by

TTC Confirms SRT Will Not Reopen, Plans Bus Improvements

The TTC has announced that the SRT will not reopen and that the focus will now be on the replacement bus service.

The review of the July 24 derailment is still underway and is unlikely to complete with much time left for remediating the condition of the SRT and restarting service for a short period before the planned November 18 shutdown.

The initial operation with reserved bus lanes is under construction with painted lane markings southbound on Midland and northbound on Kennedy between Eglinton and Ellesmere. Other work including red painted lanes, queue jump lanes and signal priority will be implemented in the next three months.

One problem caused by the unexpected early SRT shutdown is that the temporary bus terminal facilities at Kennedy Station are not yet completed. A interim terminal north of Kennedy Station will be used. Once the station reconfiguration is done, eight routes that now terminate at STC will be extended through to Kennedy Station to eliminate transfers.

This was part of the original plan for the SRT replacement service. The list of candidate routes for transfer elimination is 38 Highland Creek, 129 McCowan North, 131 Nugget, 133 Neilson, 134C Progress, 939 A/B Finch East Express, 954 Lawrence East Express, 985A Sheppard East Express [source: FAQ within Future of TTC’s Line 3 Scarborough].

According to the press release, the TTC is working to remove the existing SRT infrastructure and build the replacement bus roadway sooner than the original plan that stretched out two years. An updated target date has not been announced, buy the TTC’s recognition that this roadway is urgently required is a welcome change.

A larger issue critical to review of TTC’s maintenance plans is whether the derailment is a “one of” event, or if there has been a general decline in TTC maintenance across the system. This is directly tied to capital and operating budget planning for 2024 and beyond.

19 thoughts on “TTC Confirms SRT Will Not Reopen, Plans Bus Improvements”

  1. Not a surprising development at all, but it’s unfortunate that there won’t be an opportunity for one last ride or an official ‘Farewell to the SRT’ public decommissioning day.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Steve. I think that the SRT should have been put out of its misery several years ago. I HATE using it, as a person in a power wheelchair, it’s so scary, as you have the entire line between Kennedy & STC, (as well as McCowen) not being wheelchair accessible & no way to safely get off in an emergency.

    I think the derailment is just a sign of the overall decline in TTC infrastructure maintenance & reliability issues, not being properly funded, nor taken care of by the management, especially those on the 7th floor of the McBrien building.

    I have heard from many friends in the maintenance side of TTC, about these issues & many others.

    I spent 7yrs living in Scarborough, having to find alternative routes to get around, because of the SRT & Warden Stn.

    Anyone who is a wheelchair user, can attest to the debacle that is transit in general, in Scarborough, when you are a person with disabilities.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. In response to Michael, while I agree, it also seems fitting that the SRT should come to such an unceremonious end. I rode the line thousands of times since it opened in ’85, and experienced first hand the neglect and decay of these trains. I would have certainly attended one last ride, but am not surprised how this all ended.

    Like

  4. You knew it was all over when the new TTC Chair said last week it was his feeling it was not going to run again. The TTC up to yesterday still had on the page about the shutdown an August 15th date for the report and a decision, then extended that in a press release to the 23rd (again without updating the webpage), and missed even that date.

    As you mention Steve it will be interesting to see if the report will touch on other TTC “rolling stock” maintenance.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. Friends, Torontonians, countrymen, lend me your ears;
    I come to bury SRT, not to praise him.
    The evil that men do lives after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones;
    So let it be with SRT.

    Like

  6. This reminded me of the end of the Kitchener Waterloo Railways.
    They were scheduled to change to trolley coach on Jan 1, 1947. On Dec 27 there was a severe sleet storm that brought the overhead down in 3 places. Between that and impassible streets, service was cancelled and the rest of the overhead was removed from under the trolley coach wires.
    (from John Mills Traction on the Grand)

    Like

  8. I was just wondering as based on what TTC previously posted – the routing was to use Ellesmere Road and the bus lanes along Ellesmere. However, what I see on the TTC website and the map posted to Twitter by customer service is they are using Progress Ave (with no bus lanes) for the 903.

    Will there be a bus only lane on Kennedy Road from Ellesmere to Progress? Kennedy Road is busy on that portion at all times of the day and extremely busy in rush hour as it leads up to Kennedy Commons/401. An example is currently the 43 crawls from Ellesmere to Progress (one stop) in traffic and if 903 is doing this, this will cause several delays – especially during rush hour where it can take 7-10 minutes to get through this section. Has the TTC considered this? Why did they not use Ellesmere Road with transit priority corridors as was communicated previously.

    Will this eventually be changed to use Ellesmere Road?

    Steve: I have to chase this which, at the start of the weekend, will be tricky. I am still awaiting the official list of TTC service changes for September where I will see what they really think they’re going to do. In any event, the 903 will stop only at Ellesmere and at Lawrence as intermediate stops according to the schedule which is up on the GTFS open data file.

    Like

  9. Had the TTC kept the service up at the same pace as it’s Vancouver cousin, there would have been no talk of the Fords’ Folly – the Subway to Nowhere. To match the Skytrain’s coverage, Toronto could have had, say – from Scarborough Town Centre – a line out as far as Pickering, as well as a loop up to Markham, Unionville, Richmond Hill and down to the Finch subway. And LRTs that were completely computerized. Instead, political waffling, inaction or action for strictly political gain or just plain indifference towards transit in this city has resulted in the mess that is now.

    Liked by 2 people

  10. That piece of crap has been a piece of crap from day one! I remember the year before it entered service they provided a demonstration over a couple of weekends running 3000-3001 on the northbound track both ways between Kennedy and Lawrence West Stns. I could not believe how noisy it was!

    Like

  11. In memoriam of the SRT, here is a 1980s documentary of the Skytrain.

    The things that stand out are the glimpses of the construction of the LIMs, but also (very) brief shots of the green phosphor monitors of what I think is the Seltrac system.

    Other than a couple of photos from a Doors Open event, I don’t think there’s any other public documentation these segments of the former system.

    Steve: Yes, SkyTrain (and the SRT) ran with Seltrac.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Please give my heartfelt thanks to NB for that Skytrain link. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it – as a Vancouver resident for ~5 years, my first impression when a 2 car skytrain pulled in was “wait…seriously? All they have is the SRT?” – it seemed like a poor joke compared to Toronto’s subways.

    But somehow, in Vancouver, it *works*…the pride captured in the video is well deserved and still evident in this day and age. Unfortunate we can’t capture similar success in the GTA 😦

    Like

  14. Bill Davis’ legacy in Scarborough is gone. Still have his Spadina Expressway (AKA Allen Road) legacy in North York/York, sort of.

    Like

  15. “Had the TTC kept the service up at the same pace as it’s Vancouver cousin, there would have been no talk of the Fords’ Folly – the Subway to Nowhere. “

    Except that extending the RT wouldn’t have solved what ultimately doomed it; the curves and tunnel along the line. The only thing that extending it might have done is create a large enough fleet to convince Bombardier that it was worthwhile to create a custom designed replacement for the RT cars.

    Steve: Originally there was a plan to extend the RT but it was going to cost a lot because, although Vancouver was at the time going to retire their Mark I cars, they wanted replacement value. Also McCowan Yard was not big enough for an expanded fleet. When the Transit City LRT plan for Sheppard East and the Malvern line came along, it was much cheaper to convert the SRT to the LRT line it was supposed to be in the beginning with a shared carhouse at Sheppard and Conlins. There was some political skulduggery for the track connection between the extended SLRT and tracks on Sheppard Avenue. A nearby seniors’ home was mobilized to fight the allegedly intrusive noisy trains even though they would only have used the street connection to get into and out of service. Overall there has been some rather unsavoury exploitation of community groups with disinformation about LRT vs subway, but that’s politics.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. There is at least one shot of a SelTrac console that shows “ALRT” (and SelTrac version 1.12!) in the header of a control room console, but I can’t find in the video now. As any Toronto transit geek would know, this was the name of the ill-fated GO Transit project. It’s interesting to see that the name persisted in systems as it transitioned from the GO project into the UTDC project. I don’t know if this was a shot from the Millhaven UTDC facility, or from Vancouver.

    Other notable shots:

    ATO/SelTrac console – 01:23
    – Several “Invalid Command Input” lines
    – Natural language command syntax — “Route train 78 to Track section …”

    Track control console – 01:30

    Screen with pen digitizer for train control from control room – 1:42
    – Appears as if whole train can be powered on and moved just from panel

    The tiny clearance between the LIM and the reaction rail – 1:45

    Shots of the Millhaven test track – 7:00
    – Prototype ICTS cars (with red lights integrated with headlights) seen in early SRT brochures.

    Like

  17. I was saddened but not surprised to see the end of the SRT before Nov, but I guess it went out with a “bang”.

    Unfortunately, politics clouded the line from the start (conversion to ICTS, not paying Bombardier to re-open the Mark I assembly line or not paying for the reconstruction of the curves). But this was the little train that could, carrying more people than the Sheppard Line. I was always hoping that as part of the Ontario Line contract, the trains there could have been modified to run on the SRT track – yes an extended closure would be needed to change the track but the Ontario Line would also get a “free” test track for their system.

    Steve: Ontario would not pay to redesign the SRT infrastructure. They were responsible for downsizing the tunnel at Ellesmere to make sure the line could never be retrofitted as a conventional LRT line. Also note that for all the hype about the OL cars, they are closer to subway cars, just in shorter trains. They should not need a test track. BTW the cars won’t be here for several years, and they will be tested at the Thorncliffe Park maintenance facility.

    Maybe the TTC can convert the SRT Kennedy platform and runaround track to a TTC museum with the SRT vehicles, streetcar, and subway trains in static displays regardless of the track gauge.

    As a rider of the line, even though it ended badly, special thanks should still go to the day to day teams at TTC that managed to keep the line up and running for so many years while waiting for the higher ups and the politicians to decide on the line’s future. 70 buses until 2030 when the Line 2 extension opens shouldn’t have been an option – transit is about good, fast, affordable service, but that’s what we are unfortunately stuck with.

    Like

  18. With the busway to York U partially through the Hydro corridor, how come it was possible to access for transit in that corridor but seems impossible in the very wide Gatineau corridor? Is it time to bury one of the transmission lines and put a transitway atop it to help get 2 thing for maybe half the cost of a subway folly? Yes, for an outsider looking at a map, it seems this corridor is a potentially great link through all of Scarborough for faster off-road transitway without disturbing the car drivers all that much, and maybe the existing routes don’t really need to feed in to a shopping mall as much as they do?

    Like

Comments are closed.