Rocket Talk: How Fast Does Light Rapid Transit Go?

By Torontoist

Have questions about the TTC? Rocket Talk is a regular Torontoist column, featuring TTC Chair Adam Giambrone and Director of Communications Brad Ross’s answers to Torontoist readers’ questions. Submit your questions to [email protected]!

Photo by spotmaticfanatic from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Reader Andy Kromkamp asks:

I still have one major concern about the Transit City plan—I just don’t think that an LRT line running on road surfaces (and therefore making many more stops than a subway would, including at traffic lights) is anywhere near fast enough to really perform as an effective people-mover. Moreover, I’m skeptical that they will be much faster than just running a whole lot of buses because of these same reasons.
Has the TTC done any studies to estimate travel time on the new LRT lines, and how they would compare to a regular bus? (Or an actual subway line?) As an example, can you tell me how long you expect it to take to ride the proposed Eglinton Crosstown line from Kennedy station to Kipling (about the same length as the Bloor Line)?

TTC Chair Adam Giambrone says:

Everyone likes subways, no question. But subways are very expensive, at over $300 million per kilometre—LRT by contrast costs around $50–60 million. What’s more, subways are designed to carry large volumes of people. The Yonge subway can carry upwards of 34,000 people per direction per hour (the Bloor-Danforth line currently carries 26,000 per direction per hour, and is not near capacity), and with Automatic Train Control being installed and other measures, this number will exceed 45,000 people per direction per hour.
The busiest proposed LRT route is the central part of the Eglinton LRT: with projected growth, it would reach around seven thousand people (with the assumption of development) per direction per hour in 2031, twenty years from now—a far cry from the large volumes on the other subway lines, although an underground LRT is still being built along that section of Eglinton.
The Transit City lines will feature “Signal Priority,” which will mean that transit vehicles can change a light to green, or hold a green light, in order to minimize the time Light Rail Vehicles spend waiting for traffic signals, and this will reduce travel times. In addition, stop spacing is roughly doubled from existing surface stops, meaning the average stop spacing is around 400–500 metres. (The average distance between subway stops, meanwhile, is 800 metres.)
The subway moves at an average of 32 kilometres per hour, compared to around 22–24 kilometres per hour for real LRT, and 12–15 kilometres for existing surface service (including streetcars operating in separate rights-of-way like Spadina). The increased speed for LRT vehicles comes from better control of signals, wider stop spacing, all-door loading (which means faster loading), and, of course, the separation of the vehicles from other private vehicles.
The average trip on the TTC is 6 kilometres, compared to the average trip on GO transit, which is around 30 kilometres. Therefore, a 6-kilometre trip would take just over 11 minutes on a subway, around 17 minutes on an LRT, and 30 minutes or so on a regular bus or streetcar. It is not only time of the trip, but also the reliability of service, and this is where LRT offers a large improvement over regular bus and streetcar service: LRT service is more regular, thus avoiding the gaps and bunching that are so frustrating to people.
The question was how long it would take on the Eglinton LRT to get from Kipling to Kennedy station. Unfortunately, that’s complicated by the fact that the Province cut funding for the Eglinton LRT: it originally ran from the airport to Kennedy, but the most recent plans would have it run only from Jane to Kennedy. That makes the trip to Kipling much more difficult.