those half bench things that only allow you to lean instead of sit. Unless it was an actual underground stop they were always super uncomfortable and incredibly inconvenient to use!
Also grass tracks and pedestrian walkways next to them is such a great idea! It just looks so nice!
Loved that Quote at the end. Facts.
The ttc streetcars actually do have similar technology to ambulances and police cards I've heard that let the light stay green longer as it's approaching and it's mostly implemented at intersections that have a stop on one end. Anyway that's just what I've heard and you mentioned it here.
Great presentation! Toronto streetcars could accelerate trips with two commonly used strategies: 1. Curbs on each side of the tracks to prevent cars from sharing the tracks (an inexpensive transitional step towards dedicated streetcar corridors) and the use of a transponder on the street car to change red lights to green as they approach (these are currently used by buses in York region going on Yonge and Hwy.7 to keep the lights green as they pass through the intersections.)
this needs to be seen by the city council
8 months ago I moved to a new place literally 10 steps to a Toronto streetcar stop that goes downtown. I haven't used it once, because it's always been faster to either walk or bike where I am going. Even in the winter. Such a shame...
transit signal priority can help busses a lot too, just make sure that if a bus is waiting at the traffic lights before the crossing no vehicle can go the intended direction of a bus, it won't solve traffic jams but will 1. ensure busses don't get stuck i merging spots due to lack of free space left and 2. ensure busses won't block other directions trying to move despite the lack of space
I love this video so much. When I moved to Toronto, I immediately saw the problem with the transit system. I lived in Hungary for 14 years prior, and the system there is ridiculously better. This guy has spoken my mind. I really hate the transit system in this city.
I recently moved to Ottawa. While I keep my car around (I can escape the city for less $$ than via rail, it makes camping and visiting family who live in smaller towns possible, and I can pick up groceries easier) I have been making a point of taking public transit within the city, mostly to avoid parking. Using the LRT is great but I must say the buses aren't very dependable, and while there are good bike routes there's also a lot of places where the bike lanes aren't integrated well. I just end up walking a lot of the time if it's less than 40 minutes. I wonder if I'll have time for that once I have a full time job secured again.
It took me a while to get my license in the smaller city I used to live in, the breaking point was realizing the ridiculous logistics that would be involved maintaining a relationship with my niece and her parents....it would take an extra 3 hours out of my day to visit them by taking a rube goldberg machine of buses, vs 10 minutes via car.
Bro thinks the LRT is about to open 😭😭😭😭
This is the topic that returning to Toronto presses me hard. If better utilized through addressing lower hanging fruit issues with the streetcar network, we could have a competitive system globally and top 3 in North America. The St. Clair and Spadina routes for example have stops that are way too close to each other resulting in these cars never gaining speed and frequently stopping! If treated more like a LRT line and less like a big bus we could dramatically make the rider experience much better.
I've vacationed on St. Claire twice now the past year, and I personally liked how frequent the stops were considering the large amount of streetcars (or busses) that were using the route. I just think they needed priority at four way stops/multi-stage crossings, but I'm curious to hear what stops you'd change/eliminate.
Toronto's streetcar network had the potential for being top 3 in North America.
Now it is undisputedly bottom one. Think about how embarrassing that is.
8:30 holy crap every day walking home from work I see streetcars get stuck at King and Spadina because car traffic blocks the intersection on red lights. It's so frustrating to watch.
we've got the 7th Avenue 'Free Fare Zone' in Calgary. The stretch of 7 Ave in downtown is for LRT, transit, and emergency services only, it works 98% of the time. I think the majority coming in and out have priority signals these days, its pretty great. Well, I say great as a transit rider, but most priority signals are pretty quick and drivers don't have to wait too long. heh my 2 cents on a great video 😅👍
First bus in the video is an Oakville bus (my hometown) lmao
504 has been under construction and out of service basically for the last 4 years lol
Very good points, I've always disliked how averse Toronto is to car free pedestrianized streets
And then there is Japan, where you can casually take a train going 300km/h.
you can do this in a bunch of places but definetly not with a streetcar or subway lmao
@@cooltwittertag It wouldn't even have the space to accelerate for short range commute.
@@janisir4529 The average speed of toronto subways is less than 10% of that. How can people have a positive outlook on Toronto's transit system when driving beats it in every possible metric. Embarrassing.
I'm from Houston and I am shocked (Shocked, I tell you!) to hear streetcars on Spadina have no signal priority. It is such a minor thing to do that makes such a major difference.
Disclosure: For two years I lived two blocks north of Steeles Ave (a long time ago) when I was a kid so I have some familiarity with Toronto.
Checkout dubai’s tram.. it has all the priority, its like it never stop unless it in one of it stops
Japan has special lanes just for buses and street cars, and they also have priority signals and it works great. Toronto should get in on that.
I live in Toronto, and mostly bike, walk and take TTC, I used to live in Leslieville and work near Eaton Centre, that's 4.5 kilometer, and I used to walk to and from work, one time I was curious and kept track of the streetcar as I leave the office, and sure enough, I was keeping pace with it all the way home, it would overtake me here and there, but I always end up at the same red light with it
On this route, there is effectively a single lane, with parked cars taking up one lane, so the streetcar has the same priority as cars on the road and at traffic lights, the only difference is it is a much large vehicle, and it has to wait when car make left or right turns, yes, even right turns because right turn on a green has to give way to people crossing the street, while the cars have to wait while the street car is loading / unloading
And then there’s the Eglinton Crosstown LRT Project which is taking forever to complete
the TTC doesnt suck, its mainly just the street cars. The busses and subway are top tier
Many of the streetcars in Toronto arent usable by those with walkers and canes duecto the steep stairs. In my childhood in Toronto the druvers willing,y helped seniors on and off. Now they are encased in plexiglass, and yell at the dusabled to get off if stuck. Post op, i was lucky to have 3 Chinese men jump up and help me up the stairs as i had to get to the hospital clinic. They also spoke to other riders and arranged for tiders going to Bathurst to help me off.
The issue with king street is that no one expects to not be able to drive straight.
Most places where you can’t turn left have many signs. The signs themselves are fairly complicated though which can be confusing as a driver.
But not being able to drive straight on a road that doesn’t end, doesn’t become a 1 way, and usually only has 1 do not go straight sign, with a ton of other information on it that makes it confusing,
Is genuinely a really confusing thing for drivers.
And remember, most people who drive downtown, dont drive downtown often or don’t live downtown.
If you live downtown you probably don’t have a car, and even if you do, you probably don’t use it that often. And even if you do, you probably don’t drive in the core too often.
Also places where you can’t go straight or turn right is just stupid and ads to confusion. At that point I really rather they just closed off the road entirely.
I agree about traffic priority for trams and in general always prioritizing and protecting the passengers over cars. I doubt it will ever get done but charging a fee to all vehicles other than transit when the vehicles enter the city might also help to reduce traffic. I have visited cities like Tokyo where people live their entire adult lives without ever owning a car, even if they have children. In Madrid, where there is a fee paid to drive a car in the downtown core, and there is good transit, there is clearly a great environment for pedestrians on major avenues and city streets.
A book you might find interesting is Strap Hanger by Taras Grescoe in which the author surveys transit systems around the world and rates their effectiveness.
You are forgetting the fact that alot of streetcar lines were bought up by General Motors who would put in a bus line system to replace the streetcars(GM busses, could run on the roads didn't need tracks etc.) and then phase out the bus line so that people would HAVE to buy cars to get around.
Toronto can’t convert existing downtown main streets into dedicated tram lanes. There just isn’t enough real estate here, city council has pushed through the bike lanes and now we have a new dedicated tram line coming into service. So you can’t have bike lanes and underground trams and dedicated surface trams. That’s too much of one mode
The egglinton crosstown is still under construction. You made it sound like it just finished.
I'm convinced it will never get finished. The next government will waltz in and shut it all down because of pettiness. Sad.
I love how adding the dedicated streetcar track on Spadina made the trip from Queen st to Spadina station longer 🤣. All due to what side of the lights they places to stops. So dumb
I've noticed the King Street Streetcar routes (501, 503, 504) have gotten significantly more reliable and useful as I leave St. Andrew station and go west lately. Literally just from attempting to actually enforce the existing laws to limit traffic along King Street. This was the difference between me completely ignoring the streetcar and walking to work, and regularly using it. If those Streetcars actually got signal priority, damn! Or... they could literally just ban cars on that stretch of King. I'm from Calgary, where the entire CTrain system has ridership on par with just Toronto's streetcar network. Transit there is not prioritized in any meaningful way. Even there, 7th avenue in downtown is 100% LRT with signal priority - no cars. There are even vehicle traps on either end of the stretch designed to literally eat cars dumb enough to not figure it out by then. And 8th avenue right next to it is also fully pedestrianized. It's a bit surprising that Toronto, an objectively far more urban city (in both size, built form, and average mindset) hasn't latched onto such obvious wins.
It's wild to me. I realize Toronto is an older, more populated city, but Calgary has some good things going for its public transit as you pointed our. If only there were more trains for both cities, really!
The other countries built tramways. Toronto never separated transit paths from traffic paths. In Waterloo the new tram/ light rail trabsit runs in grassy pathways alongside rail corridors, and interact with streets only at rare stops. Convenient hut not door to door like Toronto. You have to take a uber from the stations to home.
The majority of downtown Toronto traffic is from out of town. Unless we have better regional transit, the traffic problem won't be solved.
Check out the mess with the trains in Ottawa
Love the video and Pokémon music