After years of delay, the Finch West LRT line finally opened in Toronto ... and the initial reception has been really, really bad.
So bad that the mayor felt the need to post to reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/1pii3ay/comment/nt6qle8/
I'm going to be in Toronto soon. Should I make a video about the Finch West LRT, or would that be beating a dead horse at this point? 🤔
For what ti's worth, I already talked about how the lack of signal priority would be a major problem for these LRT lines in my Toronto streetcars video in July (@ 35:37):
It's worth a watch and [available on nebula](https://nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-trams-are-great-so-why-are-the-streetcars-so-bad/), if it's specifically YT that you dislike.
There's more than just "car drivers" to it. But sitting in traffic and waiting for cars was a major factor, iirc. 100 folks in a tram waiting for a single car to turn left is absolutely bonkers.
@notjustbikes I watched some news clips (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKtUccVySEc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCFS-Mxzyo)
What strikes me:
– The Mayor/councillors/TTC Board *can* order signal priority.
– The vox pops show that there *are* orgs and individuals who (a) clearly understand that concept, plus frequency, reliability, etc. and (b) specifically demand those things.
IMO valuable would be your take on: what is missing, process-wise, such that these ingredients don't lead to the right outcome on opening day?
For instance, perhaps in AMS/elsewhere, the agency builds/opens lines itself and has a refined process for that, including pre-adjusting signals.
For Finch W, it's a one-off P3 consortium, who seem to have spent $ on lawyers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii3cW6KVS5Q) instead of on executing a smooth hand-off to the City et al.
Or: perhaps in T.O. agencies & contractors are not obliged to respond to transit advocates' concerns during the build.
That kind of comparison would be valuable.
@paulnatsuo I talked about this in my Toronto streetcars video. The TTC is an extremely (small-c) conservative organisation.
If they've always been doing something a certain way, they'll keep doing it forever, and they are never willing to look outside of North America.
Even reading the minutes from the meeting about signal priority they kept talking about how it would be revolutionary in North America to let the trams go before left-turning cars. 🙄
@notjustbikes What I took from the coverage is that there are people trying to effect change, and they're savvy enough to pick up specific points about operations (e.g. signal priority) and hammer the TTC &al. Your videos often encourage such people.
I imagine they'd just as eagerly press points about governance, if given some.
But if there aren't any, and the conclusion is simply “there will only ever be dead horses, nothing else is possible,” then indeed probably no need for an extra video.
@notjustbikes I was thinking what you could do is maybe work with someone that's more local to put a video about it on your channel, similar to what RM Transit did, where you could use your platform to help their channel, but not have to actually wade into the issue again yourself.
Start it out like "I told you this would happen! Instead of rehashing, here's ___ from Toronto that's got some thoughts" and then it's their video or something like that. I think Tom Scott did that, too?
@notjustbikes They claim to be working on it now that they've been thoroughly embarrassed. Maybe shoot some B-roll and some initial impressions, but I say wait until they open the Eglinton Crosstown (supposedly the TTC's internal target date is Feb 8) to see if they've learned any lessons.
The interesting part of this story IMO, if they manage to get their act together, is that public pressure and Torontonians no longer just putting up with slow, heavily compromised transit managed to get the goods. That change for the better is possible if people demand it. And if they can't get their act together, why not and what is it actually going to take? And either way, what does this mean for the rest of the system, particularly the streetcar network and future projects.
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