Many service changes are coming this fall to the TTC network and they fall into a number of broad categories.
Seasonal Changes
The summer service changes are, for the most part, reversed in September as tourist/amusement traffic falls off and school traffic returns. Subway and RT services return to normal “winter” levels.
Construction Changes (streetcar lines only)
The Dundas Street watermain work between Bathurst and Dovercourt is supposed to complete by the end of August, and both the 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton routes will revert to their May 2009 routings and service levels.
Updated September 4: The 505 Dundas car will operate via Spadina and College west to Lansdowne and thence to Dundas West Station. A bus service will operate from Dundas West Station to Beverley Street (the west side of the Art Gallery of Ontario).
Work at Bingham Loop will continue, and the 502/503 services on Kingston Road will continue to operate with buses until the October schedule change.
Work at Queen & Church on watermains and track will continue, and the diversion of Queen and Downtowner routes around this area remains until the roads are open for traffic, possibly in late September.
Updated September 4: The Queen and Downtowner routes will revert to their standard routing.
Work on Roncesvalles will continue until late 2010.
Fleet Availability
In February 2009, there were many service cuts in response to the poor availability of hybrid buses. This situation continues to some extent, but some of the February cuts have been restored with a few service improvements added.
I have formatted the information in my usual manner for this site, boiling down a much longer TTC document to show service and riding levels, headways, and the rationale for changes (or lack of them). In this case, I have colour coded the chart to make it easier to see the types of change applicable to each route.
- Blue: A service restoration and/or improvement
- Orange Italics: A service cut that was made in February 2009 and remains in place. Note that the headway changes shown for these cases took place in February and are simply continuing into September. In some cases, the before and after ridership has been updated by the TTC with recent counts.
- Red Italics Underscored: A service cut that was made in February has been confirmed as permanent in response to lower ridership.
In theory, when bus availability improves later in 2009, the “orange” list here will see service restored at least to pre-February levels.
Steve Munro 
I ride the 60 at rush hours every morning and I didn’t notice the “reduced ridership” that the TTC is using as an excuse to not restore the cuts. The buses are packed every morning. Buses are also packed well into the evening.
Steve: What I noticed in a lot of those is that the change in average loads compared with the February report are very small, and many routes are still borderline in need of more service even if not by the “standards”. The TTC appears to be squeezing every bus it can out of the system and is going to be short vehicles until at best late 2009.
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Good to see some service coming on stream.
Almost all of us could pick out routes in desperate need of more service, due to overcrowding in almost any time period, but this is a start.
However, I assume fleet problems shouldn’t be an excuse for off-peak service.
Any word on the RGS commitment to restore every 20min service 6am-1pm, 7 days a week, to all routes?
Steve: I believe that the TTC has planned for something late this year or early next, but this is not yet finalized. There was some provision in the budget for service increases.
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I boarded a 503 somewhere on Queen and I think Broadview…behind us roughly from Kingston/Queen (when I noticed it) there was a 502 bus.
Can’t the 502 Streetcar do the same as the 501’s diversion?
Steve: I have seen 502 streetcars on that diversion. I suspect that the bus you saw was a substitute.
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> I ride the 60 at rush hours every morning and I didn’t notice the “reduced ridership” that the TTC is using as an excuse to not restore the cuts. The buses are packed every morning. Buses are also packed well into the evening.
This is probably a symptom of bus bunching – even if average loads are at the quoted “service standards”, many buses will be more crowded than that. TTC service standards fail to take this into account.
As for the shortage of buses, it was very short-sighted of the TTC to retire old buses until there were sufficient replacements to provide an adequate spare ratio. Are there any waiting-to-be-retired buses lying around the bus garages that could be pressed into service for a few months until enough new buses arrive?
Steve: I believe that the TTC might be considering this option, but nothing is definite yet.
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Thanks again for posting this information, Steve.
I see the York University Rocket is getting another 3 buses to bring it back to 2’00” in the morning rush hour, and 2’15” in the afternoon rush hour. I have a feeling this is based on the old ridership numbers — I would expect ridership on the 196 will be diluted by the recent agreement to allow Viva to transport passengers from Downsview to York. Those three buses (maybe even a couple more?) could go to other routes on the “orange list”.
There are several routes where these changes (either the changes made, or the changes deferred) make little real difference either to headways or loading. Two buses on 116 Morningside in the morning reduce passenger loads by one rider per bus, and reduce headways by 8 seconds — a virtually imperceptible change. 32 Eglinton West has a permanent reduction of 3 buses, and the difference on average headways is 4 seconds.
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I have noticed that the quality of service on the 7 Bathurst took a sharp hit as soon as the split ended. Shame on the TTC for not properly managing the route while it was split (every 6 minutes south of St. Clair? gimme a break… or maybe a bus). Short turns are now a regular occurence and buses are routinely running in pairs for the majority of the trip. It would seem, and correct me if I’m wrong, that since it was treated as a construction diversion, the TTC didn’t really look at the effectiveness of the split, and managed to quietly do away with the 7A as well leaving us with no actual connection to St. Clair West station besides the rather long walk and the more-than-occasional short turn.
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Why is the 40 Junction still terminating at the now non-existing Toronto boundary or frontier at Runnymede Road? It should be extended to Jane Street, and loop back via St. Clair and Runnymede until the Scarlett Road underpass is rebuilt. When the underpass is finished, it could loop at Scarlett and St. Clair before returning to the Dundas West subway station.
After all when the Jane LRT is completed, the 40 Junction (or its eventual streetcar replacement) would be extended anyways. So why not now?
Steve: Because buses are so flexible they can duplicate century-old streetcar lines without having to change the maps.
On a more serious note, this sort of route structure comes up in a few places — situations where lines are broken into segments so that each one reaches the subway quickly at the expense of a continuous journey. Think of southern Scarborough, Avenue Road, Mt. Pleasant. The TTC’s position, with which I agree some of the time, is that the majority of travellers don’t want to go from one place on the local road to another, but to the subway system for a longer trip. The question on Dundas is whether there is sufficient local travel to warrant a continuous route from Dundas West Station to some point west of Runnymede. There is already through service on the Lambton bus from High Park to Six Points, but I suspect this functions effectively as two routes feeding in to each terminal.
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The problem with bus 60 is that it is packed all times between Finch subway and Bathurst / Steeles (a high-density node). Much fewer people ride 60A or 60B west of Bathurst (exception is the 60C/F branch that goes to York U).
So, the average load may not look that large when averaged over the whole route, but those 4 km between Finch subway and Bathurst / Steeles are a pain. It would be useful to extend either 97 Yonge or 125 Drewry to alleviate the crowding on that portion of route 60.
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Rainforest wrote: The problem with bus 60 is that it is packed all times between Finch subway and Bathurst / Steeles (a high-density node). Much fewer people ride 60A or 60B west of Bathurst (exception is the 60C/F branch that goes to York U).
The ridership on the eastern portion of the route begins at Dufferin. The buses are frequently full by the time they get to Bathurst. Going westbound in the p.m. rush buses empty out by the time they get to Dufferin.
Rainforest wrote: So, the average load may not look that large when averaged over the whole route, but those 4 km between Finch subway and Bathurst / Steeles are a pain. It would be useful to extend either 97 Yonge or 125 Drewry to alleviate the crowding on that portion of route 60.
The 97 wouldn’t help as it is very infrequent (every 30 minutes at rush hour) and the service on it is erratic at best. The 125 is packed at rush hours as well so extending it so that it is packed by the time it arrives onto Antibes/Drewry would defeat the whole point of the route.
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As for the comment about are there any buses waiting in line for retirement that are still at grarages there are a few. I saw about 6 D40’s last week but I think they’re gone now and 6-7 Orion V’s all at Queensway. There may be more that are there but that’s all I could manage to see. I wish they weren’t retired (even though they are a year above their life expectancy).
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Steve, when you sum the “vehicles added” column, what’s the final sum? I tried pasting from the PDF into excel, with unuseful results.
Hmm, I suppose this info could be figured from the detailed service summary as well, if older versions were available for comparison (which I don’t think they are).
The delta of buses in service would be a proxy for overall service and bus/operator availablity.
Steve: Summing the column does not work here because the February cuts that are continued are still shown as cuts relative to the service that the TTC would want to operate, but as I noted in the article, these cuts occurred in February. I will dig out the number of vehicles in service info and add it to the posting on Friday.
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Should TTC eliminate streetcar stops?
Just thought you should weigh in on this Spacing poll.
http://spacing.ca/wire/2009/07/23/poll-should-ttc-eliminate-some-streetcar-stops
Steve: I have left a long comment on Spacing which is reproduced below. The comment thread on the Spacing post contains a good mix of arguments.
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The disconnect in service to Jane on St. Clair and Dundas is maddening for residents in that area and is an issue that seems to never be taken seriously. I remember overhearing a Canada Post carrier asking how he could get from Gunns Loop to Jane Street and northbound. Upon learning it would require two infrequent buses just to reach Jane he called a cab. Ridership in the area is well below what it could be because of this which in turn has generated statistics that don’t lead to service improvements. A continuous St. Clair route to Jane would help generate a significant counter-peak-direction flow making best use of the capacity of the line as a whole. The relatively new Walmart between Runnymede and Jane is a strong-enough shopping draw on its own.
When the St. Clair ROW project was introduced there was initially a proposal for an extention to Runnymede or Jane, but somewhere along the way it mysteriously vanished off the table. The extension to Jane or even Jane Station returned with the announcement of Transit City, although again it is only a proposal. If the Jane LRT never gets built then it is highly unlikely the St. Clair line will ever be extended nor any other remedy applied to fix the mess in that area.
On a related note though, the Junction 40 cannot afford an extension due to the disastrous traffic congestion on Dundas during the rush hours. There are long periods of time during the day where I avoid that route like The Plague because it is horribly unreliable, expecially on days when one or two runs are missing. The 40 doesn’t seem to rate high on the priority list for the division fielding the vehicles and operators. I don’t know what can be done to reduce traffic congestion in this area but the problem has reached near-crisis proportions. Almost all this traffic is from far away and just passing through on Dundas, Keele, St. Clair, Weston and Old Weston. The new bike lanes on Annette and Dupont have created an instant traffic disaster there too and this is only making things worse on the other roads.
As for the Lambton Bus, it’s claim to fame is the only realistic bypass route for the BD Subway for disabled riders. Meeting with the Dupont Bus at Annette provides a near-seamless route all the way from Kipling to St. George Station. It may be the ‘scenic route’ but there aren’t many alternatives. I’m awfully thankful for my mobility – it often takes way too long to get around by TTC due to unreliability even for the able-bodied like me.
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Why couldn’t the 512 replacement buses be extended to at least Runnymede as a trial? Also, once the ROW is completed, maybe the TTC could treat Gunns Loop as a terminal for the Scarlett Rd. bus, given the combined service on Runnymede would seem to be unreasonably frequent.
Steve: Presuming that the 512 will be back to Gunn’s loop by early 2010, an experimental extension would only lead to frustration when the routes changed back later. The real question is the status of a study of extending the streetcar line. Scarlett Road buses terminating at Gunn’s Loop? I have to ask where to the riders on those buses want to go. If to the subway, then Gunn’s Loop is hardly the place to take them.
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St. Clair streetcar to Jane Street? YES!
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Then there’s the little stub of a bus route, 55 Warren Park. It goes up Jane Street from the Jane station to Dundas, goes west just past Scarlett Road where it turns down Old Dundas Street to loop south before the Humber River. Obvious candidate to be merged with the 40 Junction, but don’t know how many would be inconvenienced by going to the Dundas West Station instead of the Jane Station.
Steve: Warren Park is a separate route because the TTC fought tooth and nail against implementing it for quite a while. It runs with the least service possible, 1 bus every half hour compared to much more frequent service on 40 Junction. It carries under 1,000 passengers per day.
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I heard that the 104 Faywood route was going to be updated come September such that it would go to both Downsview as well as Wilson station. I didn’t see this in your post, though. Do you know if this will be taking place?
It would be nice to be able to get on the subway at Downsview, rather than having to ride the extra stop to Wilson.
Steve: There is nothing in the memo describing all of the September changes mentioning such a change, but as this does not likely require a schedule change, it might be implemented locally by the division operating the route. If anyone of the regular TTC readers knows about this, please leave a comment here.
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If I could make a suggestion, could you try using different colours rather than green, orange, and red? I ask this because the orange and red look very similar and the green, orange, and red can be difficult to distinguish for people with certain forms of colour blindness.
Perhaps something like bold blue for service increases, italic orange for old cuts that are staying in place, and orange for new cuts. This would use styles to help differentiate different types of cuts as well as colours that are better distinguishable to people with red-green colour blindness.
Steve: Thanks for the suggestions. I will reformat the document.
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Hi Steve,
In regards to Daniel’s inquiry.
I believe this change is supposed to coincide with the opening of the new busway to York U.
Its one of a number of changes tied to that.
This was scheduled for September, but last I heard they are saying November for the opening.
I assume his route change will come at that time.
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Thank you again for doing this.
On service standards:
Its a bunch of bunk. I think they use both directions. So a bus with 100 people going in one direction (crush loaded beyond belief) and coming back empty, manages to get under a 51 person limit. Even if they do it in a single direction, the bus can easily fill up. On a top-to-bottom route, so long as you are under 51 when you get to Eglinton, it dont matter that your at 100 by the time you get to Bloor. Over-exaggeration of course, but the point is made.
Steve: That’s not what happens at all. However, there are big problems caused by averaging over the peak hour. If the service is unevenly loaded (easy to happen with bunching), the average looks better than what the typical rider sees.
On these specific changes: Seeing so much orange and red makes me ill. Makes me wonder if this fare freeze was really such a good idea.
Steve: The problem is a shortage of working buses due to problems with the hybrids, not budget constraints.
on specific routes:
196 – would it not need less buses now that its going on the busway?
106 – considering that sentinel will now see less buses I’m disappointed that the 106 is being cut.
84 – this was badly needed!
504 – where do they plan to find the vehicles to do this?
32 – a brilliant way to build ridership in advance of the (LRT) subway
Steve: The busway won’t open in September. When it does, I expect to see changes in total vehicle assignments. The 504 gets more service easily because the changes are in the off peak periods.
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Daniel wrote: I heard that the 104 Faywood route was going to be updated come September such that it would go to both Downsview as well as Wilson station. I didn’t see this in your post, though. Do you know if this will be taking place?
This change is suppose to happen when the York University busway opens. Its opening has been pushed to November so I would expect this change to happen at that point.
The 104 is getting rerouted to provide service on Wilson Heights because routes 105/117 will no longer go there, but will be routes via the busway.
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At least some (every 2nd or 3rd?) 512 St.Clair buses should be extended to Jane Street NOW to test out demand. If enough riders, a new St.Clair bus route could connect the restored streetcar service to Jane buses. Or, perhaps even route some Jane buses to Gunns Loop instead of the subway. If the demand is too low, it may not be worthwhile extending tracks.
Steve: Every second or thirs St. Clair bus means a headway at Jane of maybe one bus every 10 minutes. That is hardly going to show much attraction of a demand. As I wrote before, rerouting buses to Gunn’s Loop is counterproductive if the primary destination of Jane Street riders is to the subway. We don’t just gerrymander the route network on spec, and I have a hard time believing there is a big demand for Jane buses to run along St. Clair and connect with a bus showing up now and then at Gunn’s Loop to travel east through a construction zone.
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Re: Mike Vainchtein / bus 60 and 125
I am not familiar with #125 at the very peak. However, in the evening (around 7 or 8 pm), I often see very packed buses #60 leaving Finch subway, while buses #125 leave with seats taken but nobody standing.
Steve: The September changes seem to have concentrated overwhelmingly on reversing or confirming the February cuts. The period you speak of is off peak, and there is no excuse for packed buses leaving on any route, anywhere.
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What I meant with regards to Gunn’s Loop would only apply after the construction finishes, as the 512 would provide a relatively fast trip to the subway. Those headed downtown might actually benefit at that point by being dropped off at Gunn’s Loop instead of the Bloor-Danforth subway, especially in the morning when they could grab a seat on every other Y-U-S train that originates at St. Clair West.
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I’m guessing that a 512 shuttle bus will not happen because of the bottleneck in the eastbound St. Clair Ave. W. from Cobalt Avenue to Mondovi Gate. That is until they widen it from the 1 eastbound lane to at least 2. Don’t know what decade, this century, that will happen.
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Steve,
Regarding the Faywood change: it is based on the opening of the York University busway. A TTC report alters about four routes to use the busway. In addition to the obvious 196 York University Rocket, 117 Allness will make use of it, as will 105 Dufferin North, I believe. The changeover of 105 Dufferin North to use the busway removes service on a portion of the route north of Sheppard, and 104 Faywood is being extended to Downsview station to compensate.
There’s a report on this somewhere on the TTC’s web site, and I should add it to the Transit Toronto archive. These changes will take place when the busway opens, although from what I’ve heard, we’re experiencing delays there and the busway might not open until November, if we’re lucky.
Steve: The report is on the TTC’s website.
In the best tradition of well indexed material, I had to find it with Google as “Busway” brings up only a few hits on the TTC’s search, York University brings up zillions including just about every route description thanks to the inclusion of “York University” among the list of accessible routes on every single page.
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I too will testify to the off-peak overloading of 60. As late as 10:20 PM, the bus is frequently overloaded and the bike racks are full, forcing people to wait for the next bus. By the time the bus reaches Dufferin, seats are available.
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I dug this tidbit out of the February 2009 Commission Meeting Minutes document at the end of the Transit City Status Update section:
“VICE-CHAIR MIHEVC MOVED THAT STAFF BE REQUESTED TO SUBMIT A SEPARATE REPORT ON FINISHING THE ST. CLAIR LRT TO JANE STREET, WITH SUCH REPORT TO INCLUDE COMMENT ON THE FOLLOWING MATTERS:
• EA WORK;
• TIMING OF CONSTRUCTION; AND
• INCLUSION IN UPCOMING CAPITAL BUDGETS.
THE MOTION BY VICE-CHAIR MIHEVC CARRIED.”
“Finishing” is a curious choice of wording – definitely a step forward.
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I just realized that the TTC has already been “testing” an extension of the 512 St. Clair! It’s the 312 St. Clair Blue Night bus!
The original 312 was a streetcar that ran in the early morning, from Gunn’s Road to Yonge Street. Then they replaced it with a bus and extended it to Jane and south to Bloor.
While it is a Blue Night run and would have less passengers than the normal daytime runs, I just wonder what is the passenger load west of Gunn’s Road? Odd that there is better service (no transfers) on the Blue Night than on regular run.
Also, the 313 Jane Blue Night is an amalgamation of the 35 Jane (from Steeles to Dundas), 30 Lambton (from Jane to Runnymede), and 40 Junction (from Runnymede to Bloor) buses, and part of the 504 (from Bloor to Queensway) streetcar. So why don’t they extend the 40 Junction to Jane, since they already “tested” it as well?
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Re: extending 512 to Jane and beyond.
OK. Here’s a good argument for extending a “heritage” route, and damn the complaints. Lay track along St. Clair and Jane into Jane Stn, complete with the exit and return on Bloor!
Steve: This is just getting silly. If and when there is a Jane LRT, then conceivably the St. Clair car could run over its tracks to Jane Station. The south end of Jane is narrow and is unlikely to be the site of a reserved lane. Also I would be very surprised if the demand for this service is anywhere near the level needed to justify the capital investment just for the St. Clair extension.
I have no problem with extending the 512 itself west, and that is to be studied by the TTC. I hope they don’t tie themselves in knots if they find that they can’t jam a right-of-way into the entire distance from Gunn’s Loop to Jane. Also, there’s the question of whether Jane is the logical western terminus.
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Isn’t St. Clair part of the legacy system? How could it run on the same trackage as Jane LRT, if that’s being built to standard guage?
Steve: If the two systems are built to different gauges, then the St. Clair car will only ever connect with the Jane car. However, tha gauge issue isn’t settled yet. One big problem, however, is that Jane LRT station would be built for double-ended cars, and so the 512s couldn’t go there anyhow.
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I have heard that CP is closing Lambton Yard. Does anyone know what big condo CP plans to put up on that site? If it is a major residential and or office site then it would require improved transit service. Perhaps part of the yard and right of way could be used to get LRT to the subway or for the west end of 512. When I get back to the city I will have to check out the yard site and right of way.
Steve: We need to be careful not to keep extending the 512 until it reaches London. If there is a demand to get from the Lambton area to the subway, a 512-Kipling car may not be the appropriate solution. Anything built to serve Kipling needs to work into a possible service west from that point rather than being tied to the St. Clair route.
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Re: Lambton
Ok, we’re getting off topic again, but Steve is used to it! (smile)
Robert, where did you hear Lambton was being closed?
Last time I was by there they still had tons of power and cars parked there.
I don’t see how CP could squeeze that much additional traffic into Agincourt.
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Why stop the 512 at London? Why not send it to Stratford? There it can meet up with Swans!!!
Steve: Stratford is east of London. We will visit the swans enroute!
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I think it’s because Old Mill Pontiac Buick Cadillac is moving on top of the southern side of the St. Clair and Jane intersection, on top of the railway underpass. It was railroad tracks.
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I asked Greg Gormick, who comments here from time to time about this. Greg is a contributing editor on Railway Age magazine.
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Many moons ago, you posted that the commission had agreed to waive the premium fare for the 141, 142 and 144, starting September 8.
Is this still a go? Are they going to beef up service on these routes at all?
Some of these routes have standing only trips in the AM or PM already.
I think of my route, 141. There are many people who it passes that are waiting for a 11, 28, 74 or 88 to go west to the subway. If there is no extra fare, surely some would hop on. I’m not sure there is capacity for it though.
Another reason I want to know is because I buy my pass on the MDP, and I’m sure the TTC will conveniently forget to ask if I still want the express sticker and pay the extra cash.
Steve: I have forwarded your comment to Brad Ross at the TTC. The business about opting out of getting an express sticker as you no longer need one is something I don’t think anyone thought of when this was discussed.
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Steve: “We need to be careful not to keep extending the 512 until it reaches London. If there is a demand to get from the Lambton area to the subway, a 512-Kipling car may not be the appropriate solution. Anything built to serve Kipling needs to work into a possible service west from that point rather than being tied to the St. Clair route.”
Sorry, I was not clear in my message. I was wondering about the ROW EAST from Jane, not west. I don’t drive that part of St. Clair much but I seem to remember that the road is narrow west of Gunns Rd. I was thinking, with out be able to check it out, that they could us the CP yard to widen the road or to put LRT into Dundas West.
You cannot extend the 512 to Stratford as the Gault Sub does not go there ut you could do Cambridge then or the Grand River Railway ROW to Kitchener then out to Stratford to meet the Swan Boats.
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So what is the situation for extra fare on 144 downtown express route? Do I need to buy 32.00 sticker for September 2009 or not?
Steve: This was approved by the Commission in November 2008 for routes 141, 142 and 144. I have sent a note to the TTC asking why they have not publicized this change so that riders who might otherwise buy a premium fare sticker can avoid doing so for the four days Sept 1-4 before the change comes into effect.
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The TTC website still lists “144B Downtown/Don Valley Express To Downtown Express Extra Fare.” Don’t know if that is by accident or not. I’d be willing to try it out if it was priced at regular fare.
I am not sure how express “Express” really is though given that I have seen buses from these routes stuck in, or slowed by, downtown rush hour traffic before. Maybe that’s a rare occurrence though. Still, it isn’t great for public perception whenever you can point to an express bus that isn’t moving very fast.
Steve: As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the elimination of premium fare on some routes has been deferred to June 2010.
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