Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgarian
How sucessful are the street cars in Toronto?
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It depends on who you ask, but generally I would say they are pretty successful. Probably moreseo when new, larger trainsets start arriving in the next few years. Yes, they can be slow, but that is the nature of traffic and the street layout in central Toronto. Rider comfort is far superior to that of bus routes in the central city and streetcars can acommodate significantly more passengers.
The biggest complaint people tend to have is that streetcars impede traffic, and cannot weave to avoid left-turning vehicles. While this is true, having 1.5x the number of buses on streets probably wouldn't help traffic matters any.
As for GO style commuter rail I really don't think Calgary is big enough for such a system at this time, and as mentioned above would simply lead to a shift in growth to places like Airdrie. Plus, Toronto and Montreal are made up of multiple municipalities with their own local transit and have a need for a higher level of regional transit. Calgary's uni-city structure pretty much negates this need. Besides, the new LRT extensions pretty much act as commuter rail already.