Sean Marshall

Tag: Light Rail

  • Ion: An Ontario LRT that somehow works

    Ion: An Ontario LRT that somehow works

    There is a light rail system in Ontario that works in the snow. ION LRT at University of Waterloo.

    Less than a two hours drive or train ride from Toronto, where that city’s first light rail line opened to universal disdain, a light rail line has been operating without incident for over five years. Trains operate like clockwork, signal priority works, and it has become the backbone of a regional transit system.

    Though the Ion LRT project was subject to several delays, opening eighteen months behind schedule, operations have been notably smooth since the public opening on June 21, 2019. The delay is attributed to Bombardier’s late delivery of their Flexity light rail vehicles, which were built on the same assembly line as the TTC’s new streetcars.

    A southbound Ion LRV turns from Charles Street to Borden Avenue. Note the white bar signal and the “no right turn – train” sign lit up.

    Funded by all three levels of government, the Ion LRT was constructed and operated by GrandLinq, a public-private partnership (P3) consortium that includes operator Keolis and engineering and construction firms such as Aecon, Kiewit, and Plenary Group. Though design-build-operate P3 models are common for Canadian transit infrastructure projects, they have their challenges, as Waterloo Region would later find out. Fares and service are integrated into the Grand River Transit bus system, which is owned and operated by the regional government.

    Waterloo Region is the smallest urban region in North America with a light rail system, and it works largely because of Kitchener-Waterloo’s geography. Many important regional destinations line up along the corridor: the terminals are both major suburban shopping centres that already functioned as major bus transfer points. In between the two malls are Downtown Kitchener and Uptown Waterloo, the two historic town centres, University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital. The LRT serves or passes near all these destinations (though Laurier’s campus is centred a few blocks east of the LRT corridor). Furthermore, the region’s master plan focuses urban growth along the LRT corridor with new high-rise residential and mixed-use development. A planned extension of the LRT into Cambridge south to the historic Galt town centre will further support regional urban intensification goals.

    Ion trains operate every 10 minutes during weekday daytime hours; they operate every 15 minutes on weekends and weekday evenings, with 30-minute service from about 10:30 PM to the end of service starting around midnight.

    Map of Waterloo Region’s urban system, which directs growth to existing and planned transit corridors and limits growth outside the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. From the regional official plan.

    Despite following a linear corridor, the LRT winds its way along city streets, railway rights-of-way, and hydro corridors. This allowed the region to reduce property and road construction costs as well as achieve higher speeds in specific off-road sections. The fastest section is north of Uptown Waterloo, where the corridor makes use of a freight railway spur line between Kitchener and Elmira that also happens to run directly past University of Waterloo. In the south end, a different railway corridor and a hydro corridor allow trains to reach Fairview Park Mall on a mostly off-street alignment. These off-road segments are protected by railway signals and barriers, like those in along LRT lines in Calgary and Edmonton.

    This ability to switch between different alignment types is a clear advantage of light rail transit for medium-capacity transit systems. During overnight hours, freight trains headed to a plastics plant in Elmira use the same rails north of Uptown Waterloo as the LRT does during the day, making it an example of the “tram-train” model more common in Europe.

    The on-street sections, though slower than the off-road portions, provide access to Downtown Kitchener and Uptown Waterloo, including the planned new transit hub in Downtown Kitchener that will provide a better connection to GO Transit trains to Toronto. Unlike Toronto’s streetcars and Finch West LRT, however, the signal priority system works. On King Street between Downtown and Uptown, there are many intersections with traffic signals, but the LRTs generally do not have to stop at any of those red lights. At intersections, LRVs continue at regular speed, typically 40 km/h through this section.

    A southbound LRV on King Street. It just passed two signals with a clear (white vertical bar) signal; the next signal ahead will soon change to allow the LRV to proceed. Note that there are no “transit signal” signs, as Waterloo Region worked to have these approved by the province.

    Waterloo Region also worked to permit unique transit signals, which feature only white bar aspects. A vertical bar indicates “proceed” while a horizonal bar indicates “stop.” A flashing horizontal bar lets the operator know that it will soon switch to “proceed” while a flashing vertical bar warns of an upcoming stop signal. This reduces the sign clutter that is found on Toronto’s streetcar and light rail corridors.

    A typical Toronto assembly, with red, amber, and green transit signal aspects that look similar to the larger traffic lights above and accompanied with a “transit signal” sign. Of course, the Finch West LRV approached an amber signal, rather than being given a go ahead.

    To be fair, the advantage in Waterloo Region is that most of the on-street sections of the LRV corridor are on narrower urban streets rather than suburban arterials like Finch Avenue. King Street and Charles Street in Kitchener only have two general traffic lanes and are not major throughfares (a provincially-maintained freeway between St. Jacobs, Waterloo, Kitchener, and Highway 401 absorbs much of this traffic). The regional government also widened a section of Weber Street to four lanes to divert traffic from King ahead of LRT construction. This resulted in the loss of about two dozen houses and businesses.

    But by maintaining a narrow right-of-way on King Street, the LRT runs with minimal delays. It is easier to provide aggressive transit signal priority with short pedestrian crossing distances, narrow intersections, and lower traffic volumes.

    The video below illustrates how the LRT runs along King Street northbound from Kitchener Central Station.

    View from the front of a train heading north towards Waterloo

    Despite the LRT working well, it is still far from perfect: there are several sections in which the trams crawl at a 10 or 15 km/h speed, particularly on the south end. At Hayward Avenue the route switches from a railway corridor to an alignment alongside Courtland Avenue; this section has two tight turns and crosses an industrial driveway. Had a few more properties been expropriated (at additional cost) this would not have been an issue. Until a proper protected pedestrian crossing is installed at a path connecting Trayner Avenue to Fairway Road (a critical pedestrian link that was overlooked during the planning phase), LRVs must also slow down along the hydro corridor approaching Fairview Park Mall.

    The P3 contract also limits the ability to make service improvements. In 2024, Waterloo Region proposed revising the LRT schedule to run trains every eight minutes during peak periods, but because of a fixed staffing contract, it would have resulted in 30-minute service after 8PM. Luckily, local transit advocates successfully opposed that change. Had the LRT been operated directly by Grand River Transit, they could have simply trained more operators on the LRT service, even transferring bus drivers to the rail division.

    Overall, however, the LRT works in Waterloo Region both as a transit service and a planning tool. It provides useful lessons on what to do (real signal priority and proper signal aspects, make effective use of on-street and off-street routing where each makes sense), and what not to do (enter strict operating contracts) when building a new transit line. Waterloo Region made its rail transit work for its geography and its needs, and that is the most important thing.

  • Waiting for Finch West

    Waiting for Finch West

    Two Line 6 LRVs cross Jane Street at Finch Avenue, December 3, 2025 as training wraps up ahead of revenue service on December 7

    Can a brand-new light rail line outrun the local bus it replaces? Starting on Sunday, December 7, Torontonians will get the chance to find out when the new Line 6 Finch West light rail line finally opens to the public. Though built and maintained by Metrolinx, the service will be operated by TTC employees.

    The new LRT, 11 kilometres long, with 18 stops, runs almost exclusively in a transit-only median on Finch Avenue West between Finch West Station at Keele Street in North York and Highway 27 in Etobicoke. The end terminals are below grade, with three traffic signals skipped. Otherwise, the light rail vehicles will be subject to stopping at the same traffic lights as all other cars, trucks, and buses.

    New maps in the TTC subway system show the long-delayed Line 5 Eglinton-Crosstown (opening date still TBD) and Line 6, which opens Sunday December 7

    For the last few weeks, Finch West has been served by the 36C bus, running between Finch West Station at Keele Street and Humberwood Loop near the Mississauga border, making a stop at the Humber College bus terminal. A separate 36 Finch West bus continues east from Finch West Station to Finch Station at Yonge Street. There will only be eight fewer stops on Line 6 than there bus stops between Finch West Station and Humber College; apart from overnight service, there will be no parallel local bus serving the corridor.

    Map of the Route 36C Finch West-Humberwood service, modified from the TTC’s original

    Without limited stops and signal priority, the new light rail line will not achieve any real time savings. On his website, transit advocate Steve Munro notes that the end-to-end time of the new Line 6 LRT is scheduled for 46 minutes, consistent across all operating time periods. The 36C’s fastest round trip times, late evenings and early Sunday mornings, is between 79 and 82 minutes, or 40-41 minutes one way on a slightly longer route.

    To see this for myself, I visited Finch Avenue West and rode the 36C both ways between Finch West and Humber College. Wednesday, December 3 was an overcast and cold day, with the daytime high temperature hovering around the freezing mark. But the roads were clear and dry, with no collisions and little construction work in the way of traffic on Finch; conditions couldn’t be any better for early December.

    Here were the times for the two buses I took. I started timing the runs as soon as the bus doors closed and departed the originating stop; waiting times at the initial stops were not included.

    TTC Route 36C travel times on Wednesday Dec. 3
    Eastbound
    (read down)    		Stop/stationWestbound
    (read up)
    12:07 PM (dep.)Humber College
    bus loop    		1:50 PM (arr.)
    12:11Westmore Dr.1:37**
    12:13Martin Grove Rd.1:24
    12:18Kipling Ave. (Mt. Olive)1:29
    12:20Islington Ave. (Rowntree Mills)1:19*
    12:28Weston Rd. (Emery)1:11
    12:33Arrow Rd./Signet Dr.1:09
    12:38Jane and Finch1:04
    12:42Tobermory Dr.1:01
    12:44Sentinel Rd.1:00
    12:51 PM (arr.)Finch West Stn.
    (bus terminal)    		12:57 PM (dep.)
    44 minutesTotal time53 minutes
    * At Islington Avenue westbound, the bus was delayed by five minutes by a troublesome passenger
    ** At Westmore Drive westbound, the operator left the bus with twelve passengers on board to order coffee at a nearby Starbucks, resulting in a second delay of nearly ten minutes

    The eastbound departure, leaving Humber College at 12:07 PM, made it to Finch West Station in 44 minutes, two minutes faster than the scheduled LRT trip. This bus, an articulated (18-metre) vehicle was relatively busy, with a few standees between Jane Street and Finch West Station, and most en route stops were made. There were no unusual delays; just some traffic near Highway 400; it also took two light cycles to complete the left turn from Finch to Keele approaching the subway station.

    Westbound 36C bus waiting to depart Finch West Station

    I returned towards Humber College on a different bus that left Finch West Station at 12:57 PM. For a while, this run, a standard 12-metre bus, was making exceptionally good time, with only a few passengers on board. It skipped several bus stops as no one wanted on or off until Tobermory Drive. Line 6 LRVs will stop at every station, just like the subway, even if there aren’t any waiting passengers.

    At Islington Avenue there was a delay caused by a prospective passenger who rushed through a don’t walk/red light to get the bus, despite another one close behind. As the passenger was using a mobility device, the bus operator had trouble deploying the ramp because the bus had already inched ahead of the bus stop pad, ready to proceed with the green light. The driver needed to reposition the ramp and wait for the next green, which resulted in a five-minute delay.

    Another delay came a few minutes later, when at Westmore Drive, just one stop before the Humber College bus terminal, the operator left the bus without notice and walked into a nearby Starbucks. After a few minutes, and seeing two other westbound 36C buses pass by, most passengers exited the open doors to flag down the next bus.

    Passengers leave an unattended Route 36C bus on Finch Avenue West at Westmore Drive. The portal for Line 6 LRVs to descend under Highway 27 towards Humber College is behind

    The TTC operator returned eight minutes later, and we finally arrived at Humber College Bus Terminal at 1:50, 53 minutes after departing Finch West Station. (It’s worth noting that Humber College also has a Starbucks and public washrooms in the main building near the bus loop.)

    At least that’s one instance where the LRT will certainly be faster than taking the bus.

    A longer walk, a longer wait

    TTC and Brampton Transit buses layover at Humber College

    Humber College’s bus terminal serves a total of nine TTC, Brampton Transit, Miway, and YRT routes. It’s also a connection point between TTC Wheel-Trans and Peel Region’s TransHelp paratransit services. But the LRT terminal station is a five-minute walk away from the terminal, which is adjacent to several primary buildings on campus.

    A walkway leads between the bus terminal and LRT station, with partial shelter provided by a long canopy that blocks northerly winds, but not the prevailing westerly winds. At the end of the walkway is the entrance to the below-grade LRT platforms, which are parallel to nearby Highway 27. This alignment reduced construction costs over a longer approach to the college, but it permits a future extension to the planned Woodbine GO Station two kilometres to the south and even Pearson Airport.

    Humber College Station entrance, at Highway 27. The walkway to the bus terminal and main campus is behind.

    During weekday peak periods, the LRT will run every 6 minutes, about as frequent as the current 36C bus during weekday daytime periods. However, during off peak times, trains will only come every 10-12 minutes, resulting in longer waits. Anyone travelling from Humber College will have to factor in the longer walk and potentially longer wait time.

    I will certainly go out on Sunday December 7 to celebrate the opening of this new line, which despite the unnecessarily slow speeds, will result in a more predictable and more comfortable ride, with significant capacity improvements during peak periods, especially at school dismissal times. LRT doors will line up with the platforms, making loading and unloading easier for passengers with mobility devices, strollers, or carts.

    I will also go ride the LRT after the opening day crowds are done, to see how it works in day-to-day operation. There are ways to speed up the schedule: more aggressive transit priority, shorter station dwell times, quick turnarounds at the terminals with “step back” operation, schedule optimization, and I hope these are considered by Metrolinx, the TTC and the city as everyone gets used to the new transit line.

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