TTC Fouls up Variety Village Service Plan (Updated)

Updated April 26 at 2:30 pm:

I received a note from the TTC castigating me for the “gotcha” nature of this article.  In effect, in my zeal to show this as a staff error, I left out information that would have painted a different picture.

The background for this is that at the December 2010 meeting (the first of the new Commission), there was a presentation on the options for serving Variety Village.  This presentation is not available online, but was sent to me with the complaint.  Given its size, I have excerpted the portion relating to the proposed 12 Kingston Road split in which it is clear that (a) service would be removed from Kingston Road at some hours and (b) staff do not support this option.

2010.12 Variety Village Route 12

The December report accompanying the presentation includes an earlier report on Variety Village which mentions the split 12 Kingston Road service as an option, but recommends against it.  There is no mention in the 2004 report that a split service would remove buses from Kingston Road completely during some periods of operation.

The loss of service with this option is not mentioned in the April report or recommendation approved by the Commission, nor in the “Commission Highlights” posted after the meeting.  It is quite clear that this was seen as a “good news” story, and that the Commission did not understand (or if they did, care to acknowledge) that a service cut was involved.

The original post from April 25 follows below.

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