On December 16, Toronto Council debated and approved a motion by Mayor Chow regarding transit priority on 6 Finch West and more generally on the streetcar network.

1. City Council direct the City Manager, working with Metrolinx and the Chief Executive Officer, Toronto Transit Commission, to advance implementation of more aggressive, active transit signal priority at intersections along surface portions of the Line 5 Eglinton and Line 6 Finch West, subject to contractual and legal obligations, and to provide an update on progress in the first quarter of 2026. 

2. City Council direct the City Manager, working with the Chief Executive Officer, Toronto Transit Commission, to report back in the first quarter of 2026 with a plan, including costs and staffing requirements, to implement further measures that improve streetcar network speed and reliability, including signal timing adjustments, a more aggressive transit signal priority policy, deploying traffic agents at key intersections to prevent blocked streetcars, and recommendations for removing on-street parking and restricting left turns during high-peak periods on key streetcar routes. 

3. City Council direct the City Manager, working with the Chief Executive Officer, Toronto Transit Commission, to report back in the first quarter of 2026 with a plan, including costs and staffing requirements, to expedite transit signal priority activations at intersections on the surface transit network where the required technology is not currently installed.

Later in this article, I will give a synopsis of the questions and statements by various members about this motion, but to begin, here are a few key points.

• The debate focused almost exclusively on Finch, although the motion deals with surface transit generally.
• Some members spoke of the need to move beyond assigning blame to fixing the problems on Finch. This gracious approach avoids important “lessons learned” about how not to open a major new transit line. These cannot be ignored, nor can recognition of where problems lie among various parties.
• From many comments by staff and councillors, it is quite clear that the slow speed of the route was known in advance of opening, indeed had been planned for years before. However, neither Council nor the TTC Board were informed of this.
• The glacial operation has been explained away as part of a natural “bedding in” process. However, the slow speed was not foreseen by Metrolinx whose FAQ page for the project still (as of Dec 18, 2025) claims a 33-34 minute trip at an average speed of 20-21 km/hr including stops.
• Advance publicity for the opening gave no hint of slow operations, and there is no mention of a frequent, parallel shuttle bus service to supplement the slow LRVs on the TTC’s Line 6 opening page.
• The actual speed of cars on the line is well below the claimed limits of 60 km/hr between stops, and 25 km/hr at stops and intersections. Something else limits driving speeds, such as importation of restrictive downtown streetcar practices, but this was never mentioned in the debate. Comments by staff showed that they thought the 60/25 km/hr speeds were typical when in fact actual speeds are much lower. A slow crossing speed at intersections increases the amount of time a transit only phase would take out of traffic signal cycles.
• There is a posted 10km/hr limit on the curve at Humber College Station which is likely permanent because the Citadis cars have troubles going around the corners which by downtown streetcar standards are quite generous. This is a design error between the curve radii and the capabilities of the cars that is likely unfixable.
• Some members mentioned Seattle as an example of active transit priority where left turning traffic comes second, not first, and cited this as an example of how LRT could operate faster.
• There was some confusion between automatic operation and speed limits imposed on manually operated LRVs. Routes that are completely grade separated can be driven automatically, but not a route in the middle of a street where access to the right-of-way cannot be controlled. Comparisons between systems in various cities needs to take the characteristics of each line into account.
• On the question of nearside vs farside transit stops, the overwhelming reason for the farside design is to provide space for a nearside left turn lane. Some stops are nearside because of space constraints. In any event, farside stops depend on good signal priority to avoid the “double stop” problem so common in Toronto.
• Reliability of the fleet and infrastructure are key responsibilities of the Metrolinx P3 partner, Mosaic. Information about failures is available in the TTC’s internal operating logs for the route, and I summarized these for Dec 7-12 in a recent article. Council was told that the TTC is cataloguing issues to work with Metrolinx and Mosaic, but was not given any details.
• Tracking of Line 6 vehicles for service reliability and to flag locations of delay is not yet possible because the TTC does not received a tracking feed comparable to what has long been available on its routes. This also affects trip prediction apps dependent on next vehicle information.
• On one hand, the City and TTC claim that until handover of Line 6 by Metrolinx, they could not make changes to the signal programming. However, staff revealed that a move for slower operation dates back at least to 2024, possibly to 2020, and was approved by all parties. Moreover, the handover took place well before opening day, and issues with poor signal priority would have been obvious during the TTC’s acceptance trials.
• Thanks to action at the political level, City staff are now working on data collection for intersection operations and possible signal timing changes to place a transit phase ahead of the left turn arrow. However, the length of this phase will be determined by the speed at which LRVs cross, possibly from a standing stop. Any modelling of new timings must be done in the context of achieving the alleged 25 km/hr speed at intersections.
• Although there has been talk in the transit community of slow operation on Line 5 testing even in the tunnels, this did not come up in debate. Any speed restrictions there will be completely the responsibility of Metrolinx.

Mayor Chow was quite clear that Line 5 Eglinton should not open until the issues found on Finch are corrected and Line 5 is updated accordingly. She noted that the City has traffic agents who can help, although this is likely more applicable to the downtown streetcar lines. Signal priority will be added on the surface transit network where it is not yet installed. Urgent work for Finch will be done soon with a report back to the TTC and Council in Q1 2026.

Chow also mentioned that the SRT busway will open in September 2026 thanks to a construction speed-up with more shifts and weekend work. This comment reveals that the original work plan for this project prioritized cost over faster completion.

The motion carried on a vote of 22-1 with only Councillor Holyday opposed. Councillors Mantas and Carroll were absent. Councillor Colle declared a conflict of interest (his son is an official at the TTC).