34 thoughts on “TTC Service Changes for September 3, 2023”

1. Why even bother with the east leg of the 504 during the TIFF diversion? I can see it relevant if the 504 had streetcars running out to Broadview, but they aren’t, so why not have buses only on the east side through to Cherry?

   It will also be interesting to see if the drivers serve the eastbound Jarvis stop. Many last year would force everyone off at Church, even though they did pass the Jarvis stop on their loop.

   LikeLike

2. Further to my previous comment (feel free to combine), is the 72 still going to loop at Parliament, forcing a bus-streetcar-bus transfer, unless you are lucky and find a stray 503?

   Steve: Yes, the 72 will still loop at Parliament-Front-Berkeley.

   LikeLike

3. I thought we booted Tory and elected a serious mayor for once. The TIFF diversion is ridiculous, all so TIFF’s sponsors can put up vendor booths and so Bell can block the tracks off with ads for cellphones and CTV programming once last time.

   Steve: At least next year they will be able to use Adelaide eastbound rather than going up to Queen.

   LikeLike

4. Hey Steve, I think you forgot the spreadsheet for this month’s changes.

   Steve: I quote the opening section of the article:

   “To get this information out promptly, this article is published without the usual spreadsheet comparing old and new schedules. I will add the spreadsheet here in a few days when I have built it. Check back later in the weekend.”

   Be patient. I am working on it.

   LikeLike

5. While I’m glad to have Main Station’s bus/streetcar terminal reopening, I’m rather disgusted that the work isn’t finished. I have to report that for the inconvenience of a 4-month closure, after initial demolition works in early May, there was no progress/work on site at all until early August. Nothing was done (that I could discern), never once saw workers present in all of June or July. Such planning/scheduling of work does not inspire confidence in TTC management.

   ***

   Seems problematic to me that there aren’t meaningful improvements in subway service this period, both peak and off-peak.

   I know there are serious crowding issues in rush hours, and late evenings on Line 2.

   That’s before factoring return to school/college/uni next week; and also from my understanding several employers increasing mandatory attendance policies (as opposed to remote work).

   I managed a discussion with an operator the other day who said subway service improvement is forthcoming in the later board periods this fall.

   Sigh, right direction, mostly/sorta/kinda; but not good enough.

   Steve: I think that for September we are still seeing the hangover of service planned before the change brought through Olivia Chow’s election percolated into the TTC. Yes, more is planned later in the year, but the real test will be to see what budget Council gives the TTC in 2024 and what service they operate.

   LikeLike

6. There was a mention in the August CEO’s report that was released this week that there’s a shortage of storage space for streetcars from 2024 to 2026 (presumably a combination of Russell and Hillcrest construction), and they’d (again) be moving towards running extra streetcars overnight to reduce storage requirements. Presumably not until 2024 though.

   LikeLike

7. During the TIFF diversions, wondering if limousines, taxis (, ubers), and escorted elite will still get through. Will they speed through or move at a “walking pace”? If they do, then we should be able have streetcars crawl through also at the same pace as a limousine.

   Unless they worry that the streetcars would wonder off their assigned track.

   LikeLike

8. Is the 87 going to run along Cosburn, Broadview and Mortimer back to Pape station, or is it turning south right at Pape/Cosburn? It looks like the former on the map, but hard to tell – and I couldn’t find it on the TTC website, of course.

   Steve: The 87 will stay on its normal route to Broadview & Mortimer, then head east and south to Pape Station.

   The way they’ve planned the diversions for the work at Broadview stn is a mess. The 100 has been absent from Broadview for no good reason for 3 months. The 8/62 routing/schedule is almost completely useless for anyone trying to make a connection to the subway or another bus. And now Pape station will be carrying the 25/925, 72, 81, 87, and 100? Five busy, major routes on 3 bus platforms? And I guess they just gave up on routing the 87 on-street around Broadview Station in the end, like they said they would try to do? And that’s without even mentioning the streetcar situation, which has been messed with so many times in the past 3 months that its almost impressive.

   If they were going to do the work at Broadview station at all, they should have done it through the summer at the same time as the work on Broadview Ave, when schools were out and the station was quieter. The bus service on the 8, 62 and 87 was already spotty enough, and at times packed to the windows, but now with the mess that all this is going to cause at Pape, and interlining and all the rest – we might as well just walk the 20 mins to Broadview instead (assuming they don’t also block off the pedestrian access into the station – not holding my breath).

   Steve: The whole thing was a complete mess thanks to the last-minute decision to defer expansion of the streetcar loop. If this had gone ahead, the road closures that the changes such as 100 to Pape and the 8/62 hookup were designed for would have happened, and the new route arrangements would have made sense. I do not know whether the expansion project will reappear in a future budget, but if it does, it would only affect the east end of the staion and the parking lot, and diversions would be simpler. It should also take less time, although the TTC has a bad habit of scheduling these things with shutdowns and diversions far longer than should be required.

   It says starting Monday, Sept. 11 – any indication of how long this circus will be in town?

   Steve: This is supposed to last through September, although based on the speed of other work on Broadview I suspect it will finish early, and with luck the 8, 62 and 87 would return to Broadview Station before the next formal schedule change in October.

   Thanks for your hard work, Steve – you do fantastic work, really. Just wish the TTC did too.

   Steve: Thanks. It is disheartening how often I seem to be a more authoritative source of TTC information than their own website.

   LikeLike

9. When the TTC says that they have adjusted the 168’s peak period headway based on demand, which period do they take as data. This route is packed like sardines when school is on. And with 512 streecar being replaced by buses, I see a lot more demand with some of the people traveling to St Clair West in the morning ditching it and jumping on the 168 to get to a subway quicker.

   Steve: The planned changes to 168 Symington are rather odd. In September, service will be reduced during the peak periods, and in the evening all days except Saturday. However, the detailed service memo also notes that the service will be improved in October, almost as if this change was implemented by mistake.

   LikeLike

10. One wonders why they don’t just extend the 503 to Bathurst instead of terminating at York, during TIFF, instead of having another intermediate bus. Then people travelling between west of Bathurst and east of Jarvis could do so with only one transfer instead of two.

    LikeLike

11. Streetcars will turn back at Spadina and at Church, with shuttle buses running between Bathurst and Jarvis via Richmond and Adelaide between Spadina and University as shown below.

    I called it over a month ago. End the TIFF disaster already.

    If I may make another forecast, I’m going to predict the York Street reconstruction won’t include the curves for all possible turning movements or the new switch designs either. The north to east at York and Adelaide being the crucial one allowing King cars to use the Wellington/Adelaide pair. Well it would be had they built the proper switch at King.

    For the 25/925, 81, 100/72, and 87 sharing Pape station? It’s not going to work as well as the desk people thinks it will. The station doesn’t even work when it’s just the 25/925, 81, and 72. A good opportunity for photo taking. I don’t know when we’ll ever see a million buses parked around a tiny station like this ever again.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

12. One unintentional good thing for the TTC with the 512 replacement bus is that fare collection will improve. I don’t know if they will track this though.

    Steve: That will depend on the degree to which bus operators use all-door loading, but at least the fare machine at the front door will be monitored.

    LikeLike

13. Two questions on Broadview Station.

    1. If they decide to move ahead with the expansion of the loop when the Money Fairy arrives (or Councillor Fletcher agrees?), will it mean digging up lots of the 2023 work?

    2. You use Broadview far more that I do but it seems that a traffic light at Erindale & Broadview would do a huge amount to deal with delays and congestion. Streetcars often seem to sit there until another TTC vehicle is going northbound and lets them cross.

    Steve: Expanding the loop will require only removal of the existing curves from the platforms onto Erindale. As for a traffic signal, TTC rejected this idea years ago because, among other things, there would make for three signals in quick succession at Pretoria, Erindale and Danforth.

    LikeLike

14. Definitely agree with writer above – fare collection will improve on 512 with the buses. All these mid board changes on Queen are just going to confuse riders and operators alike.

    Steve: It is fairly common to hear ops, especially after a route shuffle like this, give out incorrect info to riders because they can’t keep up with all of the details of the changes. This isn’t helped by the likelihood that there will be out of date signage all over the place for weeks after the change.

    LikeLike

15. They added a traffic signal at Lipton Avenue a mere 60m away from Danforth. It’s not great. I’d say it causes as many problems as it solves.

    Steve: Yes. The main difference is that all vehicles leave the station via Lipton, whereas at Broadview the traffic is split between Erindale and the bus exit just north of Danforth.

    LikeLike

16. Steve wrote: “505 Dundas: Route will operate to Neville Loop via Queen until September 22 at 10 pm, then to Woodbine Loop.”

    I went down to Dundas Square today, and saw that all eastbound 505 streetcars showed a destination of Kingston Road rather than Neville Park. UMO/NextBus seems to confirm this.

    [Second comment copied here for continuity by Steve.]

    Actually, I should have looked at NextBus a little longer. It showed 505 streetcars going off the documented diversion route in two places today. They were going south on Broadview to Queen instead of via Gerrard and Coxwell. And, they were going beyond Woodbine Loop to Neville Park.

    This is confusing.

    Steve: Nextbus shows the GTFS version of the schedules which have not been updated to reflect the Neville extension, but show the route going to Woodbine Loop via Gerrard. I have camped on to the vehicle tracking map which will show, eventually, where “off route” cars actually go as you observed in your second comment. NextBus does not show off route vehicles when you first pull up the map, but will show those that start off “on route” and then follow them wherever they go.

    Looking at the tracking data on Transsee.ca (which can also be confused when the GTFS schedules do not reflect actual operations), most streetcars are going through to Neville with only occasional cars short-turning at Woodbine Loop. However, service regularity is appalling with cars running in bunches of two or more.

    LikeLike

17. The 8 BROADVIEW, 87 COSBURN, 100 FLEMINGDON PARK, and 62 MORTIMER buses exiting Broadview Station are all northbound, turning right from the station. Only the 504 and 504 streetcars (occasionally buses, by discretion a lot of times) turn left from Erindale Avenue. Even if the Transportation Services refuse to give any priority to transit, having traffic signals at Erindale Avenue would shorten the delay all traffic encounter trying to turn left from Erindale Avenue.

    If we can have traffic signals on Queen Street at Victoria Street, Yonge Street, and the pedestrian crossing between The Bay and Eaton Centre, we can have traffic signals to monitor Erindale Avenue.

    Steve: FWIW it was the TTC’s Planning Department, specifically their traffic engineer, who rejected the idea, not the city. I am not kidding.

    LikeLike

18. Do the curb cuts mentioned for the 512 route mean the buses will be running on the streetcar lanes, and if so for how much of the route?

    Steve: A very small amount from Old Weston Road to Keele, as well as at Gunn’s Loop.

    LikeLike

19. 505 cars are heading to Neville even if their destination sign programs haven’t been updated to reflect it. I did see an intrepid operator with a 501 Neville Park sign up but most were using the 505 to Kingston Road and Queen.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly there were convoys of 505 cars moving around early Sunday morning with little traffic congestion in sight. As much as the route detours change, that’s one thing that never changes.

    Steve: You want updates to be posted when they are needed? Maybe if service plans came out more than a few days before they went into effect this might be possible. As for bunching, yes, the route looked very bad all day. Bunches form and are rarely broken up. Somewhere somebody is supposed to be “managing” the service, but what the TTC is actually managing to do is drive away riders.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

20. I live along Ellesmere so its interesting to see the bus lanes in red. When the busway is completed in 2025 as the TTC have said, will the bus lanes remain on Ellesmere and be extended both ways for the 95/996/38/133 buses that use the road? They seem to be very well used routes, and it doesn’t seem like a bad idea seeing how up until Warden, Ellesmere is a three lane road.

    Steve: The red lanes will still be needed to access the busway at Ellesmere Station, and so they are here for a while. Extension is another matter, and would have to be considered in light of the future bus network feeding into the subway extension.

    LikeLike

21. “FWIW it was the TTC’s Planning Department, specifically their traffic engineer, who rejected the idea, not the city. I am not kidding.”

    Shows that the priority for the TTC and Transportation Services MUST be the single-occupant automobiles, SUVs, and private pickup trucks FIRST. Public transit must NOT interfere with them.

    Kneel before the automobile gods you transit using heathens!

    LikeLike

22. Its disappointing to see more reductions in service to the 168 Symington. That bus used to a quick, reliable way for residents in the Weston area to access the subway system at Dundas West station. St. Clair streetcar was an option (ride to St. Clair west), but that is reduced to a bus service as well.
    An aside: The TTC should build a basic shelter at the Avon Loop. That blustery knoll that passes for a bus loop is unacceptable for bus riders.

    LikeLike

23. About the 168 Symington looping at the Avon Loop. That’ll last until the year that the Crosstown Line 5 line opens. Then the 168 Symington bus will terminate at the Mt. Dennis Station.

    Unless they altered the bus routing. It was last looked at in 2022. Has there been “adjustments” made to the bus routing going into Line 5 since last year? There were surveys, consultations, and back room deals since then. Guess the “new and improved” 2024 Service Plan would include those “new and improved” bus routes.

    Steve: The 2024 Service Plan is expected to come out shortly. Stay tuned.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

24. 501L’s been taken off the list of available routes on all transit apps, leaving them free to do as they please West of Roncesvalles to Long Branch.

    Steve: In the electronic schedules, it’s the 507, but the buses are not using that identifier. You can see where the buses are on Transsee.ca.

    LikeLike

25. Tried to take the 506C service today, and only learning about the change today.

    What an absolute joke Broadview and Gerrard has been and whoever is in charge of filling the gap of service to Broadview station. Do they expect hospital and Riverdale folks to spend another 20 mins of looping around to commute?

    Very irresponsible to remove the service due to Main Street instead of Broadview.

    LikeLike

26. I don’t understand the point of running a separate Bathurst to Broadview 501 service and another Victoria to Neville Park 501 service instead of integrating them both together.

    If they wanted to run the Broadview service out of Pape, it should have been maintained by a separate service that used Gerrard to reach Broadview instead of a confusing 72A service that shares a name with an existing route. They talk a big game about not changing routes around to avoid confusion but then they do this.

    Steve: Part of what is happening here is, I suspect, an attempt to reduce duplicated services while dealing with a change in the effective date of the closure at Degrassi by Metrolinx.

    Running both the Queen and Dundas cars via Dundas, Broadview and Queen, plus the 503 buses on Queen, made for fairly frequent, if irregular service along Queen East and on Dundas from McCaul to Broadview. Reconstituting a single Queen service, albeit in three parts, gets rid of some duplication.

    However, when the Metrolinx project was delayed three weeks, the question became how to operate the service. This also overlapped the unexpected unavailability of the Long Branch trackage and the start-up of the 903 SRT service. Some of these routes are operating with RAD buses, not with their own signed crews, further complicating the situation. I also suspect that the TTC would not be paid an offsetting fee for running the proposed configuation with the “501D/513” route from Victoria to Neville until Metrolinx actually blocked the road.

    Once the 501D does begin operating, it will have the advantage that it will not be snarled in the traffic downtown on Queen and on the diversion between Bay and Church. It will be interesting to see if the TTC can maintain regular spacing on those buses.

    Anyhow, it’s a confusing mess for riders who seem to come a distant second in the planning.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

27. “It will be interesting to see if the TTC can maintain regular spacing on those buses.”

    I think we already know the answer…

    LikeLiked by 1 person

28. Now that TIFF has shuttered King Street West is there something preventing 504 cars from using the loop-formerly-used-by-the-503 to turn back? The overhead looks to be up in all places. It would be a little more useful for people accessing the subway.

    Steve: The overhead is mostly up but not yet connected. Yes, if this work were done, it would be a much better western terminus for the east branch of the 504. That job has taken forever (as discussed in a previous comment) thanks to cock ups by various utilities and the City.

    LikeLike

29. Hi Steve,

    All of these streetcar diversions, whether for Broadview Avenue and Station, Queen & Degrassi, Ontario Line, TIFF, Dufferin Loop, Queensway, get quite confusing, as others have noted. Of course, streetcars do not have much flexibility in diversions as compared to buses. But bus route diversions are also confusing!

    Past several days, wife and I were out and about, trying to avoid the CNE & Air Show traffic snarls, on streetcars, on buses, and on foot. Both eastbound King and Queen cars in the west end have been terribly overcrowded. Queen car used to bypass Ontario Line construction via Dundas, and that was actually convenient. However, eastbound Queen cars now go only as far as the McCaul loop. Why!!?

    Steve: Originally, the underpass at Degrassi was supposed to close immediately after Labour Day, and TTC scheduled service accordingly with streetcars in the west end, and buses in the east end. This plan has been in place for months. Then at the last minute, Metrolinx said “oops, we won’t be starting until September 22” and the TTC left the existing Dundas-via-Queen service in place. This will change on September 22/23 with the Dundas cars moving to Gerrard, and the 501D/513 Queen East bus running from Victoria to Neville.

    We were walking about around the Church, Dundas, Esplanade, Front, Jarvis, King, Parliament, Wellington area, ie. lower east side. I noticed new streetcar track on Wellington running west from Church Street. First track on Wellington in 60 years! At King and Church, a southbound car can only go right on King or continue to Wellington. There is no option for southbound to eastbound on King, nor from King westbound north on Church. The Richmond St. track appears to be complete, and Adelaide is not yet, as you stated above. Then, we saw a car run south on Parliament at Dundas, but from a distance, we did not see the signage. What diversion would that be? Note, I reported just such a ride earlier this year!

    Steve: What are you talking about? At King and Church, there is a full junction to the north with pairs of curves on the NE and NW quadrants. King cars are using the NE quadrant curves right now as part of the TIFF short turn. Adelaide is in service east of Victoria, as it has been for years. Track further west will be installed later this year once the utility vaults conflicting with the new track are shifted.

    The new track on Church-Wellington-York has been there, mostly, for ages, but various cock-ups by Hydro have delayed completion of the project. Overhead installation is well underway, and the 503 streetcar will probably return to this loop on Thanksgiving weekend unless the TTC finds yet another reason to delay this. BTW the track on Wellington has been renewed more recently than 60 years ago in 1992.

    Steve, I note that you have expressed dismay in the past that streetcar track curves get omitted when rebuilding intersections, which limits flexibility for diversions and short turns. Steve, how do you know all these junctions?

    Steve: I have lived in Toronto all my life and know the track plant as it has existed through that time. Going back further, there are a number of references showing old track plans and historical route configurations.

    LikeLike

30. The 90 Vaughan going north confused me, because they say there’s a stop on St. Clair, west of Bathurst. When the buses turn onto St. Clair there, they use the streetcar tracks until they turn onto Vaughan. So I did not know where to board at Bathurst (transferring from the 512). I just walked to Vaughan and boarded there. The driver said they do stop on the tracks there and Bathurst and St. Clair, and that’s where the stop is. All other routes I think stop on the street.

    LikeLike

31. I now check your site for east end streetcar updates rather than the TTC’s alerts. But today I encountered an alternate universe routing that even you don’t seem to have noted.

    Earlier this evening, I boarded a 511 on Dundas at Jarvis whose sign said it was short turning at Leslie. I gambled and boarded and felt like I win the lottery when I managed to get to Leslieville on Queen. In what universe is the north/south Bathurst-Exhibition Loop streetcar heading east on Dundas/Queen? Did I miss a major service update somewhere?

    Steve: Normally, the 511s would run back to Leslie Barns via King and Queen, but with King closed for Tiff, and streetcars not running across Queen, the carhouse route takes it via Dundas, Broadview and Queen. I didn’t bother mentioning these because it’s only the carhouse trips that are affected not the regular service.

    It will change again in a few weeks when Queen closes for streetcars east of Broadview, and carhouse trips will be via Gerrard and Coxwell.

    LikeLike

32. About the 511 running to carhouse on Dundas. Some streetcar systems have defined “routes” for carhouse runs, with their own number and that carhouse as explicit destination, so e.g. “701 to Leslie Carhouse” rather than “511 Bathurst short turn to Leslie”. They have a defined route, stops, and a schedule.

    Though expecting the TTC to set up something like this might be a bit much, considering half the time the carhouse trips don’t even run as passenger service.

    LikeLike

33. Steve replied: “Steve: What are you talking about? At King and Church, there is a full junction to the north with pairs of curves on the NE and NW quadrants. King cars are using the NE quadrant curves right now as part of the TIFF short turn. Adelaide is in service east of Victoria, as it has been for years. Track further west will be installed later this year once the utility vaults conflicting with the new track are shifted.”

    Yes, you are absolutely correct, and that is St. James Cathedral there, where wife & I go for service. And, we were actually there that evening. Now I am wondering what intersection I was actually looking at.

    LikeLike

34. I saw 505 cars operating on Gerrard Street East on Saturday morning and had thought Metrolinx were up to their usual unplanned closures and forced an early change but no.

    Cars were being diverted around several problem areas and I think 505 cars were at one point simultaneously operating across College, Gerrard, and King.

    LikeLike

Comments are closed.