The TTC has posted several notices on its website detailing recent and planned service changes on several streetcar routes.
Updated November 21, 2021: Modified to pick up new and replacement pages on the TTC’s website.
King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles Project
The TTC’s KQQR page has been updated to reflect the new routings implemented over the November 13-14 weekend.
With the south leg of the intersection now closed and Queen Street open for east-west traffic, the 501/301 Queen bus service now operates straight along Queen Street.
The 504/304 King bus service diverts westbound via Dufferin and Queen as it has done for many months, but now runs through to Dundas West Station. The eastbound service from Dundas West heads east on Queen to Triller and south to King.
This map does not show the diversion implemented for the track work at Queen and Shaw Streets that requires the 501/301 services to divert both ways via Strachan, King and Dufferin. That project also requires a diversion of 63 Ossington via Queen, Dufferin and King.
There is also a TTC page under their Construction Notices (as opposed to Service Advisories) for the KQQR project. This page is extremely out of date.
Queen East Overhead Conversion for Pantographs
The 501 Queen Streetcar currently operates as far east as Russell Carhouse (east of Greenwood) during overhead upgrades on the east end of the route. The 503 Kingston Road car continues to operate over its full route to Bingham Loop. A 501N shuttle provides service between Leslie Street and Neville Loop.
On November 21, this arrangement will change, and the 501 Queen cars will be extended to Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road. The 501N shuttle bus will loop via Eastern and Coxwell Avenues. The 503 service will remain as is.
This change will remain until January 2, 2022 when streetcar service to Neville Loop should be restored.
Other 501 Queen Diversions
Two diversions are in progress for the ongoing track replacement project on the central part of the Queen route:
- 501 buses divert between Bathurst and Spadina via the Richmond/Adelaide pair.
- 501 buses divert between Dufferin and Strachan via King during track replacement at Shaw & Queen.
501 streetcar service will be restored to Queen Street between Neville Loop and Wolseley Loop (at Bathurst) on January 2, 2022.
The map for the diversions is in this notice. That page is now partly out of date due to the extension of the 501 streetcars to Woodbine Loop on November 21, 2021.
506/306 Carlton / 505 Dundas Changes for Sewer Work on Coxwell Avenue
From November 21 until mid-February 2022, the Carlton streetcars will turn back at Broadview via Broadview, Dundas and Parliament. This loop is currently used by the 505 Dundas car due to water main work on Broadview north of Gerrard.
The 505 Dundas service will be diverted and extended to Woodbine Loop via Broadview and Queen Street while the Carlton car is looping at Broadview.
Steve Munro 
Hi Steve,
It looks like the upcoming service changes have been posted on the TTC’s website. Looking forward to your analysis.
I wonder if the TTC will release figures as to how many Ops will be suspended and terminated due to the vaccine mandate.
Steve: My post is up. I am holding off on analysis because many of the details are not yet clear, but I am not impressed on how this was done with no press release, no responsible politician standing up to take the heat for it. Did they even know it was coming? Something like this does not happen overnight.
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The top map is interesting. It shows Dundas St. E as south of Bloor and north of Carlton/Gerrard. TTC – “Accuracy R Us!”
Steve: Oh dear. There are two “Dundas Streets” on that map.
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Serious question: has there been complete service on all routes (501 – 512) at the same time *this century*? I honestly cannot recollect a time when this was the case, maybe mid-1990s?
Steve: March 2012 as an example.
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I really think the TTC’s communication strategy need to be fixed.
From last week, all the buses heading to Islington Station started to drop-off customers on the streetside instead of the bus-bay. I was really curious because there were no such announcements about that neither at the station nor on the TTC website.
And apparently, I was able to find the information on reddit. YES, Reddit.
How is it possible that I can find an information on reddit but not on the TTC website?
Steve: The new TTC website has many problems, and they have been compounded by the IT ransomware outage that affected their email system, among others. That said, they have a history of failing to tell people about service changes, or of publishing the info in multiple places but not linking them together.
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Is McNicoll the only division that is doing the 506 replacement buses Steve?
Steve: I have not seen the division allocations for the replacements yet.
Updated: Yes. The 506 replacement buses will all come from McNicoll Garage.
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Presumably the pan-capable overhead will be complete to Woodbine loop by November 21 so the redirected 505 doesn’t run into an “oops” situation like it did when the Flexity’s were introduced to Dundas.
Steve: That’s the intent.
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I am amazed (ok, not really) that the TTC have STILL not finished the overhead. At one time the (once) new streetcars after #60 (?) were to come without poles. The delay can hardly be blamed on covid, useful excuse though it is.
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On the Queen track project they’ve now begun the demolition between Bathurst and Manning so they are no longer running between Strachan and Bathurst on Queen since at least last night. Since they haven’t wrapped up the work east of Bathurst there’s no current 501 service running on Queen Street from Dufferin to Spadina. Haven’t seen any announcement, but at this point I would have been surprised if I was able to find any communication from the TTC on this.
I believe they are moving up the schedule on the track work in response to area business complaints that the construction will impact their holiday shopping season. A little bit of good news in all this mess.
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Hi Steve, great site. I’m wondering what the reason is for the 506 College route change? it looks like the shuttle bus is covering the regular route of the streetcar east of Broadview. Is it something to do with overhead wires?
Steve: No. The city is repairing a sewer on Coxwell.
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Some eastbound 501 cars are heading straight east on King rather than diverting along Parliament. I don’t know if these are scheduled or if they are from operator initiative.
Most 501 cars are running with pole but I did spot the odd one running with pan.
Steve: I believe that the overhead is now pan friendly as far as Woodbine Loop, except for wire within Russell Carhouse.
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501 streetcar service has been restored to Neville Park in recent days. Officially on the TTC web site, the diversion is supposed to be via Parliament in both directions but many operators use King for the eastbound diversion and avoid Parliament entirely but not in any predictable way.
The DVP-favoured timings at Richmond and Adelaide, and the useless/oblivious programmed timings at Queen turns the diversion via Parliament into an epic disaster. Westbound 501 cars don’t get an advanced green which causes issues, and because the overwhelming majority of green time during certain periods is given to Queen, this causes huge backups on northbound Parliament. It often takes eastbound 501 cars several long cycles to get to the intersection and to clear the turn.
This diversion has been ongoing forever and nothing has been done to fix or improve the situation. This is a good reason for no one to have any confidence in any mitigation efforts for upcoming downtown construction.
Also what should be to no one’s surprise, the west to north switch at Queen and Broadview has been out of order for at least a week now.
Steve: Thanks for this. I was planning to write about it as well as an update on what’s going on in the west end after a visit sometime this weekend.
All of Toronto’s fine talk about transit priority fall apart under conditions like this when it is clear that TTC takes second place and makes no noise at all about it. Too busy being collegial with their friends at the City. The diversion to King Street should have finished once the track was completed to McCaul Loop, especially now that cars are going to Neville but without enough travel time in their schedules. The TTC claimed that they were waiting on overhead conversion. How the hell long does it take to finish a handful of span wires that needed new hangers?
Couple this with the ever changing messages about timing of work on the track between downtown and Dovercort (Fennings officially), and diversions that appeared out of nowhere conflicting with official TTC info on their website and from @ttchelps.
Now the 501B buses are coming up to Broadview Station, but riders (and maybe operators) don’t seem to know about this and use the service to relieve overcrowded 504/505 buses.
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