On March 31, the TTC will make service changes on several routes. Many of these include small service increases and/or adjusted travel times to reflect conditions on the routes.
Major changes include:
- Reconfiguration of routes for construction at:
- Lawrence West and Lawrence Stations
- Sheppard-Yonge Station
- Pape Station
- Return of streetcars on 301 Queen Night
- Service on 905 Eglinton East Express will change from using articulated to standard buses
- Adjustments to travel times on bus routes in the STC corridor
The spreadsheet linked at the end of the article includes the details of schedule changes on all routes.
Construction Projects
Streetcar Service Changes
The following changes will occur on the streetcar network:
- 301 Queen Night: Service will operate from Neville to Long Branch using streetcars. Downtown, it will divert both ways via Spadina, King and Church. A shuttle service 301B will operate from Wolseley Loop at Bathurst & Queen to Broadview & Gerrard over the same route as the daytime 501B bus.
- 505 Dundas: Service will increase on Saturday afternoon and evening, and on Sunday afternoon. Some travel times will change to reflect operating conditions.
- 509 Harbourfront: AM peak service improvement. Travel time adjustments during some other periods.
Scarborough RT Corridor Services
Several routes that use the priority lanes between Ellesmere and Eglinton are receiving new schedules to “improve reliability”. That phrase usually means that either travel times were too tight and times are extended, or that they were too lax and times are reduced. In this case, too much time had been allowed for the trips between STC and Kennedy Station, and this is tightened up. Some other adjustments occur at the same time.
Of interest for those wondering about layovers at STC undoing the benefit of the priority lanes for faster trips, the following appears in the notes for 129 McCowan North’s new schedule:
- Layovers should only be taken at Kennedy Station or Major Mackenzie / Steeles. To reduce bus congestion, operators should not layover / stop for an extended period of time at Scarborough Centre Station.
- If needed, operators at Kennedy Station with an extended layover can continue to use the north parking lot located off of North Service Rd.
Similar comments appear for other routes.
Travel times are reduced in all periods for the affected routes, but in many cases this involves only conversion of travel time to terminal recovery time with no change in the number of vehicles or service levels.
- 38/938 Highland Creek: Early morning Saturday, and all day Sunday services reduced.
- 939 Finch East Express: Late morning Saturday service slightly improved.
- 129 McCowan North: Slight change to midday and early evening weekday service.
- 131 Nugget: Service slightly improved weekend afternoons and early evenings. Service slightly decreased Sunday late evenings.
- 133 Neilson: Service slightly improved weekdays in the AM peak, midday and early evening. Slight service reduction Saturday early morning. Sunday morning service improved.
- 903 STC Express: No change in service levels.
In light of the new schedules, I will continue to collect vehicle tracking data for routes in this corridor, and will update my recent article on their service quality after a few months’ of new data have accumulated.
Lawrence West Station Construction
City construction on the Lawrence Avenue bridge over Allen Road will make some stops at Lawrence West Station unavailable. Many routes will be modified:
- 11C Bayview: The Sunnybrook branch will be extended north and west to Roe Loop via Lawrence and Avenue Road.
- 52 Lawrence West: 52G Westway branch rerouted and extended to Sunnybrook Hospital. Westbound buses will serve Bay 2 at Lawrence West Station. 52F Royal York branch suspended.
- 59 Maple Leaf: Rerouted to Eglinton West Station via Dufferin, Glencairn, Marlee and Eglinton.
- 109 Ranee: Other than shifting its loading locations at Lawrence West Station, this route has no change.
- 124 Sunnybrook: Service replaced by 11C Bayview and 52G Lawrence West.
- 162 Lawrence-Donway: Continues operation to Roe Loop due to construction at Lawrence Station.
- 352 Lawrence West Night / 52 Lawrence West: When the subway is closed, eastbound buses will stop at Shermount Ave. rather than at Lawrence West Station.
Sheppard-Yonge Station Construction
Pavement rehabilitation at Sheppard-Yonge Station will require all buses to loop and load outside of the station. There are no changes to schedules.
Pape Station Construction
Ontario Line construction begins at Pape Station. Loading areas will change on March 31, and route reorganization will occur on May 12. See Service Changes Coming to East York & Thorncliffe Park.
Bus Service Changes
Several routes will see service changes:
- 9 Bellamy: Weekend service improved during afternoon and early evening periods.
- 10 Van Horne: Early afternoon school trip time adjusted to accommodate Don Valley Middle School schedule.
- 16 McCowan: Service reliability changes weekday midday, PM peak and early evening.
- 24 Victoria Park: Service improvement weekday afternoons and evenings.
- 29/929 Dufferin: Service improvement Sunday daytime.
- 34 Eglinton East: Service reallocation and improvement. 10 minute or better service between Eglinton and Kennedy Stations restored. Schedule adjusted to improve transition from 34 and 334 services.
- 334 Eglinton East Night: Schedule revised for reliability with additional travel time.
- 35/935 Jane: Service improved weekday midday and early evening, and on Sunday afternoon.
- 37 Islington: Service improved in the PM peak.
- 41 Keele: Service improvement Sunday all day.
- 43 Kennedy: Afternoon school trip from McNicoll adjusted to fit school schedule.
- 51 Leslie & 56 Leaside: Route into Eglinton Station changed (effective January/24) to reflect completion of construction at Yonge/Eglinton.
- 54/354 Lawrence East: Sunday morning service adjusted to improve transition from night to day services, and to blend with service on Eglinton Avenue.
- 70A O’Connor: Renamed as route 70 as there is now only one branch with the former Warden Station service now operated by 8 Broadview.
- 71 Runnymede: Service reductions in the AM peak, Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday early evening.
- 78 St. Andrews and 115 Silver Hills: Routes interlined during all operating periods with some changes to weekday headways. Travel times adjusted during many periods.
- 79 Scarlett Road: Service reduced in the AM peak, Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday evening.
- 82 Rosedale: Service reduced weekdays from the AM peak to early evening to provide more travel time.
- 102 Markham Road: Early Sunday morning service restored (5:30 to 7:30am).
- 200 Toronto Zoo: Seasonal service restored effective May 6, 6 to 8pm to match Zoo hours.
- 905 Eglinton East Express: Route changed from articulated to standard buses on a buses/hour replacement ratio of 1.25:1. Although buses will come more often, this is effectively a service reduction
Vehicle Allocations
The tables below show peak bus and streetcar requirements. I will turn to the question of fleet utilization in a future article.
Budgeted and Actual Service
Although service is improving with the March 31 changes, the scheduled level remains below the budgeted amount. Construction service is also well below budget.
Details of Schedule Changes
The spreadsheet linked here includes the details of schedule changes on all routes.
Steve Munro 
Hi Steve,
Great analysis as always. The 52G extension to Sunnybrook will be welcome news for Lawrence West riders as direct service will be restored to Lawrence Station (albeit less frequent compared to before the Lawrence Station bus terminal closed).
Just a couple questions regarding the changes on Lawrence. First of all, any idea why the 124 is being suspended if the 11C is just replacing it? Neither of these routes even pass through Lawrence West Station.
Second of all, will the cancelled 52F trips be made up on other branches or will this lead to a service reduction? I’m guessing they made this change to reduce bus traffic at Lawrence West but I hope that doesn’t mean reduced frequencies.
Steve: The 124 Sunnybrook does not now serve Lawrence West, but goes to Roe Loop as the revised 11C Bayview will do. The TTC is simply hooking up the two routes. The 52G Lawrence West extension will provide the Lawrence West to Sunnybrook connection.
As for the 52F Royal York short turn service, if you look at the spreadsheet you will see that in both the AM and PM peak periods, the new 52G to Martin Grove provides the same level of service as the combined 52F/G services on the current schedule. Midday service is reduced because two 20′ services are replaced by one 15′ service. The effect will be felt mainly on The Westway where this is the only service, as opposed to on the main part of the route where other branch service levels are unchanged.
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Steve, the 60 new streetcars recently began to enter circulation. The other day, I rode Flexity Outlook number 4611, on the “503 KINGSTON RD” route, from King St. W. and John Street to King St. E. and Jarvis St.
These streetcars are manufactured by Alstom (formerly Bombardier), the same company that makes the Toronto Rocket subway trains. It is also the company that made the trains for the Metro de Caracas, in Venezuela’s capital.
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Regarding the increased 505 service, is this an indication that streetcar ridership is recovering (it helps that the endless detours on this route are done for now), or has the TTC started to realize how inadequate service has been on most of the streetcar system since 2021-2022.
Steve: I won’t believe that TTC is serious about increasing streetcar service until I see over 200 cars in service out of a fleet of 264.
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I believe they need to rethink bay assignments at Lawrence West Station during this construction. Why have the eastbound 52/952 (Bay 3) between the westbound 52ABD/952 (Bay 4) and 52G (Bay 2). A lot of customers can take any westbound bus so they should be put together. I think they should have 52G/109 southbound at Bay 3 instead and the eastbound 52/952 at Bay 2. This will also prevent people from getting on a 52 going in the wrong direction since both east and westbound buses will be stopping right next to each other with the way they plan on setting it up.
In terms of 905 going back to standard buses, I think it was bound to happen. Ever since 985A was converted back to articulated buses a few boards ago, Malvern (the division that operates both routes) has been struggling to cover both 905 and 985 with 100% artics on weekdays. I see at least one or two standard size buses on both routes on a daily basis. Not surprising when they only have about 30 artics in their fleet and need about 26 for service. I think they’ll likely convert 905 back to artics once the new units start to enter service in the next few months.
Also a correction for the spreadsheet, you put 35/935 Don Mills instead of 25/925.
Steve: Thanks for catching the Don Mills problem. I have fixed the spreadsheet.
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Nothing is mentioned about the Ranee 109 routing. It passes through Lawrence West station on its way from Eglinton West station (via Marlee) to Neptune and Bathurst. Will it be affected in any way?
Steve: The 109 is shown on the map of bus bay allocations at Lawrence West. The route and service stay the same, and I have updated the article to include this in the list of changes.
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Does this mean Line 3 replacement routes will stop crawling along the red lanes while cars fly by on the left?
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Hey Steve, I take the 905 to and from UTSC all the time on the articulated buses currently out of Malvern. Since they won’t be using articulated buses starting March 31st, would you know if the route will transfer back to Birchmount or remain at Malvern?
Steve: It stays at Malvern.
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Is there any possibility for the Line 3 replacement buses to have a potential stop on Eglinton @ midland (southbound) and Eglinton @ Kennedy rd (northbound) just like the 954?
Steve: That’s a question for the TTC’s planners. I know that they read this blog, even if they don’t comment publicly.
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The 52 Lawrence West would probably operate better this way with the temporary 52G extension. Although reliability will suffer as cars queue up in the right lane with buses to get on the Allen. They should just get rid of the 52F for good unless service improves significantly. Service on The Westway were around 5’30” to 7’00” during peak hours before the 52/58 merge. Around 12’00” to 14’00” after the merge. Now we can see how much service deteriorated with 18’00” to 20’00” headways.
Secondly, the 52G operators play games and purposely wait for 52A/B to pick up all the riders before heading west from Lawrence West Station. Even if it means leaving 4-5 minutes late cause they have all the recovery time. This was the case even when the 58 Malton was around.
One would wonder if this arrangement is a setup for another test as the 58 was extended to Lawrence Station a decade ago for construction which gave TTC data for how a merged 52/58 route would operate.
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Nostalgia mania with a 52G branch operating essentially as it did before the Yonge Subway extension opened, and an 11C operating like the old 28B after the extension opened.
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Thanks for perfect job you are doing.
Steve: You’re very welcome!
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It’s good to see the TTC is making frequency improvements to several routes including the 34A Eglinton East which serve to soon-to-open Crosstown LRT that will operate 10 minutes or better considering it’s a major TTC route. Also will there be more service increases planned for May and beyond?
Steve: Yes, further increases are planned, but no details are out yet.
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TTC stop poles have a vertical sticker listing routes serving the stop. Today, I noticed that the stop stickers along Lawrence Avenue had been updated to show 11C, 52G, 162 and 352 under the title “temporary routing”. Normally when there are temporary routings, a bulletin is attached to the stop poles. Is replacing the stop stickers for a temporary routing (instead of posting bulletins) the new practice? I have not seen it before. Since the stickers were in place a week before the changes would come into effect, it would have been nicer to add “effective March 31, 2024” under the “temporary routing” title.
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Great work as always Steve on helping us keep up-to-date on the changes! The only question I have is if there will be increased subway service anytime soon to slowly get us back up to pre-pandemic numbers. I remember reading that the subway is the furthest away from its pre-pandemic numbers (compared to buses and streetcars), plus it would be nice to have a slight increase in non-peak service as Line 1 has been getting packed lately at night, especially if there are multiple sporting events and/or concerts in and around the city.
Steve: There is no sign yet of subway improvements even though it is getting quite crowded.
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Why is Finch East Express operates with standard size buses during rush hours? The buses are often extremely packed. By comparison both Sheppard East and Steeles East Express lines run with extended 18m buses.
And Finch East Express 939C that runs from Finch Station to Morningside ended way too early in the afternoon, leaving riders of that line having less choices and infrequent services going home.
How did TTC come to the come to these decisions? Thanks.
Steve: There are three branches of the 39 local (39A Neilson, 39B Morningview and 39C Vic Park) while the 939 also has branches. Headways on all of them especially outside of the peak period are wide. Converting any of these to artics would make for even wider gaps on the portions of the routes served by only one branch, and I suspect that is why standard size buses are used.
As for the 939C, yes, service does end early on that branch (5:26pm EB from Finch Station) leaving only the infrequent local service. I suspect that the hours date from a period when demand there was lower, although the whole northeast corner of Scarborough has not been well-treated by TTC over the years.
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The 100 Flemingdon Park doesn’t go to Pape stn.
Steve: Yes, I know. What is the reference? Is there an error that needs fixing somewhere?
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I swear, I’ve just spent 15 minutes staring at the article, the TTC website, and that map, to understand how the 501 is running currently.
I know the TTC is trying hard to communicate this, but it’s still baffling.
What threw me for the longest time, if the bit about the 501C routing after 10 pm. So, I kept asking myself, what’s the 501C routing before 10 pm! Rather than realising that 501C ONLY runs after 10 pm.
I’m now realising that most of the time, there’s no 501 service on Queensway/Queen from Humber Loop to Dufferin Street! But instead that’s now 504B.
If I’m this confused, I hate to think how the average rider is handling this.
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