I’ve talked before about how Toronto doesn’t currently have any true light rail transit lines. LRT does not equal what we have on St Clair Avenue. The stops are spaced far too close together. It’s just a streetcar on its on right of way.

This is better than a streetcar that doesn’t have its own right of way, but it could be better. So here’s an idea for better optimizing some of the transit infrastructure we already have: let’s convert the St Clair and Spadina streetcar lines into true LRT.

Here are 3 things we could do.

1.

First, we need to get rid of some stops. Let’s take the stop spacing being proposed for Eglinton Avenue and apply it to St Clair Avenue and Spadina Avenue. By stopping less, it means performance goes up. Think about how much time is wasted every time the streetcar has to stop for people to get on and off. This is why New York has express trains.

Alternatively—and instead of actually getting rid of some stops—we could also just operate two types of stops: rush hour stops and off-peak stops. In the case of off-peak stops, the streetcar would simply skip them during rush hour. The cost of implementing this would be signage and consumer education.

2.

Second, we finally roll out a better payment system. While tokens do give me a kind of 1960s nostalgia, I hate change and I hate fumbling with microscopic tokens in my pocket. Why isn’t there an app for this?

But more importantly, if we had a better payment system we could transfer the point of payment from the actual streetcars to the stops themselves. This would mean that you’d need to pay in order to gain access to the stop itself. The benefit of this though is that it streamlines onboarding. Customers can now just walk onto the streetcar, like they do on the subway.

And if you’re thinking about those times where you give up waiting for a streetcar and just hail a cab, well we could simply make the fare refundable if you leave at the same stop. This type of system would also open up the possibility of distance based fares (see London, Tokyo, etc.)

3.

Third, put the LRT lines on the subway map and operate them with the same rigour. Right now the customer experience gap between subways and streetcars is huge. Subways run on time and streetcars are completely hit or miss. There’s an excuse for streetcars that run mixed in with traffic, but I don’t see why we can’t make light rail (using its own right of way) just as predictable as subways. I used to take the LUAS in Dublin everyday and it was a fantastic experience.

We really need to start taking transit more seriously in Toronto. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather be known around the world for having the best transit system than for having a debaucherous mayor.