Updated April 11, 2023 at 8:45pm: The TTC’s map of diversions for the 501 Queen car effective May 1 has been added to this article.
Updated April 21, 2023 at 11:20am: The 501 diversion map has been replaced with a higher resolution version.
During the City’s 2023 budget discussions, TTC staff offered to make information about the effect of budget cuts on service public. However, an unseen hand either at the TTC or City prevented this from happening before the budget was approved. In time, a list of changes for March 26, 2023 appeared on the TTC Board’s February 28 agenda, but there is no comparable briefing note for the May 7 changes on their April 13 agenda. The Board and City Council are still in the dark on the effects of service policies they blindly adopted with the budget.
Recently, the transit advocacy group TTCriders obtained the draft changes through a Freedom of Information request. This article is based on that draft version of the May 7 service changes dated January 27, 2023. That was after the City Budget Committee’s wrap-up meeting on January 24, but before the budget went to Council on February 15.
Although drafts fall into my lap from time to time, I do not normally publish them as they are subject to change, and there is enough misinformation circulating among the fans and Twitterati that I prefer to keep that sort of thing to myself.
This is the last Board meeting before the May schedules will come into effect, and it would have been an ideal chance for management to update the Board on what was about to happen as they did with the March service cuts. They have only themselves to blame for losing control of the message.
From a procedural point of view, the absence of a report on the agenda means that the topic of service cuts is not formally before the Board for debate or deputations. This is a classic way to stifle discussion.
City-TV’s Nick Westoll covered this story on April 6, and the TTC did confirm that the subway service cuts will occur as shown in the draft. He obtained the following statement from the TTC:
“All changes are designed to match capacity to demand and put the most service out at times and areas that it is most needed. All changes are also within the … established service standards. What TTCRiders has is an early draft that has already been revised since the version they have and is still not finalized. The final schedules will be … shared publicly later this month … We will monitor routes in real-time and deploy unscheduled service when we observe gaps or overcrowding.”
TTC’s Stuart Green as quoted by City-TV
A major problem with unscheduled service is that it is invisible to service tracking apps. Riders waiting for a bus will not know that there is an “extra” lurking just out of sight, and they might just give up in frustration. Moreover, there is no way for the TTC to demonstrate retroactively how it managed the service and we have to take it on faith that gaps shown in the data really didn’t happen. There are far more gaps than spare buses, and it does not take an Einstein to figure out that many gaps will not be filled. This is a convenient fiction that TTC management uses to fob off complaints about service.
As for the final schedules, by now operators have already signed up for their crews in May, and the service plans are more or less cast in stone.
An Overview of the Cuts
In the interests of transparency, here are the draft changes for May.
I cannot stress enough that this is a first draft dated January 27, 2023, and some of its proposals may have changed before the final version which has not yet been published. Readers should cite this information with caution pending the official version of the May service.
Cuts that began with the February and March schedules continue into the May proposals. Analysis of the ups and downs from route to route can be tricky because several events happen at the same time:
- Many routes have running time adjustments to adjust for rising traffic congestion. Sometimes this is accomplished with added vehicles, but more commonly by widening existing headways and running the same (or fewer) vehicles further apart.
- Some routes have service cuts to align capacity with the updated crowding standards. These cuts are sometimes combined with other changes.
- Some routes have seasonal changes either because they serve academic sites or amusement areas (e.g. the Beach).
- Several construction projects will begin in May:
- Queen & Yonge will close until sometime in 2027 for Ontario Line construction. Various diversions will ensue.
- The Queen Street bridge at the Don River will be under repair. Service that would normally travel along this route will divert to Dundas Street.
- Main Street Station loop will close for paving. All service will be rerouted to Victoria Park Station, or will be operated with interlines between pairs of routes with on-street boarding.
- The intersection of Lower Gerrard & Coxwell will be rebuilt.
- Track on Broadview from Gerrard to Danforth will be rebuilt, and the streetcar loop at Broadview Station will be expanded.
- The railway overpass west of St. Clair & Caledonia (GO Barrie corridor) will be under repair.
Further details are in the main part of the article.
An important point to remember when the TTC talks about service reductions is that an “X” percent service cut is not the same as an “X” percent saving in operating costs. There are two important reasons behind this:
- There is a substantial fixed cost, especially for the subway, for infrastructure, management and maintenance, and this does not vary with changes in service.
- If a service change leaves the same number of vehicles in service, but running further apart (typically to allow for traffic), there is no change in the vehicle hours operated. The same number of buses is on the road, only travelling more slowly (or spending more time in layovers). Only costs that are directly related to the distance travelled go down, not those such as operator wages that are related primarily to hours.
The result of these is that an edict to save “X” percent in costs will require more than “X” percent in cuts. This is a classic problem of marginal vs fully allocated costing and savings.
The usual spreadsheet showing old and new headways, running times and vehicle allocations is linked here:
2023.05.07_ServiceChanges_Draft
Note to the fans: please do not send me queries about divisional allocation of bus routes as some of these were not settled in the draft plan. I will include this information when the final version comes out in late April.
Subway Service Reduction
Following on the reduction of service on lines 2 Bloor-Danforth and 4 Sheppard in March, the 1 Yonge-University-Spadina line will see a considerably reduced service. Unlike the service cuts on Line 2 which were only on weekdays, those on Line 1 affect all days, and the service reductions range from about 15% to over 40%.
In the table below, I have converted headways (cited in minutes and second) to trains/hour as this number is directly related to capacity and hence crowding. The headway values are in the spreadsheet linked above.
| Trains/Hr Weekdays | AM Peak | Midday | PM Peak | Early Eve | Late Eve |
| Current | 21.2 | 16.4 | 21.2 | 16 | 12 |
| Planned | 18.9 | 10.5 | 17.0 | 11.6 | 7.7 |
| % Reduction | 11% | 36% | 20% | 28% | 36% |
| Gap Trains | |||||
| Current | 4 | 4 | |||
| Planned | 2 | 2 | |||
| Trains/Hr Saturdays | Early Morn | Late Morn | Afternoon | Early Eve | Late Eve |
| Current | 10 | 13.2 | 13.2 | 12 | 10 |
| Planned | 7.6 | 7.7 | 10.1 | 8.5 | 8 |
| % Reduction | 24% | 42% | 23% | 29% | 20% |
| Trains/Hr Sundays | Morning | Afternoon | Early Eve | Late Eve | |
| Current | 10 | 13.2 | 10 | 10 | |
| Planned | 7.6 | 9.3 | 7.7 | 7.6 | |
| % Reduction | 24% | 30% | 23% | 24% |
Streetcar Service Changes
Several construction projects will affect streetcar routes over the coming year, and some of these compound with each other. The effect on each route is described below. Details of headway and running time changes are in the linked spreadsheet.
501 Queen
The 501 Queen service will operate in various segments thanks to the Ontario Line, the Don Bridge and the continued work on The Queensway west of Roncesvalles. The component routes will be:
- 501 streetcar service from Neville to Sunnyside diverting both ways via Broadview, Dundas and McCaul.
- 501L bus service from Dufferin to Long Branch (unchanged)
- 501B bus service from Bathurst to Broadview & Gerrard. This will divert around OL construction will be westbound via Church, Richmond and Bay; eastbound via Bay, King and Church. Buses will loop via Broadview, Gerrard and River.
This service design is planned to begin on May 1, a week before the normal schedule change.
Weekday streetcar service was adjusted to demand in March. In the May schedules, there is a cut of about 25% in service on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
503 Kingston Road
This route will not operate. See 505 Dundas.
504 King
Streetcar service will return to this route between Distillery Loop and the two usual western destinations of Dundas West Station and Dufferin Loop.
Due to track and sewer work on Broadview, as well as the proposed expansion of Broadview Station Loop, a bus shuttle will operate from King & Parliament to Broadview Station. No diversion routes have been announced yet for the area under construction.
505 Dundas
Due to planned work on Broadview, the 505 Dundas car will be rerouted to Bingham Loop via Broadview, Queen and Kingston Road. This will replace the 503 Kingston Road car during weekday daytimes, and the 22A Coxwell bus evenings and weekends.
506 Carlton
Due to track and sewer construction planned at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard, as well as paving work at Main Station, 506 streetcar service will be rerouted to Woodbine Loop. The diversion will operate eastbound via Broadview and Queen, westbound via Broadview, Dundas and Parliament to route.
A bus service will operate between Castle Frank and Victoria Park stations.
512 St. Clair
Rehabilitation of the railway overpass west of Caledonia (GO Barrie corridor) will cause the 512 St. Clair route to be shortened to end at Lansdowne (Earlscourt Loop). The 47 Lansdowne service which normally terminates there will be extended west via St. Clair to Gunns Loop.
A decision on the use of the streetcar right-of-way by buses had not been made as of the draft plan.
Carhouse Routing Changes
Cars on routes 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 511 Bathurst entering and leaving service from the east end would normally use the Don Bridge. They will divert via Dundas Street over the same route as the 501 Queen cars.
512 St. Clair cars will enter service via College and Bathurst. They will operate between Parliament and Broadview over the same routes as the revised 506 Carlton service.
The False Complaint About Downtown Streetcar vs Suburban Bus Service
In an article in the Star, it is claimed that:
The cuts to TTC service affect buses in poorer areas more than the streetcars that run through more urbanized areas.
One TTC safety measure is reversing service cuts
This is a convenient trope for those who frame transit debates as a suburbs vs downtown conflict, but it does not line up with the facts. Service has been or will be cut on most of the streetcar routes, a few downtown bus routes, and of course the subway as shown in the table below.
The pink cells show periods when service is cut, green where it is improved. As on bus routes, some of these cuts are minor, but others are not.
Setting up a false comparison between downtown and the suburbs, between rail and bus routes, is an argument that creates contention between groups who should be working together. At a minimum, when someone is going to make such claims, they should get their facts straight.
This is a battle for riders and their political representatives city-wide.
Bus Service Changes
Several planned bus route changes fall into groups with a common cause. They are reported below in each group, followed by all of the other routes with service changes.
STC Construction Phase 2
9 Bellamy and 134 Progress will return to STC following their temporary relocation in March. Scheduled service is unchanged.
Main Station Paving
Paving work at Main Station will close the loop. All services will be either diverted to terminate at Victoria Park Station, or will be interlined with other routes so that Main Station will not be a terminus. Such routes will use on street stops (TBA).
Routes redirected to Victoria Park Station:
- 20 Cliffside
- 62 Mortimer
- 506 Carlton (replacement bus)
23 Dawes will be extended north from Main Station to Eastdale.
64 Main and 87 Cosburn will be interlined to provide a continuous route from Broadview Station to Queen Street in The Beach.
113 Danforth and 135 Gerrard will be interlined.
Donlands Station
Construction work at Donlands Station has progressed to the point where 56 Leaside and 83 Jones can return to the bus loop rather than loading on street.
Service Reliability
“Service reliability” can cover a variety of changes, but they usually involve giving buses more travelling and/or recovery time to adjust to traffic conditions. On rare occasions, schedules are trimmed when the allocated time is excessive. Service cuts can accompany these changes as vehicles are stretched over longer travel times.
19 Bay: Running times are extended during most time periods with, usually, a widening of headways. See the speadsheet for details. It is both ironic and sad to see this route, once a mainstay of downtown travel and a major link to the waterfront, reduced to service every 20-30 minutes except during the PM peak.
48 Rathburn: AM peak service improved with the addition of one bus. Midday and PM peak service will run less frequently. All other periods unchanged.
66 Prince Edward: Running times increased during many periods. In some cases, service is improved, and in others it is less frequent.
79 Scarlett Road: Weekday peak service will run less often to provide more running time for buses. On weekends some headways improve, some are cut, due to running time and vehicle allocation changes.
102/902 Markham Road: Several changes will affect this route:
- Running times will be extended during many periods either by widening headways and/or by adding buses.
- 102A weekday daytime service to Centennial College is suspended for the summer. This is a typical seasonal change.
- 102B service to Steeles and 102D service to Major Mackenzie will run less frequently on weekdays.
- 902 Express service will be extended north from Sheppard to Steeles.
- Sunday service will now begin at 5am compared to 7:30am at present.
116 Morningside: Running times will be lengthened during all operating periods. In some cases buses will be added to minimize the effect, but almost all periods will see less frequent service. See the spreadsheet for details.
Aligning Service to Ridership
32 Eglinton West: Service will run less frequently during the AM peak and evening periods.
52/952 Lawrence West: Running times are extended during all periods primarily by widening headways and in some cases removing vehicles. The result is less frequent service across the board with cuts ranging from 10% to 25% depending on the period. See the spreadsheet for details.
54 Lawrence East: Shopping extras are added on weekends between Don Mills and Morningside.
60/960 Steeles West: 60C peak period service to Martin Grove is discontinued. 960 Express service is improved slightly in the PM peak.
70 O’Connor: Weekday midday one bus is removed and headways are widened.
73 Royal York: The peak period 73D to Knob Hill & Oak will be extended to Albion Road. Midday weekday service will be reduced to save one bus.
76 Royal York South: Weekday midday headway widened and one bus removed. Two AM peak school trips northbound from Lake Shore removed.
80 Queensway: Saturday and Sunday service improved for shopping traffic.
85/985 Sheppard East: Running times increased and headways widened on the 85 local service during many operating periods. Refer to the spreadsheet for details. Peak service on the 985D Express to Centennial College reduced due to seasonal demand.
95/995 York Mills: Service reduced during weekday peak and midday periods primarily on the 995 express service.
112 West Mall: Running times lengthened and headways widened during most periods.
131 Nugget: Weekday headways widened except for midday service which is unchanged.
Seasonal Changes
38/938 Highland Creek: The 938 Highland Creek Express will be discontinued for the summer, but this will be partly offset by improved service on the 38 local.
44 Kipling South: AM peak school trips at 7:31 and 7:45 from Kipling Station removed.
65 Parliament: Peak service reduced to reflect lower demand to George Brown College.
75 Sherbourne: Service reduced in peak periods to reflect lower demand to George Brown College. Service revised during all periods to reflect traffic conditions resulting in wider headways during most times. See the spreadsheet for details.
92 Woodbine South: Summer weekend service improvements.
200 Toronto Zoo: Rebranded 86Zoo bus.
201 Bluffer’s Park: Rebranded 175 Bluffer’s Park
202 Cherry Beach: Rebranded 172 Cherry Beach
905 Eglinton East Express: Service reduced in all periods due to lower demand to UTSC and Centennial College.
927 Highway 27 Express: Service reduced in most periods due to lower demand from Humber College.
Night Bus Improvements
The following routes will have 20′ night service 7 days/week. Note that 335 Jane had this change implemented on weekday schedules in March 2023.
- 335 Jane
- 336 Finch West
- 339 Finch East
- 396 Wilson
Miscellaneous
22 Coxwell: Service on 22A to Bingham Loop replaced by 505 Dundas.
937 Islington Express: Stop added northbound at Bloor for accessibility.
47 Lansdowne: Service extended west via St. Clair to Gunns Loop. Service on the revised 47A will generally run more frequently than in the March schedules. Departures for the 47A will no longer blend with service on the 47B and 47C branches to Yorkdale.
189 Stockyards: Stopping arrangements at Gunns Loop modified to accommodate 47 Lansdowne service.
Steve Munro 
I wonder if the 113 will terminate at Warden during the work at Main before becoming a 135 Gerrard Bus.
That’s the only thing I can think of which would make it work. This does not consider how they will turn around the 135 at its western terminus though.
As for the Line 1 cuts I can see this being the straw which breaks the camel’s back. Line 1 is already overcrowded and cutting service won’t make things any better.
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Rest assured that the YUS service cuts are happening!! Subway operators are currently doing “sign up” for the May 7 board period. They are telling me that the cuts are in the range of 25% on average.
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Currently the 985B Sheppard East Express branch to Meadowvale does not operate during M-F midday and never had. The spreadsheet has it listed as a replacement of the 985A with proper running times. Is this an expansion of service? It is also listed with standard buses instead of artics, did they pull them all off the route?
Steve: I wondered about the midday 985B service myself, but that’s what is in the draft memo. As for the artics, the 985D service was implemented with standard buses in March because bus bays at STC cannot handle artics. The other branches might be my error in showing standard buses, but the service memo does not specify the vehicle type. I will update this when I learn more. Thanks for catching that!
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The 505 Dundas rerouting is interesting. When was the last time scheduled streetcars operated on Kingston Rd. on evenings/weekends? Otherwise, more decline in service standards.
Steve: I would have to dig back to find the specific date. I worry that with the generally shambolic service on the 505, the folks on Kingston Road will not see as much service as advertised.
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I’m surprised they didn’t reimplement they didn’t reinstate the turn back at Glencarin/St. Clair West to maintain higher headways on the busier section of the line.
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Bay Bus:
Yes, particularly so since the TTC and WT keep saying that the delays to the QQE LRT project can be overcome by relying on the Bay bus (and the Parliament and Sherbourne ones – which also see reductions.) Thanks to a Toronto Hydro project on Bay near King, the street is very congested at the moment and I am sure that as the Adelaide work proceeds it will only get worse.
Steve: I really think that few if any of the people working on this project understand just how bad the bus service is to the waterfront.
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A long slow death for the Bay bus. With service every 20 minutes and now some periods reduced to only every 30 minutes, I can see the next step is “why even have this route?”
I remember working at King and Bay Street about 15 years ago and it was still frequent enough at rush hour that it had dedicated riders, especially people living around Bay and Gerrard. Not anymore. Death by 1,000 cuts.
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Obviously Stuart Green needs to get his overpaid a** out and ride actual routes. Line 1 trains arriving at Bloor northbound between 3-4 p.m. are already packed, and a 36% cut? I want what some of these people are smoking. It is disingenuous to put “head counters” out on days when ridership will be light (Like the day before a long weekend) and use those figures to prove “no one is riding, lets cut service”. Those type of days are the only times I have seen them at Bloor-Yonge, and Sheppard-Yonge. I asked about it, and as usual no one had a reason why.
Do I sense the beginning of a “death spiral” – cuts = less riders = more cuts and on and on?
Steve: To be fair to Stuart, he is only the messenger, but with a rotten, inaccurate message.
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Thanks for sharing this Steve! It really needs to be made public of how the TTC hides and distorts so much. And how rotten the TTC has become under this CEO. This should be brought up with the mayoral candidates. With the current social issues plaguing the system, service reductions will only exasperate the problem.
The timing of the cuts just so happens to coincide when bank(s) are forcing employees to work in the office 4 days a week starting May. Fun times ahead!
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Wow…25% to 30% Reduction in service just after an increase at the fare booth, this is the start of the death knell for public transit in this city. Toronto is no where near world class and never will be, it’s like a piss hole in the snow these days…..Sad….But we Canadians take it over easy and accept it…Total BS!!!
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Sign up for May 7th board period starts this Wednesday April 12, and there is some credibility to downtowners getting better service than suburbs. Ever wonder why Parliament has a night bus and Markham Rd doesn’t?
Steve: 365 Parliament has night service because it serves the waterfront. I agree that if the TTC is recognizing the importance of Markham Road with service improvements in May, then the question of night service should also be addressed. But comparing the two as an example of better service downtown is really reaching. Of course you might want to use a handle that is not itself an “old city” route that has night service.
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Is the Ontario Place-Exhibition (Formerly 174) bus coming back in the May board period?
Steve: No.
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I’m a bit confused on the “202 Cherry Beach: Rebranded 172 Cherry Beach” line. Last year there was already a 172 Cherry Beach that ran from Union Station.
Steve: The three seasonal services – the Zoo shuttle, the Bluffer’s Park bus and the Cherry Beach bus – are being renumbered into the 200s.
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It’s going to be awkward for east enders heading to the CBD if the closest routes inbound are running on Dundas only. Along with the overall system cuts it’s sending a message for people to take the car.
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I’ve lost count now on how many projects have closed Main Street Stn’s terminal in the last few years now. What is this the third or forth time?
I wonder why they decided to not work out an interline between 20 and 62 to continue providing the existing 20/113 blended service along Danforth Ave.
Their choice of interline routes is interesting this time around. At one point within the last 15-20 years all the Main Street Stn routes (except 135) had an interline at some point during the week (usually weekend afternoons/evenings), 20/62, 23/64 and 87/113. It’s interesting to look back and see how the service frequencies on these route pairs changed to the point that the interlines don’t work anymore.
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Why does every Line 1 train have to now run up to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre at all times of the day? There used to be every other train turning back at St. Clair West or Glencairn (has something like this that’s been well executed for 30+ years now too hard to do?). We all know the core ridership is on the Yonge portion of the line and this will cause more extreme overcrowding on the Yonge portion of the line and force riders to find alternative options. It baffles me adjusting service to match demand means cutting service on core portions of the route to continue subsidizing the lesser used sections is the new business strategy (or copying YRT’s strategy and look how transit is there). A certain percentage of short turns are a necessary evil to keep buses and majority (emphasis on “majority”) of riders moving, otherwise we have buses sitting idle at end stops or buses doubling/tripling up towards end routes that have very low ridership (and don’t warrant the scheduled frequency as the core sections). You ruin the experience of the core ridership and it just leads to a further downward spiral in ridership. Scary times ahead for public transit…
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HOW DARE THE TTC CUT SERVICE ON THE 995 and 905 WHEN THE ROUTE MANAGEMENT AND HEADWAYS ARE ALREADY TERRIBLE???!!!!
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So the 172 is to be re-numbered as the 202. Yet another example of the wisdom of the TTC is that many of the stop signage still says 121 (the former route that served Cherry Beach before the 121 was extended to Broadview). Now I suppose we will have some stops marked as 202, some as 172 and a few as 121. It really might be better if TTC spent their (too limited) funds on actually managing the routes rather than re-numbering them!
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19 BAY is going the way of 19 CHURCH.
Steve: It certainly was an ominous choice of a route number to replace “6”.
Of course we could always spare some sympathy for route “3” which was originally “Ashbridge”.
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The claim that “The cuts to TTC service affect buses in poorer areas more than the streetcars that run through more urbanized areas.” was based on the report 2023 TTC Service Changes and Transit Equity in Toronto by TransForm: The Transportation and Land Use Planning Research Laboratory at Toronto Metropolitan University. It was based on the March cuts.
Steve: And even based on March it is wrong because there had already been cuts to some streetcar lines. If the TTC had been open and honest about what was coming in May, there would have been no doubt that downtown was getting whacked too, but there would have been hell to pay politically too.
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Thanks Steve and commenters.
How thoroughly disappointing and Wrong in so many ways. Too many years of ‘carservative’ domination of the City and province, and mass media too, where many will not find the room to observe that car costs are well spread out in all budgets vs. transit costs easily seen in a box or two, though with major gaps between capital and operating ‘vision’. I sure hope folks get REALLY angered at these cuts, as the Council/Clowncil sure could have approved a larger hike in the property taxes or a Vehicle Registration Tax of $400 a vehicle, which isn’t even close to the public costs as per a 1996 observation by a Vancouver staff of $2700 per vehicle per year, or 7 x transit subsidies.
And there are a few extra billion$ in the current large transit projects that could and should be squeezed, especially if we sought value for dollars and could think of surface priority measures in some places, along with a reform of the scheming processes.
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Welcome to post-pandemic Toronto. Everyone works from home and orders their food and groceries online and takes ubers on occasion.
Can’t have your cake and it eat it too.
Steve: Not everyone, by a long stretch, and that’s the problem. If transit becomes a service that is disproportionately required by those who have no work-from-home choice, it will lose its political support and become something the city provides for “them” out of the goodness of its heart rather than for everyone as an essential service.
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“Parking restrictions are being loosened this Easter long weekend in Toronto.
On Friday, April 15, Sunday, April 17 and Monday, April 18, Toronto police’s parking enforcement unit will not be enforcing on-street parking bylaws at pay-and-display/metered areas, rush-hour routes and areas with posted signs indicating Monday to Friday regulations.
“All other areas and parking offences will continue to be enforced,” police said in an April 13 news release.”
As for those who dare to use public transit in Toronto… insert sound of crickets here.
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That was 2022.
Now for 2023…
“The Toronto Police Service Parking Enforcement Unit will not be enforcing the following on-street parking bylaws during the upcoming holidays:
– Rush-Hour Routes
– Posted signs indicating Monday to Friday regulations
On:
– Good Friday on Friday, April 7, 2023
– Easter Sunday on Sunday April 9, 2023
– Easter Monday on Monday, April 10, 2023
All other areas and parking offences will continue to be enforced.”
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A better solution would be to shorten the route to turn at Weston Rd (& Belleview Cres) There are multiple Lawrence branches buses for each 79 branch bus going to Jane St. Also, 32C branch of Eg West route will still serve the short portion of on-street looping at Jane & Lawrence).
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Very sad to see the state of affairs with Transit in Toronto. It’s very irritating to continue to build projects for the future, but not properly fund current service. Continuing to cut service on routes will not only continue to hinder ridership, but also add to current gridlock issues costing us billions of dollars due to traffic congestion. As a transit user it is infuriating to constantly have no problem to nickel and dime transit users. I thank you Steve for the articles you publish.
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I haven’t been on the TTC for three years while I have been hiding my underlying conditions from covid – hence my drop off in this forum. However, based on my experience up to March of 2020, the Bay 19 has a valuable role to play with seniors and disabled people who find the subway access and use difficult. This includes me. I am hoping that this summer might finally allow me and my underlying out to play again. Cuts to the Bay Bus would be painful for this lifelong transit supporter.
Steve: Yes, the TTC seems to forget that some routes play a role beyond the usual level of counting bums in seats. They are hot to trot on getting riders off of Wheel Trans but forget that there has to be an alternative.
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After the March cuts, the 29 Dufferin bus and Line 2 have both been absolutely swamped at certain periods, particularly weekday late nights. Makes you wonder how accurate the TTC’s data is when buses are passing up riders at 10PM. Does not bode well for the significant Line 1 cuts.
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Hey, the York region service changes were made public today and it says that the 129A will go from 19 minutes to 13 minutes afternoon rush frequency. Do you know if this change will be shown/outlined in this service change?
Steve: As I said in the article, the version the TTC released was a draft from the end of January, and there have been changes since. When we see the official final version, we will know what’s happening with the 129 McCowan North, It was not mentioned in the draft changes.
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Somebody asked how long it has been since streetcars were removed from evening/weekend service on Kingston Road. My recollection is that this occurred in the Spring of 1966.
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One evening at a King Car stop I waited with 4 other people who wanted to ride. The other four lost patience before the car arrived and hailed a passing taxi. Eventually the King car trundled up, and when I got on there was a man there with one of those silver counters in the first seat. As I passed by he dutifully clicked one click to add to the “real time” survey of the demand. Now the TTC had the data. They could schedule service accordingly.
You are right to wonder Janon. I think the scientific term for the TTC data quality is “stinko”.
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@John Thompson
I think you are right that it was in 1966. The TTC ran every other Queen car up Kingston Rd on evenings and weekends but the service became so unreliable on either branch they instituted the 22A Coxwell bus service. On interesting effect of this was there was 1 car a week from Bingham Loop to Long Branch on the weekend as a night car
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About time. The Earlscourt Loop was one of the last trolley bus relics as the original 47 LANSDOWNE had kept the same routing for the past 75 years.
Steve: Extending the Lansdowne bus over to Keele does not make sense in any context other than the need to substitute for streetcar service during construction on the rail bridge at Caledonia. One might equally argue that better service should be provided on the northern portion of the route rather than having some buses turn back at St. Clair.
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This makes for depressing reading, but what can you do?
Well, other than write and call your city councillor, your MPP and your Member of Parliament and lambast them for allowing transit service to degrade on their watch, making our cities less livable in their drive to keep taxes low.
And vote. And make sure your friends and family vote.
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I have to say if last Friday evening’s service on the 501 and 504 (April 14) is a sign of what’s to come with the dubious OL construction for the next 5 years then streetcar service through the core will likely be in shambles until the 2030s.
There were massive gaps on all King branches of the 504 and it didn’t matter streetcar or bus. Queen was no better with massive gaps caused by construction activity near the Eaton site.
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Hi Steve …thanks for the excellent work….You have mentioned that for the 512 streetcar – A decision on the use of the streetcar right-of-way by buses had not been made as of the draft plan.
We got a conformation that the 47A replacement will be running on the outside stops NOT be running on the right of way. So it will be stuck in existing traffic while the right of way goes unused…why I have no idea, but i wanted to update you.
Steve: I am not surprised. Thanks for the update.
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