When I published my article about the year-long shutdown of streetcar service on St. Clair, I did not expect it would trigger a wave of complaints on Twitter/X about the scope and length of the project. Late last week, I was busy dealing with the announced service changes overall, but now am taking another look at St. Clair.
In the presentation deck (about which more below) there is a chronology showing that there was consultation back in May 2023. Exactly what this might have entailed is hard to say, but there were certainly no fireworks four months ago.
Anyone who is trying to keep on top of TTC construction plans has something of a challenge finding information. The Projects and Plans page is only linked from the common footer of all pages on the TTC site. If you don’t scroll down to the bottom, you will never find it.
Within that page is a link to the St. Clair project page. It contains links to an August 24 version of the project overview and a construction notice. The August 24 version is the one I used in writing my article. There are, however, three versions of the project overview.
The description of the planned work in the last version is quite different from the May 2023 version on which consultation would have been based.
Courtesy of the Internet Archive, I pulled up the original version of the St. Clair project page posted on August 12. Note that it says “Work will result in intermittent bus replacement on the 512 St. Clair streetcar route”, not a complete shutdown lasting to summer 2024. By late August, the page had changed.
Here are the three versions of the presentation deck:
In the May deck, text on a diversion map talks about intermittent bus operation, and the projected end date is first quarter 2024 for third party works. However, elsewhere we see that the full project including St. Clair West Station would run through to the summer.
It is quite possible that the May version of the deck gave the impression of a shorter, less intrusive project than the one now underway.
This was the version in effect for the original consultation.
By the August 11 version, the dates have not changed, but reference to “intermittent” replacement is gone.
The August 24 version contains the same information in a different form.
What is not clear is whether the TTC ever actually consulted about a more extensive shutdown, or about the problems created by operating buses in the traffic lanes, not on the streetcar right-of-way. The latter is difficult because of the support poles for the overhead system which lie between the eastbound and westbound tracks.
This is an example of scope creep coupled with changing and hard-to-find information. One might think that the TTC has been taking lessons from Metrolinx.
Steve Munro 