Finch West is a 3.5B streetcar. We can make it run much quicker.

TL;DR

To fix Finch West, let's set a better, clearer goal, that's befitting to the people in Finch West: 25 minutes travel time.

And it is possible! If we put in actual signal priority, run the stops like buses do, run the LRT with the speed it deserves, & plan for express services for rush hours.

Why 25 minutes?

In Metrolinx’s promotional material, they promised a 34-minute travel time, which translates to ~20km/h average speed.

I believe this is still way too slow. We should at least achieve express bus speed or better. That translates to at least 24km/h or faster, or ~25 minutes of travel time or less.

Yes, my lowest expectation is half the current travel time.

Now let's talk about how we got the numbers.

Some backgrounders

As of today (2025-DEC-15), it's very commonly known that Finch West "LRT", delayed & over budget, ran worse than the buses it was supposed to replace.

Somehow fortunately, the service is so, so bad it made transit signal priority finally a news & political item, something people asked for decades for streetcars / St Clair / King Street pilot / Scarborough / Dufferin / RapidTO bus lanes but were always brushed away, until now.

But since any improvement is still on proposal, or "coming soon", or died behind closed doors (but we'll never know since everything is so opaque). So, here's some of my observations, & ideas on how to speed it up.

How bad is the service right now?

I've recorded some data on 1st day of operation (2025-DEC-07), with some other buses for reference.

I've also given line 6 some mercy, not counting the 10 minute "short turned till next train" trip in the stats.

Finch West LRT

Measured from departing Humber College to arriving at Finch West. No short turn nor abnormal reports from PA system in this particular ride.

Average speed (total distance / total time): 11.8km/h

Moving speed (not counting any stop time, red lights or actual station stop): 21.1km/h

Finch Express bus (939B)

Measured from Scarborough Town Center to Finch West, so no speed boost from Scarborough bus lanes is counted. The very short bus lane close to Finch West station is counted, however we had to wait for the red lights twice to enter / continue in the bus lane too, imo also a pretty bad experience.

Average speed: 23.6km/h

Moving speed: 33.0km/h

Finch bus (36)

Measured from finch west to finch.

Average speed: 17.3km/h

Moving speed: 25.0km/h

So far, the results are simply unacceptable, & as most running groups around the city pointed out, quite beatable by runners.

Toronto man outruns newly-opened Finch LRT by 18 minutes | CBC News

A Toronto man challenged the newly-opened Finch Light-Rail Transit to a race — and he won.

During the recorded run, we've even witnessed a parallel running replacement bus to our LRT, over passing us halfway in the ride, & finished 2 stops ahead of us.

The issues

Most of them are pretty obvious, & quite well known by now, but for completeness I'll list them too.

Red lights galore

The streetcar almost stopped at all lights, waiting for the entire signal cycle to end, THEN entered the station afterwards.

Dumbed down speed

Videos from test runs have shown it was capable of running in higher speed, but TTC decided to run it on a slower speed. Speaking of:

Unrealistically low target

In response, TTC stated the horribly slow speed "is as fast as expected and planned"*. There's no improvement when your target is this low.

City, TTC taking steps to improve service speed of Finch West LRT, says Chow | CBC News

The newly opened Finch West LRT is moving at an expected pace despite complaints from riders, according to transit officials, but some experts say changes to traffic signals could help it move faster.

* Somehow, they also said, perhaps in the same email, they expect it to go 10 minutes faster than this. Aside from the weird contradiction, even then, it'll still be slower than a 36 Finch bus. This is not a goal, but a cop out.

So, to reiterate: our goal is ~25 minutes of travel time. Now let's talk about how we can make it happen.

What should we do about Finch West?

1. Complete, total, no-questions-asked transit signal priority

From my research, there's been a telephone game going on between TTC & the city of Toronto: where someone said "we want priority", the other reply "done", but either did the weakest possible thing, or just thrown out the proposal, cause 1 car driver in the neighborhood don't want to wait 5s for a public transit vehicle with hundreds of people on it.

So, to put it clearly:

The LRT should ALWAYS get the green lights when it approaches a traffic light. No questions asked.

Not just when it's running late. Not just extending the green for a tiny bit. Always. No exceptions.

That includes:

No slow down due to non-LRT conditions. No slowdown due to cars/people crossing the road.

If you can't control the cars, either ticket them or put in grossing gates.

Ticket cost should match the time lost to passengers to LRT delays:

1 minute of delay
* 150 passenger (being very conservative here)
* $3.3 (cost of each TTC fare)
= $495 minimum fine, per minute delayed
Peg the cost against the TTC fares.

If the green light for the LRT is turned on too early: keep them green until the LRT has passed the intersection. The light should wait for the LRT, not vice versa.

If you're worried about cars / people entering LRT only portions of the track:

A. Maybe you should've thought about this a decade ago & build it on a bridge / in a tunnel.

B. Fences. Loads of fences. It's not a shameful thing to do either; Hong Kong also learnt it the hard way & had to put in the fences after soft opening. To paraphrase their finding: "the citizens didn't obey the 'no crossing the track' signs as we’d hoped."

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Transport_HK_LR_MingKam.jpg

The only permissible slowdowns would be issues with track conditions or entering / leaving stations. Even those delays should be minimized (more in a bit)

If a red light is unavoidable (E.g. some cars / pedestrians are going through it LRT need to get the green at ANY part of traffic light cycle.

If the pedestrians are crossing when LRT is approaching, their green lights need to end as soon as possible, & LRT will get the next light. Same goes for the cars. The key is minimizing LRT stopping time.

In many places, slightly expanding the LRT station area would provide a small refuge island for pedestrians crossing the track. These islands can help us change the lights quicker (the pedestrian can get to safety quicker), meaning quicker green lights for LRTs.

Funnily enough, fright rail / GO trains already enjoy full, uncompromised signal priority; they never had to wait for road traffic to clear.

& to make things easier, plenty of finch west stations have their platforms set after the lights. While being doubly annoying right now, it's easier to manage the priority lights, because you'd know the train is needing the green from a distance.

2. Request stops

1 interesting thing I've noticed, & have yet to see anyone report on it, is that the Finch West LRT isn't doing too bad on moving time: Even at avg 21.1km/h moving speed (still pretty bad), that'd give you just about 30 minutes of total traveling time.

We can't cut all stops on the line of course, but we can cut almost every stop that's not the terminal or connecting to other transit options on major destinations. (Which is to say, normal express bus stop distances; but even those are getting reviews so we might be able to cut even more).

But what about all the poured concrete?! Well:

A. Maybe you should have planned better, &

B. Let's talk about request stops.

Quick brief on request stops

For some reason, request stops only exist on Toronto's buses, but not on LRTs. This might also be the reason why the 36 buses / line 6 replacement buses consistently outperforming the LRTs: among other things, they get to skip stops that are irrelevant to the current batch of passengers.

But for clarity, & for whichever decision maker that has never taken a bus ride in their life, here's what it means:

1. By default, you don't stop on most stops.

2. You CAN stop at the stops, when:

2a. Someone on the vehicle press the "STOP" button, or

2b. The driver spotted / knows someone will get on the bus at the stop.

In a very advanced, built-for-2025, 3.5B in the making LRT system, the driver should be able to see info like these from their dashboard, before they're within line-of-sight of the stations. (Or, what exactly did we paid for?)

I also understand the TTC has an entirely different thing, that's also called Request Stops (see https://www.ttc.ca/accessibility/Easier-access-on-the-TTC/Riding-the-Bus ). But I'm talking normal English here, not Torontonian legal speak. See the normal definition on Wikipedia:

Request stop

In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, stops with low passenger counts can be incorporated into a route without introducing unnecessary delay. Vehicles may also save fuel by continuing through a station when there is no need to stop.

Or see how it works in the UK (video by @geofftech.bsky.social ):

In fact, the LRTs are already equipped with the door opening buttons.

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Line_6_Citadis_Spirit_LRT_Interior,_December_7_2025_(03).jpg (cropped)

How would that look like?

Here, I'm using the most available image I can find, that shows line 6 & its connecting bus routes (from a 2023 annual report, nowhere to be found on TTC's site).

Modified from an image from https://stevemunro.ca/2022/10/25/ttc-2023-annual-service-plan-round-2/#line-6-changes , thanks to Steve Munro ( @swanboatsteve.bsky.social ) for the capture.

For this iteration, I'm only keeping stops with express bus services as required stops. Which means ALL stops are request stops except for the following:

Humber College

Martin Grove

Mount Olive

Rowntree Mills

Emery

"Jane & Finch" station

Finch West

Yes, 5 stops between the terminals, the rest by request.

These stations MIGHT deserve to be always stopping since they have an express bus connection and/or are the terminals. But if they're not well used by passengers, we can always take them off the always stopping list. Same goes to the request stops, we can easily track which station has been requested on more trips than most & adjust to people's travel patterns.

How would that perform?

Coincidentally, the LRT had the fastest speed between Mount Olive & Rowntree Mills. This is where everyone recorded it reaching the fabled 60km/h speed. So, I'm using that as a reference point.

Per record on Google Maps / GTFS, the current time between the 2 station (1.1km) is 5 minutes.

If I'm doing a simple math problem of 1.1km, vehicle top speed of 60km/h, & take some simple acceleration & deceleration in calculation, that would make the journey time ~113s, or slightly less than 2 minutes.

So, I'm artificially adding a 2.5x multiplier to the estimated travel time to match the current performance, & 30s for each stop. This is how it'll look:

## Line 6 Request stop travel time simulation
Unlisted stations are request stops (not stopped in this simulation)
(artificial 2.5x travel time)

| Station | Est. time (m/s) | Est. distance (from start) |
| :------------- | :---------------: | -------------------------: |
| Humber College | 0 | 0 |
| Martin Grove | 4m28s | 1500 |
| Mount Olive | 9m29s | 2800 |
| Rowntree Mills | 13m34s | 3900 |
| Emery | 20m58s | 6100 |
| Jane & Finch | 28m21s | 8300 |
| Finch West | 35m45s | 10500 |

Since the current Mount Olive - Rowntree Mills travel time includes 1 red light session too, the real time with proper signal priority can do better.

In fact, the "2.5x multiplier" is almost identical to setting the top speed to 20km/h. This is pretty much matching Steve Munro's findings, where the line 6 travel time are scheduled around 20km/h or slower:

Scheduled Travel Speeds on TTC Lines 1, 2 and 6

From the moment Line 6 opened in a magisterial whoosh of grandeur, well, maybe not exactly a whoosh, the issue of its glacial operating speed has fuelled many debates in social media. One compariso…

A top speed of 30km/h would already reach the 25 minute mark:

## Line 6 Request stop travel time simulation
Unlisted stations are request stops (not stopped in this simulation)
(artificial 30km/h max speed)

| Station | Est. time (m/s) | Est. distance (from start) |
| :------------- | :---------------: | -------------------------: |
| Humber College | 0 | 0 |
| Martin Grove | 3m17s | 1500 |
| Mount Olive | 6m41s | 2800 |
| Rowntree Mills | 9m40s | 3900 |
| Emery | 14m52s | 6100 |
| Jane & Finch | 20m03s | 8300 |
| Finch West | 25m15s | 10500 |

& we can do much better than that. If I set the max speed to 60km/h, the total trip time can drop to 14m 45s.

## Line 6 Request stop travel time simulation
Unlisted stations are request stops (not stopped in this simulation)
(60km/h max speed)

| Station | Est. time (m/s) | Est. distance (from start) |
| :------------- | :---------------: | -------------------------: |
| Humber College | 0 | 0 |
| Martin Grove | 1m47s | 1500 |
| Mount Olive | 3m53s | 2800 |
| Rowntree Mills | 5m46s | 3900 |
| Emery | 8m46s | 6100 |
| Jane & Finch | 11m45s | 8300 |
| Finch West | 14m45s | 10500 |

But to do any of that, we need the LRT not to decelerate at any other point. Which means, no red light. At all. See point 1 for total transit signal priority.

But what if request stops don't work?!

There is a remote possibility that all request stops will be requested on every single stop, basically running like now. For that:

1. Any skipped stop on any trip is time saved for hundreds of people, so still worth it; &

2. Let's talk about the elusive Express Streetcar service.

3. Express streetcars (yes, it's possible!)

This year, Hiroshima, Japan opened a new streetcar connection to their Shinkansen station. Besides bangers like straighten up the lines, grade separation with bridges, new retails & restaurants in & around the station etc., they have also introduced Rapid Streetcars without extra tracks.

Here's the rapid streetcar in action:

To put it simply:

This is a rush hour service only, & only available on weekdays.

The skipped stations will still get served by "normal" streetcars.

Because the entire thing is planned ahead, no bunching or "express stuck behind local streetcar" situation happened.

TTC already has a definition for peak hours already, so we don't even need to reinvent that here.

... during peak periods Monday to Friday 6:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. ...

Bikes on TTC vehicles

All TTC buses (except Wheel-Trans and Community Buses) have bike racks on the front. E-bikes are not permitted on TTC bike racks due to their weight. If bike racks are unavailable, bikes can be brought onto buses, streetcars and subways any time of the year on weekends and statutory holidays, and at the following times Monday to Friday, if space permits:

For extra validation points, unverified sources (comments on YouTube) pointed to Kyoto, Japan also did express streetcars on peak hours, when they still had one (now demolished).

4. Run the LRTs as quick as it can be

With less red lights & stops, the LRT will now have ample opportunity to speed up to the fabled 60km/h operational speed. Speeding up is a very achievable goal actually, as the LRTs were tested in a significantly higher speed than TTC ran it, as reported by Transitthinker & others: (video by @transitthinker.bsky.social )

Conclusion

Just to recap:

We need to set the correct expectations for line 6. Don't settle for anything worse than an express bus. Until then, it still requires improvement.

Some fairly simple ideas to make it happen:

1. Complete, total, no-questions-asked transit signal priority

2. Bus style request stops for LRT

3. Express streetcars at weekday peak times

4. Speed up the LRTs as much as it's capable of

All rules apply to Eglinton LRT too, especially to the surface level regions.

Express streetcars might not mean much to other TTC streetcar routes, when TTC streetcar has a deranged situation with its track, both technical & managerial: (video by @notsmoothsteve.bsky.social )

But you won't know it unless you try. And just put some capital money towards migrating the switches to normal international standards. (Yes, it should count as a capital project, like the Bloor station upgrade. Go score some funding.)

It has been very frustrating to write this article, not because it's so bad, but because it takes so little effort to make it good, and yet no one did anything in the past decade, from planning to test runs.

Here's hoping the 3.5B price tag can shook the city enough to do the right thing. We, the passengers, will be counting on it.

PS. I'll start doing more writing like this. Probably not too frequent (I am bad at writing). But if you're interested, you can follow me on BlueSky, RSS, or email list.