Construction diversions on several routes will begin or continue in May.
504 King and 508 Lake Shore:
King cars will continue turning back at Roncesvalles and Queen, but will reach there via Shaw and Queen Streets. Watermain construction which last year caused Roncesvalles to be torn up last year moves to King between Ronces and Jameson.
The 504 shuttle bus will be rerouted and extended to run between Shaw and Dundas West Station bothways via Roncesvalles looping via Strachan, Douro and Shaw.
No date has been set yet for resumption of streetcar service on Roncesvalles, but this is expected to be in the late fall. The diversion via Queen and Shaw is expected to last to the end of August 2010.
502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road Tripper
The reconstruction of Bingham Loop, deferred from 2009, will occur this summer. Buses will replace streetcars over both routes until mid-August.
Replacement bus services will loop via Victoria Park, Meadow and Blantyre to Kingston Road. The peak service on both routes will be improved from 7’30” to 6’00”, but offpeak service on the 502 will remain at 20′.
22 Coxwell and 70 O’Connor
Reconstruction of the bus loop at Coxwell station requires the removal of all bus service. Routes 22 and 70 will interline, and all of the “O’Connor” service will run through to Queen or to Victoria Park depending on the time of day.
Existing interlines between the O’Connor, Gerrard and McCowan routes will be discontinued during this period.
72 Pape
Construction at Pape Station requires that the Pape bus be rerouted to loop at Donlands Station. Passengers transferring to this route from the subway at Pape will do so using on street stops. This diversion will last until the end of 2010.
The seasonal extension to Cherry Beach will operate during the evenings Monday to Friday, and all day on weekends and holidays. This will run until Labour Day.
512 St. Clair
The mixed streetcar and bus operation on St. Clair is expected to last until the latter part of June 2010 at which point the TTC hopes to restore streetcar service to Gunn’s Loop.
509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina
The seasonal fare collection scheme on Queen’s Quay will be in effect until Labour Day. No fares will be collected eastbound on Queen’s Quay between Bathurst and Union Station on weekends after 3 pm, and there will be collectors stationed in the tunnel linking the Union Station Loop to the subway.
One PCC car will operate on the Harbourfront route on Sundays until September 5, 2010 between 1130 and 1930. This will run as an extra, and will be subject to availability of both a car and an operator.
Seasonal Route Extensions
- 72 Pape to Cherry Beach (see above)
- 28 Davisville to the Brick Works
- 29 Dufferin to Ontario Place (service south of Dufferin Loop will be split between the 29B Ontario Place and 29D Princes Gate branches)
- 86 Scarborough to the Zoo
- 85 Sheppard East to the Zoo
- 510 Spadina King short turn extended to Queen’s Quay on weekends
- 165 Weston Road North to Wonderland
Other Route Changes
- 25 Don Mills service north of Steeles removed (York Region request)
- 29 Dufferin trial service in Exhibition Place rerouted to operate via Manitoba Drive, Canada Drive, Princes’ Blvd., Nunavut Rd., and Nova Scotia Ave to Manitoba Drive.
- 224 Victoria Park North service extended to Elgin Mills (York Region request)
- 96B Wilson route changed via Claireville Drive
- 96C Wilson service removed from Thistledown Blvd. early mornings and late evenings
Service Level Changes
Many route have new schedules starting on May 9 primarily for seasonal changes in demand. The details are in a spreadsheet linked below.
Steve Munro 
The streetcar tracks on Parliament from King to Gerrard are about to be replaced now that the watermain replacement is moving along quickly on that stretch. This is, of course, not a regular streetcar route but with no tracks with the fairly large number of short-turns using Parliament should be eliminated for a month or so.
Steve: Well, it has to happen sometime, and the track on Parliament is in very rough shape in spots. It will be interesting to see where the short turns go as an alternative.
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If they run all that service along Queen it will be a complete zoo. Will the King cars still loop via the carhouse to be at the right spot on Roncesvalles or will they use Sunnyside or has the TTC bothered to tell any one yet. Will they use Dufferin as a short turn? It would seem logical to leave some rush hour service to there but that is not one of their stronger points.
Steve: King cars will use the south gate to enter Roncesvalles Carhouse. I am not sure that Dufferin will be available as a short turn due to watermain work south of Queen. They may have to continue west on King and use Dufferin Loop.
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Logically, wouldn’t Dufferin as a short turn loop provide more service? Seeing as the shuttle buses are running to King and Shaw anyway, why do the streetcars need to duplicate that portion of the route?
Steve: This arrangement preserves a through service to Roncesvalles from downtown, something that is impossible if the King cars turn at Dufferin.
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I use 70 so the bus loop construction impacts me. Presumably this means the 22-70 stays on Coxwell making the subway connection a walking transfer to/from Danforth/Coxwell?
Of course they couldn’t do this work when the station roof work was done within the last year and bus loading was shifting around…
Steve: Welcome to TTC station reconstruction. At Broadview, we had at least two extra years of work because they could not budget it all in one year. The cock-ups in the handoff from year to year added time and cost, and the eastern stairs are still closed (“until May 2010” say the signs) because of water leakage that is supposed to be the City’s fault. Funny how the station went for decades with nobody noticing this.
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“510 Spadina King short turn extended to Queen’s Quay on weekends”
I wonder if this will work as it did last year, when 510 cars turned at Charlotte/King with every 3rd car proceeding to Union? 🙂
With condo construction on Charlotte & the traffic delay in cars looping there, i wonder if its quicker to extend all 501 King service to Queen’s Quay?
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“510 Spadina King short turn extended to Queen’s Quay on weekends”
I wonder if this will work as it did last year, when 510 cars turned at Charlotte/King with every 3rd car proceeding to Union? 🙂
With condo construction on Charlotte & the traffic delay in cars looping there, I wonder if its quicker to extend all 510 King service to Queen’s Quay?
Steve: Another problem is that with all service running south to Queen’s Quay, the traffic signal at Lake Shore may not give enough green time for the streetcars. Such is “transit priority” in Toronto.
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But the Queen car already provides Roncesvalles-downtown service. The 504 would still connect to the shuttle buses were it to run to Dufferin, because the shuttle buses are said to run to King and Shaw anyway.
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Interesting that the 502 Downtowner M-F midday replacement with buses has the same headway, 20 minutes. I would have thought that the buses would have better headway, a bit better. The non-M-F midday with 22A buses still has better headway.
Steve: I am always baffled by why the TTC seems incapable/unwilling to run weekday service on Kingston Road commensurate with weekend service. When you factor in the short turns, it’s a miracle anyone rides. Of course, that just reinforces the decision to run such poor service.
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It seems to me that when a streetcar route is replaced, relatively long-term, by shuttle buses, that would be the most ideal time to test out different possibilities for the future of the route. When St. Clair was out, it seemed to me that the TTC should have considered extending the shuttle buses to Runnymede, if not Jane or Scarlett to see how it might affect ridership, whether it would actually be viable for streetcars.
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Jonathon,
That is a great idea. This is the time that the TTC can try running the Kingston Road streetcars express from Kingston and Queen to downtown via Lakshore.
In fact I bet this move would be a major plus and residents would love it.
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Does the TTC monitor ridership when a shuttle diversion is in place? I was hoping that, when the bathurst bus was split into branches at St. Clair, that the TTC might actually realize that for one more bus, they were providing much better service.
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Jonathon, are you talking about the study for “Alternate Routes to future TTC Ashbridges Facilities”? To see if anyone will use the Commissioners Street/Lake Shore Blvd. route, for example?
Unfortunately, the construction for the Bingham Loop could be a little short in time to try out different routes, but a single combined route test could be a good experiment. But they should try it out with a better headway than 20 minutes.
Steve: I suspect Jonathan is talking about a Kingston Road equivalent of the Beach express bus, not the carhouse connection at Leslie.
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I didnt bring up the express route, but now would be a great time to try out a combined route.
Steve: However, this violates basic testing principles. If you simultaneously convert the service from an infrequent streetcar, to a more frequent express bus, you will not know how much of the effect is due to the headway and how much to the travel time.
I could equally argue for a trial that, once Bingham Loop reopens, makes two vital changes. First, improve the daytime headway to 10 minutes so that it’s vaguely like the bus service provided on the weekend. Second, merge the 502 and 503 services so that they all go either to McCaul or to York. The outbound service is particularly spotty because of the wide scheduled headway on separate lines, and half hour gaps are easy to encounter when one car is missing or short turned. Nobody will use this kind of service.
Of course if your aim, as the TTC, were to destroy the credibility of Kingston Road as a streetcar line, you couldn’t do a much better job than the way it has been operated for over a decade. However, I have always felt that one can explain much more by sheer incompetence than by Machiavellian plotting.
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It seems like there must be enough separate demand for both King and Queen streets that the two separate services make sense in the morning rush- perhaps during the afternoon a combined route is more appropriate, but it is hard to talk about anything like that without knowing where the demand originates on both King and Queen.
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Much as I love the unique character of McCaul Loop and would hate to see it discontinued from regular service, I think the 503 should be the consolidated route, but extended to Charlotte Loop so that York becomes the short-turn point instead of Church. Such an extension would also overlap with the highest-demand portion of King that the current 503 stops short of serving.
Steve: I agree in principle, but the traffic congestion of streetcars at and near Charlotte Loop is already bad. 502/503 cars would spend a considerable time just getting around the loop. The real issue is that route supervisors should be forbidden, on pain of something extremely unpleasant, from short turning cars before they reach Yonge Street. I believe the words we might be looking for are “customer service”.
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Let’s see here. “Customer service.” Isn’t that kind of an alien concept to some in the TTC?
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Steve, thank you for giving an ETA on the resumption of the 504 to Dundas West Station – there is nothing on the TTC web site to tell me how long this might go on for (it feels like forever).
I have a strange question about the King 504 (and probably the Queen 501, but I didn’t check this morning). This morning (Tues, Apr 6) I was walking east on King from Strachan at 7:15. Normally, at this time there would be a streetcar every 4-5 minutes, and they wouldn’t be packed, it usually is about 7:40 before the real crunch starts. There were already about 15 people waiting at Strachan (and at least 10 more at each stop until Bathurst), so I knew that even when it came the streetcar would be toast trying to load onto a full car. It was over 5 minutes until a car past me and I didn’t see another one (I went inside at Portand at about 7:30). The only unique thing this morning I could see was the rain. Now I know that more people will ride on a rainy day (instead of walking or biking) but surely it can’t be that many more people. Why does the rain give the streetcars so much trouble? And WHY don’t the drivers open the back doors to load when its like this (especially since TTC has the enviable record of having 50% Metropass uptake)?
Thanks.
Steve: I suspect it is a combination of more people actualy choosing to ride the TTC, and some of the King trips being covered by operators on overtime. When the weather is bad, fewer staff want to work overtime, and service suffers.
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Booooooooooooooooo!!! Are they really removing my beloved 25D? Damn YRT. The 90 is a silly looking route though. If anything the 25D should’ve been extended to Elgin Mills & Leslie and let it still run through Beaver Creek… YRT will regret this!
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I now noticed on the YRT site that it is being replaced by the “new” 90B. I still think the YRT should’ve contracted the TTC to run the 25D to Richmond Green and replace the Elgin Mills 90 Service with a new Elgin Mills route considering there’s development occuring at Woodbine & Elgin Mills now.
Shows poor planning. Can’t wait until one day when TTC, YRT, Mississauga Transit, Brampton Transit, and Durham Transit are all integrated much better where you don’t have to worry about double fares and such (nor jumping off one bus at the subway station to get on another).
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No one else has said this so I will: I think it’s great to hear that the TTC will be operating a PCC streetcar along the 509 line again this summer, even if it will be Sundays only. I still think they could use a PCC along different parts of the streetcar network, but this is good to hear.
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I actually see benefits in the transfer of the 25D to YRT.
For starters, it means a possibly express service between Don Mills Station using similar boarding/debarking techniques now used on Yonge.
Secondly, it means that those living close to the route can pay one fare instead of two when they can’t get a YRT bus (used to be off peak, but now just late evenings)
I think it’s a good thing. I know people who have been asking for this for a long time.
RE: 72 Pape, what kind of construction could be going on that would force this bus to go all the way to Donlands? Is the platform simply too small for three bus routes?
Steve: Yes. Both the 25 Don Mills and 81 Thorncliffe Park are frequent and busy services. They both serve the same territory from Thorncliffe Park to Danforth, and it makes sense keeping them together and shifting 72 Pape.
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im not sure where to post this… but feel free to move it wherever….(and delete this part!!)
now that Corus Quay has opened up…and Sugar Beach…and the apparent new beach thats coming to the port lands in the next couple of months… has there been any word on what theyre doing with the future of transit?
I know there was an EA that is/should be done… or shortly at least…
for the amount of people coming in and out of that building alone plus whats to come… i dont think the sherbourne bus or the bay bus’ loop down jarvis will suit needs forever…
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Steve,
What is the financial arrangement with YRT for TTC routes that run into York Region? I understand that riders pay another fare, but does YRT pay the TTC at all? Does the TTC have a similar financial relationship with other operators (e.g. Mississauga Transit)?
Thanks
Steve: Where a TTC bus runs outside the 416, they provide the service at cost for the other municipality. Fare revenue stays with the local operator.
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