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Holes in the Road

Service on 501 Queen, 504 King, 29/929 Dufferin and 503 Kingston Road has been affected by two major water/sewer repairs both of which struck over the weekend of January 21-22, 2023.

Updated: The south end loop for the 29 Dufferin local service has been extended into Exhibition Place.

Updated: 501 Queen streetcars are now looping via Sunnyside Loop rather than around Roncesvalles Carhouse.

The intersection of King & University is closed due to a water main break which both undermined the road and flooded St. Andrew Station. The station was closed for a time, but reopened on the afternoon of January 22. The station is not currently accessible due to water damage of escalators and the elevator between the platform and concourse levels.

Dufferin is blocked north of Springhurst (the north side of Dufferin Gate Loop) due to a sewer failure. This affects the 29/929 Dufferin bus routes as well as the 501 Queen streetcar which has been using Dufferin Loop as a western terminus during the King-Queen-Queensway-Roncesvalles project.

501 Queen

The Queen car has been rerouted west to Sunnyside Loop Roncesvalles where it loops using the carhouse runaround track. Sunnyside Loop is not yet available as a terminus. (Updated Jan. 25/23)

29/929 Dufferin

The Dufferin bus services are making a long loop around Liberty Village instead of running south to Dufferin Loop.

Update: This loop has been revised for the 29 service to include Exhibition Place. Also, although the 929 express service is shown as operating east to Strachan, some buses make a shorter loop and turn south from King closer to Dufferin.

504 King

The King streetcars and buses are operating on a much-modified route due to the closure at University Avenue.

  • 504A cars would normally operate between Dufferin Loop and Distillery Loop. They are running between Broadview Station and Distillery Loop
  • 504B cars would normally operate between Exhibition Loop and Broadview Station Loop. They are running between Broadview Station and Church Street looping as shown below.
  • 504C buses are in theory providing service to River. However, many of these never get east of Bathurst Street (their normal terminus) due to congestion over the diversion route. Parallel service through the construction zone operates eastbound via Adelaide and westbound via Wellington as shown below, and these buses terminate at River Street.

Information in vehicle tracking/prediction apps is rather scrambled because many vehicles are not where they are supposed to be on the schedule, and extra buses operating on the 504C are not tracked at all.

503 Kingston Road

The 503 Kingston Road streetcars are currently operating as buses and their normal loop downtown would be via York, Richmond and University. This has been changed to run via York, Queen and Bay.

There are no firm dates for reopening the streets and resuming normal service at either location.

Apologies for the soft images here. This is what the TTC provides on its site.

14 thoughts on “Holes in the Road”

  1. This would never be an issue for a swan boat. In fact, it would be to the swan’s advantage. When’s the next swan?….

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  2. In a future world – does the TTC need more non-revenue trackage to be able to detour streetcars?

    I know a lot of streets don’t work due to geography, but there must be some that would act as contenders to get around the parts of the network that exist – but wind up blocked?

    (I also think of the entire east of Broadview area – which results in huge detours.)

    Maybe it’s just fantasy talk.

    Steve: It has been hard enough getting them to add missing curves at intersections, even when they are approved and then “forgotten”. Entirely new track would be a big challenge unless it had service.

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  3. Beyond the obviously terrible state of Toronto’s road infrastructure (It’s now so bad it’s getting comment in the international press) the least the TTC could/should do is *Post information on stops not in service, or altered service so that passengers know where to board*!

    I feel badly for the drivers having to take the brunt of disgruntled (rightly so!) passengers not knowing which bus/streetcar is stopping where and headed in which direction?

    Surely the TTC has the ability to scrawl instructions on a cardboard notice to attach to stops affected? This has been the case at the King/Queen/Roncesvalles/whatever for *half a year!* The stops under the Parkside Dr/Queensway bridge have absolutely no signage on them. Here’s a clue: One bus route goes one way, another goes the other.

    Riddle me this TTC: Which one goes where? And why? You’ve had six months to figure it out.

    Maybe not…

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  4. I heard about this on CBC RadioOne. I don’t think there was any reference to how screwed up this is making transit only delays for drivers. Some poor sap who said he’d have 2 more hours in his day if he didn’t have to commute ( he was driving).

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  5. They wouldn’t need to use the yard track for a turnaround had they not been dragging their feet on stringing overhead through Sunnyside loop for the past 10 years.

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  6. I heard about this on CBC Radio One yesterday but only about delays to drivers. Nothing about how much this is messing up transit.

    I’m a little surprised w/ the amount of development there is still a cast iron pipe from 1882 operational, 140 yrs & it’s never been a priority?

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  8. Hi Steve: Testing at Sunnyside was conducted today. All went well. There’s no reason it shouldn’t open soon. Hopefully this week.

    Thx

    J

    Steve: Thanks for the update. When I was there last week it was close to finished.

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  9. Thanks for the update Steve. I use the 29/929 Dufferin regularly and was wondering what the route adjustment would be. Glad I didn’t have to visit and search the TTC site.

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  10. A friend inside TTC tells me the 29/929 diversion was considerably shortened on Tuesday (King-Fraser-Liberty) but it had not rolled out to all operators at 4pm – I saw some buses continuing to Strachan, some turning at Fraser. (Also variation in whether the vehicles were in service for the diversion too!) I won’t be back in the area until Thursday but will be interested to see how consistent things are by then.

    Steve: Watching NextBus, I can see 929 Dufferin express buses looping south via Fraser and other streets, but some do go east to Strachan. Also, the 29 local service has been extended into Exhibition Place from Strachan Avenue. The post is updated with the new maps taken from the TTC website.

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  11. At least we get Queen streetcars through Parkdale without having to wait weeks for a board adjustment out of this mess?

    King car feels like it’s in a terminal spin in the west end. 504C is a disaster with the loop through Colborne Lodge and Parkside, now this extension downtown trying to get through Adelaide… Latest KQQR project update has streetcar service on Roncesvalles resuming in May – just in time for the Close to Shaw rebuild, I’m guessing. The way it’s going, not gonna have any choice riders left by the end of the year.

    And count me in among those surprised there still was a 140 year old pipe under King and University. It would have been 80 years old when University subway was being built, to say nothing of all the tower construction since then. At least the property taxes were low?

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  13. Hi Steve, thank you for your blog. I find better and more useful information about transit from you than anywhere else. Do you know how this affects 501L? I live by Queen and Dufferin facing Dufferin and the 501L uses Dufferin Street as a holding hub. It’s supposed to be temporary but we have no word on when this will end. With the Queen car opening west to Sunnyside, I thought this would end the need for temporary holding on Dufferin. But we still see them outside.

    Steve: There is no convenient place for the 501L to turn around at Sunnyside, and it remains scheduled to Dufferin. Full steetcar service is supposed to return west to Long Branch in July. Whether that’s early or late July remains to be seen.

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  14. Update: the work at Dufferin and Springhurst has been extended until March 10 (from Google). This was originally supposed to be finished February 23. Originally there was a temporary stop on Dufferin for the 29/929 just north of Liberty but this has been removed.

    Steve: Thanks for the info. It certainly didn’t look nearly finished the last time I was there.

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