September 21, 2019 – Steve Munro

The junction at Kingston Road and Queen, including Woodbine Loop, is getting a total rebuild in September 2019. The main part of the track work on Queen will be completed in a few weeks, but other works will stretch into November. Buses now diverting around the construction zone are expected to return to standard routings before streetcar service resumes on November 24, 2019.

For those unfamiliar with the intersection, it is unusual in two respects. The roads involved cross at an angle rather than at 90 degrees, and there are separate tracks for through streetcars headed to Neville Loop and for those turning northeast onto Kingston Road.

As part of this project, the geometry of the intersection is changing slightly.

The eastbound safety island for users of the 502/503 Kingston Road services and the 22A Coxwell bus will be widened to meet standards for accessibility. This requires that the space occupied by the three-track section is widened to make room for the expanded island.
The north sidewalk of Queen Street will be widened by taking space from the existing very generous westbound curb lane.

Most of the special work, including two rarely-used curves (west on Queen to northeast on Kingston Road, west on Kingston Road into Woodbine Loop) will be retained. Only the switch within Woodbine Loop that once led to a tail track on which no car would fit since the retirement of PCCs will be removed.

All of the overhead has been taken down for replacement with new pantograph-friendly hardware.

This post will be updated periodically as work progresses.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Friday, September 20, 2019

Friday, September 27, 2019

The TTC, bless their hearts, has restored the curves westbound from Kingston Road into Woodbine Loop, and westbound from Queen to eastbound on Kingston Road. These were last used in revenue service in 1933 by a peak period Kingston Road shuttle service.

Considering how often the TTC has missed the opportunity to add curves the system actually needs, claiming either that they “forgot” or that it would be “too expensive”, this is one of the odder examples of TTC “planning” in recent memory.