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TTC Service Changes for February 15, 2015

The February 2015 service changes are mainly a collection of housekeeping updates with no significant change in service levels.

41 Keele local service will change to artic buses, but the express service will continue to operate with 12m vehicles.

504 King continues to see buses substituting for streetcars during peak periods. Weekend running times will be extended to match actual conditions but no service will be added “because of a lack of budgeted operator hours”. Remember this line the next time the TTC tells you it has no spare vehicles. They are unable to add vehicles off-peak because there is no budget headroom to pay the drivers.

2015.02.15_Service_Changes

Updated: A reader has noted that the evening service proposed for Keele is shown as the 41B Petrolia/Steeles branch rather than the 41A Steeles service that operates now. The info in my table is based on the TTC’s service change memo, but I have sent a request that they clarify whether this is an error. Given the holidays, a reply probably won’t come in for a while.

Updated: The TTC has confirmed that the service design on the 41 Keele route has not been changed, and that the 41B evening service was shown in error. The table linked above has been updated to reflect this correction.

16 thoughts on “TTC Service Changes for February 15, 2015”

  1. Artics on the 41 Keele? That makes no sense. The frequencies are not that high on the local 41B route to begin with; they’re getting cut back from every 8.5 minutes in the AM peak to every 10.75 minutes. I could think of a dozen routes that are more frequent than the 41 Keele. Late evening service is going to a lousy 21 minutes with the change as well.

    It was bad enough when they were put on Bathurst Street. Why aren’t there articulated buses on the 196 York University Rocket, a route that’s always crowded and very frequent at peak times?

    The TTC now has all these articulated buses, and doesn’t know how to best deploy them. But hey, it saves on labour costs.

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  2. One question about Keele. Are they actually extending the service hour on the 41B to whole day oppose to switching to the 41A after 7pm? Since there is no mention of additional service to Steeles/Petrolia, it sounded like a mistake more than a service expansion.

    For where to deploy the artic buses. I heard they’re having trouble finding suitable routes to deploy them at the Mt. Dennis garage. They have to be able to maneuver through the route, not block traffic and not dump passenger on the road cause they can’t get to the curb. That’s why Bay and Ossington are bad routes.

    Steve: Ooops! I hadn’t noticed that change in which branch ran in the evening. I will inquire, but don’t expect a response soon from the TTC over the holidays.

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  3. The artic deployment sounds a lot like the hybrid deployment and hypothetical LFLRV rollout where they plan to put them where it makes the least sense.

    They’re consistent I’ll give em that.

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  4. Articulated buses on the 41 Keele? Hopefully, they tested out making the turns at St. Clair & Keele & Old Weston. With the current incident involving a turning bus and the girl, I will be watching to see if the rear end of those long things will not ride up over the corners.

    Steve: It will be interesting. I am baffled about some of the choices for the placement of artics and echo the sentiments of others commenting in this thread.

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  5. Steve,

    Is there something happening at the Arrow Road garage that the TTC is not talking about? They are moving Islington and part of Jane to other garages, which accounts for almost 10% of the fleet at Arrow Road. Along with the recent change of Finch West to artic operations, there seem to be a lot fewer buses operating out of Arrow recently.

    Steve: I know Arrow was overcrowded, but don’t know details beyond that. Possibly some of our “insider” readers can assist here.

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  6. Merry Christmas to you Steve, and all of your readers!

    Most of the hoists at Arrow are unavailable due to construction, which is why maintenance on their buses is being done at other divisions, hence the constant shifting of buses back and forth between Arrow and other garages. With a long backlog of buses due for repairs, they do have a significant shortage, which is what the new scheduling is trying to address.

    Also in response to an earlier comment about artics on the 196 Rocket, we wanted to put them on that route back in March, before we realized that the fuel range of the artics is not good enough (remember that the daily mileage on the 196 is significantly higher than on regular routes). As peak trippers, they may work, but certainly not in full day service.

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  7. I have couple of question about bus services..

    1. For the articulated bus, I originally heard the TTC scheduled to put the articulated bus on the route 6 (Bay), 7 (Bathurst), 29 (Dufferin), 36 (Finch West), 53 (Steeles East), 63 (Ossington), 85 (Sheppard East) by the end of 2014. The TTC put the artic bus on the route 7 and 29 first.. then now I can see it is running on the route 36, 53 and 85..
    I also heard a rumour that the articulated bus is coming to 41 Keele route..
    Among the route I mentioned, why the TTC is still not putting the articulated bus on 6 Bay and 63 Ossington route? I understand about Bay route because Bay Street is always congested.. However, Ossington route has high ridership..
    Can you explain why the articulated bus is still not in operation on the bus route 6 or 63, although the TTC scheduled to put the artic bus on the route?

    Steve: First of all, the introduction of artics on Keele is not a rumour. It is listed among the changes in the article on which you left this comment. I suspect Ossington might be challenging for artics because of tight turns in many locations. Bay is under construction at the south end. Who knows what may happen when, eventually, the street is back to normal.

    2. I heard a rumour that 37 Islington bus service is changing its division from Arrow Road to Queensway. .
    I found out that the Queensway division currently has 186 fleet of bus for 18 routes, and Arrow Road division has 290 fleet of bus for 16 routes..
    I know 37 Islington requires about 15 to 20 buses depending on the ridership situation..
    Will moving the division from Arrow Road to Queensway will effect the overall service level of 37 Islington route? I basically use that route every single day because the bus stop is very close to my houte.

    Steve: Again, you didn’t read the detailed info in this post, did you. The garage change for Islington and other routes is listed there. Some of the shuffle relates to maintenance capacity as explained by a comment left earlier today.

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  8. Looks like we are down another bus and another CLRV after this mornings collision. Judging by the pictures 4062 and 7807 are both a write off. The front ends are obliterated on both vehicles. Given the age of the CLRV’s I can see it being retired.

    Any idea how this will affect an already stretched fleet?

    Steve: Actually, the vehicles are designed to take the brunt of the damage at the fronts while leaving the main parts intact. I suspect 4062 will be pillaged for spare parts. Who knows what will happen to 7807.

    One vehicle out of each fleet is not the end of the world, but the TTC cannot afford to lose any right now.

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  9. Just putting this out there to illustrate the difference between Queensway and Arrow. A week ago, I checked TransSee on a weekday morning around 7:30am. Queensway had 43 D40LFs (7300-7350) out, Arrow only 21 RTSes (7200-7251) on the road. Both made in the same year, same engine, same transmission. Arrow had 10 buses from Eglinton and 5-10 from Birchmount sent over for short term lease. Around a third to a half of the 7900s are at Queensway, while Arrow has had multiple buses transferred over from Malvern and Mt. Dennis. These are all observations from seeing the fleet on Queensway & Arrow routes, plus speaking with various drivers.

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  10. Timur Urakov said:

    Also in response to an earlier comment about artics on the 196 Rocket, we wanted to put them on that route back in March, before we realized that the fuel range of the artics is not good enough (remember that the daily mileage on the 196 is significantly higher than on regular routes). As peak trippers, they may work, but certainly not in full day service.

    Moaz: what kind of mileage are you looking at for the 196? It doesn’t look like a long trip compared to some of the other corridors that run artics.

    I remember seeing the older artic buses on Jane occasionally. If not for all the branches Jane would be a good candidate. From a high level view I would say any route that would have been part of the original Transit City plan should probably be running artic bases today.

    Cheers, Moaz

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  11. The other shocking thing is why the TTC is retiring buses at a time where we don’t have enough service on routes I am hopeful but not fully confident with a mainly new commission that we get better service; however, this is a major concern.

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  12. I find this doesn’t make a lot of sense. I could think of some routes that these buses would be better used on such as 35 Jane, 52 Lawrence, 165 Weston North and 96 Wilson.

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  13. Looks like they’re starting to run the articulated bus on Keele a bit earlier than planned, or are at least testing them out. Saw one operating as a 41S yesterday. I would assume that the 41 Keele will become a 24 hour route as 12 new blue night routes were announced (though no specifics) and the 41 runs for approx. 22 hours a day, so it would only make sense to make it a 24 hr route.

    Steve: Yes, Keele is on the August 2014 map of potential new all-night routes.

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  14. hello everyone has anyone else heard about the ttc novabus rts 14 have been put out of service to do numerous reasons and will not be returning to service. arrow road is in a small shortage of buses now. i think they should recieve more 79 series buses back from queensway since they dont need so many buses. does anyone know when the 55 novabus lfs 40 foot are coming this year? there supposed to go to arrow road to replace the novabus rts buses this year.

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  15. Interesting to see that the Saturday late evening run time for King has been extended from 100 to 115 minutes, compared to the 108 minutes on a weekday late evening.

    My first thought was that they should have fixed the weekday as well. But then I recalled the mistake I’d made in the past of trying to take a 504 west east from Dufferin to downtown on a Friday evening, through the entertainment district, instead of taking a Dufferin bus! It wasn’t fast!

    This raises the question of why there isn’t separate scheduling for Friday evenings compared to other weekdays. On many downtown routes, Fridays evenings are different. I’ve seen the 172 Cherry packed to the gills at 9 pm. And the Spadina streetcar just can be unreal late on a Friday night.

    Steve: This problem shows up when I review operating data for any route that has strongly seasonal and day-of-week fluctuations. It’s a problem that the TTC needs to deal with, but instead just leaves the service to fall apart when it is most needed.

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  16. The 504 of course travels east from Dufferin. Not west from Duffeirn (sp)! Ouch. Honest, I hadn’t been drinking that Friday night! 🙂

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