Getting ready to ride Line 5 on opening day with the kid.

It's... fine. It's open. Finally. Good.

I'm not someone who will derive the most benefit from it and for those who took the Eglinton bus during rush hour, it will be a major improvement. That said, criticism of design decisions mixing grade separated and at-grade sections on the line are very very valid. I won't rehash any of it; smarter folks than I have covered it, they were right. We need Line 5, but at this price, it should have been better.

Line 5 is a reverse centaur, the worst parts of a human mixed with the worst parts of a horse. We won't be making the same mistakes with the Ontario line, thankfully!

Nit picks but thankfully some will be fixable!

- Crackly announcements on 2/3 cars (6219, 6270) I road on. Very annoying for how frequently announcements are made.
- 1/3 cars just didn't have working digital signage or annoucements at all (6259)
- Reported to staff.

- Instead of platform screen doors, there are motions sensors that sound a chiding 'stay back from the edge announcement'.
- The motions sensors will trigger on people walking along the tactile pavers, which are supposed to guide low vision cane using riders.
- They triggered frequently with normal circulation along the platform.
- They would overlap with train arrival announcements, making both unintelligible.
- For some reason, the end of the French announcement would repeat 4-6x times
- The Flexity cars are loud and not that smooth in the tunnels at ~60 km/h.
- Reminds me a lot of the ICTS cars on Line 3 (RIP)
- Compared to the Rocket or T1 trains, it is louder and more 'jossly' Maybe because the bogies are closers to the passengers.
- Will probably get louder when the trains run at 80km/h
- The stations have inconsistent lighting levels, with some stations being much dimmer than others.
- A light meter and a someone on the dimmer switch would address that.