Day: November 14, 2021

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King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles Moves to Phase 2

After a long delay thanks to construction issues and utilities that were not located where they were expected to be, the King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles project has moved into its second phase over three months later than planned.

This affects routes 501 Queen and 504 King.

The 501 Queen bus service was formerly diverted via Dufferin and King to Roncesvalles. It now operates both ways via Queen Street following the normal streetcar route in the west end. Separate diversions remain in place elsewhere on the route for track work east of Bathurst, and for overhead work in the east end.

The 504 King shuttle bus had been operating in two sections. One ran on Roncesvalles Avenue between Dundas West Station and Roncesvalles Carhouse. The other ran from the eastern entrance of the Exhibition via Strachan to King, and then over a large counterclockwise loop formed by Dufferin, Queen, Triller and King.

The 504 bus now operates between Dundas West Station and the Exhibition as one route with the two former segments now connected at Queen and Roncesvalles. Westbound buses continue to operate via Dufferin and Queen, while eastbound buses run via Queen, Triller and King as shown below.

Note that this arrangement means that there are no westbound buses on King west of Dufferin, just as there have been no eastbound buses on Queen since this project began. Queen Street now has two-way service.

At the time I write this (7:00 pm, November 14), the TTC has not updated its website to reflect the new routings.

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Service Reliability on 94 Wellesley: September 2021

This article continues a series reviewing service quality on some of the TTC’s shorter routes.

Apologies to my regular readers who must be saying “Oh No! Not More Charts!” My intent here has been to show that poor service quality affects many routes and time periods, and occurs even on relatively simple shorter routes in the network.

When the TTC’s IT systems all come back online, I plan to continue with another (smaller) group of short routes: 12 Kingston Road, 62 Mortimer, 64 Main, 87 Cosburn, 92 Woodbine South, 121 Esplanade/River and 124 Sunnybrook. Later in the year I will return to major routes including some I have not reviewed recently or at all including: 7 Bathurst, 41/941 Keele, 43/943 Kennedy, 68/968 Warden, 89/989 Weston and 95/995 York Mills.

Overview

Route 94 Wellesley operates with both a short and long version:

  • The 94A operates over the full route between Castle Frank and Ossington Stations.
  • The 94B operates on the eastern half of the route between Castle Frank and Wellesley Stations except during evening periods on all days.

September 5 brought new schedules and improved service during many time periods.

When there are two branches, they have a common headway and are supposed to be blended. During certain periods, buses are scheduled to alternate between the branches (any time in the table above where there are “half buses” allocated to a branch). This makes both services vulnerable to disruption when there is a missing bus, or a delay/interruption on the western branch throws buses there off schedule.

All of the problems we have seen on other routes are present on 94 Wellesley including:

  • Buses missing from the scheduled service leaving gaps.
  • Traffic congestion that is sometimes predictable, but sometimes much worse than usual, with schedules that cannot accommodate the disruption.
  • Headways that are dispersed widely beyond the target range implied by the TTC’s Service Standards.
  • Buses running in pairs (or worse) for extended periods on a route that does not have many vehicles overall.
  • Irregular headways caused by two services that are scheduled to blend, but which do not do so reliably at many times.
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