Toronto has spent $3.7 billion and five years of construction time just to build something much slower than what the city already had. The Finch West LRT, the city's newest "rapid" transit line, currently takes 55 minutes to travel a route that the bus route covered in 35. A Toronto runner even beat it by 18 minutes. Many commuters are justified in being angry after waiting so long just for a slower experience.
Five years of construction that tore up Finch Avenue, countless delays that pushed the opening from 2021 to 2024, billions of dollars spent on this, and this is the result: A train, or maybe it's a tram, that takes 55 minutes to shamble 10.3 kilometres.
The technical failures alone are almost comical if they weren't so rage-inducing. The LRT has no signal priority, meaning these state-of-the-art vehicles sit patiently at red lights while every car breezes past. They're operating under speed caps that stop them from reaching anything close to what their potential permits. Even the stops are bunched so close together that the train can barely accelerate to speed before braking again. Metrolinx promised the full line would take about 33 minutes, but they delivered something that anyone with a pair of running shoes and earbuds can beat on foot.
Think about the commuters who endured half a decade of construction on the routes they already used to commute. The businesses that stood by through five years of near constant noise and dust. The residents living nearby believed that it would be worth it in the end. Their reward? A slower commute.
The Finch line is only the most recent example. The Eglinton Crosstown is facing similar speed concerns as well after a test trip ran 20 minutes slower than expected.
Ontario is planning a massive transit expansion across the region. But if this is the standard we're setting with our new developments, why should anyone believe the next project will be different, or even built on time?
The worst part is that these aren't even unsolvable problems. Signal priority can be changed. Speed caps can be adjusted. These are transit basics. We shouldn't be fixing this after launch. It should have been designed properly from day one. For a city like Toronto to show this off, thinking it's some big achievement is a shame.
To her credit, Mayor Olivia Chow has says the train could be faster and that she would be raising the issue at city council.
Toronto desperately needs better transit. The city's gridlock is legendary, commutes are punishing to say the least, and our climate goals necessitate getting people out of cars. Projects like the Finch LRT currently fail to solve these problems and also set a bad image for all future transit projects.
Rapid transit should, of course, be rapid. it's surely not an ambitious goal. Many other cities around the world have done this without issue, such as Tokyo or Berlin. Metrolinx and Queen's Park owe the public answers and immediate fixes. Because right now, Toronto's newest transit line is slower than a person running, slower than a car, and slower than the very bus line it was meant to replace.
