Some members of city council, and some candidates for council, have recently made statements misrepresenting the current plan for modern light rail transit (LRT) along Finch Avenue West. To assist residents, CodeRedTO has assembled the facts, resource links on the plan, and we have calculated how alternate options would look and perform.

Learn more about light rail transit by visiting our Resources page!

After reviewing reports from the City of Toronto and Metrolinx, our key findings:

• Given the current $1.2 billion budget committed by the province of Ontario, only about 3km of subway could be built, as opposed to about 10km of modern light rail transit (LRT).
• If only 3km of subway were to be built, it would not cross highway 400 into Etobicoke at all, and have just two new stations.
• The Finch West LRT project already has a completed Environmental Assessment, and will be under construction from approximately 2017-2020. Any subway would require at least 2-4 more years before construction could begin, with all planning starting from scratch.
• The City of Toronto and Metrolinx have a signed legal agreement to deliver this LRT line that includes the province paying for all construction costs. Any change to another mode would require renegotiation and penalties due to contract cancellation with suppliers.

The facts clearly show that a subway along Finch West would be shorter, would take longer to build, and would serve fewer residents. But more significantly for Etobicoke residents, our calculations show that it would save almost no time for a rider traveling between Humber College in western Etobicoke and the new subway station at Finch and Keele.

Buses traveling in mixed traffic along Finch West take over 42 minutes to travel this distance (though of course this varies by time of day). While a subway would provide fast travel over 3km of this distance, the transfer time between bus and subway (estimated by Google at 4 minutes on average) means that the average rider’s travel time would drop by only one minute.

However, the light rail planned for Finch West uses reserved rights-of-way so transit vehicles are never stuck behind single-passenger cars, and are able to travel 50-70% faster than the current buses, consistently in all conditions. Our calculations showed that riders could travel from Humber College to Keele in just 28 minutes with no transfer, a time saving of over 1/3.

Download our fact-check flyer now, and share with candidates at your door to ensure they have the facts.

Find out more by visiting our Resources page!