Updated February 6, 2015 at 6:10 pm:
A change to service on 1 Yonge-University on weekday evenings was missed in the original version of my condensed version of the changes. This has been corrected.
Updated February 3, 2015 at 11:30 am:
In response to questions raised by the planned changes, I asked the TTC for more details on specific work.
- At College & Spadina, the platforms used by 506 Carlton will be lengthened, but not widened. They are already wide enough for boarding via the ramps on the Flexities.
- The 509 Harbourfront route will convert to PoP operation when the Flexities move there at the end of March.
- Transit signal priority has been or will be restored at various locations on St. Clair:
- On December 23, 2014, it was restored at Yonge and at Avenue Road.
- Before March 29, 2015, it will be restored at Deer Park, west of Dunvegan, Russell Hill, Bathurst, Wychwood, Arlington and Caledonia
- To be completed, but not necessarily by March 29: Ferndale (St. Clair Stn. Loop exit), Christie, Old Weston, Keele/Weston)
The original article from January 31 follows below.
Service changes for the March-April 2015 schedule period fall into two main groups:
- Schedule adjustments on many routes to reflect actual operating conditions, and
- Temporary route reorganization due to construction at College & Spadina.
College & Spadina
Between April 6 and 27 (approximately), the intersection at College & Spadina will be closed for track replacement. This is the last of Spadina’s intersections to be rebuilt to the upgraded TTC standards for special work. During this closure, special work at Spadina Station Loop will also be replaced.
Both of these projects were originally planned for 2014, but were pushed back into early 2015.
The shutdown has a cascading effect on services on many routes:
- 510 Spadina streetcars will be replaced with buses between Spadina Station and Queens Quay. During most periods, half of the service will be scheduled to turn back from King Street using the Charlotte Street loop. The southbound diversion will be via Harbord, Bathurst and Dundas; northbound, buses will run via Dundas, Beverley/St. George and Harbord.
- 506 Carlton streetcars will divert both ways via Ossington, Dundas and Bay.
- There will be no transit service on Spadina between Harbord and Dundas, nor on College between Ossington and Bay during the construction period.
- 509 Harbourfront will see increased service to replace the 510 Spadina cars that would normally operate to Union Station. The new LFLRVs will be assigned to this route.
- Streetcars displaced from 510 Spadina will be redeployed to 504 King replacing many of the existing bus trippers whose vehicles will move to Spadina. There will only be five bus trippers on King in the AM peak, and none in the PM peak.
- Buses from 17 Birchmount (1) and 95 York Mills (4) will be temporarily removed to supplement the 510 Spadina service.
Route Restructurings
Several routes will have additional running time so that their schedules more closely reflect real-world operating conditions, but a few routes will also be restructured to improve reliability.
- 1 Yonge-University (renamed from Yonge-University-Spadina) will have its “gap trains” converted to regular runs so that running time on both the through Downsview-Finch and the short-turn service at St. Clair West can be extended. Service will also be improved weekday midday and evenings, and weekend afternoons.
- 29 Dufferin will be rescheduled to match actual driving times, and operations at the southern terminal will be changed so that all vehicles go to only one location (either Princes’ Gates or Dufferin Gate). In theory, this should allow reliable dispatching from a single point. Service assist crews and service relief buses will be added during weekdays through into the early evening.
- 512 St. Clair will see many schedule changes to reflect results of the TTC’s service reliability project.
- Running times will be shortened to reflect the repair of 9 of 13 transit signal priority locations that were not working in fall 2014.
- Service improvements at various times will reduce crowding.
- The arrangements for standby cars will change slightly.
- Cars entering service from Roncesvalles Carhouse will now do so via Roncesvalles, Howard Park, Dundas and Bathurst to reduce travel times. These trips will not serve Bathurst Station.
For full details of schedule changes, see the linked table below.
“Recovery Time”
Among the stranger practices that shows up with the rearrangement of schedules is the conversion of “terminal time” to “driving time”, in some cases eliminating terminal time completely.
These allowances sometimes appear and disappear as needed simply to round off the running times so that headways will come out to an even number, or in the case of branching routes, to a multiple of a common headway. The result can be that a route where once there was extra terminal time giving operators a break there now is much less or none at all. This can be counterproductive to the establishment of regular service.
Budgeted Hours
Although there has been much discussion of service improvements as part of the 2015 budget process at the City and TTC, these have not yet been approved. The published service budget remains the same as it has been since August 2014.
Steve Munro 
You said half of the supplemented 510 service will be turning at King? Does that mean some of the Northbound service (Streetcars) will be turning at King as well or is that physically impossible?
Steve: No I did not say anything of the kind. The Spadina buses, as they often have done, will operate partly to Queens Quay. If you looked at the table linked from the article, you would see that the buses cover Spadina, and the streetcars cover Queens Quay. There is no streetcar service coming north to King.
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My apologies. I misread what you wrote.
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No streetcars on Spadina but there is an opportunity to see how the new streetcars operate with 3 weeks of multiple runs on Queen’s Quay.
That raises 2 questions:
1. With 4405 supposedly set to ship this week, how many LFLRVs is the TTC hoping to have in service by April?
2. If enough LFLRVs were available might TTC choose to offer the regular or slightly lower 509 frequency and displace some CLRVs from 509 to other routes, (just as the streetcars displaced from 510 will be running on a bulked up 504 King)?
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: At this point, the delivery schedule is an unknown, but I think that with the investment in PoP equipment on Spadina, and with it being the showcase route, the new cars will stay there once the line reopens in mid-May. Also, moving cars over to 509 without leaving some for 510 would render the Spadina line non-accessible.
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Some things at the TTC can boggle my mind. There was an artic running on the 160 Bathurst North on January 30th, a route that has very sparse ridership north of Steeles Avenue! This when its equivalent, the 7 Bathurst, regularly sees 40-ft vehicles replacing runs that should be operated with artics.
Steve, do you know if the 60 Steeles West is scheduled to get artics? There were at least 2 of them operating on that route on January 30th. Another scheduling blip at the TTC, I assume. I could see the benefit of using them for service to York University, but definitely not on the B and D branches of the route (which is where they were operating!).
On a separate note, if there is any positive to be taken away from Bombardier’s failure to deliver the new streetcars, its that the TTC cannot make too many errors reassigning the Flexities during the Spadina closure this April. While I doubt we will see artics operating the replacement bus service as it would be tight on St. George and Harbord, at least the TTC will not be teasing 502/503 riders with Flexities while 501 riders see CLRV operation 😉
Steve: The TTC has a long history of assigning the “wrong” vehicle type to routes. While this might be excused by a tight spare pool and a decision to push anything out the door that runs, it is certainly odd for an artic to be on Bathurst North when Bathurst, running from the same division (Wilson), routinely has regular buses trying to carry artic headways. The same thing happens on streetcar routes with CLRVs running on ALRV headways, and this was going on long before the ALRVs were considered the hopeless, non-working cars they are today.
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Drew:
“… hopeless, non-working, but totally worth a complete re-build … cars they are today.”
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I am curious to see how the temporary LFLRV shift to the 509 affects it with respect to POP–it’s not currently a POP route but the LFLRVs necessitate it. The logical option, I’d think, would be to just take this opportunity to finally make the route POP permanently as of the first day the LFLRVs are shifted to it.
Actually, I think POP on the 509 is far past due–there has been a fair bit of confusion along Queen’s Quay east of Lower Spadina with the 510s being POP and the 509s not being POP, with people waiting to board at the back doors of 509s, etc. Doesn’t make much sense for the service there, which should be functionally interchangeable to eastbound passengers, to be operating so differently. Not sure how fare inspection is being handled currently, either, but I’ve never seen inspectors riding on the QQ portion of the 510 or at Union, they always seem to get on at Spadina northbound/off at QQ southbound. It would certainly make things easier to have the two services operate identically, in terms of logistics like this, given their significant shared routing–a big education blitz+signage installations could be done at Union and along QQ for both routes together this way. Specifically, it would make a lot of sense for them to install a transfer machine right at the Union streetcar platform (currently the nearest ones are upstairs in the concourse area) with a big, bold sign saying “you need to take one of these unless you’re carrying a pass, or you can be fined”.
On another note, I remember being told–don’t remember by whom, I’m 90% sure it was Brad via Twitter–that the new gray POP machines, both onboard and offboard, would have the tap-to-pay debit/credit, single/multiple fare functionality go live February 2015, not sure if that’s still on schedule…would love to see it online. It would even be helpful to CLRV passengers on 509/510 who would be able to pay via debit/credit at an island machine and get on…especially after the useless Presto debacle on the new island machines.
And still twiddling our collective thumbs waiting on 4405…hope the Feb 2nd commission meeting includes a schedule update from Bombardier, as the charter guarantees really look unbelievable as it stands. I certainly hope that by the time the 510 gets restored after this construction it’s at least getting close to the 13 required…
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Steve, does the Spadina/College rebuild include new east west platforms? They are beyond in years, the rusted cantalievered shelters are sure to Keele(ha!) over any moment now.
Steve: I don’t know, but it’s a logical move considering that intersection replacements always stretch a carstop’s length on either side. I will inquire about this.
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And will new platforms come with on-street Presto/Fare machines installed and ready, or will the city have to go back and finish that later, since the streetcars will be POP by then?
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The changes to the Dufferin route are interesting — it seems counter-intuitive to me that removing vehicles from the route will increase reliability, but I’m no expert.
The idea of having all Dufferin routes terminate at one point during specific time periods is also interesting. From what I can tell in the PDF, all southbound service during rush hour will go to the Prince’s Gates, while outside of rush hour all service will turn back at Dufferin Gate. My own experience is that buses are turned back at Dufferin Gate whenever anything is happening at the CNE grounds (including the CNE itself, the Royal Winter Fair, CHIN Picnic, etc.) with a couple of weeks latitude for set-up and take-down before and after. So I think that, in practice, buses will continue to turn back at Dufferin Gate, even during rush hour, on a fairly frequent basis — especially in the summer and fall.
Another consequence of the schedule change is that there won’t be any direct Dufferin bus service to the Exhibition GO station outside of peak periods, which is unfortunate.
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For that matter, wouldn’t it have made sense to delay this work until May, when classes are done at UofT? I’m picturing a lot of harried students trying to reach their exam rooms in April.
Steve: If the work starts in May, the end date drifts dangerously close to the Pan Am Games window when no construction is to be underway.
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I was only thinking about the short term replacement while College & Spadina in under construction … not after May.
Just hoping that a few extra LFLRVs refer. 509 might be a way to allow slightly lower service frequencies on 509 during the 3 weeks in April and let some of the 509’s CLRVs be used elsewhere.
I suppose it all depends on Bombardier.
Cheers, Moaz
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Amen Steve, I am all for changing run times to reflect reality. However, if service is going to be truly reliable, there needs to be a allowance for what simply happens during a run. Leaving a few extra minutes in terminal should allow for this.
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Two Points of contention with the Spadina College reconstruction route diversions.
Instead of using Bathurst which is quite far removed from Spadina as the southbound diversion route, why not simply use St George/Beverley (closer) for both the southbound and northbound diversions, given that many of the riders on the 510 (though not nearly all) are UofT students or patrons of Chinatown would this not be a more logical route?
Steve: The TTC appears to be trying to avoid bi-directional bus traffic on the narrow part of St. George north of College. I do agree that it would make more sense to run the service both ways east of Spadina because of the demand in the University campus. If St. George is a problem for buses passing, they could go south via Huron which was used during the diversions last year.
506 Carlton route not having service between Bay and Ossington is frankly unacceptable. That is a highly traveled and destination dense area which a supplemental bus service infrequent as it may need to be due to vehicle shortages would be wisely considered. In the absence of a 506 Bus replacement why not divert some 510 Cars to 505 Dundas to supplement parallel capacity to the 506 or likewise supplement the 94 Wellesley. Those routes are usually quite full now in the peak and with the elimination of 506, the parallel routes will likely bear a larger burden with no additional capacity to cope. Harbord increase may be an issue due to the bus shortage but surely some cars from 510 could be added to Dundas.
Steve: The cars from Spadina are going to 504 King to release buses to run the Spadina shuttle.
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Steve, I thought the TTC wanted to move towards a headway vs. schedule based system. Is this part of the new budget? Is this a pipe dream?
Steve: They have talked about it, but I have not seen anything concrete. What is in the budget is money for more on-street supervision, but that’s a model that cannot possibly scale to all times and locations at a reasonable cost.
Moving to headway-based dispatching also has implications for work rules that will require negotiation with Local 113. The union seems to be receptive according to their advocacy paper last fall, but I suspect there is a lot to work out in the details. See Toronto’s Transit Future at page 50.
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I work near the southwest corner of U of T, so I see the transit demand there regularly. I agree that running a diversion way off on Bathurst is a bad move. But Huron is no easy fix.
The part of Huron south of College, used for last year’s diversion while Spadina/Dundas was rebuilt, is a narrow residential street. It could be that that diversion generated so many complaints that there is resistance to using it again.
Huron south of College is also a one-way street, which reverses direction at Baldwin, roughly two-thirds of the way down to Dundas. I don’t remember what was done for last year’s diversion, except that most of the time the service was discontinous: it turned back somewhere north and south of Dundas. If the southbound bus ran down Huron to Baldwin, then returned to Spadina and headed north, it could have been done within the existing directional rules. But that wouldn’t make sense for the upcoming diversion, and buses can’t turn left from Baldwin to continue south down Spadina because there’s no opening in the streetcar right-of-way at that intersection. So the only option would be a temporary reversal of traffic direction on Huron for two blocks, from Baldwin to Dundas. I can imagine it might be hard to get everyone to agree to that.
North of College, Huron is just as narrow, but also full of local traffic and parking for U of T. Two-way traffic is allowed, which increases congestion; it’s not unusual to see it clog up when a delivery truck comes through. It might be hard to run a bus as frequently as the 510 replacement, even in only one direction, without creating meltdown.
Personally I’d rather see them just run the buses both ways on St George and Beverly, but that would make a mess too. Not only is the road a bit narrow to support such a frequent service, but the odd geometry of the Harbord/St George intersection (where Harbord jogs north to meet Hoskin) makes the east-to-south turn rather tight for a bus.
So I’d like to see a better answer than Bathurst but it’s hard to see what it could be.
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Steve, could you please elaborate on the St. Clair West short turn changes? Where is it moving to, and is it a permanent move until the line extension to York Region opens, or is the change only temporary, or permanent for years to come?
Steve: Assuming that the TTC actually implements the extended short turn this year (it has been shown in the Fleet Plan for years, but never actually implemented due to budget constraints), the short turn point would move north to the centre track between Glencairn and Lawrence West Stations. Glencairn would be the last stop served. The intent is to improve service southbound from Eglinton West Station.
This operation would last until the TYSSE opens to Vaughan at which point the short turn point will move north to Wilson with half of the service continuing to Vaughan. If they match current operations this would be an AM peak only operation, although demand on the outer part of the line may not warrant full service.
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There seems to have been a very large number of transit priority signals on St Clair out of action – I count 13 being fixed from your update. I had assumed that these would all be new ones installed when the ROW was built so one might expect them to have been operational. I thus wonder what % of these – older ones – elsewhere are actually functioning. Any ideas?
Steve: I don’t know the percentage, but it is a common complaint from operators, not to mention from an observant rider (me) just watching signal behaviour. I will be publishing some “before” stats on the operation on St. Clair (including the effect of the more intensive, on-street supervision) soon, and will follow up with “after” data for April 2015 when it is available.
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Again, this needs to be part of the open data, working vs non working transit priority … but I have asked multiple times and not received it … leading me to believe even the TTC doesn’t know if their priority systems are working … there should be a priority guarantee as part of the ridership charter – and that the TTC will resolve issues with priority systems within X days … if Byford is looking for a new thing to chart in his CEO report, this is it … we track elevators, interac machines, the cleanliness of the bathrooms … but apparently not the important things, like transit priority devices.
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So we will actually see east-west green extensions past the Flashing-Don’t-Walk phase at Avenue and Yonge? That’s great! I’ve seen this in action only eastbound at Oakwood.
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It isn’t the TTC’s priority systems, but the Transportation Department’s priority systems and the Transportation Deportment isn’t repairing them fast enough. If only there was a person who had some authority over city government as a whole to direct priorities for the greater good …
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I think this is very telling. It is interesting that they are now working, it would appear that the previous changes may have brought attention to the issue of transit priority here. Perhaps the new mayor can push hard to ensure that these types of fixes happen across the city. If the TTC could get the running time down and converted to headway management, they might actually make an attempt at running service that was consistently spaced.
Steve this is a spot that they should be able to achieve reasonably good headway adherence, and hence much more even loading, do they?
Steve: Stay tuned for an article now in the works reviewing actual behaviour of the St. Clair car.
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The City has just published tender call to look at … TRANSIT PRIORITY!
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I realize this, but the only people it affects are TTC riders … so they should be reporting on it, to those riders … to be honest, nobody cares who owns it … they care if it’s working, and what the SLA is for repairs … if they report on it and over time it appears it’s getting worse then maybe they should own it … and we can have that discussion … but if nobody at the TTC even knows, and can get that information out … it says a lot about what they think of their riders.
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As TTC CEO Andy Byford has said, “these are exciting times at the TTC”. Since the TTC Chair has rejected 60 additional new streetcars, I was wondering which streetcar routes might be abandoned and when. There is no point running mixed (streetcar + bus) service on all of the streetcar lines as the underused tracks are a safety hazard to cyclists and so it would be best to get rid of the lowest ridership streetcar routes and convert to articulated bus service. Steve, which routes are the lowest ridership streetcar routes? Exciting times indeed.
Steve: The Chair did not oppose the purchase of the 60 streetcars, only the need to make a down payment for these cars in 2015 when the current order is so badly behind schedule. In subsequent versions of the budget, this payment has been moved to 2016 to give Bombardier time to get its act together.
Don’t start planning streetcar track free cycling routes too soon.
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I was hoping that one of the changes will be one of the new trains on the Bloor Danforth Line but it’s not. Why does everything new have to be Downtown?
Steve: The last time I looked, the BD line is downtown and a lot of the YUS isn’t. Get over it. The extra capacity and future automated operation of the TR trainsets are needed for the Yonge line.
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Hi Steve,
I checked the TTC’s website to see if there was an update to the “temporarily” suspended 508 Long Branch service and I noticed the service changes/advisory had disappeared from the route’s page. Initially I thought this meant service was already restored but according to the westbound schedule, the evening runs only go between Roncesvalles and Long Branch, essentially turning it into a 501 Queen stub. Since there is no mention of the 508 Long Branch evening service in the March 29th service changes, is there any update as to when this service will be fully restored?
Steve: No. Until the streetcar shortage is relieved, there will be a lot of cutbacks or bus substitutions.
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When I was on line 1 last Friday there were still a number of T1s still on Yonge. There are not enough TRs to run it so why put some on line 2?
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Mr Robert Wightman: When I was on line 1 last Friday there were still a number of T1s still on Yonge. There are not enough TRs to run it so why put some on line 2?
Well, Steve lied. He had said months ago that all of the line 1 had been converted to TRs.
Steve: Steve did not lie. I have not seen a T1 on Yonge since before the new year, and the number that have been delivered should be enough to equip the line. However, work at some locations to which surplus T1s will shift is not yet completed, and it is possible that the odd train cycles out into service now and then just to keep the wheels turning over, so to speak.
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Steve: The Chair did not oppose the purchase of the 60 streetcars, only the need to make a down payment for these cars in 2015 when the current order is so badly behind schedule. In subsequent versions of the budget, this payment has been moved to 2016 to give Bombardier time to get its act together.
Thanks for the clarification, Steve. Would the new TTC chair be open to new streetcar lines once the current streetcar order is completely delivered? If so, what are some potential new streetcar routes in Toronto? I think that the luxurious new streetcars will leave others wanting the same in their neighbourhoods. As much as I hate the streetcars, I like the fact that they are electric (environmentally friendly) and do not use rubber tires (steel wheels environmentally friendly).
Steve: The most likely new routes are in the eastern waterfront. Plans for some of these are already in place (even some track!). All we need now is money to build the infrastructure.
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Yes, Steve, and a way to ensure we do not get the type of conflict that has swirled around the infrastructure in the rest of the city. Also if you are not careful, and build it as a closed ROW you could end up with LRT, you might leave the impression that LRT is good, and create the question as to why only downtown gets the high quality new stuff, and everybody else is stuck in a hole in the ground.
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Looks like 4405 is (finally) being shipped.
Cheers, Moaz
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As someone who rides both lines on a daily basis, the novelty of the TRs wears off pretty quick. They’re nice, but the T1s are still absolutely serviceable and seem reliable (as far as I can see). Most of the customer-facing bells and whistles of the TRs are just novelties.
The two that are meaningful to me are the extra capacity (approximately 10%) and the vastly improved speakers for announcements. The capacity isn’t a big deal since ridership is lower on the BD, which evens that out, but it sure would be nice if the TTC could improve the speakers on the T1s, given that they plan to run them for another decade yet.
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To this should be a relatively minor fix. It should either be the amplification system or the speakers themselves (possibly both) either way should not really require rewiring. As long as it does not require new wires being run, it should be the type of fix that can be applied for only a couple of thousand dollars per car.
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Regarding the previous discussion about the T1 trains on the YUS subway: the reason the T1s have not moved over completely to the BD is because we still need trains equipped with glycol deicing equipment on the YUS, especially with the cold, snowy weather persisting. There are no TR trains equipped with glycol at the moment. Until this is taken care of, there will be a few T1 trains sticking around on the YUS, some in full-day service, especially on snowy days.
Also speaking of subway, Steve, there is an omission in the PDF file detailing the service changes. The service improvements/running time changes for weekday evenings are missing.
Steve: Thanks for catching this. I have updated the pdf.
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@ Gildo: The thought of those rusted shelters at the Spadina – College intersection “Keele-ing Over” makes me chuckle!
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The TTC’s job website for operators (drivers) is still not accepting new applications, at this time. I’m guessing they have to wait for the “official” acceptance of the budget before they do so.
To get back to “normal” operations BF (before Ford), and then proceed to “preferred” operations, should take some time to fill. There are the operators needed to replace operators leaving (retirement) and the operators needed to actually fill an expanded fleet, which will take some time.
How long do you think it will take to get back to “normal”, even before we try to look beyond that?
Steve: Based on comments Andy Byford has made, I think they are chomping at the bit. However, there are enough budget hawks that the TTC can’t take the chance on launching a hiring spree. They may have enough in the pipeline right now to handle usual attrition.
Generally speaking, I suspect you won’t see many (any) of the proposed changes until the September schedules given the lead time after Council approves whatever it might approve in March, and the fact that the Pan Am Games will turn the whole system upside down for July. Although the budget has enough money for more than four months’ operation of many of the proposals, holding off to September would also allow them to save a bit on the improvements.
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Quite interesting what Timur said regarding the T1’s and glycol de-icers. A while ago I had noticed extra equipment attached to the underside of some T1 cars but could never figure out what it was nor why only a few had it. This finally explains it. Thanks, Timur!
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I can’t remember when it was but the Dufferin bus was to have some artics on weekends mainly Saturday so that some Dufferin and Bathurst night buses that run onto 320 Yonge afterwards to utilize artics well for the past five weeks they haven’t had any plus the last I heard they changed Dufferin headway to reflect the use of artics and now they’re apparently changing that because that’s what TTC customer service said even though Dufferin and Bathurst need some artics because of ridership being busy.
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I was in downtown Toronto this afternoon and saw an ALRV on Bathurst. I thought 511 was the third line that they would bus in cold weather so how come it gets artics? I don’t really expect a reply from you because, omniscient as you are, you cannot figure out TTC’s vehicle assignments.
Steve: Was it in revenue service? ALRVs are often on Bathurst on training runs.
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I thought ALRVS always were in regular service on Bathurst.
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