The TTC and City of Toronto have announced that Roncesvalles Avenue will reopen to traffic including the 504C King bus with the beginning of service on Tuesday, March 14.
Work is still in progress to adapt the passenger islands on Roncesvalles for the Flexity ramps, but traffic will swerve around work as it proceeds. Why this wasn’t done sometime in past months is one of those mysteries of construction staging.
Streetcar service on the 504 to Dundas West Station will resume in May, although an exact date has not been announced.
Meanwhile, the 504A Distillery and 504B Broadview Station services will turn back at Bathurst using Exhibition and Wolseley Loops respectively, although many cars in fact only get as far as Spadina and loop back via Charlotte Street. The 504C King bus loops via Church, Wellington and York.
Coming in May will be the removal of streetcar service on Broadview north of Gerrard for track construction, and for the redesign of Broadview Station Loop so that both the King and Dundas platforms will be able to hold two cars at once. Currently there is room for only one car on the Dundas platform.
Streetcar service on the west end of the Queen route beyond Sunnyside Loop is expected to resume in the summer, but again there is no specific date announced for this.
Steve Munro 
On a somewhat related observation, it was great to notice “Roncesvailles” as the destination for a 501 car this past week.
On construction staging, it is unbelievable that fixing the platforms on Roncesvailles would not have been carried out simultaneously with other work, especially when the other work took much longer than expected. The TTC needs to make decisions to first and foremost to deliver a good product to the rider, which includes shortening down time as much as possible.
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All the better to undermine streetcar service. Doing the required work at the same time and in a timely manner would benefit the transit user, and public transit is not the City of Toronto’s priority.
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Any details/plans available for Broadview Stn. reconfiguration?
Steve: Not yet.
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How long will streetcars not run from Gerrard to Broadview station “starting in May”.
Steve: Until mid-fall given that the Broadview Station project likely starts in September. Who knows how long the TTC will stretch it out.
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Is there a design for the Broadview Station Loop that has been made public?
Steve: No.
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I was just wondering on exactly this walking down from Dundas West to the High Park Library and back just a few hours ago.
Restoring service to Roncy will really help a lot of businesses there, and help a lot of the aging population in the area. I guess stinky rattling buses will be better than nothing until the Summer Theory is realized for the streetcars.
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OK, but as of 5pm on March 13th, the final layer of asphalt was still not on. They were brushing mud from the concrete for centre lanes. Anyone hoping to park on the outer lanes will be in for bumps, and there was a constellation of pylons around a raised drain hole near the Grafton intersection.
Not sure why the rush to reopen tomorrow – feels like they could easily have done Thursday or Friday with final asphalt – unless they need positive temperatures for the final asphalt? Or they got a verdict from up high to reopen in first half of March, and they’ll finish up paving the outer lanes whenever?
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And yes, regarding the platforms – like many other constructions projects, I’m starting to get the sense that the City and the TTC are quite a bit more interested in dishing out construction contracts than in operating transit service. (See also: building vs plowing bike tracks)
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Any idea on when Dufferin Loop might reopen? I was down there the other day and it looked like sewer work had wrapped as the underground access looked complete and appeared to just need back filling. One thing that concerned me, though I didn’t get a good enough look to judge this well, the sewer access seems to be directly in the path of what will one day be the southbound track when the Dufferin Bridge. Do you know if the location of the tracks will be moved for the bridge?
I’m also curious about what the current track restoration as during excavation they went in directly at the loop-the-loop NB switch at Springhurst. I wonder if it could have been damaged and whether it will be reinstalled now or if they’ll just install tangent and restore that switch in the eventual rebuild?
Steve: It is not clear when/if the link to Dufferin from Exhibition Loop will be built because work on that project is on hold pending resolution of conflicts with the Ontario Line. As for the loop itself, I await the details of the March service changes to see what plans are for the 504 service during overhead upgrades planned east from Bathurst. The description on the TTC’s service changes site does not give enough info, and I expect the detailed service change memo to come out soon.
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I heard that there’s another water main issue on the Queensway. Thats why they haven’t laid the last piece of track down.
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In the amount of time it took to re-build this one on surface streetcar intersection in Toronto, people in some Chinese cities have built entire subway networks with multiple state of the art underground lines. This shows just how “competent” Canada is compared to China as well as other Asian countries.
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After walking or poor bus service on Roncesvalles for years hopefully 505 & 506 returning to the yard on Roncesvalles south bound towards Queen always go out of service for the the 5 stops from:
Howard Park
Grenidier
High Park Blvd
Garden Ave
Marion St
505 and 506 Streetcars for five stops on line 504 heading southbound on Roncesvalles to the maintenance yard are always out of service. Why?
Steve: This is a long-standing issue with the TTC. Years ago, there was a policy to run in service, but then it was changed at least for buses so that they could run express to their garage, often at routes that did not follow their usual path. Streetcars obviously have to follow the tracks, and my understanding is that they are supposed to run in service, but often don’t because operators prefer a private trip back to the carhouse without having to explain to people that, no, we’re not going to Neville, or wherever. Seasoned riders use the carhouse trips, but they are less and less available. I will chase this issue with TTC to see what the official policy is these days.
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Cars entering into service will often be signed NOT IN SERVICE or PRE-SERVICED (whatever that means) and not pick up passengers. I’ve only ever seen this after Rick Leary became the CEO.
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Some streetcars do stay in service for carhouse trips. Even for the 512S Short turn to Leslie. I see them on Queen at 11pm. I can’t say for other times, maybe it’s too busy and them don’t want to explain to riders. I also believe the 509 Harbourfront just deadheads.
Steve: It seems to be up to individual operators.
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