After a long absence courtesy of a shutdown of the King Street branch of the Queen/Don Bridge, streetcars will return to King east from Parliament to the Don on Friday, June 5. This will put the 504 King and 503 Kingston Road Tripper cars back on a route they have not seen since mid-2013.
Construction under the Don Bridge of infrastructure to support the development of West Don Lands undermined the bridge foundations which, as it turns out, are wooden piers. Infrastructure Ontario, the agency in charge of the overall project to build the Atheletes’ Village in the WDL, has claimed that King Street would reopen at several possible dates going back to fall 2014.
This will also mark the first streetcar traffic over the new intersection at Sumach Street that leads south to Cherry Street, the WDL and the Distillery District. That line is expected to begin service in Spring 2016 when new residents start moving in to the neighbourhood. The TTC has not yet announced what route structure will be used to serve Cherry south to the loop at the rail corridor (just north of the old Cherry Street Tower).
A comment left by a reader in another thread adds a few details:
503/504 service will be restored on King St. East between Parliament St. and Queen St. East at 5 AM June 05 2015. The city and its contractor (Aecon) have completed repairs and the TTC has replaced the trolley wire. Test streetcars have already been conducted with good results. The TTC will be posting at stops and on web site of changes, as well as having alternate duties employees at the affected Queen St. East stops to advise customers of the restoration of service. (nfitz will be very happy)
Updated June 5, 2015 With Photos
The century-old housing that provided a backdrop for diverting King cars on Parliament will soon disappear under yet more new condominiums.
Meanwhile, down on King, the landscape has changed a lot since the 504 last plied these rails. The black building is a new condo while the brown one across the street, with a Tim Horton’s that has been busy from the day it opened, is a new Toronto Community Housing building.
At Sumach, the new intersection leads south to track on Cherry that will be activated in Spring 2016 when new condo residents move in to what is now the Pan Am Games Athletes’ Village.
-
- June 4: SB on Parliament at Adelaide
-
- June 4: SB on Parliament at Richmond
-
- June 5: EB on King at River
-
- June 5: WB on King W of River
-
- June 5: EB on King at Sumach
Steve Munro 
I am indeed very happy. Should cut almost 5-minutes off my commute at the height of rush-hour, crawling up and down Parliament, hitting every light, and trying to turn at Queen/Parliament!. It’s been 21 months (early September 2013) since this was in use.
I’m also pleased to see that they’ve had the sense to move the eastbound stop to the new traffic lights at River/King.
Also, I think that Friday will mark the first day that all the regular TTC track is in service since … since … years. Can’t remember when they ripped up Harbourfront … I guess Eastern is out-of-service now – but there’s no regular route over that track.
Now if only they could fix the short-turning 506s – in particular the unreasonable run times, that are nigh impossible to meet – particularly on Sundays …
Steve: As Cherry Street hasn’t had any service on it yet, I suppose we might let you ignore it in your “all regular track” inventory.
LikeLike
The only 2 pieces of trackage not available is the Eastern Ave ladder track and Richmond St. between Victoria St. and York St. (I’m not going to include Adelaide west of Victoria to Charlotte). Luckily neither is revenue trackage. 501 & 506 schedules are to be fixed in September, with the possibility of the elimination of the Humber branch (the goal depends on the CLRV/ALRV displacement by the LFLRVs).
LikeLike
The track on Richmond west of Victoria to York is still out of use; didn’t this track see regular service for the 502 until the City started to install the new watermain, in 2013? (The restoration of the street and track was tendered last year but had to be postponed due to the watermain contractor being suspended by the City and some sort of underground cellar problem at the Bay store. I assume it will be rescheduled for after Pan Am.
LikeLike
Oh, one more streetcar service recommendation, reinstate 507 Lake Shore streetcar line and operate from Long Branch loop to Dundas West station replacing a very section of 501 Queen west of Humber loop that operated from Long branch near Mississauga to Neville Park near Scarborough. That way, residents living along Lake Shore in Etobicoke can connect to a closer subway station. Also, shorten 501 Queen to Humber Loop.
Steve: I proposed this scheme a very long time ago, but the TTC refuses to implement it citing cost and a shortage of cars.
LikeLike
I cannot help but wonder whether this is another case where a moderate amount of increased funding, and viewing the TTC more as a service delivery agency and less as a cost center would help. This would also increase the focus on headway management etc, as opposed to focus on how small a fleet increase can we get away with. I has occurred to me that a change in culture, as much in how the TTC is viewed and what is expected of it, as within the TTC , the TTC could deliver a great deal more, for a very small increase in operating funding and equipment.
However, to make this stick it must be a change in perspective by all city agencies, including the police and bylaw enforcement.
P.S. Oh and of course traffic management.
Steve: For a long time, it was just sheer ornery refusal to admit that joining the Queen and Long Branch cars as one route had been a disaster for service on Lake Shore.
LikeLike
Huy Pham: Oh, one more streetcar service recommendation, reinstate 507 Lake Shore streetcar line and operate from Long Branch loop to Dundas West station replacing a very section of 501 Queen west of Humber loop that operated from Long branch near Mississauga to Neville Park near Scarborough. That way, residents living along Lake Shore in Etobicoke can connect to a closer subway station.
No, thank you – we don’t need any more streetcar routes. There are plenty of buses in Etobicoke to connect them to the following Etobicoke subway stations: Kipling, Islington, Royal York, and Old Mills and if that’s not enough, then perhaps the subway system needs to expand further into Etobicoke. Streetcars will add to gridlock and are not welcome in Etobicoke.
Steve: Oh dear, oh dear. A person claiming to live in Etobicoke who does not know that there have been streetcars on Lake Shore since well before any of us was born. Take your anti-streetcar attitude up to the land of Ford in Ward 2 and leave Lake Shore alone — it needs better streetcar service, something that the TTC has whittled away over the years through service cuts and unreliability.
As for the subway, it already goes to Kipling.
The author left an amendment in a separate comment that I will post here unedited.
Also oe more thing, we don’t want any peecocks from Toronto in our airspace.
Steve: The High Park peacock stayed inside Toronto preferring the more civilized climate of Roncesvalles Village to the wasteland of The Queensway.
The author subsequently corrected “oe” to “one”, but left “peecock” as is.
LikeLike
502 has been running down Queen and up McCaul for as long as I can remember.
Steve: And your point is?
Though I guess full service still won’t have resumed with the indefinite 508 suspension.
Steve: The 508 is supposedly suspended only until there are enough cars to operate it. However, these may be sacrificed to improving 501 Queen west of Humber. We shall see.
506 improving in September. I’ve been hearing that it would be improved in the board after next for at least 3 boards now … I’ll believe it when I see it!
Steve: Oh you cynic you.
LikeLike
Etobicoke Resident, the TTC really should reinstate route # 507 from Long Branch to Dundas West subway. That way, it would provide a reliable connection from south Humber River area and apartments to the subway.
Steve: Just to clarify, the 507 Long Branch never ran to Dundas West. It only ran between Long Branch and Humber, with a peak period extension downtown to Queen and Church. To say “reinstate” it to Dundas West implies it was there once, which it wasn’t.
LikeLike
DavidC commented that he thought that Richmond was used for 502 route.
If they were to split 501, would they even need 508 any more? Heck do they need it now. Though if they were to split it, perhaps the Long Branch would simply be a Long Branch to Roncesvalles service … and would use 508 rollsigns.
Cynic? In an article discussing the King Bridge Repairs, that started on September 9, 2013 and were to end in November 2013? 🙂
LikeLike
I think the 507 should come back when there’s a DRL station on Queen West somewhere to terminate at. The Dundas West station idea is alright, but the streetcar congestion I see there would make it difficult to add another line unless a new platform was built. Good to see all our main streetcar routes back to normal though! Hopefully we’ll start seeing some new ones in the near future too.
Steve: For clarity: my original proposal for the 507 would take it to Dundas West off-peak, downtown at peak (like the 508 Lake Shore). This was put forward when half of the King Service routinely sjort-turned at Ronces or further east and swarms of streetcars laying over at Dundas West were unknown. That said, I don’t think a 507 every 10 minutes is going to cause a huge problem beyond getting delayed by all the 504s that now have too much running time.
LikeLike
Please don’t dump any more crazy transit ideas on Ward 2. There’s enough people and councillors throwing piles of subwayini and tomato P3-sauce on maps and claiming they’ve fixed everying without raising taxes.
All I want is reliable, frequent service on all routes, although the 96 Wilson and 73 Royal York would be nice. It’s a shame Ford and his ilk sully a nice part of Toronto with their backwards idealogies.
LikeLike
I rode the 504 across the bridge this morning! It was wonderful! And tonight is the bridge lighting!!! Maybe I’m too enthusiastic?!?!?
Oh wait, sorry…. for some crazy reason I hadn’t realized this article was about the Lakeshore streetcar service. Apologies.
I wonder if the peacock will take the 501 to the bridge lighting?
LikeLike
In your pictures today on Parliament, you must have just missed the cement truck rolling over.
Steve: Er … check the date … the Parliament shots were taken yesterday, the last day of the diversion.
Nice to see that it didn’t create transit chaos today! Heading east into downtown was a pleasure this morning … no time at all from River to Sherbourne! It was almost mind-bending – saves at least 5 minutes in rush hour not having to cross Richmond and Adelaide.
LikeLike
Ah, I assumed that you shot them all today – hadn’t noticed dates – just the pictures of streetcars on King. (Streetcars will still be a regular sight on Parliament with the frequent Parliament/Dundas/Broadview short-turns in both directions.)
Parliament closed for about 4 hours today – perhaps coinciding with your visit to King.
Steve: Nope, the rollover took place after I left.
LikeLike