The TTC will make several changes to its services on November 24, 2019. These fall into three main groups:
- Rerouting of Downtown Premium Express routes downtown (See Downtown Premium Express Routes Move To King Street for details)
- End of construction projects in several locations
- Schedule changes to improve route reliability
Construction Projects Ending
The end of work on many bus route will trigger removal of extra running time, some headway adjustments and a return to normal routings:
- On Midland between Danforth Road and Lawrence: Routes 20 Cliffside and 57 Midland
- On Brimley between Progress and Huntingwood: Route 21 Brimley
- On Danforth Road between St. Clair and Danforth Avenue: Route 113 Danforth
- On Huntingwood: Route 169 Huntingwood
- On Pape north of Danforth: Routes 25 Don Mills, 81 Thorncliffe Park, 925 Don Mills Express
- At Jane Station: Routes 26 Dupont, 35 Jane, 55 Warren Park, 935 Jane Express
- At Queen & Kingston Road: Routes 501 Queen, 503 Kingston Road, 22 Coxwell, 322 Coxwell Night
- On Coxwell north of Gerrard: Routes 22 Coxwell, 322 Coxwell Night, 324 Victoria Park Night
The consolidation of 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Road will continue on a trial basis.
Service Reliability
Service reliability improvements continue to be implemented across the network. Typically these changes involve making running and recovery times longer and stretching headways without adding vehicles. The result is that service worsens for riders, especially considering the TTC’s lacklustre headway management across its bus network. Affected routes with this round of changes are:
- 22 Coxwell
- 25 Don Mills and 925 Don Mills Express
- 56 Leaside
- 60 Steeles West
- 68 Warden
- 121 Fort York-Esplanade
- 125 Drewry
121 Fort York-Esplanade is particularly hard hit in the afternoon peak when its headway changes from 15 to 26 minute and round trip times, including recovery provisions, rise from 75 to 130 minutes with no additional vehicles. Low ridership in this route is used to justify wider headways, but changes on this scale will only accelerate the problem.
Seasonal Changes
Extra service will be provided in the early evening to serve the Distillery District Christmas Market:
- Service on 65 Parliament will be doubled (4 buses instead of 2)
- Two extra cars on 504 King will operate between Spadina and Distillery Loop
- One extra bus on 121 Fort York-Esplanade will operate between Union Station and the Distillery District
A shuttle service will operate between Meadowvale Loop and the Zoo on Thursday through Sunday evenings to serve events at the Zoo. This will continue to April 2020.
CLRV Retirement (Dates corrected)
To celebrate the retirement of the CLRV fleet, six extras will operate on weekend afternoons on 501 Queen between Sunnyside Loop and Woodbine Loop between Sunday, November 24 and Saturday, December 21. Special CLRV service is planned for Sunday, December 29, but the details have not been released yet.
CLRV peak period trippers have been removed from 506 Carlton as the proportion of new cars on the route grows.
511 Bathurst remains officially a CLRV route, but new cars will appear there as available.
Planned Overcrowding
The TTC continues to add periods of service on routes when loads will exceed the Service Standards. This is not a question of a shortage of buses (the TTC has a spare ratio of better than 20%), but of budget constraints that are also at the root of “reliability” changes that involve widening headways.
Toronto talks a good line about the importance of transit, but strangles its ability to serve more riders through limits to operating subsidies.
A table showing the cumulative effect of overcrowding is included with the list of service changes linked below.
The Details
The file linked below contains the detailed changes for November including a few miscellaneous updates not listed above.
Steve Munro 
What’s with the dashed line along Adelaide? When you click it, the details say ‘Track Replacement (Tangent Track)” between Charlotte and Bay?
No way they are planning to replace the track there…. even though I’m pretty sure most people would rather have it as a secondary route to go east through downtown…
Granted – I don’t live in the city anymore… so perhaps I’m just way in the woods about something that’s happening now!
Steve: Although I believe that originally this was to be a removal, there is a case made by some at the TTC for restitution of this trackage as a bypass for events on King, at least eastbound. I do not know the status of this proposal.
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Steve, what date is the next schedule change?
Steve: January 5, 2020, although there will be adjusted schedules over the Christmas and New Year’s periods to allow for lighter demand as usual. I will be publishing a list of these changes soon.
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This week – both yesterday and today – the “501 Queen” and “508 Lakeshore” routes have been operating with buses instead of streetcars, and there are about 80 buses deployed from the busiest routes. People living along these routes and commuting to and from the downtown are enduring a slower, bumpier, and especially more crowded ride – as buses tend to jerk in traffic and have less seating capacity (don’t carry as many passengers). The streetcars on these routes have sustained damage and are in the garage for repair, and track is being inspected to determine where the trouble spots are located.
Will there be some track work on Queen Street during the new year, if it’s track that caused the damage to 25 streetcars on the “501 Queen” and “508 Lakeshore” routes?
Steve: There is work planned from Roncesvalles to Parkside where the track and roadbed are in bad shape, but it has not been confirmed where exactly the damage to streetcars was taking place.
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On Sunday, December 29, 2019, the “511 Bathurst” route will switch to the new low-floor articulated Flexity Outlooks. The rest of them will be delivered by this date.
By year’s end, the last of the older streetcars – the CLRVs – will be retired and these will be joining the last of the their double-length articulated cousins – the ALRVs – which were retired this past September. These streetcars include CLRV number 4178, which was painted rainbow colours, and has rainbow-coloured seats.
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