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.
This is a flat out lie. I took this every day for ten years, and had the EXACT same thought- and never once was walking faster than staying on the streetcar.
@@kushblazin8409 average speed of a streetcar is 15km/hr, average speed of a bus is 30km/hr. If traffic builds up or streetcar breaks down and creates gridlock then walking is for sure faster
@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...
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 .
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 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'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 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
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.
Thank you so much for this observation! I have been complaining this to the staff who thinks their vehicles are light and dainty probably. They are extremely noisy whenever they run
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.
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.
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.
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
That Toronto allows left turns along any tram routes is ridiculous. Amsterdam's only stop at tram stops, not traffic lights, and nobody blocks them turning left. There is no reason the TTC cannot do this.
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
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.
Great ideas !! However, the key to create a balanced priority for both Cars and TTC Street cars. And you are right in creating efficiencies like signal optimization and signs where possible. Toronto is desperate for more subway lines. Yeah the Bureaucrats built subways in the fifties and completely went to sleep after that. In 75 years they hardly added any Subway lines.
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
@@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.
The problem with streetcars is that they don’t have their own reserved lane, so it always get stuck in traffic and back then there wasn’t big traffic, many people back then couldn’t afford cars, so they took streetcars
The Queen Line opened in 1893 well before there was any cars. The Road is narrow are is the main arterial route in the east end since King Street ends at the Don River.
@@Coffeepanda294 Absolutely. But this area is built up and firmly established. The road is too narrow for dedicated tracks. The best alternative is to have signal priority partially controlled by the streetcar operator.
I totally agree with you. The only reason the "streetcars" are bad is because the street around them is flawed designed. And I'm a real tram lover (and tram is a much better term than streetcar) and think they must get built (again) in Sundsvall. It's very important that people like you inform us about how not to lay it out.
As a former Streetcar Operator, I can safely say the city layout was not made with public transit in mind. I had to drive 2 hours into the city before my shift, clock in and then take the subway to my scheduled stop. I couldn't take the TTC system because there was no guarantee I'd be able to punch in on time, despite the fact our employee cards track us if we tap them on TTC vehicles.
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?
Here in The Netherlands we have the HTM Randstadrail fast trams. These special trams are for a faster transit between the cities The Hague and Zoetermeer. Between trainstation Den Haag LOI and metrostation Leidschendam the tram and the subway metro of Rotterdam share the same track. The subway metro trains from Rotterdam that is part of the Randstadrail on 1 line, use 2 different safety systems, 1 for the subway system and 1 for the tram system in The Hague.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
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.)
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
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 !
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
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.
Calgary's light rail is mostly separated from car traffic except for downtown where it runs along a transit only street. The only cars permitted on it is emergency vehicles or other transit vehicles
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.
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.
Lakeshore west had no streetcar service for over 5 years. They kept on redoing the tracks and power lines. With the new extra long streetcars and all the work they have done, the streetcars are running slower overall, slow at intersections move slower than a snail at the loops. I still remember seeing 7 streetcars stuck because one broke down. North America is 50 years behind in so much including public transit. Too many people to pay off in Toronto for better system.
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.
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.
I agree with the sentiment of your channel, however after watching a few videos, they kind of feel the same. Would love to see some video breakdowns of cities outside of North America.
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.
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
The problem is a whole lot more complex. Streetcars aren't necessarily more efficient. During rush hour, sure, but in non-peak times its not uncommon to find a single person on a double sized streetcar. That's a waste, so the TTC "resolves" this issue by reducing the number of streetcars during nonpeak times. That makes streetcars less usable since it's not available when you need it. Less usability means, it makes more sense to use cars or other means. IMO, a better approach is to have smaller "train cars". During peak times, add on more cars. During slow times, have fewer. Keep service levels the same, so subways are more reliable. As a plus, having more "train cars" gives you more flexibility. If a streetcar goes to the beach, add on bike park train cars. If it goes to the airport, add on some luggage cars. If the route has a lot of elderly or disabled, use more accessibility cars. The reason people use cars is because they're just plain better for some purposes. If you can make streetcars as flexible for those purposes, people will opt for public transit for the convenience of it.
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.
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 $
In Berlin, most buses have dedicated bus lanes so as not to get stuck in car traffic. As a Torontonian without a car, I laugh whenever Americans say that Toronto has great public transit. Between "security incidents" that shut down entire an entire subway line for hours, to streetcars that do not come frequently enough and get stuck in traffic constantly, it's clear the city prioritizes cars over transit. Avenue Rd going north from Bloor is a six lane (!) freeway in the middle of the city. Toronto is horribly car-centric.
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 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.
Hearing about all of this insanity with the Toronto streetcars unironially makes me happier about San Diego's "trolley" or light rail network, which does ALL of the logical that you pointed here: dedicated light rail stops with benches/times/ticket machines at EVERY stop and every street crossing is treated as a rail crossing where all traffic stops (except in downtown but they dont share space with cars). I often have the problem of the damn trolley arriving too early. We have one minor segment of single track that was a bottleneck on the system, but they are fixing that with a "new" line to separate the single and double track sections. So we will have consistent 15 min frequency across the entire system now.
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...
hi flurf, i think you are missed the reasons for ttc streetcars being slow. get on the Queen streetcar in the middle of the night when there is no traffic, you'll notice it has to slow down to a crawl at every bridge and every junction. these are decisions based on the ttc's antiquated rail building techniques. they have worse switches slow down orders than any other city i know of.
Well done! We need fresh thinkers like YOU, Mr. Flurf, in our municipal design offices. This subject is painful for many of us to contemplate - as a commenter alluded to. In Canada “urban planning” is a very bad joke. I’m in Victoria, BC. We have a lot of bicycle infrastructure. The separated bike lanes are turning into a chaotic MAD MAX environment with all sorts of irresponsibly-operated electrified contraptions in use.
Torontos streetcars don’t suck. They need improvement and some routes are very slow, but other routes are actually quite efficient. I was on the 507 and I certainly wasn’t going the speed I should have but it wasn’t crawling like I had on some sections of king. There is still hope for Toronto, and the streetcars are still very comfortable
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.
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.
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!
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.
The new Mississauga LRT is a huge failure as well, it was supposed to be completed by 2024 and it’s still not half way finished yet. Nobody in the city likes it or wants it. It caused heavy traffic in main streets, decreased driving lanes, noise/pollution in city centre annoying residents/bystanders, and is a waste of our tax money which we had no option of voting or a say in this project as stakeholders
In other words the LRT is doing EXACTLY what LIE-berals and their Woke allies DESIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By screwing up traffic - the LRT forces driver to either go some place else or to park the car and get on the public transit............................. OR TO WALK OR BICYCLE to the destination exactly as LIE-berals have been demanding we do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In addition - by making it so difficult for commuters to travel longer distances - LIE-berals have managed to FORCE US into their odious 15 minute city urban design SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIE-berals believe that by making it virtually impossible to get out of their arbitrarily assigned 15 minute city border zones - that we will quietly accept the LIE-beral urban plan that is generating so much crime, noise, drug issues/homeless tent cities and rising costs!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIE-berals do not believe that we will choose to either VOTE LIE-berals out of office or MOVE OUT of the LIE-beral 15 minute cities to some other more logically designed city or town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The main issue I have with streetcars are the speeds it travels at. The main streetcars go down the busiest roads in North America without separation from traffic. That alone is a recipe for failure. It would've been easier if the city had built subways along the main streetcar routes and/or LRT's that are completely separated from traffic.
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.
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.
I have seen how even small numbers of cars destroy traffic flow. First time I went to Vietnam it was pretty much just scooters, absolute mayhem of course, but still flowed fairly well. The second time I went around 10 years later there was a big increase in cars, maybe 1 to every 20 or so scooters, and everything was at a standstill. Now imagine instead replacing the scooters with bikes with public transport on major routes. I can't imagine that ringing bells would be as annoying as the constant horns in almost every Vietnamese city!
I’ve seen how one street car can destroy traffic flow when it has a mechanical issue and stalls out or when it is waiting to come on shift and blacks an entire road.
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl I've seen how a single crashed car or truck can ruin traffic flow by blocking an entire road. What's your point? You're making it sound as if LRTs breaking down is something that happens all the time. It isn't.
If Toronto can’t invest in total right of ways for the streetcars especially those getting delayed by left turning cars, they should explore allowing hook turns from the right lane to not impede the streetcars and fine people for blocking streetcars. It works in Melbourne, Australia.
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.
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
Agree especially with King. They should close down to cars and make it a bike / tram / foot traffic corridor. And the bike lanes on Adelaide and Richmond should be removed entirely. We can build smart transit if we think. Though there may be businesses complaining on King re no cars which might be preventing anything like this from occurring (as a business I'd be pissed if no cars .. maybe have neighbourhood tags to allow cars in certain areas for locals? Anyways...)
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.
Transit should be prioritized but as someone who lives outside the GTA, I have to drive in whenever I want to get to Toronto, because there is no consistent transit system that allows for arrival and departure into the city. Go Transit is slow and depending on the event, you can't leave same day. Yorkdale mall has the subway line so we don't always have to drive in fully but again, relying on transit is not always ideal for people commuting from outside the region.
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!
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.
worse than the lights is the streetcars have to go very slow at every rail junction
they should make the streetcar line on spadian underground and have cars ride on the ground level would be smarter
This is a flat out lie. I took this every day for ten years, and had the EXACT same thought- and never once was walking faster than staying on the streetcar.
@@kushblazin8409 average speed of a streetcar is 15km/hr, average speed of a bus is 30km/hr. If traffic builds up or streetcar breaks down and creates gridlock then walking is for sure faster
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.....
If only there was a whole video explaining to you why this is opinion is incorrect.
Yeah, cars should not be allowed with street cars
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!
Are you still an operator? Do you know how excessively noisy your streetcars are?
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.
Toronto is a 💩⭕
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Project 2025 will gut infrastructure funding for transit and push zoning for low density expwnsive housing in USA. Citynerd addresses this.
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.
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.
@@_seola_ The solution is to purchase an even bigger pickup truck, ha ha!
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.
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.
it's guys like you that keep the obsolete streetcar system going and ruining the lives of torontonians. streetcars are dumb
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 .
Same here. And often two or three streetcars travelling in a pack. It's about poor service, not traffic or crowds.
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 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'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
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?
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
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.
Toronto road Way's are not built to handle all the traffic. The roadways here are basically for horse and carriage
Thank you so much for this observation! I have been complaining this to the staff who thinks their vehicles are light and dainty probably. They are extremely noisy whenever they run
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.
Then you must never be using buses in busy areas during rush hour...
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.
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.
@@EvelynSaungikar Yonge to Sherbourne is 5 minute walk
@@Coltoid Google maps says 18 min
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.
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
That Toronto allows left turns along any tram routes is ridiculous. Amsterdam's only stop at tram stops, not traffic lights, and nobody blocks them turning left. There is no reason the TTC cannot do this.
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
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.
Great ideas !!
However, the key to create a balanced priority for both Cars and TTC Street cars.
And you are right in creating efficiencies like signal optimization and signs where possible.
Toronto is desperate for more subway lines. Yeah the Bureaucrats built subways in the fifties and completely went to sleep after that. In 75 years they hardly added any Subway lines.
@@George_K1 As Premier, Harris cancelled them. Subsequently, we had continuous fighting between the Province and the City.
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.
The problem with streetcars is that they don’t have their own reserved lane, so it always get stuck in traffic and back then there wasn’t big traffic, many people back then couldn’t afford cars, so they took streetcars
The Queen Line opened in 1893 well before there was any cars. The Road is narrow are is the main arterial route in the east end since King Street ends at the Don River.
True. Giving them their own dedicated routes makes them so much more effective.
@@Coffeepanda294 Absolutely. But this area is built up and firmly established. The road is too narrow for dedicated tracks. The best alternative is to have signal priority partially controlled by the streetcar operator.
I totally agree with you. The only reason the "streetcars" are bad is because the street around them is flawed designed. And I'm a real tram lover (and tram is a much better term than streetcar) and think they must get built (again) in Sundsvall. It's very important that people like you inform us about how not to lay it out.
As a former Streetcar Operator, I can safely say the city layout was not made with public transit in mind. I had to drive 2 hours into the city before my shift, clock in and then take the subway to my scheduled stop. I couldn't take the TTC system because there was no guarantee I'd be able to punch in on time, despite the fact our employee cards track us if we tap them on TTC vehicles.
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?
Here in The Netherlands we have the HTM Randstadrail fast trams. These special trams are for a faster transit between the cities The Hague and Zoetermeer. Between trainstation Den Haag LOI and metrostation Leidschendam the tram and the subway metro of Rotterdam share the same track. The subway metro trains from Rotterdam that is part of the Randstadrail on 1 line, use 2 different safety systems, 1 for the subway system and 1 for the tram system in The Hague.
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.
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.
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.
@@EvelynSaungikar Cyclists are the greatest hazard for pedestrians.
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.
Omg 0:09 Kitchener downtown spotted 👀 (It's okay, the parking lot on the left will eventually be the new transit hub/terminal.)
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 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.
A lot of substance fit in these 16 minutes! Really appreciate this video!
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.
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl You therefore need to buy a bigger pickup truck to solve the issue.
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 .
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 ...
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.)
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.
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 !
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
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.
Calgary's light rail is mostly separated from car traffic except for downtown where it runs along a transit only street. The only cars permitted on it is emergency vehicles or other transit vehicles
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.
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.
Lakeshore west had no streetcar service for over 5 years. They kept on redoing the tracks and power lines. With the new extra long streetcars and all the work they have done, the streetcars are running slower overall, slow at intersections move slower than a snail at the loops. I still remember seeing 7 streetcars stuck because one broke down. North America is 50 years behind in so much including public transit. Too many people to pay off in Toronto for better system.
This is why I use transit whenever I visit Toronto. Vehicle ownership and use still works just fine in the suburbs where I live.
Well planned and properly executed public transit relieves congestion for cars and gets people around very effectively.
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.
I agree with the sentiment of your channel, however after watching a few videos, they kind of feel the same. Would love to see some video breakdowns of cities outside of North America.
My city won't even complete our subway, instead they've let the project rot underground for the past century
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.
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
The problem is a whole lot more complex. Streetcars aren't necessarily more efficient. During rush hour, sure, but in non-peak times its not uncommon to find a single person on a double sized streetcar. That's a waste, so the TTC "resolves" this issue by reducing the number of streetcars during nonpeak times. That makes streetcars less usable since it's not available when you need it. Less usability means, it makes more sense to use cars or other means. IMO, a better approach is to have smaller "train cars". During peak times, add on more cars. During slow times, have fewer. Keep service levels the same, so subways are more reliable. As a plus, having more "train cars" gives you more flexibility. If a streetcar goes to the beach, add on bike park train cars. If it goes to the airport, add on some luggage cars. If the route has a lot of elderly or disabled, use more accessibility cars. The reason people use cars is because they're just plain better for some purposes. If you can make streetcars as flexible for those purposes, people will opt for public transit for the convenience of it.
Last time i use car was 10 year ago. Here is so good public transit that i dont need car
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.
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
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 $
In Berlin, most buses have dedicated bus lanes so as not to get stuck in car traffic. As a Torontonian without a car, I laugh whenever Americans say that Toronto has great public transit. Between "security incidents" that shut down entire an entire subway line for hours, to streetcars that do not come frequently enough and get stuck in traffic constantly, it's clear the city prioritizes cars over transit. Avenue Rd going north from Bloor is a six lane (!) freeway in the middle of the city. Toronto is horribly car-centric.
super well put, its incredible to see advocacy for a better transit future growing!
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.
Hearing about all of this insanity with the Toronto streetcars unironially makes me happier about San Diego's "trolley" or light rail network, which does ALL of the logical that you pointed here: dedicated light rail stops with benches/times/ticket machines at EVERY stop and every street crossing is treated as a rail crossing where all traffic stops (except in downtown but they dont share space with cars). I often have the problem of the damn trolley arriving too early. We have one minor segment of single track that was a bottleneck on the system, but they are fixing that with a "new" line to separate the single and double track sections. So we will have consistent 15 min frequency across the entire system now.
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...
hi flurf, i think you are missed the reasons for ttc streetcars being slow.
get on the Queen streetcar in the middle of the night when there is no traffic, you'll notice it has to slow down to a crawl at every bridge and every junction.
these are decisions based on the ttc's antiquated rail building techniques. they have worse switches slow down orders than any other city i know of.
Well done! We need fresh thinkers like YOU, Mr. Flurf, in our municipal design offices.
This subject is painful for many of us to contemplate - as a commenter alluded to. In Canada “urban planning” is a very bad joke.
I’m in Victoria, BC. We have a lot of bicycle infrastructure. The separated bike lanes are turning into a chaotic MAD MAX environment with all sorts of irresponsibly-operated electrified contraptions in use.
Torontos streetcars don’t suck. They need improvement and some routes are very slow, but other routes are actually quite efficient. I was on the 507 and I certainly wasn’t going the speed I should have but it wasn’t crawling like I had on some sections of king. There is still hope for Toronto, and the streetcars are still very comfortable
I really like your video. Great explanation of the phenomenon.
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.
Very good points, I've always disliked how averse Toronto is to car free pedestrianized streets
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.
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!
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.
The new Mississauga LRT is a huge failure as well, it was supposed to be completed by 2024 and it’s still not half way finished yet. Nobody in the city likes it or wants it. It caused heavy traffic in main streets, decreased driving lanes, noise/pollution in city centre annoying residents/bystanders, and is a waste of our tax money which we had no option of voting or a say in this project as stakeholders
In other words the LRT is doing EXACTLY what LIE-berals and their Woke allies DESIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By screwing up traffic - the LRT forces driver to either go some place else or to park the car and get on the public transit.............................
OR TO WALK OR BICYCLE to the destination exactly as LIE-berals have been demanding we do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In addition - by making it so difficult for commuters to travel longer distances - LIE-berals have managed to FORCE US into their odious 15 minute city urban design SCAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIE-berals believe that by making it virtually impossible to get out of their arbitrarily assigned 15 minute city border zones - that we will quietly accept the LIE-beral urban plan that is generating so much crime, noise, drug issues/homeless tent cities and rising costs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LIE-berals do not believe that we will choose to either VOTE LIE-berals out of office or MOVE OUT of the LIE-beral 15 minute cities to some other more logically designed city or town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The main issue I have with streetcars are the speeds it travels at. The main streetcars go down the busiest roads in North America without separation from traffic. That alone is a recipe for failure. It would've been easier if the city had built subways along the main streetcar routes and/or LRT's that are completely separated from traffic.
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.
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.
I have seen how even small numbers of cars destroy traffic flow. First time I went to Vietnam it was pretty much just scooters, absolute mayhem of course, but still flowed fairly well. The second time I went around 10 years later there was a big increase in cars, maybe 1 to every 20 or so scooters, and everything was at a standstill.
Now imagine instead replacing the scooters with bikes with public transport on major routes. I can't imagine that ringing bells would be as annoying as the constant horns in almost every Vietnamese city!
I’ve seen how one street car can destroy traffic flow when it has a mechanical issue and stalls out or when it is waiting to come on shift and blacks an entire road.
@@PhilipSmith-hs3fl I've seen how a single crashed car or truck can ruin traffic flow by blocking an entire road. What's your point? You're making it sound as if LRTs breaking down is something that happens all the time. It isn't.
If Toronto can’t invest in total right of ways for the streetcars especially those getting delayed by left turning cars, they should explore allowing hook turns from the right lane to not impede the streetcars and fine people for blocking streetcars. It works in Melbourne, Australia.
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.
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
Been to houston street cars are amazing there
Well-said and clearly laid out. Great video.
this needs to be seen by the city council
the TTC doesnt suck, its mainly just the street cars. The busses and subway are top tier
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.
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.
Love your videos! Always interesting and informative. Keep up the good work!
Agree especially with King. They should close down to cars and make it a bike / tram / foot traffic corridor. And the bike lanes on Adelaide and Richmond should be removed entirely. We can build smart transit if we think. Though there may be businesses complaining on King re no cars which might be preventing anything like this from occurring (as a business I'd be pissed if no cars .. maybe have neighbourhood tags to allow cars in certain areas for locals? Anyways...)
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.
Transit should be prioritized but as someone who lives outside the GTA, I have to drive in whenever I want to get to Toronto, because there is no consistent transit system that allows for arrival and departure into the city. Go Transit is slow and depending on the event, you can't leave same day. Yorkdale mall has the subway line so we don't always have to drive in fully but again, relying on transit is not always ideal for people commuting from outside the region.
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!