The February 2014 schedules bring only minor changes on the system.
Exhibition Place
A new “walking transfer” will be added between services in the south end of Liberty Village and Exhibition Loop. This will link 63 Ossington at Atlantic and Liberty Streets to the 511 Bathurst, 509 Harbourfront and 29 Dufferin routes at Exhibition Loop.
Walking transfers are a quaint part of the TTC’s fare system where connections are permitted between routes that do not actually meet, but which operate nearby. This practice (and the rules governing where it is allowed) will not be needed as an exception within the overall system if the TTC moves to time-based fares.
A temporary Dufferin Street bridge will allow 29 Dufferin service to resume its operation into the park. Service will be the same as in March 2013.
York Region Contracted Services
These changes are at York Region’s request.
The last afternoon peak trip of the 17A Birchmount route north of Steeles will be eliminated. This trip now leaves Steeles northbound at 6:53, and returns from Royal Crest southbound at 7:06.
The last late Sunday evening trip of the 102 Markham Road route north of McNicoll will be eliminated. This trip now leaves Nashdene & Markham at 11:14 pm and returns from Mount Joy GO Station at 11:42 pm.
An earlier trip will be added to 105B Dufferin North from Major Mackenzie on weekday mornings. This trip will depart southbound at 6:29 am.
Pearson Airport Night Services
300 Bloor Danforth and 307 Eglinton West will change to use the same sequence of serving terminals as the daytime 192 Airport Rocket and 58 Malton routes. There will be no change in service levels, but scheduled times at stops will be altered by the new routing.
Other Service and Route Changes
142 Downtown Avenue Road Express was changed in late December by the elimination of a trial extension of its downtown loop west to Peter Street. This is now formally implemented in the scheduled route.
Service on 509 Harbourfront will be reduced in response to lower riding, and schedules will be changed to “improve reliability” with additional recovery time.
Service on some routes will be modified by adjustment of running and recovery times to improve reliability. Service levels are not affected, but some trip times will change.
- 41 Keele will be modified in the evening on weekdays.
- 30 Lambton will be modified during many periods, and recovery time will be shifted to Kipling Station to reduce bus idling at High Park Station.
- 73 Royal York will be modified during peak periods.
Service to the Zoo on 86 Scarborough and 85 Sheppard East will be modified to reflect the change in closing time to 6:00 pm effective March 1, 2014. Last trips will leave the Zoo at about 7:00 pm.
Service on 91 Woodbine will be changed on weekends to improve reliability with headways on both the 91C York Mills and 91A Parkview Hills branches changing from 20 to 24 minutes to provide extra running time.
Steve Munro 
Steve that should read 17A not 17B. The 17B is the rush hour diversion to Steeles via Wintermute instead of the off-peak 17 which uses the loop at Warden and Steeles. The 17A heads north to 14th.
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While a walking transfer from Exhibition Loops to the 63 makes sense, have they also added the 63 to list of routes that the TTC Times Two GO transfer applies to at Exhibiton Station.
Though if I’m travelling to Exhibition, I frequently walk from the GO to the 504 – a distance of only 600 metres (similarly at Union, I frequently walk from a 504 at King/Bay to Union Station.
Neither are valid transfers, and I’ve frequently done one or another, occasionally I’ve done both as part of the same trip, when the 504 is gridlocked from Church to Bathurst.
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Steve, as I have never experienced a ‘walking transfer’ how is this different from a regular ‘connection’? For example, I once missed my stop for a connection, so I simply jumped off the bus and walked back to the transfer point.
Also, while the ‘normal’ connection point (in the west) between the 501 and 504 would be at Roncesvalles and Queen, what stops someone (today) from taking the eastbound 501 car and getting off at Shaw, then walking south to King and getting on a King car? If the driver asked, they could simply say they missed the stop at Roncesvalles.
Steve: A walking transfer is an official connection point, not a missed one, at locations where routes are nearby but do not actually cross. There is a long list on the TTC’s site.
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The cynic in me wonders if the 91 Woodbine changes are related to the upcoming construction at Woodbine station. Once the elevator is in place, the second loading platform for the 91 Woodbine will be eliminated. It is currently not uncommon to see two 91s in the station at the same time because the 91A runs at an incompatible headway, and this will no longer be possible once the elevator is in and the third platform is gone. If the headways are made common between the two branches on weekends, in theory there should only be one 91 in the station at any time on Saturday and Sunday. Of course they will still need to do something Mon-Fri, but this may be a first step.
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That’s a good comment Brent, I believe you are correct. I’d think that the second 91 platform would vanish as soon as construction starts, as it is presumably going to be a hole in the ground pretty fast. At the same time though, it should provide a more regular service for those travelling between Woodbine and Danforth.
This was a comment I made a few times during the Woodbine station community consultation that fell on deaf ears. There are effectively 3 bus routes running out of the station (give the 91A and 91C aren’t synchronized during peak periods. This can easily be seen on Saturday afternoons, where there is an 11:43 AM 91C and an 11:44 AM 91A. (ditto at 1:43 PM, 3:43 PM, 5:43 PM …). It’s quite normal to see both buses arriving in the station simultaneously.
Meanwhile the 92 runs as frequently as every 5 minutes on a summer weekend (even more frequently last summer with the now completed Kingston Road construction), and it’s not unusual to see two of them sitting in the station at the same time. I’m less sure how smoothly things go in rush hour, as I’m more likely to be there off-peak.
Given that occasionally buses would have to wait for one of the bays to be open to unload when there were 3 bays, it’s hard to imagine how things will improve with only 2 bays.
My questions about this were initially met with a denial that there’d ever be 3 buses there at the same time. And when provided with the evidence that they were, simply that operations had signed off on it, and would have to manage the routes better.
Given that 92 frequency has significantly increased (especially in the summer) in just the decade or so I’ve been in the area, I do wonder about the wisdom of removing a bay.
On the bright side, the problem is relatively easily remedied. The TTC station property extends a bit further east, including the area that Valuemart has their tented Garden Centre (though the old streetcar loop is now a different property with Valuemart’s parking lot). It wouldn’t be overly complex to extend the bus platform around the curve up to Strathmore with 1 or even 2 more platforms. Though why this wasn’t properly addressed during design I don’t know.
This mightn’t be a long-term issue though. Do we really envision the 91 Woodbine travelling north of Eglinton once the Eglinton line opens? I’d think many of the passengers heading to Lawrence and York Mills (and Railside!) would be changing at the Bermondsey LRT stop.
When I questioned TTC if the people doing the design knew what they were doing, it was pointed out they were the same team that had done Pape. Which concerned me as at the time, I was using Pape, and the loss of 2 (or was it 3) bus bays there, seemed to make the platform very crowded with the extremely busy 25 there, which often had 2-3 buses sitting at once, and TTC promise of a new express Don Mills bus service. At the time, I was using Pape every day, but I no longer do, so I’m unsure how well that station works now that there are less platforms.
Steve: One thing that shines through in any meetings involving TTC construction is that the engineering side of the house does not have the faintest idea about operations.
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The TTC has more of a ‘silo mentality’ that I have ever seen; another example was that when the operations folk (?) decided to temporarily split the 72 bus route they decided to call the new western part 172A. This meant that someone had to change all the on street and in station signage (which, of course, took weeks and several reminders) and the NextBus display outside the King Station still does not show the 172A (it previously showed the 72A). It could, surely, have continued to be called 72A but with a different termination/beginning point. There seems to be a serious lack of oversight and understanding that all the pieces are (or should be) connected!
It is also ‘interesting’ that the two branches of the old 72 meet at Commissioners Street (Stop 6315) – which is not a timed stop as far as arrivals go so one cannot see if a connection further east or west is likely to occur.
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Hey Steve, I didn’t see the changes to the 73 Royal York in the service summary. Do you know what they’re changing?
Steve: There is no change that would show up on the Service Summary. Here is the full text of the item in the Board Period Memo:
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