As Line 6 Finch West continues to deal with occasional service suspensions due to technical issues, a poll shows a high level of dissatisfaction among Toronto residents with how the LRT line has been implemented.
According to the poll released by Liaison Strategies Tuesday morning, 62 per cent of respondents classified Line 6 Finch West as “very unsuccessful” in its early days of operation while eight per cent rated it “unsuccessful.”
In terms of support, 13 per cent of those surveyed said it was “somewhat successful” while five per cent called it “very successful.”
“We knew that there would likely be growing pains, but advertisements promoting the line, found on subway trains and TTC buses, promised a “smooth” ride – it has been anything but,” David Valentin, a principal with Liaison Strategies, said in a written media statement Tuesday morning.
“The question now is whether trust can be rebuilt and just as importantly, who Torontonians will hold responsible if it can’t? With the Eglinton Crosstown expected to open any month now, we should be asking whether the hard lessons from Line 6 will actually be applied to the next major launch.”
When those surveyed were asked who they hold responsible for the Finch West LRT line being “reliable and well-maintained,” 54 per cent said Metrolinx — the provincial transportation agency that owns Line 6 and oversaw the private-sector consortium (Mosaic Transit Group) responsible for building and maintaining it.
Twenty-one per cent of respondents said they believed the TTC is responsible for reliability and maintenance while 11 per cent said they were unsure and nine per cent said they believed it is a shared responsibility between the transit agency and Metrolinx. A small percentage of those surveyed said Mosaic Transit Group, the City of Toronto and the Ontario government.
“When it comes to the blame game, the good news for the city and for Mayor Olivia Chow, who is expected to seek re-election, is that a majority of Torontonians, 54 per cent, hold Metrolinx responsible,” Valentin wrote.
The poll conducted by Liaison Strategies, according to the company, surveyed 1,000 Toronto residents randomly between Dec. 19 and 21 and weighted to match targets in the 2021 census. The company reported a margin of error of approximately 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20 with an increased margin in sub-samples.
The poll was taken less than two weeks after Line 6 Finch West opened to the public.
Construction on the Finch West LRT project began in 2018 at the end of the previous Liberal government. Metrolinx staff said the system was expected to cost $2.5 billion, which included construction costs plus maintaining the line and its infrastructure for 30 years. A report at the provincial agency’s board in November showed as of Sept. 30, $2.45 billion in costs have been incurred to date and the current baseline cost after “exclusions” sits at $3.75 billion.
During an unrelated news conference Tuesday morning, Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria defended the opening to date and said there has been a “progressive ramp-up” of service.
“Almost all of the issues come down to the operational maintenance and procedures and processes that will continue to dictate and improve every time we do have an incident, we can learn from it,” he said.
“From an infrastructure perspective, we’ve built a solid line. It’s not in any way resembling what’s happening in Ottawa. These are procedural, operational and maintenance issues that we continue as they continue to come up, we fix, we move forward, and then we can continue to learn from those and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of that line.
“The people in northwest Toronto deserve good transit. We built a world-class line here, and we’re going to continue to improve upon it.”
As CityNews reported on in recent weeks, there were multiple instances since the Dec. 7 launch when train service had to be suspended. One of the notable issues involved how track switches operate, especially during inclement weather.
A public inquiry into the Ottawa LRT cited failures with electric-powered heaters to keep switches clear of ice and snow. Eventually, all of the electric heaters had to be replaced with gas-powered ones. However, Line 6 Finch West was built with electric heaters. CityNews asked Sarkaria about that decision
“This line runs in the middle of two lanes through many residential neighbourhoods and so from a feasibility perspective, we could not proceed with the gas switches through the middle of the intersection with residential areas on both sides, not something that I think the residents want and from a safety perspective as well not something that would be advisable,” he said.
“We continue to work with our maintenance partners (Mosaic Transit Group) on that to ensure that we find a way to be more efficient, more effective as some of these challenges come around, whether you know it’s severe weather that we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks, but that’s what the bedding-in process is all about is figuring out that and continue to ramp up that service and deliver better transit.”
Meanwhile, Chow said she understands the frustration from riders but deferred to the provincial government and Mosaic.
“We are working with Metrolinx to say, ‘Let’s get these fixes a lot faster,’ and I know the TTC is doing everything they can to try and support them,” she said during an unrelated announcement Tuesday morning.
