A Plan to fix Toronto's Streetcars

Using transit around Toronto is great if you already know where you are, where you're going and how to get there. But wayfinding as an outsider is incredibly difficult, and it feels as though the TTC is at best oblivious to making things better, or at worst doing it intentionally.

omg yes! This video was so great. I've so often said that Toronto's streetcar network should be so much better than it is! It boggles my mind how slow a streetcar can be, even along a dedicated route like Spadina. It's crazing coming from Europe - literally anywhere in Europe - and going to Toronto, and seeing the difference in speed. If I'm in, say, Amsterdam or Berlin, my tram is almost never going to stop, unless it's at a station. It's hella fast. In almost any other city, the tram network is the high-speed, high-capacity network, that is often faster than taking the metro, because the stops are at ground level and often closer to your origin and destination. But in Toronto, the streetcars are seen as some kind of "inferior metro" that everybody wants to replace with a subway. Why are the King and Dundas streetcars not already a "Yonge relief line"? They could be, if it were as fast and efficient as trams are in other cities. I really wish that instead of focusing so much on subways (which are great, don't get me wrong), Toronto would bring its streetcar network up to international standards. That alone could bring high-speed reliable rapid transit to literally hundreds of thousands of Torontonians, and it could be done within months or a few years, instead of decades.

It’s interesting because the same fiscally conservative “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality that led to Toronto mostly keeping a perfectly adequate streetcar network during a time when other cities were ripping them out in preparation for the newest futuristic rubber tire buses has also been the same mentality that has made Toronto hesitant to change the streetcar in any drastic way that would lead to them having better service (like an abundance of dedicated travel lanes when there are only a few along the network)

My main gripes: 1) The streetcar stops to pick up/dropoff passangers after a street light. Which means, it often gets stuck at a red light, goes through the intersection, just to stop again. 2) When stopped at an intersection red light, cars turning left with an advanced get the right of way before the streetcar, which means 1-5 cars with typically 1 person in the car get the right of way over potentially 100 passangers in the street car. I think fixing both would dramatically increase speed and allow streetcars to have an advantage over passanger vehicles.

Living in Sydney, I’m surprised that Toronto hasn’t done more to make their trams/light rail a higher priority. Sydney has excellent wayfinding signs and just decided to remove cars from a section of the road where they run alongside the Light Rail.

As a tourist travelling in Toronto, I was completely perplexed by how many versions of "Route 504" there were. I had a hard time looking for the tram to catch but eventually had to change to another route at an intersection to get to where I wanted. It would be more reasonable if one numbering represents one single route only.

An example of a small thing that got fixed relatively recently - putting streetcars on the Subway map!

You never mentioned the dreaded "short turn". The worst is when they decide to short turn ~after~ you get on the streetcar. All of a sudden you're dumped in the middle of nowhere, in a -25C snowstorm, the next three trains are also short turning and you suddenly realize if you'd have started walking when you were discharged 45 minutes ago, you'd be at the coffee shop warming up by now.

Some thoughts as someone who lives in Melbourne: - In Melbourne the latest trams have onboard LCD way-finding. The latest generation trams in Melbourne are part of the flexity family so there is no reason it shouldn't be able to be added to Toronto's fleet. - Also when there is a branch the overhead voice announces which way the tram will turn which again show it's possible for Toronto. - As to manually thrown switches Melbourne has progressively phased them out. I remember as a child when seeing the driver get out to throw the points was quite common and now I don't think I've seen it in years. - I think you are overemphasising the stops in Melbourne. Firstly for terminology, the level boarding stops in Melbourne are called super stops. The vast majority of tram stops in Melbourne are not super stops. They are just a metal sign post with a green sign just like in Toronto. What Melbourne has done is strategically build them at the busiest stops which is something Toronto could learn from. At 4:26 you show Swantson street in the centre of the CBD with 8 routes going though that single stop. At 16:07 you show there the 109 tram stops at North Richmond Station. Both of those are busy stops. For contract my local tram stop is no different to a basic suburban bus stop but almost no one gets on or off there.

walking faster than the streetcars isn't always a joke... there has been many times where I've walked 40 mins home without being passed by a streetcar

One of the biggest reasons trams are taken out of service is to repair doors. Door buttons greatly reduce the number of times doors open or close and thus the frequency of repairs. Passenger comfort is a second reason for working door buttons. As is so often the case, transit operators need to look to Germany and learn.

Some excellent points… a few years ago, the biggest priority was “we need low floor streetcars” - and all these small things got brushed under the rug. Now, let’s get on it!

And here I thought Toronto's streetcars were the cat's meow (as someone who hasn't been on a streetcar in about 20 years!). Thanks for pointing out areas public transit can be made so much better.

This couldn't be closer to the truth. I took a streetcar from U of T (cause why not, I'm a transit enthusiast) to Union to catch a bus home. My commute caused me to miss not one, but two buses out of Union thanks to slow traffic, construction, not knowing where the platform was (I grew up near Toronto, so I wasn't a total stranger to how the TTC worked), and a bunch of redirections. Toronto needs to really step their game up and fix this system. Even as a frequent commuter, it's hella confusing.

Long, long ago, in what feels like a galaxy far, far away, the streetcar drivers used to sing out the stops and mention any connecting routes (bus, streetcar, or subway).

While some of the complaints about the streetcars are justified and backed up by data, some are simply subjective and circumstantial. A good example is when they repaired the tracks on Queen Street, they replaced the routes with buses. People were happy how much faster the buses were compared to the streetcars, and a petition actually started to keep the buses and get rid of the streetcars over it. The TTC however, were confused. All their data was showing that the buses were actually SLOWER than the streetcars, route times were worse. What? It turns out, buses are perceptually faster. In that, because they jostle and bump and bang the rider around, it actually feels like the bus is going faster, breaking hard and weaving in and out of traffic. The streetcars actually were faster, but their smooth rides and smooth acceleration/braking meant that they felt slower. Which is often touted as an advantage of streetcars. But they "feel" slow so people just assume they are actually going slower, when they aren't.

Spadina line: last time I used it, going north, despite the line having dedicated lanes - it took longer to get me where I was going than walking the day before had. Because the streetcars spend so much time stopped at lights. If you're going to have streetcars, they should have priority over car traffic.

Interesting. Here in Germany, there's a specific traffic sign for transit stops [technically, bus or tram stops on a street] - a green H in a green circle on a yellow background, "Zeichen 224". (There are some variations, but they're easily recognizable as such.) The idea seems to be that it's something traffic, in general, ought to be aware of, not just passengers.

8:50 I've always disliked this about the Streetcar and BRT routes in the GTA why does the bus have to wait for the cars and the trucks to complete their left turn? Just have the transit signal on first then the left turn.

I think it's worth mentioning that when the King right of way was first introduced, it was enforced very aggressively. There were police cars prowling the area and pulling people over frequently. This proved to be incredibly unpopular and the pushback pretty much killed enforcement.