The joke we tell in Toronto is that Toronto is always 1 hour away from Toronto, regardless of transit method (including cars on the freeway). The biggest problem with our streetcar network is that its STILL a streetcar network that has to share the road with tons of visiting suburban drivers who don't know or care about any local traffic laws (See King Street). The streetcar lines that have been modified to have dedicated lanes (effectively making them LRTs) are MUCH more reliable and enjoyable to ride compared to the older streetcar lines that have to share the roadway still. Progress is slow but steady, and with 3 brand new subway lines and 1 subway extension underway, plus the GO transit heavyrail expansion, the transit future of Toronto has never looked better despite all its current issues.
I liked this approach from one Euro city: put both streetcar tracks on the same side of the "road"; and both lanes of the car road on the other side. I wish they did this on St. Clair.
I will say that the dedicated streetcar lanes on Queens Quay have dramatically sped up streetcar service along the waterfront. Getting from Union station to Spadina for instance is a literal breeze. If those lanes can be implemented system wide, streetcars would be a viable alternative to virtually all other forms of TTC transit.
A city an hour away from itself is extremely very common in big cities around the world, no matter it's car or public transit, even in supposedly "good transit" cities. I'm sure there are other "jokes" to describe our public transit, but this one in particular is embarrassingly out of touch.
@@AndyLeedee one lane each way on major traffic arteries in the city, because of the bike lanes on both sides of the road is literally the worst shit ive ever seen.. takes 1 minute for the street to get backed up literally beyond view when someone turns left
As a Torontonian, I need to mention one major flaw with our system. While the university finch line is incredibly efficient, there is a price to our reliance on it. When there is an issue on the line that causes a closure (which happens 1-2 times a month) the entire system crumbles. The TTC will bring in shuttle busses to run along the affected portions, but with the high ridership and no alternate routes, they aren't able to keep up. The entire system slows to a crawl and most will be forced to walk to there destination if able.
And it only gets worse... Because Toronto's developers keep adding more and more and more condos and stuff to the city while our infrastructure is already overloaded. Our roads are severely overpopulated. Traffic is a nightmare and gets worse. And to make matters worse... Because of the severe overpopulation of the city. There's a severe lack of parking for cars.
am also a torontonian, when tf will they finish the eglinton line it got delayed over and over... 😭 just be done already. i dont even live in downtown, I am more affected by eglinton, so the massive delay of line 5 really affects me, as there are many streets with construction, which slows eglinton even more. Ironically, line 5 isn't solving any traffic problems, but making them worse.
I came here to say that. It kind of sounds like text-to-speech with some kind of South African accent, since words like "commuters" are also mispronounced.
I came here to say the same.. Very good report as well. The Ontario line, Sheppard line extension ( both directions), and the GO ( which stands for Government of Ontario) RER system, will greatly enhance the transit grid.
@@stvdagger8074that's down to a difference between US and British usage. As an ex-pat Brit of 42 years, I've seen both in use in Canada. Personally I still prefer buses. I guess it depends on whether he's using a US or British spell checker.
As well as the HFR project (that should honestly be HSR) which will significantly improve inter-city travel times and create more demand for Public transport for ALL cities involved. Hopefully this region gets greater projects in the near future and faster construction times (which is really dependent on the next federal government). The Eglinton line should've been finished when I was in highschool yet here I am an adult and we've still got over a year most likely.
@@Nabee_Hthe next transit projects are not dependent on federal funding, this is provincial jurisdiction. Doug ford is cutting funding time and time again to cook the books, this isn’t a transit specific issue but universal through every industry the province is supposed to help in. HSR was cut by Doug ford immediately after taking office and so was the Ontario line, but reintroduced it as if it was his parties idea. The HSR/HFR eventually did get taken over federally which it shouldn’t have been.
As a Torontonian, the only solid good thing I can definitely say about TTC is the reliability and accessibility of the buses. they do provide an expansive transport citywide. I can't wait for the the two new lines under construction to be operational; will provide a massive and needed access to hotspots like Don Valley, Portlands, and the City Airport areas
Would be more reliable, cost effect and on time, making the trams only lanes. Convert the rest of the roads to larger pedestrian walkway and bike lanes
thank you for mentiong the lack of funding. its one of the lowest tax funded public transit in the world and we feel it! most "effiecent" feels like a good title but trains are PACKED. also want to add, Line 3 closed several months earlier then scheduled due to an derailment that killed one person (EDIT: no one was killed, i remembered wrong) so it was clearly outlived its life and is so sad it was ignored so long with no replacement for a decade.
Correction: The derailment did not kill anyone; five were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. The cause of the derailment was loose bolts holding down the power rail.
The goal of a transit system is to be efficient. Funding from the government is volatile and unstable. Canadian cities must take inspiration from Asian cities such as Hong Kong, which run a surplus.
As other comments have said, you cannot discuss Toronto transit any longer without including the GO network. GO rail expansion no longer just suburban morning-evening service, it includes in-city express options that integrate with the TTC. I will transfer from the subway to the UP Express to go straight downtown just because I can; also hop over to Mimico station to take the GO train into Exhibition Place. That's a real transit benefit, and Metrolinx - for all its occasional dysfunction, knows this and does seem to be getting things done to turn the GO network into a bona fide rapid-cousin to the TTC.
How so? There's zero integration of schedules or routes. GO stations are placed in out-of-the-way locations with often no connection at all to TTC routes. I live near Scarborough GO and literally my best route there is to walk 35 minutes. The stations which aren't like that are the exceptions, not the rule, and the only time there aren't schedule problems is if it's a frequent service bus for TTC. GO is still almost entirely for the 905.
I never said it was perfect, but it's come a long way and I find myself referring to GO and TTC stations for route options now. My Mimico example is a good example; could connectivity be better? Absolutely. It is already quite a usable benefit? Absolutely, it's become my go-to for Exhibition access now, I don't bother with the streetcar connection and that's a good thing. Same for UP Express to Pearson and to downtown.@@tristanridley1601
@@tristanridley1601 GO stations weren't placed in Toronto, the city grew around rail lines that existed before the city got big. Later, GO took over the lines for transit. They weren't meant for in city transit either, that's becoming a thing now.
Living in Toronto and hearing someone compliment the current system was very jarring to me. I didn’t see it in an “efficient” or “remarkable” light at all before this video but am glad that I might view it and be a little proud of the Jerry rig makeshift feeling system we got here. As a commuter coming from one of the cities in the GTA (greater toronto area) I can say how painful it is whenever the constant delays on the subways and buses happen, but how emotional I got seeing that proposed 2031 map. It brought tears to my eyes. If it actually all pans out our city will be so much easier to traverse. Especially everyone coming from a bit further outside toronto.
The only issue I see with the proposed 2031 pan is the fact that they aren’t extending line 4 along to Shepard east. I may be biased cause I live on line 4, but it is way too small
Canadian transit agencies across the country have something that most systems in the United States and even Europe lack: frequent bus networks as the foundation and focus of public transit. Rail is treated as a high frequency, high speed, express corridor, much like how a driver would consider a highway. But that speed and frequency fails unless it is connected to equally frequent local coverage. And this is where Toronto (as well as every major city in Canada) excels over most cities when it comes to public transit. In so many major rail cities from from New York to Chicago to Melbourne, amazing rail lines are married to terrible local bus lines with frequencies often not greater than 20 minutes out in the suburbs, and with very little in the way of proper infrastructure out in the suburbs. In Toronto proper, a bus comes every 5-10 minutes on every major artery not covered by rail (and even some that go along rail lines). Line 1 connects to BRT out in the exurbs of Vaughn, Richmond Hill, and Markham, Line 5 connects to the Mississauga transitway which provides probably some of the best BRT in North America. At the same time, there are frequent regional buses provided by GO Transit that go out to every corner of Southern Ontario. This is alongside the GO regional rail network, with over 200km being converted into a high frequency German-style S-Bahn system, with every station connecting to frequent bus or rail transit. Metrolinx's amazing bus service across the region ensure that every time a new rail extension or line is built, ridership jumps by at least 100k. Long story short, focus on the quality of the most basic transit service of your network so that rapid transit makes a big difference. Also, it's pronounced "Young", not "Yon-gee".
A few other points to note: - Metrolinx is also planning to extend Line 1 to Richmond Hill, and is exploring extending Line 4 (known as the "stubway") to the Sheppard station in the Line 2 Scarborough extension. They are much further behind in their journeys to completion but it's exciting stuff nonetheless. - Toronto recently got a New Deal (brokered with the provincial government)! That means there is now provincial funding for the TTC and the system doesn't need to rely as much on fares. - TTC is also exploring fare integration so that will further drive people to use the system - the situation right now with the TTC is also due to a much broader policy of just not funding things properly. Things like housing, cost of living, the shelter system, and even potholes (god forbid you anger the car commuters too) have been poorly maintained for a LONG time now. Luckily Mayor Olivia Chow is now reversing some of those cuts and pushing for things like the New Deal. She's also doing citizen-led budget consultations, which haven't happened in a VERY long time
Don't forget the GO expansion project. Most of the GO train network will get at least 15 min all-day train services, with potentially even greater frequency during peak periods. This will take a decent amount of load away from the Line 1 and Line 2. Along with the Line 4 and Line 2 extensions in Scarborough, there are public consultations ongoing for the Scarborough Eglinton East LRT that will take riders from Kennedy to Sheppard/McCowan (the new terminus of Line 2 and Line 4 after their extensions are complete). Although this project will probably take 10-15 years for completion.
The DVP and Gardiner are now going to the province as well! This means more money the city will be able to spend on other things (like the TTC). Line 2 will be getting 55 new subway trains as well, really nice given that a couple months ago i saw a homeless guy get stuck in between the cars banging and screaming for a whole stop (couldnt open the door), shouldn't be possible with the Line 1 subway car designs.
As a Torontonian living in the downtown core, this video was truly fascinating. I loved seeing a different perspective on this. Also, it was well balanced with a clear display of pro’s and con’s. Excited to see the future of Toronto’s public transit!
We (Toronto) recently ordered many more streetcars, but we don't yet have the garage space to store them. This led to a unique and very convenient temporary solution: putting them into operation overnight to both provide 24-hour service and "store" them on the roads!
Interesting video man. But I feel like you should have briefly mentioned the GO Train system as well. I wonder how huge those numbers would get if you included the people who commute from suburban areas. I live roughly 60km from Union Station and I could walk to the GO and be in the city within an hour.
Go train is so slow, infrequent, tiny number of trains and isn't even worth of mentioning as transit. And Go Bus is the slowest bumpiest and most expensive bullshit one can imagine. Both are garbage
@@onememory6484from personal experience the lakeshore line coming from durham to toronto sends a full train with many standing every 20 minutes for over 2 hours in the morning every work day
@@onememory6484 thats just wrong. I commute everyday using the GO train, and find it so reliable. Look at the Lakeshore West/East for example, it comes every 30 mins with 12-15 cars each, with just the right amount of people on it. Never did I have to stand in the train as there always enough seats for everyone, and enough people to fill almost every seat. GO Bus is pretty bad, but its not entirely metrolinx fault, the construction all over Ontario, especially in places like Mississauga, with the Hurontario line construction makes it almost impossible to drive busses on a 1 lane road that connects the entire Mississauga together.
@@smaz9235 I have to disagree, I don't take the train to work and would like to use it just to go to downtown and back instead of driving and the last train stops at 14:30 or so and there are only buses after this point and trains service stops early going back up the line so it's completely useless as a transportation system for anyone that doesn't use it for work. I had to take the Go Bis a couple of times to avoid DVP traffic and due to construction I was rerouted to some subway station on highway 7 and had to take the metro which delayed me for over an hour for a work event. And on the way back they just cancelled ALL buses and I couldn't get back home. All of this is just unacceptable Union station is also delipidated, old, confusing and full of the homeless and drug addicts and non of it makes anyone feel safe. Oh, not to mention I still have to drive to the Go stations because there are no public transportation so what's all the point again?
The best thing happening with public transport in Toronto and the GTA in general actually has nothing to do with the TTC, but rather with the GO Train. It has largely been a mere commuter system for most of its existence running only peak hours except for the Lakeshore line, but it's making a big step forward as an all day regional express system with new stations and high frequency service. Some of the expansion has already started and where it has happened it has proven quite popular.
Yeah, like my friends live in Barrie, but the only way to get there on the weekends is drive or take a coach bus. Its also bad for tourism, like I was in London and we took a day trip to Portsmouth to see the naval Museum, we took a commuter train. Couldn't go visit Niagra falls on a commuter train for a day trip if you're vacationing in Toronto...
@@danielgertler5976You can take a GO train to Niagara Falls on weekends. Barrie has GO bus service every day. GO coverage is actually pretty impressive. You can get from Kitchener to Oshawa to Barrie to Niagara
@@danielgertler5976 There is a weekend service to Niagara, which is 3 trains each way on each of Saturday and Sunday. It has proven very popular so hopefully that will give the impetus to expand it to all week and more trains each day
One important development that happened around the time this video released: The City of Toronto's 2 downtown freeways: the Gardiner Expressway (the necessary rebuild of which was anticipated to take up over 40% of the city's transportation budget), and the Don Valley Parkway, have both been uploaded to the Provincial Government, so now the city is no longer financially responsible for them. This frees up a huge chunk of the transportation budget for the TTC. As well, the TTC subways are partially aided by the regional rail system: GO Transit (Government of Ontario) which is currently undergoing major upgrades, with 5 of the 7 train lines having all day service at least hourly, some of them half-hourly, and peak service every 15min; with plans for most services to run every 10-15min throughout the day and 5 minutes during rush hour.
Both keen observations, and definitely worth a second video to cover both the GO transit system, and a brief update on the funding. It honestly never made sense to me why Toronto paid for those two expressways, considering how expensive they are to operate. You can literally tell the difference in quality as soon as you hop off the 401, or even where the Gardener turns into the QEW.
As a native Torontonian, this was a really well-researched video! Much better than many other foreigners to the city versions of it. Like literally my biggest criticism is the pronunciation of things, and certain names. Ex. Ontario, its not on-_tah_-rio, its on-teh-rio.
@@Nabee_H Its just a thing we call ourselves. Like no one says "New yorkian", do we? But in Toronto we call ourselves "Torontonian" for some reason, it sounds quite normal here. Oh also for the native part, I was born/lived here all my life.
GO transit also operates commuter rail into the city centre. Its currently being updated to regional express rail (RER) with more frequent service and will provide additional game changing transit service. Hopefully it'll be more like the RER in Paris which is fully recognized as part of the everyday transit network of the city.
@@randomrazr Fake London will just remain in public transit hell lol. TBH it is not particularly relevant to the RER project, which is primarily focused on the Toronto area and some parts of GTA. The GO expansion isn't really meant to expand service to London, Kitchener etc, although all lines will get a boost in frequency and all day service.
ive seen london continue to expand its suburbs. but their roads and lack of transit in newer areas just makes it a auotmotive hell hole to drive in@@Haxerous
@@randomrazr it was a trial route running 4 hours to London. It was not intended to be a commuter line, rather a city to city route. Was used mostly by students I think. No other line goes that far except the summer weekend route to Niagara falls
What’s missing here is that the TTC acts as an anchor and services all the neighbouring regions/cities that have material populations coming in and out of the downtown core for work, leisure, and school Also Yonge is pronounced like “young”!
The ttc works great, if you live near it and don’t have to travel too far on it. There’s a reason commuting times in Toronto are the highest in the world, and the ttc is part of the problem. I suggest this video poster lives here for a month, preferably in January, a few km away from a subway station, and then let’s hear his assessment of how great the ttc is.
Kudos! What a wonderfully researched and well polished video. I do transit advocacy here in TO and I wouldn't have been able to put it into words better than you did.
The other thing to mention is the PPP (public-private-partnership) that's involved in constructing and running these lines (and elsewhere in Canada) have bled funding for decades and have been total failures. Subsidies are used to construct the lines, then we hand them over to a private company that's often guaranteed profits. We should just be publicly funding these and having the city run them, with funding given by the provincial or federal govt. Having a good transit system in major cities helps the economy, and we deserve to have the funding to support these systems.
Usually the way PPPs are structured is that the the government pays a fixed amount, and the private operators have to cover any overruns. That's the whole point of them - they're not guaranteed profits, they're a guaranteed fixed cost for the city.
As much as all of the videos over the years I have seen have said, they do not address 2 major downfalls in the TTC overall. One is weather. Toronto receives mild to harsh winters, which eliminate 30-40% of above ground work efficiency every year. The planning involved never seems to try and reduce the amount of surface works available. Long term transit planning also doesn't exist in Toronto. Two is that long term issue of not leaving TBM's in the ground to continuously drill new transit loops. Every time a TBM gets put in the ground and taken out again is a huge capital expense. Toronto should be building out a grid and loop pattern leaving several North-South links intersecting with East-West links. They should then have zoning changed along the transit corridors that encourages the development of high density within 1km of a station. This then solves they rapid transit time constraint issues, the weather maintenance issues having it all underground, the traffic congestion issues, and even addresses huge issues with the housing crisis in Ontario in general.
@@onYTsince2008 I can't tell if you are being serious or just joking. If they hired smart people with good ideas we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. If you are being genuine, then thank you. Unfortunately we live in a world of poorly thought out infrastructure and land management. Land gets used for the purpose of most profit, not best use. Some of the best, most productive, agricultural land exist along lake Ontario between Hamilton and Kingston, but we turned it into endless urban sprawl.
The City of Toronto needs to change its policy ratings. Currently, the single-occupant automobile gets #1 priority. Should be… #1 priority-emergency vehicles #2 priority-pedestrians #3 priority-public transit #4 priority-cycling #5 priority-delivery & contractor trucks #6 priority-autos with more than one person #7 priority-single-occupant autos #8 priority-personal trucks or SUVs Why does the city give single-occupant motorists the headstart at left turn lanes insted of the 100+ onboard a streetcar in their own right-of-way? Streetcars have to wait.
Probably because a streetcar is a slow brick that blocks the whole intersection if a rock gets on the track. Streetcars have zero advantages over buses there's a reason everyone else ditched them.
Thank you for making this video. I have first hand experienced these problems with the ttc and torontos transit system. I also frequently ask myself why the crosstown development is not being pushed for. The delays you talked about are very real especially during rush hour. Line two especially gets very crowded with its older bombardier units that aren't connected and have low capacity. However line 1 can get just as packed when people are on their way to downtown to work. There is also the obligatory Eaton center rush on the weekends where Dundas and queen are completely swamped with shopping lovers lol. I also know what you mean about the streetcars and busses being overloading and picking up the subways slack. However most of my destinations on the ttc network can be accessed by subway and just that so I don't travel by streetcR and bus that often. This was the most relatable video about transit I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!
I grew up in Toronto but have also lived in Europe and Asia for a significant part of my life. If Toronto's public transit system is considered 'good', I feel so sorry for other North American city's public transport.
Agreed. I moved from Toronto to Europe and it's shocking how much better it is over here. However, compared to *most* North American cities, Toronto isn't bad at all. I mean, many cities only have some buses and maybe a light rail. It's bleak.
In most NA cities, only a small part of the population lives in the city proper, but in the metropolitan area around the city proper. Which is why so many people drive to commute, or when it comes to Toronto. Drive part of the way, use public transit the other half.
Like an transit system, it depends where you live and your lifestyle. I lived a few blocks from the Bloor line while in university and it was a breeze getting anywhere within the old city limits. But then I had friends in Vaughan who faced a 90 minute bus ride to get home after a night out.
Excellent video!! Definitely lots of good to be said about the TTC but not without the bad too. Hoping these subway projects truly will transform our city for a better tomorrow ❤
The night streetcars are part of the 300-series night routes, same as with the night buses (29 Dufferin vs 329 Dufferin night bus). Counted as a different route. And not all routes have them. 505 Dundas and 509 Harbourfront doesn't have a 300 equivalent. The routes that actually run as streetcars 24/7 are the 504 King, 501 Queen, 506 Carlton aka College and 510 Spadina. 511 Bathurst has the 307 Bathurst night bus, which is the night bus for the 7 Bathurst but also services the streetcars route from Exhibition Place to Bathurst Station at Bloor. 512 St Clair has the 312 St Clair night bus which also services much of the 40 Junction-Dundas West bus route.
it's silly that the subway doesn't run 24h, especially line 1 which is theoretically automated. I've had to negotiate late starts at my last two jobs because the subway didn't open early enough for me to get there on time.
Toronto was a typical city with a downtown core and suburban commuters until about 2005. But now its turned into megacity over the last 20 years, due to insane levels of mass immigration, so any transit plans from previous decades are obsolete.
It turns out building those plans would've been better than not building or reducing those plans, which is what we're actually getting. Ontario/Toronto governments spent most of the mid-90s/early 2010s starting transit plans and then electing governments who cancel them in the next election. Line 5 and Line 6 are the surviving parts of the 7 planned LRT lines that got started in 2007 until Rob Ford cancelled them. Line 5 would've been a subway if Harris hadn't cancelled Rae's plans.
@Zraknul because the level of cost never would've been made up for. This stupid city let in way too many people before it was ready. The subways suck. The busses suck. The street cars suck. There's no expressways in the parts of the city where it matters. If this really was a 2.7 million person city we'd be fine. But it's not. It's probably closer to 8 million when you factor in everyone that comes into the city daily for work and everyone still undocumented. Let's not even get into the housing and rental market. I don't know why anyone would ever want to move here.
@@BarbaPamino You're paying for the cost now, because everything sucks. You're paying increased commuting, and transportation costs on what you buy. The electorate voted for federal governments from both parties that want to keep growing the population of the country for decades. They also voted provincial leaders who don't want to invest in infrastructure, and municipal governments who don't want to invest in infrastructure or allow sufficient housing. Governments need to be forward thinking. Our housing prices never corrected in 2008 when the US market did, detaching an over 40 year trend where our income to housing price ratio was similar to theirs. You can find bankers/economists talking about Canadian housing bubble back then and we've kept going up up and away. Multiple ignorant governments and 1.5 decades later, here we are starting to think on how to address it.
As someone who lived in Vaughan, the "City above Toronto" and who now lives and studies in Ottawa, I can say that the TTC is much more efficient and so much better than Vaughan and Ottawa combined. Vaughan, a suburbia that is centered around the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (commonly the VMC) area where the northernmost Yonge-University line station is. The bus coverage of the YRT (York Region Transit) is OK, but wait times are almost insane with bus intervals taking 15-30 minutes farther out from the VMC. My parents' house is on the outskirts of Vaughan, and up until 3 months ago we didn't even have a bus line to our suburb. In contrast, a car ride from home to the VMC was about 20 minutes (with traffic). Ottawa, on the other hand, I argue has a horrible public transport system. As a smaller city that quickly goes from business center to suburb, the bus coverage is terrible, and there is only one rail line. The O-Train, which is a subway like LRT system, what runs on it's own track (non-mixed use, unlike the TTC Street Cars) has it's own stations. Despite this, service is slow with up to 10 minute wait times between trains and delays because of things like bearing issues and other poorly designed system features. The OC Transpo's (Ottawa-Carleton Regional Transit Commission) busses on the other hand, are like an attempt to keep the tightly built city commuting, but service is equally bad as there are constant delays, and it's not often that you will be stuck waiting up to 30 minutes for a bus, even if you are in the city center. As someone who used to hate on the TTC because of the shoddy service, I am thankful for how efficient it is now, especially after moving to Ottawa. The TTC isn't without it's faults, and is in definite need of a budget increase (and Metrolinx needs to get their shit together on construction). But for what it is, it's pretty damn good.
The management of the streetcar network is such an own goal. Can't tell you how many times I've been in a shoulder-to-shoulder packed streetcar that is just crawling along in traffic, stuck behind a bunch of cars with one or two passengers. Most if not all routes should be dedicated lines with signal priority
@@turboplazz I do during nice weather actually. But if you think that is a scaleable solutions for the hundreds of thousands of people who ride the streetcar across the city every day, I would invite you to spend more than four seconds thinking about it and consider some perspectives other than your own.
Excellent video and really appreciate giving a thorough review of the success, and not just the (very real) challenges and failures of the TTC. I would note to viewers and the creator that the bus and subway cuts have been reversed (or are in the process) with the new progressive Mayor just elected in a by-election, Olivia Chow. The Eglinton Crosstown, Crosstown West and Finch West are all set to open within the next two years, so that will significantly expand the transit system (despite yes, the horrific delays).
As a Torontonian, I'll say that the system is overall pretty good. But one thing that I think is under-appreciated is that there's a lot of parking at the suburban stations. People who don't live that close to the lines will often drive to the station and park there - the really aggressive transit advocates hate that, but IMO it works well for meeting people where they are. You can't turn Houston into London overnight - Toronto was historically a pretty car-dominated city, and you need to back away from that slowly in order for it to work. So you find ways to help make the system more appealing to drivers, which means parking lots. Also, you talk about how the system gets so much less funding than other cities - that's a good point for Toronto, not a bad point. NYC is so transit-dominated that they should be ashamed of needing to give the MTA seven billion a year - that's a system that could self-fund even during the Depression with fares that hadn't been raised in twenty years. How is it in need of such massive subsidies today? Toronto's doing far better there.
imagin if cities kept their street car systems. kept them, expanding them, and modernizing them as the century went by. cities were originally built around the street car. but then the oil companies came.....
Nice video. It's funny. Although quite well laid out an seemingly efficient you won't meet one person here that doesn't complain about the TTC on the regular and for good reason - all of which this guy pretty much nailed. One thing no one seems to mention is rain. Any intense rainfall brings this city to its knees. Sometimes for hours sometimes for days on end. The subway always floods, cabs and ubers are slammed and everyone and their mom is standing in the rain for hours trying to get on a bus or streetcar. It's also endlessly entertaining listening to foreigners pronounce Toronto. The second hard T is always adorable. It always makes me think for a quick second they're talking about some far off place
Yeah, I heard that the transit system will be greatly improved in Toronto when the Ontario line is complete. Unfortunately that won't happen until the year 2035 and they'll also be adding 20 new Subway stations and 20 new street cars by then
Amazingly well-done video! Nuanced, well-researched, and accessible to non-Torontonians and Torontonians alike! Just one thing, it's pronounce "Young" instead of "Young-eh" :)
As someone who lives in Toronto and uses the TTC more than 5 times a week, we have an app that show bus times and when they arrive at stations. It is wrong half the times though😂. But something you failed to mention was the disaster of the finch LRT. I live right beside the line and it has been pure hell. You should’ve talked about the Finch LRT as well. It’s the same price as the Eglington line but much smaller.
This is one of the best videos i've watched explaining the current situation, the good and bad. Its all unfortunately completely true, but hopefully the delays will allow the future to be much less congested.
Some relief to the funding issues came just before you posted this - on Monday the city and province came to an understanding on various projects and systems. The key item is that the province will take over two motorways that the city currently runs; their repair budgets were dragging everything else down, so the freed-up funding can be put toward transit and housing.
lol thats a joke. toronto is bankrupt even without paying for the DVP or gardiner... hell whatever money they spendt on those highways was clearly wasted.. shittiest roads in the country
So where's the province going to get its funding for these new responsibilities of maintaining these roads? Is it going to be getting that money from the taxpayers who live in... Toronto?
I live in Toronto and having been to both NYC and Montreal, I think Toronto’s subway lines are lacking by comparison. That’s why only 28% of people here don’t own a car and why the 401, which cuts across the northern GTA from east to west, is the busiest highway in North America.
The problem with the GO train is lack of integration with TTC in notable areas. Fortunately this is changing with coming upgrades to Bloor station (with finally direct access to Dundas west station) and half a dozen new stations connecting to major TTC routes
@@zainfayaz8384your millage may vary. For example, TTC integration is not the greatest on the Kitchener line right now excluding obviously Union station, but they're fixing most of those issues with 3 new stations and a new direct entrance to the subway at Bloor GO station. I also remember that it wasn't great on the lakeshore east and Richmond hill lines when I used to take those but it's been a while.
@@Mystro256yea but even still I can hop on the GO here in Whitby, get to Union and then use the TTC anywhere else. I'd say it's pretty convenient for most suburban people.
Although the TTC does experience lack of funding, it’s a common misconception in Toronto that the city itself does not have enough funding (something many mayoral candidates stated in the recent election). The truth is that Toronto experiences severe mismanagement of funding (for example, the road maintenance budget, or the misdirected programs to help the homeless). That is not the only problem, however, as one would then assume that with more money towards the TTC, problems regarding overcrowding would cease. This is not the case, however, as another major problem with Toronto and many other cities in Canada is the rate of immigration relative to the rate of infrastructure expansion. The influx of immigrants has become so hard to handle that it is no longer a politically divided topic like it is in the US. A recent study showed that 75% of Canadians blamed immigration for the current problems in the country. This is because the federal government is pushing for a rapid intake of immigrants, roughly 1 million per year. This is roughly equivalent to the US immigration rate, but with a drastic overall population difference. While supporting this rapid population increase, the federal government is not supporting equally rapid infrastructure growth. Not only regarding transit systems, but all facets of everyday urban life. This is also why if you were to ask any Torontonian that commutes by car what they experience regarding congestion, they would tell you that even 5 years ago it was almost like a different world with far fewer cars and congestion only happening during rush hour, not throughout all hours of every day as it is right now.
The $11 billion vs $19 billion numbers for the Ontario line are comparing two different total. $11 billion was the original price to build, whereas $19 billion is the final cost to build and run it for 30 years.
I want to point out that $19B is a staggering amount of money for one streetcar line. It would would buy two Ford-class nuclear supercarriers. It would buy all 88 F-35's of the future Royal Canadian Air Force. They can give every man woman and child in Toronto an extra $50 per month for the next decade.
Thank you for being so balanced and accurate in this. Alot of folks living in Toronto need to watch this video. Our system works well but has alot of under funding, old infostructure and needs support. I appreciate this DEEPLY.
Part of the funding problem in Toronto is literally bound up in the Constitution. In terms of powers of taxation, municipalities are delineated as "creatures of the province"- meaning that they have no powers to impose taxes on residents and businesses for things like the TTC. Cities in Canada are entirely beholden to the provinces when it comes to the imposition of taxes as well as reaping the benefits of tax revenue, country wide. So when a premier like Mike Harris or Doug Ford decide to slash financial assistance to an organization like the TTC or even to the government of a municipality like Toronto as a whole, that city has little recourse to generate its own revenues to fund things like transit service expansion. It's an absolutely ass backwards way of funding public transit and municipal services writ large. To change that and give municipalities their own powers of taxation would mean a constitutional amendment led by the federal government, that would require pretty much unanimous support from the provinces (who don't generally want to give up powers for anything in either direction, whether toward the federal government or their municipalities)- which is pretty much like asking every single planet and moon in the solar system to perfectly align for the sake of public wellbeing. It just isn't going to happen.
Toronto should be its own province. I get real tired of people up north whining about how they don't get funding when Toronto is the entire tax base. Like, if you want services, don't live in a place with a population of 15.
@@AlwaysUp-uf9dl I fvcking hate it. The city and gta have double digit percentages of the *national* population, of course that's where the money and attention go.
in chicago theres more choices than the red line. you can take the purple or brown alternatively on the north side or the green line on the south. torontos yellow carries more people because thats their only choice.
perhaps Line 1 would be less overcrowded if it wasn't the only option, but zoom out and you'll see that the Toronto subway absolutely decimates the L on any metric other than system length. Line 1 carries twice as many people per day as *all* of the L. Line 2 carries an additional L's worth of passengers per day. This is even more impressive when you consider that Chicago's metro area population is 150% the size of TO. Canadian transit systems are infra lite and ridership heavy. Only the NYC subway has more ridership compared to any Canadian metro system (Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto). This is despite Canadian cities being tiny in comparison, population wise.
What a breath of fresh air. Some positivity about the situation, thanks for the enlightening video. Although fuck how long it takes to get everywhere fr this shit better be worth it ahaha
When was this video made? 5 billion? Line 5 is scheduled to open in 2024, with an estimated cost of CA$12.82 billion; the cost when the contract was awarded was pegged at $9.1 billion, although the cost was originally estimated at $11 billion.
@@tristanridley1601 in mississauga they are building above ground light rail.. taking away lanes on a massive north south artery, oh and it cost over 7 billion.
The Toronto subway system is absolutely tiny. We need like 3-4 more lines in the downtown core alone. The trams are unreliable as they can get stuck in traffic or if one of the trams breaks down in front of yours then you might be stuck for hours, which happened to me once when I going down dundas. What the city could really benefit from is a subway line that goes in through billy bishop and onto the island and then through to the new housing being built over in the portlands. More east west subway lines in the more southern parts of the city would be great as would more north south lines outside of the 1 line seeing as there is only the one line right now. Line 5 eglinton is a horrible mess and should be a subway line, alas that was deemed too expensive so they just put in the infrastructure as if it were a subway line and are putting trams in there instead for literally no reason, originally it was going to be a subway line but thankfully Doug Ford in his infinite wisdom said that we should consdtruct it like a subway like but then put these tiny, slow, loud, dogshit, unreliable trams there instead of big, fast, high capacity, reliable subway trains. At least the Ontario line is being built
As a TTC user..i think the negatives mostly affect downtown service,as i'm up in the burb's i've rarely experienced any issues or delays.So if you are downtown..it might suck..if you're up off the Finch-Yonge burbs it's great service.
7:30 - might have been good to mention the King Street corridor here It's also spelled Eglinton, not Eglington. And pronounced "Young" not "Yungey" I imagine the Eglinton Crosstown will open in summer of 2025 or 2026. They still don't have a completion date and Yonge & Eglinton is a total disaster. Thanks for the video
The cost subsidy is a big pain point, with the largest pain point being the absolutely dog water timing from Metrolinx on their construction. It feels like eternal gridlock, and whenever winter hits, the way everything grinds to a halt is just brutal.
Conservative politicians at all levels of government have had a major role to play in Toronto’s current struggle with public transportation. However, Toronto has a bright future ahead and has lots to be proud of despite all the setbacks!
Great vid! I'm surprised the TTC is actually efficient compared to the rest of North America. Makes me wonder how different public transport in other major cities could be. Also fun fact: Ontario is pronounced "on-teh-rio" rather than "on-tar-io"?
The Ontario Line will be a game-changer when it’s finished, removing the need to travel be streetcar along most of Queen Street and even nearby streets like King and Dundas. The one major downfall of transit in Toronto now is being able to get east-west through downtown, since line 2 is too far north to be useful for downtown. The construction may be painful in the meantime but there’s really no other option unless we want to have permanent gridlock in the city.
10% is just within the official city boundaries, which is the area the TTC covers. The other half is the 905 suburbs, which have their own local networks and GO.
Please note that Line 5 and 6 have not yet opened. Line 3 has also shutdown earlier than expected due to a derailment issue. We have decent transit infrastructure for getting downtown from the suburbs and getting anywhere within downtown. Our problem is crosstown travel. Both people trying to get through Toronto (like truckers) and those trying to travel within Toronto must use the 401. Highway 407 was designed to run parallel to 401 to ease some of its congestion in 1997. Unfortunately it was leased by a Spanish company and they now price many people in the Greater Toronto Area out of using it. The second problem is getting from suburb to suburb (Ajax to Markham for example). This is where we really suffer. To get from Ajax to Markham, most people would take the 401 followed by the 404, creating even more unnecessary traffic for those trying to crosstown. Unfortunately the proposed Scarborough Expressway never got built and would have helped.
If you think demolishing homes for expressways would have actually helped, I invite you to look at the many American cities that did so. It just destroys communities while forcing more people to drive. I live right next to the proposed route for that, and nothing good about this area would have survived.
dude it takes like 50 minutes to drive 20km towards the city from mississauga.. idk how you think that is acceptable.. bike lanes on both side of the road is a dumb fucking idea.. and they fucked up toronto bad
Good News on the 407: Since 2019, the CPP investment board has been the 50.01% owner. Also 7% SNC Lavalin, and that Spanish company 43%. Smaller cities need to pick up their transit game, and GO links between them. We're basically out of space for inefficient highways between Oshawa and Niagara Falls and need to get non-major cargo carrying people off the road.
I have never heard such a glowing words spoken about our transit system in all my years here. I lived in Korea for a year, close to Seoul. That transit system is the best in the world, and is far better than Toronto's.
Living in Toronto without a car is a nightmare (although everyday I see more and more people frustrated driving around the city). TTC slow infrastructure development makes commuting very stressful, a ride that should take 15 min can extend 20 to 25 min with line 1 being the most affected. It's like a love-hate relationship, we have no choice but to wait for the completion of all these projects.
We love to complain about the TTC but for the most part, the network works pretty damn well. Toronto's streetcar or tram system gives the city an aesthetic identity that it does not get from its dark and dull architecture. The trams have this magical power of civilizing the city, as well as making the city seem both futuristic and old fashioned at the same time. Neat trick. And now, here's a bunch of complaints... The lack of subways has been a problem for decades and because the city is mostly massive suburbs, it takes forever to get from one end to the other. And there are no diagonal lines that would cut the commute down considerably. The streetcars are cool but the old trams were a much better transit experience. They were better looking and had windows you could open and enjoy the breeze. The modern trams feel like metal tubes packed with sardines. There's no enjoying the ride on the new trams. Everyone is looking forward to the Ontario Line, but it only serves the East End of the city and the Downtown Core, completely ignoring the West End. The useless Sheppard Line only has 5 stations and serves nobody. The Finch and Crosstown lines are never going to be finished. They built the Canadian Pacific Railway across a continent in less than 4 years back in the 1880s, and now, it takes us well over a decade to build a glorified tram line through the suburbs. I'm sure the future looks bright for transit in Toronto, but we really could have been way ahead of where we are. Our politicians and city planners have been lacking in vision and competence for the last 30 years.
I'm a Torontonian, and I know this guy doesn't really know anything about the streetcar network. King car doesn't function basically ever, and it is faster to get onto line 2 (Green line) and then walk or take a bus for most locations than take a streetcar route. Additionally, the 504B and 505 routes aren't currently running because of construction, and for most streetcar lines, they also run buses at the same time. I live on queen street at pape, and I've gotta say that it's faster to take a bus up and across most days due to construction. It is true that you can get anywhere in an hour, but that's only achievable with the subway. Also union station is and continually looks like garbage because it is eternally under construction. Timestamped comments: 3:36 yeah, that's not true because they run shuttle buses instead, and the streetcars are too far away from all of the subway lines. 4:38 generally, it's pretty bad most of the time speaking from experience. I gotta take the TTC daily because I live across the city from my university. There's usually a delay that wastes more than 15 min at least twice a week on any given section of public transport. 4:53 Buddy, go look at the wikipedia page for the Toronto streetcars. The new flexity outlook ones. Requisition started in 2007, and finished in 2020. 7:56 it functionally doesn't exist. I was supposed to be able to take the eglington crosstown in my final year of high school. I took two gap years to get to university. They're gonna open it in 2027. Also Doug Ford is a garbage person with his budget cuts. Also Also the fair requistion process is completely fair to avoid lawsuits and litigation but it's a larger money drain than the actual cost of the project most of the time, and it has to be done with EVERY SINGLE THING. Say you need a packet of screws? YOU GOTTA TALK TO EVERY SCREW MANUFACTURER, and HAVE THEM GIVE A QUOTE ON SCREWS, and THEN and ONLY THEN do you actually pick your screw packet. NOW MULTIPLY THAT TO EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT AND CONTRACTING, and you have the City of Toronto :) Nothing gets done :) 9:18 it's pronounced young. Also metrolinx is lying, and it is currently, and forever will be a logistical nightmare. 9:38 AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOPE YOU WISH. Other notes: - Current mayor wants to remove the science center like an idiot. The current mayor is completely out of touch, and tone deaf to the point of playing 'Rise Up' during her inauguration. Please note that 'Rise Up' is an anti establishment song. AS THE MAYOR, YOU'RE THE ESTABLISHMENT, YOU BUFFOON. Science center might not even exist for that stop. - The blue line in the 2031 diagram will likely only exist in 2035. I live next to the development zone. - Green line extension will get a budget cut from the next conservative mayor - Line 4 is basically never used, and has a yearly ridership of something like 500,000 - Final diagram is missing the extraordinarily fast GO line to the airport. that goes directly to union station and takes literally twenty minutes the last time I was on it. That's what we need more of. All in all, good vid. You don't know stuff about Toronto because you don't live here, and that's okay. I'd rate this video a 9/10. It's pretty accurate. It truly seems that every country is run by clowns in suits.
I live in Toronto and to me it feels like this video is doing a great job at putting a ton of lipstick on a pig. I admire the creator for his work, but I'm most definitely not convinced that TTC is where it needs to be.
They supposedly installed automated trains all along line 1 in 2022 but the trains are still inconsistently spaced and no more frequent than before. My same commute from Queen's Park to VMC can take 26 min one day or 38 min the next. Are they just refusing to use the ATC because of the union or what's going on?
Yes, on paper it looks fine (as I thought as a visitor to the City), but in reality the distances between each subway station is large and when you get out, you usually have to take a tramway just to get where you're going - you just can't walk.
The Province of Ontario and the TTC just announced the extension of the Yonge (Line 1) subway from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre station, just north of Hwy 7, in Richmond Hill, Ontario
As someone who has lived in Toronto for 28 years, the talking points in this video are cherry picked. 1. Let's start with the fact the TTC has nowhere close to that many rides in a year. You can't separate people transferring from the bus to train or line 1 to line 2 and act like it's a different ride. It's still the same trip. 2. I lived in South Korea for 3 years, travelling to Tokyo, Taiwan, and Singapore taking public transit in all. Our map is terrible. Streetcars and buses are extremely slow. I moved downtown in August and getting a bike was the best decision ever. I zip by streetcars and buses in the downtown core. Not to mention if you're a driver stuck behind a streetcar on Queen or Dundas how terrible that is. 3. You mentioned the delays, which I've even experienced in New York, but when I take the TTC I'm more surprised if things run somewhat on time than being late. Can say I never had this problem in South Korea. Won't say the others because I was only there for short periods of time. 4. As a former Scarborough resident, the RT was a waste of time. Again I lived near the zoo which is in Scarborough and would just bypass the line altogether when going downtown. The Sheppard line is another waste of time.
The joke we tell in Toronto is that Toronto is always 1 hour away from Toronto, regardless of transit method (including cars on the freeway). The biggest problem with our streetcar network is that its STILL a streetcar network that has to share the road with tons of visiting suburban drivers who don't know or care about any local traffic laws (See King Street). The streetcar lines that have been modified to have dedicated lanes (effectively making them LRTs) are MUCH more reliable and enjoyable to ride compared to the older streetcar lines that have to share the roadway still. Progress is slow but steady, and with 3 brand new subway lines and 1 subway extension underway, plus the GO transit heavyrail expansion, the transit future of Toronto has never looked better despite all its current issues.
I liked this approach from one Euro city: put both streetcar tracks on the same side of the "road"; and both lanes of the car road on the other side. I wish they did this on St. Clair.
I will say that the dedicated streetcar lanes on Queens Quay have dramatically sped up streetcar service along the waterfront. Getting from Union station to Spadina for instance is a literal breeze. If those lanes can be implemented system wide, streetcars would be a viable alternative to virtually all other forms of TTC transit.
A city an hour away from itself is extremely very common in big cities around the world, no matter it's car or public transit, even in supposedly "good transit" cities. I'm sure there are other "jokes" to describe our public transit, but this one in particular is embarrassingly out of touch.
@@AndyLeedee one lane each way on major traffic arteries in the city, because of the bike lanes on both sides of the road is literally the worst shit ive ever seen.. takes 1 minute for the street to get backed up literally beyond view when someone turns left
That's why I refuse to ever drive in Toronto
As a Torontonian, I need to mention one major flaw with our system. While the university finch line is incredibly efficient, there is a price to our reliance on it. When there is an issue on the line that causes a closure (which happens 1-2 times a month) the entire system crumbles. The TTC will bring in shuttle busses to run along the affected portions, but with the high ridership and no alternate routes, they aren't able to keep up. The entire system slows to a crawl and most will be forced to walk to there destination if able.
And it only gets worse... Because Toronto's developers keep adding more and more and more condos and stuff to the city while our infrastructure is already overloaded. Our roads are severely overpopulated. Traffic is a nightmare and gets worse. And to make matters worse... Because of the severe overpopulation of the city. There's a severe lack of parking for cars.
am also a torontonian, when tf will they finish the eglinton line it got delayed over and over... 😭 just be done already. i dont even live in downtown, I am more affected by eglinton, so the massive delay of line 5 really affects me, as there are many streets with construction, which slows eglinton even more. Ironically, line 5 isn't solving any traffic problems, but making them worse.
I wonder what will happen first. The line being finished or the leafs winning the stanley cup.@@FryGuy-
Ayo fam as a treontonian i suggest u nize ur beak crodie cus if the spilt isz eyta dont even pass it fam
The language is called English... You should give it a try.@@30frames90
Great video! The one thing I would point out is that “Yonge” is pronounced like the word “young” and not “yong-ee”
I came here to say that. It kind of sounds like text-to-speech with some kind of South African accent, since words like "commuters" are also mispronounced.
I came here to say the same.. Very good report as well. The Ontario line, Sheppard line extension ( both directions), and the GO ( which stands for Government of Ontario) RER system, will greatly enhance the transit grid.
His pronunciation of "Ontario" drove me up the wall too.
And it is buses not busses
@@stvdagger8074that's down to a difference between US and British usage. As an ex-pat Brit of 42 years, I've seen both in use in Canada. Personally I still prefer buses. I guess it depends on whether he's using a US or British spell checker.
It's also worth noting how much the GO expansion plan (a regional rail service overhaul) will improve transit too in Toronto.
As well as the HFR project (that should honestly be HSR) which will significantly improve inter-city travel times and create more demand for Public transport for ALL cities involved. Hopefully this region gets greater projects in the near future and faster construction times (which is really dependent on the next federal government). The Eglinton line should've been finished when I was in highschool yet here I am an adult and we've still got over a year most likely.
@@Nabee_Hthe next transit projects are not dependent on federal funding, this is provincial jurisdiction. Doug ford is cutting funding time and time again to cook the books, this isn’t a transit specific issue but universal through every industry the province is supposed to help in.
HSR was cut by Doug ford immediately after taking office and so was the Ontario line, but reintroduced it as if it was his parties idea. The HSR/HFR eventually did get taken over federally which it shouldn’t have been.
@@Nabee_H don't you mean the eglinton line?
Yeah exactly. GO expansion will arguably have a bigger impact on the city than any of the subway projects apart from the Ontario line.
@@areebusmani383 I was referring to construction times and resolutions being a major topic for the next election, not funding.
As a Torontonian, the only solid good thing I can definitely say about TTC is the reliability and accessibility of the buses. they do provide an expansive transport citywide.
I can't wait for the the two new lines under construction to be operational; will provide a massive and needed access to hotspots like Don Valley, Portlands, and the City Airport areas
what the heck is a torontonian?
@@--------_ Simple, someone who lives in Toronto.
😂😂😂 toronto public transportation reliable??? 😂😂😂 it's the biggest joke in the world
Nobody ever says that@@wander1ust554
Would be more reliable, cost effect and on time, making the trams only lanes. Convert the rest of the roads to larger pedestrian walkway and bike lanes
thank you for mentiong the lack of funding. its one of the lowest tax funded public transit in the world and we feel it! most "effiecent" feels like a good title but trains are PACKED. also want to add, Line 3 closed several months earlier then scheduled due to an derailment that killed one person (EDIT: no one was killed, i remembered wrong) so it was clearly outlived its life and is so sad it was ignored so long with no replacement for a decade.
Correction: The derailment did not kill anyone; five were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. The cause of the derailment was loose bolts holding down the power rail.
The goal of a transit system is to be efficient. Funding from the government is volatile and unstable. Canadian cities must take inspiration from Asian cities such as Hong Kong, which run a surplus.
Ironically nyc is one of the most well funded. 20 billion dollars a year, and people don’t even use it (because it’s terrible).
Who did it kill?
@@sm3675 doug ford must*
You litterallly explained the pros and the cons of what I always wanted to explain to people about Torontos transit system.
As other comments have said, you cannot discuss Toronto transit any longer without including the GO network. GO rail expansion no longer just suburban morning-evening service, it includes in-city express options that integrate with the TTC. I will transfer from the subway to the UP Express to go straight downtown just because I can; also hop over to Mimico station to take the GO train into Exhibition Place. That's a real transit benefit, and Metrolinx - for all its occasional dysfunction, knows this and does seem to be getting things done to turn the GO network into a bona fide rapid-cousin to the TTC.
How so? There's zero integration of schedules or routes. GO stations are placed in out-of-the-way locations with often no connection at all to TTC routes. I live near Scarborough GO and literally my best route there is to walk 35 minutes. The stations which aren't like that are the exceptions, not the rule, and the only time there aren't schedule problems is if it's a frequent service bus for TTC.
GO is still almost entirely for the 905.
I never said it was perfect, but it's come a long way and I find myself referring to GO and TTC stations for route options now. My Mimico example is a good example; could connectivity be better? Absolutely. It is already quite a usable benefit? Absolutely, it's become my go-to for Exhibition access now, I don't bother with the streetcar connection and that's a good thing. Same for UP Express to Pearson and to downtown.@@tristanridley1601
What about the extra fare for UPX?
@@tristanridley1601 GO stations weren't placed in Toronto, the city grew around rail lines that existed before the city got big. Later, GO took over the lines for transit. They weren't meant for in city transit either, that's becoming a thing now.
Go transit is irrelevant to most TORONTONIANS and you know it
Living in Toronto and hearing someone compliment the current system was very jarring to me. I didn’t see it in an “efficient” or “remarkable” light at all before this video but am glad that I might view it and be a little proud of the Jerry rig makeshift feeling system we got here. As a commuter coming from one of the cities in the GTA (greater toronto area) I can say how painful it is whenever the constant delays on the subways and buses happen, but how emotional I got seeing that proposed 2031 map. It brought tears to my eyes. If it actually all pans out our city will be so much easier to traverse. Especially everyone coming from a bit further outside toronto.
The only issue I see with the proposed 2031 pan is the fact that they aren’t extending line 4 along to Shepard east. I may be biased cause I live on line 4, but it is way too small
They are extending Line 4! both west to Shep West station, and East to McCown & Shep @@MoosedUp
Canadian transit agencies across the country have something that most systems in the United States and even Europe lack: frequent bus networks as the foundation and focus of public transit. Rail is treated as a high frequency, high speed, express corridor, much like how a driver would consider a highway. But that speed and frequency fails unless it is connected to equally frequent local coverage. And this is where Toronto (as well as every major city in Canada) excels over most cities when it comes to public transit. In so many major rail cities from from New York to Chicago to Melbourne, amazing rail lines are married to terrible local bus lines with frequencies often not greater than 20 minutes out in the suburbs, and with very little in the way of proper infrastructure out in the suburbs. In Toronto proper, a bus comes every 5-10 minutes on every major artery not covered by rail (and even some that go along rail lines). Line 1 connects to BRT out in the exurbs of Vaughn, Richmond Hill, and Markham, Line 5 connects to the Mississauga transitway which provides probably some of the best BRT in North America. At the same time, there are frequent regional buses provided by GO Transit that go out to every corner of Southern Ontario. This is alongside the GO regional rail network, with over 200km being converted into a high frequency German-style S-Bahn system, with every station connecting to frequent bus or rail transit. Metrolinx's amazing bus service across the region ensure that every time a new rail extension or line is built, ridership jumps by at least 100k. Long story short, focus on the quality of the most basic transit service of your network so that rapid transit makes a big difference.
Also, it's pronounced "Young", not "Yon-gee".
The more proper way to say it would be "Yon-GUH"...
@@michaelrmurphy2734 No one in Churunuh calls it that.
@@RoboJulesin Trono
Even the surrounding suburban municipalities have frequent headways
@@sm3675 Peel region has amazing frequency. York region is... trying...?
A few other points to note:
- Metrolinx is also planning to extend Line 1 to Richmond Hill, and is exploring extending Line 4 (known as the "stubway") to the Sheppard station in the Line 2 Scarborough extension. They are much further behind in their journeys to completion but it's exciting stuff nonetheless.
- Toronto recently got a New Deal (brokered with the provincial government)! That means there is now provincial funding for the TTC and the system doesn't need to rely as much on fares.
- TTC is also exploring fare integration so that will further drive people to use the system
- the situation right now with the TTC is also due to a much broader policy of just not funding things properly. Things like housing, cost of living, the shelter system, and even potholes (god forbid you anger the car commuters too) have been poorly maintained for a LONG time now. Luckily Mayor Olivia Chow is now reversing some of those cuts and pushing for things like the New Deal. She's also doing citizen-led budget consultations, which haven't happened in a VERY long time
Don't forget the GO expansion project. Most of the GO train network will get at least 15 min all-day train services, with potentially even greater frequency during peak periods. This will take a decent amount of load away from the Line 1 and Line 2.
Along with the Line 4 and Line 2 extensions in Scarborough, there are public consultations ongoing for the Scarborough Eglinton East LRT that will take riders from Kennedy to Sheppard/McCowan (the new terminus of Line 2 and Line 4 after their extensions are complete). Although this project will probably take 10-15 years for completion.
The DVP and Gardiner are now going to the province as well! This means more money the city will be able to spend on other things (like the TTC).
Line 2 will be getting 55 new subway trains as well, really nice given that a couple months ago i saw a homeless guy get stuck in between the cars banging and screaming for a whole stop (couldnt open the door), shouldn't be possible with the Line 1 subway car designs.
theyve been saying they plan to extend line 1 to richmond hill since 2006 and still havent started yet
Olivia has been a huge boost. It's amazing what can happen from a mayor who actually gets things done.
@@ethang2520 Its started initial work at Finch already - the digging contract will be awarded next year.
As a Torontonian living in the downtown core, this video was truly fascinating. I loved seeing a different perspective on this. Also, it was well balanced with a clear display of pro’s and con’s. Excited to see the future of Toronto’s public transit!
Never would have imagined hearing the words MTA and "Well oiled machine" used in the same sentence..lol
Hello fellow NYer!
We (Toronto) recently ordered many more streetcars, but we don't yet have the garage space to store them. This led to a unique and very convenient temporary solution: putting them into operation overnight to both provide 24-hour service and "store" them on the roads!
And this boosts employment too
Ah, the New York City strategy.
Interesting video man. But I feel like you should have briefly mentioned the GO Train system as well. I wonder how huge those numbers would get if you included the people who commute from suburban areas.
I live roughly 60km from Union Station and I could walk to the GO and be in the city within an hour.
Go train is so slow, infrequent, tiny number of trains and isn't even worth of mentioning as transit. And Go Bus is the slowest bumpiest and most expensive bullshit one can imagine. Both are garbage
@@onememory6484from personal experience the lakeshore line coming from durham to toronto sends a full train with many standing every 20 minutes for over 2 hours in the morning every work day
@@onememory6484 Thats ridiculous, thousands of riders depend on GO services everyday to commute to work.
@@onememory6484 thats just wrong. I commute everyday using the GO train, and find it so reliable. Look at the Lakeshore West/East for example, it comes every 30 mins with 12-15 cars each, with just the right amount of people on it. Never did I have to stand in the train as there always enough seats for everyone, and enough people to fill almost every seat. GO Bus is pretty bad, but its not entirely metrolinx fault, the construction all over Ontario, especially in places like Mississauga, with the Hurontario line construction makes it almost impossible to drive busses on a 1 lane road that connects the entire Mississauga together.
@@smaz9235 I have to disagree, I don't take the train to work and would like to use it just to go to downtown and back instead of driving and the last train stops at 14:30 or so and there are only buses after this point and trains service stops early going back up the line so it's completely useless as a transportation system for anyone that doesn't use it for work.
I had to take the Go Bis a couple of times to avoid DVP traffic and due to construction I was rerouted to some subway station on highway 7 and had to take the metro which delayed me for over an hour for a work event. And on the way back they just cancelled ALL buses and I couldn't get back home. All of this is just unacceptable
Union station is also delipidated, old, confusing and full of the homeless and drug addicts and non of it makes anyone feel safe.
Oh, not to mention I still have to drive to the Go stations because there are no public transportation so what's all the point again?
The best thing happening with public transport in Toronto and the GTA in general actually has nothing to do with the TTC, but rather with the GO Train. It has largely been a mere commuter system for most of its existence running only peak hours except for the Lakeshore line, but it's making a big step forward as an all day regional express system with new stations and high frequency service. Some of the expansion has already started and where it has happened it has proven quite popular.
Yeah, like my friends live in Barrie, but the only way to get there on the weekends is drive or take a coach bus. Its also bad for tourism, like I was in London and we took a day trip to Portsmouth to see the naval Museum, we took a commuter train. Couldn't go visit Niagra falls on a commuter train for a day trip if you're vacationing in Toronto...
Except it's a lot slower than highway traffic. They really need to get the LW service above 110 kph to be competitive with driving.
@@danielgertler5976You can take a GO train to Niagara Falls on weekends.
Barrie has GO bus service every day.
GO coverage is actually pretty impressive. You can get from Kitchener to Oshawa to Barrie to Niagara
@@appa609 That's assuming that the QEW isn't backed up, which is a very bold assumption.
@@danielgertler5976 There is a weekend service to Niagara, which is 3 trains each way on each of Saturday and Sunday. It has proven very popular so hopefully that will give the impetus to expand it to all week and more trains each day
One important development that happened around the time this video released: The City of Toronto's 2 downtown freeways: the Gardiner Expressway (the necessary rebuild of which was anticipated to take up over 40% of the city's transportation budget), and the Don Valley Parkway, have both been uploaded to the Provincial Government, so now the city is no longer financially responsible for them. This frees up a huge chunk of the transportation budget for the TTC.
As well, the TTC subways are partially aided by the regional rail system: GO Transit (Government of Ontario) which is currently undergoing major upgrades, with 5 of the 7 train lines having all day service at least hourly, some of them half-hourly, and peak service every 15min; with plans for most services to run every 10-15min throughout the day and 5 minutes during rush hour.
Both keen observations, and definitely worth a second video to cover both the GO transit system, and a brief update on the funding. It honestly never made sense to me why Toronto paid for those two expressways, considering how expensive they are to operate. You can literally tell the difference in quality as soon as you hop off the 401, or even where the Gardener turns into the QEW.
at the expense of destroying ontario place :'))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
As a native Torontonian, this was a really well-researched video! Much better than many other foreigners to the city versions of it.
Like literally my biggest criticism is the pronunciation of things, and certain names.
Ex. Ontario, its not on-_tah_-rio, its on-teh-rio.
That Ontario pronunciation made me wince every time.
Young-e was also awesome
@@Anonymity4LDAF I love Young-EE!!!
What even is a native Torontonian? Someone who grew up here or someone who is Native American?
@@Nabee_H Its just a thing we call ourselves. Like no one says "New yorkian", do we? But in Toronto we call ourselves "Torontonian" for some reason, it sounds quite normal here.
Oh also for the native part, I was born/lived here all my life.
GO transit also operates commuter rail into the city centre. Its currently being updated to regional express rail (RER) with more frequent service and will provide additional game changing transit service. Hopefully it'll be more like the RER in Paris which is fully recognized as part of the everyday transit network of the city.
didn they cancel their london to toronto route?
@@randomrazr Fake London will just remain in public transit hell lol. TBH it is not particularly relevant to the RER project, which is primarily focused on the Toronto area and some parts of GTA. The GO expansion isn't really meant to expand service to London, Kitchener etc, although all lines will get a boost in frequency and all day service.
@@randomrazr If GO is going to expand outward, I'd focus on getting people to and from the KW area over Fake London.
ive seen london continue to expand its suburbs. but their roads and lack of transit in newer areas just makes it a auotmotive hell hole to drive in@@Haxerous
@@randomrazr it was a trial route running 4 hours to London. It was not intended to be a commuter line, rather a city to city route. Was used mostly by students I think. No other line goes that far except the summer weekend route to Niagara falls
What’s missing here is that the TTC acts as an anchor and services all the neighbouring regions/cities that have material populations coming in and out of the downtown core for work, leisure, and school
Also Yonge is pronounced like “young”!
This is very detailed and up to date, It notes every single view of the TTC I thought of. Good job!
This is wonderful - you should mention the GO Network and what is happening there. It will be a literal transit game changer once finished.
I also wished he touched on the GO system.... I feel like those numbers would be even more astronomical.
The ttc works great, if you live near it and don’t have to travel too far on it. There’s a reason commuting times in Toronto are the highest in the world, and the ttc is part of the problem. I suggest this video poster lives here for a month, preferably in January, a few km away from a subway station, and then let’s hear his assessment of how great the ttc is.
exactly like kingston road for example
Kudos! What a wonderfully researched and well polished video. I do transit advocacy here in TO and I wouldn't have been able to put it into words better than you did.
The other thing to mention is the PPP (public-private-partnership) that's involved in constructing and running these lines (and elsewhere in Canada) have bled funding for decades and have been total failures. Subsidies are used to construct the lines, then we hand them over to a private company that's often guaranteed profits. We should just be publicly funding these and having the city run them, with funding given by the provincial or federal govt. Having a good transit system in major cities helps the economy, and we deserve to have the funding to support these systems.
Usually the way PPPs are structured is that the the government pays a fixed amount, and the private operators have to cover any overruns. That's the whole point of them - they're not guaranteed profits, they're a guaranteed fixed cost for the city.
As much as all of the videos over the years I have seen have said, they do not address 2 major downfalls in the TTC overall. One is weather. Toronto receives mild to harsh winters, which eliminate 30-40% of above ground work efficiency every year. The planning involved never seems to try and reduce the amount of surface works available. Long term transit planning also doesn't exist in Toronto. Two is that long term issue of not leaving TBM's in the ground to continuously drill new transit loops. Every time a TBM gets put in the ground and taken out again is a huge capital expense. Toronto should be building out a grid and loop pattern leaving several North-South links intersecting with East-West links. They should then have zoning changed along the transit corridors that encourages the development of high density within 1km of a station. This then solves they rapid transit time constraint issues, the weather maintenance issues having it all underground, the traffic congestion issues, and even addresses huge issues with the housing crisis in Ontario in general.
You should actually go work at Metrolinx and pitch all those genius ideas, seriously. Project Managers get paid over $100K there.
@@onYTsince2008 I can't tell if you are being serious or just joking. If they hired smart people with good ideas we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. If you are being genuine, then thank you. Unfortunately we live in a world of poorly thought out infrastructure and land management. Land gets used for the purpose of most profit, not best use. Some of the best, most productive, agricultural land exist along lake Ontario between Hamilton and Kingston, but we turned it into endless urban sprawl.
The City of Toronto needs to change its policy ratings. Currently, the single-occupant automobile gets #1 priority.
Should be…
#1 priority-emergency vehicles
#2 priority-pedestrians
#3 priority-public transit
#4 priority-cycling
#5 priority-delivery & contractor trucks
#6 priority-autos with more than one person
#7 priority-single-occupant autos
#8 priority-personal trucks or SUVs
Why does the city give single-occupant motorists the headstart at left turn lanes insted of the 100+ onboard a streetcar in their own right-of-way? Streetcars have to wait.
Toronto is still leaps and bounds over most American cities in this area.
Probably because a streetcar is a slow brick that blocks the whole intersection if a rock gets on the track.
Streetcars have zero advantages over buses there's a reason everyone else ditched them.
@@appa609
In Toronto, the streetcars and subway lines make more revenue than buses. They support the money losing bus routes.
Thank you for making this video. I have first hand experienced these problems with the ttc and torontos transit system. I also frequently ask myself why the crosstown development is not being pushed for. The delays you talked about are very real especially during rush hour. Line two especially gets very crowded with its older bombardier units that aren't connected and have low capacity. However line 1 can get just as packed when people are on their way to downtown to work. There is also the obligatory Eaton center rush on the weekends where Dundas and queen are completely swamped with shopping lovers lol. I also know what you mean about the streetcars and busses being overloading and picking up the subways slack. However most of my destinations on the ttc network can be accessed by subway and just that so I don't travel by streetcR and bus that often. This was the most relatable video about transit I've ever seen. Keep up the good work!
I grew up in Toronto but have also lived in Europe and Asia for a significant part of my life. If Toronto's public transit system is considered 'good', I feel so sorry for other North American city's public transport.
Agreed. I moved from Toronto to Europe and it's shocking how much better it is over here. However, compared to *most* North American cities, Toronto isn't bad at all. I mean, many cities only have some buses and maybe a light rail. It's bleak.
In most NA cities, only a small part of the population lives in the city proper, but in the metropolitan area around the city proper. Which is why so many people drive to commute, or when it comes to Toronto. Drive part of the way, use public transit the other half.
Right wth are all these people agreeing with
Like an transit system, it depends where you live and your lifestyle. I lived a few blocks from the Bloor line while in university and it was a breeze getting anywhere within the old city limits.
But then I had friends in Vaughan who faced a 90 minute bus ride to get home after a night out.
There is always that one guy who's been to every places and blah blah blah. Put your shirt back on, and calm down.
Yonge is pronounced like Young, not Young-e.
Yawn-Gay
Excellent video!! Definitely lots of good to be said about the TTC but not without the bad too. Hoping these subway projects truly will transform our city for a better tomorrow ❤
Incredibly well polished and researched video. Keep it up! New subscriber earned
Error correction: all streetcar routes actually run 24/7 although their frequency varies by line on time of day
The night streetcar lines have different route numbers and are listed as separate routes.
The night streetcars are part of the 300-series night routes, same as with the night buses (29 Dufferin vs 329 Dufferin night bus). Counted as a different route. And not all routes have them. 505 Dundas and 509 Harbourfront doesn't have a 300 equivalent. The routes that actually run as streetcars 24/7 are the 504 King, 501 Queen, 506 Carlton aka College and 510 Spadina. 511 Bathurst has the 307 Bathurst night bus, which is the night bus for the 7 Bathurst but also services the streetcars route from Exhibition Place to Bathurst Station at Bloor. 512 St Clair has the 312 St Clair night bus which also services much of the 40 Junction-Dundas West bus route.
it's silly that the subway doesn't run 24h, especially line 1 which is theoretically automated. I've had to negotiate late starts at my last two jobs because the subway didn't open early enough for me to get there on time.
Toronto was a typical city with a downtown core and suburban commuters until about 2005. But now its turned into megacity over the last 20 years, due to insane levels of mass immigration, so any transit plans from previous decades are obsolete.
It turns out building those plans would've been better than not building or reducing those plans, which is what we're actually getting. Ontario/Toronto governments spent most of the mid-90s/early 2010s starting transit plans and then electing governments who cancel them in the next election.
Line 5 and Line 6 are the surviving parts of the 7 planned LRT lines that got started in 2007 until Rob Ford cancelled them. Line 5 would've been a subway if Harris hadn't cancelled Rae's plans.
Indians ruining it
Seems like increasing our population by 300000 year over year wasn't a great idea....
@Zraknul because the level of cost never would've been made up for. This stupid city let in way too many people before it was ready. The subways suck. The busses suck. The street cars suck. There's no expressways in the parts of the city where it matters. If this really was a 2.7 million person city we'd be fine. But it's not. It's probably closer to 8 million when you factor in everyone that comes into the city daily for work and everyone still undocumented. Let's not even get into the housing and rental market. I don't know why anyone would ever want to move here.
@@BarbaPamino You're paying for the cost now, because everything sucks. You're paying increased commuting, and transportation costs on what you buy.
The electorate voted for federal governments from both parties that want to keep growing the population of the country for decades. They also voted provincial leaders who don't want to invest in infrastructure, and municipal governments who don't want to invest in infrastructure or allow sufficient housing. Governments need to be forward thinking.
Our housing prices never corrected in 2008 when the US market did, detaching an over 40 year trend where our income to housing price ratio was similar to theirs. You can find bankers/economists talking about Canadian housing bubble back then and we've kept going up up and away. Multiple ignorant governments and 1.5 decades later, here we are starting to think on how to address it.
Well researched, informative, and objective.
As someone who lived in Vaughan, the "City above Toronto" and who now lives and studies in Ottawa, I can say that the TTC is much more efficient and so much better than Vaughan and Ottawa combined.
Vaughan, a suburbia that is centered around the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (commonly the VMC) area where the northernmost Yonge-University line station is. The bus coverage of the YRT (York Region Transit) is OK, but wait times are almost insane with bus intervals taking 15-30 minutes farther out from the VMC. My parents' house is on the outskirts of Vaughan, and up until 3 months ago we didn't even have a bus line to our suburb. In contrast, a car ride from home to the VMC was about 20 minutes (with traffic).
Ottawa, on the other hand, I argue has a horrible public transport system. As a smaller city that quickly goes from business center to suburb, the bus coverage is terrible, and there is only one rail line. The O-Train, which is a subway like LRT system, what runs on it's own track (non-mixed use, unlike the TTC Street Cars) has it's own stations. Despite this, service is slow with up to 10 minute wait times between trains and delays because of things like bearing issues and other poorly designed system features. The OC Transpo's (Ottawa-Carleton Regional Transit Commission) busses on the other hand, are like an attempt to keep the tightly built city commuting, but service is equally bad as there are constant delays, and it's not often that you will be stuck waiting up to 30 minutes for a bus, even if you are in the city center.
As someone who used to hate on the TTC because of the shoddy service, I am thankful for how efficient it is now, especially after moving to Ottawa. The TTC isn't without it's faults, and is in definite need of a budget increase (and Metrolinx needs to get their shit together on construction). But for what it is, it's pretty damn good.
By the way it is spelt centre
The management of the streetcar network is such an own goal. Can't tell you how many times I've been in a shoulder-to-shoulder packed streetcar that is just crawling along in traffic, stuck behind a bunch of cars with one or two passengers.
Most if not all routes should be dedicated lines with signal priority
Try riding your bicycle lol malaka
@@turboplazz I do during nice weather actually. But if you think that is a scaleable solutions for the hundreds of thousands of people who ride the streetcar across the city every day, I would invite you to spend more than four seconds thinking about it and consider some perspectives other than your own.
Signal priority is definitely a must
Excellent video and really appreciate giving a thorough review of the success, and not just the (very real) challenges and failures of the TTC. I would note to viewers and the creator that the bus and subway cuts have been reversed (or are in the process) with the new progressive Mayor just elected in a by-election, Olivia Chow. The Eglinton Crosstown, Crosstown West and Finch West are all set to open within the next two years, so that will significantly expand the transit system (despite yes, the horrific delays).
As a Torontonian, I'll say that the system is overall pretty good. But one thing that I think is under-appreciated is that there's a lot of parking at the suburban stations. People who don't live that close to the lines will often drive to the station and park there - the really aggressive transit advocates hate that, but IMO it works well for meeting people where they are. You can't turn Houston into London overnight - Toronto was historically a pretty car-dominated city, and you need to back away from that slowly in order for it to work. So you find ways to help make the system more appealing to drivers, which means parking lots.
Also, you talk about how the system gets so much less funding than other cities - that's a good point for Toronto, not a bad point. NYC is so transit-dominated that they should be ashamed of needing to give the MTA seven billion a year - that's a system that could self-fund even during the Depression with fares that hadn't been raised in twenty years. How is it in need of such massive subsidies today? Toronto's doing far better there.
Time taken from Oshawa to Toronto: 1 hour (69km, via Go)
Time taken from Toronto downtown to North York: 1 hour (10km, via TTC)
It's crazy
Actually, from Long Branch (Mississauga) to OshawaI remember it was 45 minutes via GO.
imagin if cities kept their street car systems. kept them, expanding them, and modernizing them as the century went by. cities were originally built around the street car. but then the oil companies came.....
You should also compare the Vancouver Skytrain with LA's and Boston's subway network.
Vancouver's system is so underrated; for a much smaller city, it ranks 3rd in North America for ridership (per capita).
Thank you for this video!
Nice video. It's funny. Although quite well laid out an seemingly efficient you won't meet one person here that doesn't complain about the TTC on the regular and for good reason - all of which this guy pretty much nailed.
One thing no one seems to mention is rain. Any intense rainfall brings this city to its knees. Sometimes for hours sometimes for days on end. The subway always floods, cabs and ubers are slammed and everyone and their mom is standing in the rain for hours trying to get on a bus or streetcar.
It's also endlessly entertaining listening to foreigners pronounce Toronto. The second hard T is always adorable. It always makes me think for a quick second they're talking about some far off place
Yeah, I heard that the transit system will be greatly improved in Toronto when the Ontario line is complete. Unfortunately that won't happen until the year 2035 and they'll also be adding 20 new Subway stations and 20 new street cars by then
LOL toronto is bankrupt already.. they cant afford any more expansions and they cant even build the lines they are already building..
It’s meant to be 2031 let’s not tacitly accept a delay that hasn’t happened yet
Yonge is after George Yonge, 18th Century British secretary of war. Yonge is an old spelling of the word young.
You should do a video on Santiago's Metro, which is arguibly the best metro system in all of America
underrated video. This deserves millions of views
Amazingly well-done video! Nuanced, well-researched, and accessible to non-Torontonians and Torontonians alike!
Just one thing, it's pronounce "Young" instead of "Young-eh" :)
As someone who lives in Toronto and uses the TTC more than 5 times a week, we have an app that show bus times and when they arrive at stations. It is wrong half the times though😂. But something you failed to mention was the disaster of the finch LRT. I live right beside the line and it has been pure hell. You should’ve talked about the Finch LRT as well. It’s the same price as the Eglington line but much smaller.
very well documented, love this!
This is one of the best videos i've watched explaining the current situation, the good and bad. Its all unfortunately completely true, but hopefully the delays will allow the future to be much less congested.
Excellent video! :)
Some relief to the funding issues came just before you posted this - on Monday the city and province came to an understanding on various projects and systems. The key item is that the province will take over two motorways that the city currently runs; their repair budgets were dragging everything else down, so the freed-up funding can be put toward transit and housing.
lol thats a joke. toronto is bankrupt even without paying for the DVP or gardiner... hell whatever money they spendt on those highways was clearly wasted.. shittiest roads in the country
So where's the province going to get its funding for these new responsibilities of maintaining these roads? Is it going to be getting that money from the taxpayers who live in... Toronto?
Great video lots of usefull information 👍
Very insightful video mate
good video, very funny pronunciations lol. Yonge is pronounced Young not Young-E. A for effort
My way is "Yon-GUH"...
I mean he also pronounced it on-tar-ree-oh.
I live in Toronto and having been to both NYC and Montreal, I think Toronto’s subway lines are lacking by comparison. That’s why only 28% of people here don’t own a car and why the 401, which cuts across the northern GTA from east to west, is the busiest highway in North America.
1:20 the red line in Chicago and yellow line in Toronto are also similar lengths and have a similar amount of stops.
Great video, thanks.
"the yellow line" JUST CALL IT LINE 1 PLEASEEEEEE.
At least it’s better than “Young-e”
What about the go train it moves 70 million people a year
The problem with the GO train is lack of integration with TTC in notable areas. Fortunately this is changing with coming upgrades to Bloor station (with finally direct access to Dundas west station) and half a dozen new stations connecting to major TTC routes
@@Mystro256 I use the go train and ttc so I guess antodicly it works pretty well
@@zainfayaz8384your millage may vary. For example, TTC integration is not the greatest on the Kitchener line right now excluding obviously Union station, but they're fixing most of those issues with 3 new stations and a new direct entrance to the subway at Bloor GO station. I also remember that it wasn't great on the lakeshore east and Richmond hill lines when I used to take those but it's been a while.
@@Mystro256yea but even still I can hop on the GO here in Whitby, get to Union and then use the TTC anywhere else. I'd say it's pretty convenient for most suburban people.
Incredible video really well done
Although the TTC does experience lack of funding, it’s a common misconception in Toronto that the city itself does not have enough funding (something many mayoral candidates stated in the recent election). The truth is that Toronto experiences severe mismanagement of funding (for example, the road maintenance budget, or the misdirected programs to help the homeless). That is not the only problem, however, as one would then assume that with more money towards the TTC, problems regarding overcrowding would cease. This is not the case, however, as another major problem with Toronto and many other cities in Canada is the rate of immigration relative to the rate of infrastructure expansion. The influx of immigrants has become so hard to handle that it is no longer a politically divided topic like it is in the US. A recent study showed that 75% of Canadians blamed immigration for the current problems in the country. This is because the federal government is pushing for a rapid intake of immigrants, roughly 1 million per year. This is roughly equivalent to the US immigration rate, but with a drastic overall population difference. While supporting this rapid population increase, the federal government is not supporting equally rapid infrastructure growth. Not only regarding transit systems, but all facets of everyday urban life. This is also why if you were to ask any Torontonian that commutes by car what they experience regarding congestion, they would tell you that even 5 years ago it was almost like a different world with far fewer cars and congestion only happening during rush hour, not throughout all hours of every day as it is right now.
Great video! It's pronounced like "young" - University :)
The $11 billion vs $19 billion numbers for the Ontario line are comparing two different total. $11 billion was the original price to build, whereas $19 billion is the final cost to build and run it for 30 years.
I want to point out that $19B is a staggering amount of money for one streetcar line. It would would buy two Ford-class nuclear supercarriers.
It would buy all 88 F-35's of the future Royal Canadian Air Force. They can give every man woman and child in Toronto an extra $50 per month for the next decade.
@@appa609 The ontario line isn't a streetcar line. It's the largest subway line toronto has built in 50 years
@@georgewilson19 "has built"
you mean building... and they have been building it for so long it really is pathetic
@@notastone4832 they just started construction last year? not sure if you are confusing the ontario line with the eglinton lrt.
Thank you for being so balanced and accurate in this. Alot of folks living in Toronto need to watch this video. Our system works well but has alot of under funding, old infostructure and needs support. I appreciate this DEEPLY.
Great video! love from a Toronto resident. Small thing, the road yonge is pronounced young and Ontario in pronounced ON-terry-O. Lots of love!
Part of the funding problem in Toronto is literally bound up in the Constitution. In terms of powers of taxation, municipalities are delineated as "creatures of the province"- meaning that they have no powers to impose taxes on residents and businesses for things like the TTC. Cities in Canada are entirely beholden to the provinces when it comes to the imposition of taxes as well as reaping the benefits of tax revenue, country wide. So when a premier like Mike Harris or Doug Ford decide to slash financial assistance to an organization like the TTC or even to the government of a municipality like Toronto as a whole, that city has little recourse to generate its own revenues to fund things like transit service expansion. It's an absolutely ass backwards way of funding public transit and municipal services writ large. To change that and give municipalities their own powers of taxation would mean a constitutional amendment led by the federal government, that would require pretty much unanimous support from the provinces (who don't generally want to give up powers for anything in either direction, whether toward the federal government or their municipalities)- which is pretty much like asking every single planet and moon in the solar system to perfectly align for the sake of public wellbeing. It just isn't going to happen.
Toronto should be its own province. I get real tired of people up north whining about how they don't get funding when Toronto is the entire tax base. Like, if you want services, don't live in a place with a population of 15.
@@AlwaysUp-uf9dl I fvcking hate it. The city and gta have double digit percentages of the *national* population, of course that's where the money and attention go.
in chicago theres more choices than the red line. you can take the purple or brown alternatively on the north side or the green line on the south.
torontos yellow carries more people because thats their only choice.
perhaps Line 1 would be less overcrowded if it wasn't the only option, but zoom out and you'll see that the Toronto subway absolutely decimates the L on any metric other than system length. Line 1 carries twice as many people per day as *all* of the L. Line 2 carries an additional L's worth of passengers per day. This is even more impressive when you consider that Chicago's metro area population is 150% the size of TO.
Canadian transit systems are infra lite and ridership heavy. Only the NYC subway has more ridership compared to any Canadian metro system (Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto). This is despite Canadian cities being tiny in comparison, population wise.
What a breath of fresh air. Some positivity about the situation, thanks for the enlightening video. Although fuck how long it takes to get everywhere fr this shit better be worth it ahaha
this video is really well edited
When was this video made? 5 billion?
Line 5 is scheduled to open in 2024, with an estimated cost of CA$12.82 billion; the cost when the contract was awarded was pegged at $9.1 billion, although the cost was originally estimated at $11 billion.
I wonder what the original above-ground version would have cost, and when it would have opened...
@@tristanridley1601 in mississauga they are building above ground light rail.. taking away lanes on a massive north south artery, oh and it cost over 7 billion.
The Toronto subway system is absolutely tiny. We need like 3-4 more lines in the downtown core alone. The trams are unreliable as they can get stuck in traffic or if one of the trams breaks down in front of yours then you might be stuck for hours, which happened to me once when I going down dundas. What the city could really benefit from is a subway line that goes in through billy bishop and onto the island and then through to the new housing being built over in the portlands. More east west subway lines in the more southern parts of the city would be great as would more north south lines outside of the 1 line seeing as there is only the one line right now. Line 5 eglinton is a horrible mess and should be a subway line, alas that was deemed too expensive so they just put in the infrastructure as if it were a subway line and are putting trams in there instead for literally no reason, originally it was going to be a subway line but thankfully Doug Ford in his infinite wisdom said that we should consdtruct it like a subway like but then put these tiny, slow, loud, dogshit, unreliable trams there instead of big, fast, high capacity, reliable subway trains. At least the Ontario line is being built
Let alone what is going to be needed in York, Peel, and Durham! And KW! And regional rail throughout southern ontario and to muskoka! dream big!
As a TTC user..i think the negatives mostly affect downtown service,as i'm up in the burb's i've rarely experienced any issues or delays.So if you are downtown..it might suck..if you're up off the Finch-Yonge burbs it's great service.
If we want to strive of 'excellence' - why not compare to Asia tier 1 cities and see what we can learn from those systems?
Well, I guess the video wasn't wrong if you compare us to some of the worst systems around the world lol
Because the comparison would be embarassing and depressing. The Chinese build twice the track three times faster and four times cheaper.
four times cheaper? id bet the cost would be lower than that for them.. @@appa609
7:30 - might have been good to mention the King Street corridor here
It's also spelled Eglinton, not Eglington. And pronounced "Young" not "Yungey"
I imagine the Eglinton Crosstown will open in summer of 2025 or 2026. They still don't have a completion date and Yonge & Eglinton is a total disaster.
Thanks for the video
Ah the open pit mine has migrated to Yonge now?
The cost subsidy is a big pain point, with the largest pain point being the absolutely dog water timing from Metrolinx on their construction. It feels like eternal gridlock, and whenever winter hits, the way everything grinds to a halt is just brutal.
Loved the video, you earned a suscriber. What about the extension of line 4, though? It looks like a toy subway there.
Conservative politicians at all levels of government have had a major role to play in Toronto’s current struggle with public transportation. However, Toronto has a bright future ahead and has lots to be proud of despite all the setbacks!
its a trash heap of a city
As a Torontonian I can confirm, the yongee line is so efficient that both bed bugs and crabs take it on the regular.
Great vid! I'm surprised the TTC is actually efficient compared to the rest of North America. Makes me wonder how different public transport in other major cities could be.
Also fun fact: Ontario is pronounced "on-teh-rio" rather than "on-tar-io"?
The Ontario Line will be a game-changer when it’s finished, removing the need to travel be streetcar along most of Queen Street and even nearby streets like King and Dundas. The one major downfall of transit in Toronto now is being able to get east-west through downtown, since line 2 is too far north to be useful for downtown. The construction may be painful in the meantime but there’s really no other option unless we want to have permanent gridlock in the city.
Correction Toronto does 20% of Canada’s GDP not 10%
10% is just within the official city boundaries, which is the area the TTC covers. The other half is the 905 suburbs, which have their own local networks and GO.
Please note that Line 5 and 6 have not yet opened. Line 3 has also shutdown earlier than expected due to a derailment issue. We have decent transit infrastructure for getting downtown from the suburbs and getting anywhere within downtown. Our problem is crosstown travel. Both people trying to get through Toronto (like truckers) and those trying to travel within Toronto must use the 401. Highway 407 was designed to run parallel to 401 to ease some of its congestion in 1997. Unfortunately it was leased by a Spanish company and they now price many people in the Greater Toronto Area out of using it. The second problem is getting from suburb to suburb (Ajax to Markham for example). This is where we really suffer. To get from Ajax to Markham, most people would take the 401 followed by the 404, creating even more unnecessary traffic for those trying to crosstown. Unfortunately the proposed Scarborough Expressway never got built and would have helped.
If you think demolishing homes for expressways would have actually helped, I invite you to look at the many American cities that did so. It just destroys communities while forcing more people to drive.
I live right next to the proposed route for that, and nothing good about this area would have survived.
dude it takes like 50 minutes to drive 20km towards the city from mississauga.. idk how you think that is acceptable..
bike lanes on both side of the road is a dumb fucking idea.. and they fucked up toronto bad
Good News on the 407: Since 2019, the CPP investment board has been the 50.01% owner. Also 7% SNC Lavalin, and that Spanish company 43%.
Smaller cities need to pick up their transit game, and GO links between them. We're basically out of space for inefficient highways between Oshawa and Niagara Falls and need to get non-major cargo carrying people off the road.
And Toronto is growing fast. Gonna need a lot of building to keep up with the growth.
I’m loving the pronunciation of Ontahhhrio ☺️
I have never heard such a glowing words spoken about our transit system in all my years here. I lived in Korea for a year, close to Seoul. That transit system is the best in the world, and is far better than Toronto's.
no one asked bruh he just wanted to talk about this city like he has others
Living in Toronto without a car is a nightmare (although everyday I see more and more people frustrated driving around the city). TTC slow infrastructure development makes commuting very stressful, a ride that should take 15 min can extend 20 to 25 min with line 1 being the most affected. It's like a love-hate relationship, we have no choice but to wait for the completion of all these projects.
We love to complain about the TTC but for the most part, the network works pretty damn well.
Toronto's streetcar or tram system gives the city an aesthetic identity that it does not get from its dark and dull architecture. The trams have this magical power of civilizing the city, as well as making the city seem both futuristic and old fashioned at the same time. Neat trick.
And now, here's a bunch of complaints...
The lack of subways has been a problem for decades and because the city is mostly massive suburbs, it takes forever to get from one end to the other. And there are no diagonal lines that would cut the commute down considerably.
The streetcars are cool but the old trams were a much better transit experience. They were better looking and had windows you could open and enjoy the breeze. The modern trams feel like metal tubes packed with sardines. There's no enjoying the ride on the new trams.
Everyone is looking forward to the Ontario Line, but it only serves the
East End of the city and the Downtown Core, completely ignoring the West End.
The useless Sheppard Line only has 5 stations and serves nobody.
The Finch and Crosstown lines are never going to be finished. They built the Canadian Pacific Railway across a continent in less than 4 years back in the 1880s, and now, it takes us well over a decade to build a glorified tram line through the suburbs.
I'm sure the future looks bright for transit in Toronto, but we really could have been way ahead of where we are. Our politicians and city planners have been lacking in vision and competence for the last 30 years.
This is the most perfect video I ever seen.
I'm a Torontonian, and I know this guy doesn't really know anything about the streetcar network. King car doesn't function basically ever, and it is faster to get onto line 2 (Green line) and then walk or take a bus for most locations than take a streetcar route. Additionally, the 504B and 505 routes aren't currently running because of construction, and for most streetcar lines, they also run buses at the same time. I live on queen street at pape, and I've gotta say that it's faster to take a bus up and across most days due to construction. It is true that you can get anywhere in an hour, but that's only achievable with the subway. Also union station is and continually looks like garbage because it is eternally under construction.
Timestamped comments:
3:36 yeah, that's not true because they run shuttle buses instead, and the streetcars are too far away from all of the subway lines.
4:38 generally, it's pretty bad most of the time speaking from experience. I gotta take the TTC daily because I live across the city from my university. There's usually a delay that wastes more than 15 min at least twice a week on any given section of public transport.
4:53 Buddy, go look at the wikipedia page for the Toronto streetcars. The new flexity outlook ones. Requisition started in 2007, and finished in 2020.
7:56 it functionally doesn't exist. I was supposed to be able to take the eglington crosstown in my final year of high school. I took two gap years to get to university. They're gonna open it in 2027. Also Doug Ford is a garbage person with his budget cuts. Also Also the fair requistion process is completely fair to avoid lawsuits and litigation but it's a larger money drain than the actual cost of the project most of the time, and it has to be done with EVERY SINGLE THING. Say you need a packet of screws? YOU GOTTA TALK TO EVERY SCREW MANUFACTURER, and HAVE THEM GIVE A QUOTE ON SCREWS, and THEN and ONLY THEN do you actually pick your screw packet. NOW MULTIPLY THAT TO EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF EQUIPMENT AND CONTRACTING, and you have the City of Toronto :) Nothing gets done :)
9:18 it's pronounced young. Also metrolinx is lying, and it is currently, and forever will be a logistical nightmare.
9:38 AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOPE YOU WISH.
Other notes:
- Current mayor wants to remove the science center like an idiot. The current mayor is completely out of touch, and tone deaf to the point of playing 'Rise Up' during her inauguration. Please note that 'Rise Up' is an anti establishment song. AS THE MAYOR, YOU'RE THE ESTABLISHMENT, YOU BUFFOON. Science center might not even exist for that stop.
- The blue line in the 2031 diagram will likely only exist in 2035. I live next to the development zone.
- Green line extension will get a budget cut from the next conservative mayor
- Line 4 is basically never used, and has a yearly ridership of something like 500,000
- Final diagram is missing the extraordinarily fast GO line to the airport. that goes directly to union station and takes literally twenty minutes the last time I was on it. That's what we need more of.
All in all, good vid. You don't know stuff about Toronto because you don't live here, and that's okay. I'd rate this video a 9/10. It's pretty accurate. It truly seems that every country is run by clowns in suits.
I live in Toronto and to me it feels like this video is doing a great job at putting a ton of lipstick on a pig. I admire the creator for his work, but I'm most definitely not convinced that TTC is where it needs to be.
w comment
They supposedly installed automated trains all along line 1 in 2022 but the trains are still inconsistently spaced and no more frequent than before. My same commute from Queen's Park to VMC can take 26 min one day or 38 min the next. Are they just refusing to use the ATC because of the union or what's going on?
Really well done! A tip for future videos: the province is pronounced On-TARE-e-o, not On-TAR-e-o :)
As a Torontonian, this video couldn't be further from the truth
So all of the data that he presented was made up?
Pretty good! Just a heads-up though, it's pronounced "young" and "ont-AIR-io"
Yes, on paper it looks fine (as I thought as a visitor to the City), but in reality the distances between each subway station is large and when you get out, you usually have to take a tramway just to get where you're going - you just can't walk.
The Province of Ontario and the TTC just announced the extension of the Yonge (Line 1) subway from Finch to Richmond Hill Centre station, just north of Hwy 7, in Richmond Hill, Ontario
As someone who has lived in Toronto for 28 years, the talking points in this video are cherry picked.
1. Let's start with the fact the TTC has nowhere close to that many rides in a year. You can't separate people transferring from the bus to train or line 1 to line 2 and act like it's a different ride. It's still the same trip.
2. I lived in South Korea for 3 years, travelling to Tokyo, Taiwan, and Singapore taking public transit in all. Our map is terrible. Streetcars and buses are extremely slow. I moved downtown in August and getting a bike was the best decision ever. I zip by streetcars and buses in the downtown core. Not to mention if you're a driver stuck behind a streetcar on Queen or Dundas how terrible that is.
3. You mentioned the delays, which I've even experienced in New York, but when I take the TTC I'm more surprised if things run somewhat on time than being late. Can say I never had this problem in South Korea. Won't say the others because I was only there for short periods of time.
4. As a former Scarborough resident, the RT was a waste of time. Again I lived near the zoo which is in Scarborough and would just bypass the line altogether when going downtown. The Sheppard line is another waste of time.