Updated January 23, 2017 at 1:00 pm: The 95 York Mills restructuring was omitted in error by me in the original version of this post and the linked spreadsheet. This has been corrected.
The February 2017 schedules bring a relatively small set of changes to TTC operations.
Among them are a number of route restructurings where service is shuffled between the various local and express, where it exists, branches.
- 199 Finch Rocket will see:
- more frequent AM peak service on the 199B STC to York University branch, offset by reductions on the other two branches;
- more frequent midday service on the 199B offset by reduced service on the 199A to Finch Station;
- slightly more frequent PM peak service on the 199A and 199B services offset by a reduction in service on the 199C to Morningside Heights.
- 191 Highway 27 Rocket will see improved peak service on the 191C branch to Humber College.
- 72 Pape’s peak period short turn service 72A to Eastern Avenue extended to become 72C to Commissioners with headway widenings to compensate on both the 72B Union Station and (now) 72C short turn.
- 24 Victoria Park will see peak period improvement in the 24B Consumers Road branch offset by a slight reduction in 24A to Steeles.
- 95 York Mills will see better express service to UTSC in the PM peak offset by a reduction on the local branches.
Other significant route changes include:
- 511 Bathurst bus operation will be changed so that on weekday peaks and midday half of the service will short turn at King Street. This will reduce the cost of operating the replacement bus service on the streetcar route, and will also reduce the peak bus requirement.
- 52 Lawrence West will be modified so that the 52F service to Royal York loops via Braecrest and returns east on The Westway rather than running north on Royal York and then east on Dixon Road. Schedules at various times will be modified to better reflect actual operating conditions. There will be a slight decrease in PM peak service levels on all branches, with a small increase in the early evenings weekdays.
Service improvements (beyond those involved in the items above):
- 108 Downsview (Midday weekdays)
- Various school trips have been rescheduled to better match dismissal times for students
Service trims on various routes continue to reduce vehicle requirements and costs for 2017:
- 511 Bathurst (as noted above)
- 504 King (PM peak)
- 505 Dundas (Midday weekdays)
- 26 Dupont (PM peak)
- 15 Evans (PM peak)
- 46 Martin Grove (PM peak)
- 37 Islington (Late Sunday evening 37C service on Steeles to Kipling cut back as 37B to Islington)
- Some operational changes have been made to hook up runs on various routes and address situations where a bus runs into a garage at roughly the same time as another one is scheduled to leave.
There is no announced date for the return of streetcars to 511 Bathurst. This depends on the timing of new streetcar deliveries from Bombardier and the condition of the remaining streetcar fleet. Although some old cars are in the shops for major rehabilitation, many more remain on the street with declining reliability.
Once 509 Harbourfront and 514 Cherry are fully equipped with new cars, the next route to be changed over will be 505 Dundas and then 511 Bathurst. If Bombardier deliveries continue at the late 2016 rate and do not ramp up until April 2017 (as planned), the conversion of 505 Dundas will not start until sometime in the second quarter.
Details are in the linked spreadsheet: