I was very impressed by Bordeaux's tramway network. It felt like no matter where you were in the city, there was a tram gracefully passing you by. Here's a high-level summary of the system:

• The network has 4 lines and a total route length of 77.5 km.

• The first line opened in 2003.

• The network has 130 stops, which crudely results in an average stop spacing of around 600 m.

• The system pioneered ground-level power supply for the trains, which means no overhead wires. Supposedly this caused some issues upfront, but now it seems to be working just fine.

• Most of the network runs on a dedicated right-of-way (en site propre). Meaning, the trains don't compete with car traffic. Many of the lines are quite beautiful too - see above video.

• In 2018, the network carried close to 100 million people. This is in a city of ~260k people and a metro area of ~1.4 million people (2020).

The key differentiators for me are (1) the stop spacing and (2) the fact that most of the system runs on its own dedicated right-of-way. These are two reasons why Toronto's streetcars perform so poorly. They stop too frequently. And most of the lines have to compete with traffic.

So why bother? Walking can be faster.

Bordeaux shows that -- if you implement light rail correctly -- you can actually move a ton people efficiently. With surface rail, you can also build out a robust network in a relatively short period of time.

Twenty years isn't that long in city-building years. It has already been 10 years since Toronto was first promised SmartTrack.

Yesterday afternoon, I took the 504 King streetcar from the Bloor-Dundas West mobility hub down to King & Bathurst to meet a friend at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern. In case you didn't know, this is believed to be the oldest continually-operating pub in the city. It opened in 1849.

My streetcar ride took an obscenely long time (over an hour) and so it was the wrong mobility choice for a peak summer afternoon. I should have biked. But once I did finally arrive at Toronto's oldest pub, it was great to see all of the activity happening right at the intersection for the new King-Bathurst subway station (Ontario Line).

I'm always a bit cynical when it comes to transit plans. Like, it's hard for me to believe that something is actually happening. I'm still waiting for SmartTrack to open. So I need constant visual reminders like these:

What you are seeing above is the northeast corner of the intersection, which is where one of the two station entrances will go. Naturally, the station platform and track itself are also aligned on a diagonal so as to minimize "significant construction impacts" to the Wheat Sheaf (southwest corner).

This stop is also one of Infrastructure Ontario's Transit-Oriented Communities, which means the intent is to have a private developer build things on top of the station. Directionally, this is, of course, the right approach. It didn't happen on the Eglinton Crosstown line; but we know that the best way to maximize the value of transit investment is to combine it with smart land use planning (the rail + property model). Density is your friend.

From what I could glean during my time on the patio at the Wheat Sheaf, all of this appears to be moving forward. And already today, there is a ton of foot traffic in the area -- meaning the future transit station should do very well from a ridership perspective. Now we just need this line extended up to the Bloor-Dundas West mobility hub so that the 504 streetcar can be relieved of some of its duties.

Station Plan/Rendering: Metrolinx and IO

Last week Oliver Moore of the Globe and Mail announced that Toronto mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan is evolving to feel less like SmartTrack and more like what Metrolinx had been planning all along.

Here’s the map from the Globe and Mail:

The 3 big changes are as follows (and numbered accordingly on the above map):

1. 

The western end of the line will be replaced by an extension of the Eglinton-Crosstown LRT (currently under construction) running from Mount Dennis to Pearson Airport. This is what was originally proposed.

2. 

The “U” running from Mount Dennis in the west, down through downtown, and up to Kennedy in the east is what remains of the original SmartTrack line and will operate as some sort of “heavy rail” service on existing GO Transit lines. The original election campaign plan was to run trains every 15 minutes, but that was deemed too infrequent to attract riders, so now Metrolinx and everyone is trying to figure out how to get it down to every 5-10 minutes and feel more like subway.

3. 

The extension north of Eglinton Avenue to suburban Markham (in the northeast) is being pushed out and will be dealt with sometime in the future. Keeping the first phase of SmartTrack south of Eglinton on both ends is beneficial in avoiding the issue of SmartTrack and the Scarborough subway extension cannibalizing each other. (In my opinion, this issue is a perfect example of what happens when transit planning becomes too political.)

The net result is a plan that is looking less and less like the original SmartTrack. I’m not complaining though because I have never been a big supporter of SmartTrack. I have always thought we should be focusing on the downtown relief subway line and on allowing Metrolinx to just execute on its regional express rail (RER) strategy.

For more on this topic, check out Steve Munro’s post, SmartTrack: Now You See It, Now You Don’t! He’s far more of an expert than I am on these sorts of issues.