The TTC has announced a diversion of 501 Queen streetcar service between Roncesvalles and Shaw via King due to Toronto Hydro work at Gladstone Avenue.
This diversion took some at TTC by surprise. I was alerted to it by a reader [with thanks] who received a notice from Hydro of an impending project and streetcar service suspension “as per TTC approval”. This was not mentioned in the September Service Planning memo, and when I asked the TTC, nobody seemed to know anything about it.
The services now operating on Queen are:
- 501L/B Queen bus from Long Branch to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
- 501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop diverting via King and Shaw through Parkdale.
- 503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.
- 505 Dundas between Broadview and Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.
Needless to say, this arrangement completely bamboozles trip prediction apps, although transsee.ca makes a valiant attempt to keep up with the situation.
This will change on September 22/23 with the closure of Queen East at Degrassi for Metrolinx work on the GO corridor, and, in theory, completion of the Hydro work on Queen West. Stay tuned for updates.
Steve Munro 
Wonder if this is related to the sudden emergency work Hydro One had to undertake on Queen Quay West by Bay south side. According to the sign the work is to repair underground cables.
Which i find odd considering this was all done only 7 or 8 years ago. Perhaps throwing up dozens upon dozens of High Rise condos is overtaxing our infrastructure.
I’m sure its fine…. and the transition to electric cars (and ferries soon) will smooth as butter.
Steve: The two projects are miles apart. There were utility issues with the KQQR project, but they are a separate matter and mainly related to buried plant not being found where it was expected.
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The 501 is completely non functional at this point. My 8th grade daughter had to change schools as the 501 commute went from 55 min to easily 90min+. I don’t know what she will do next year for high school as no arts based school is close.
I’ve given up going into the office. I only go when very necessary and cough up the $30 to drive and park. Sorry downtown recovery efforts. I’d like to go 2-3x per week, but not if I have to spend hours daily commuting. I try to keep it to 1x per month now for my sanity.
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I mistakenly wrote prior post:
“south of Bloor on Roncy.”
In fact that is Dundas, albeit many locals, myself included, refer to it as “Roncy”.
Steve: What previous post? I don’t see one.
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I agree with Tara on this, and just stopped bothering to take the 501. I’ll just walk from my place on Woodbine to Kingston Road and take the 503, which has been fantastic. I’m only going to King/York anyway, so this way I don’t have to keep transferring to other streetcars or buses.
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Streetcars simply do not work for a bustling downtown metropolis the size of Toronto, and combine that with the incompetence of the TTC as well…
And respectfully, don’t give me the drivel of investing in “grade-separated” solutions.” We can see how well that works on the 512…
Steve: “Grade separated” means underground or elevated. St. Clair is only an exclusive lane, and not as well-implemented as it might have been.
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For some, biking is an option, though it remains far too dangerous in some areas, like the west end, where fixes are available in form of moving the Queen tracks north a metre-ish, ideally from Niagara to Brock, but at the least from Shirley area to past Brock. This would be a bigger project than most bike lanes, but we could have a good quality separated westbound lane, and see what works for south side. Having a Queen subway as per 1957 plan would make it very easy of course. East side has a better option with the Dundas St. E. bike lane. Nowadays, a bit of extra risk comes from higher-speed e-bikes who don’t pass with room or notice but they have higher speed/mass.
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I’ve been taking downtown streetcars for several decades. At the moment I can’t figure out how to get anywhere. Ttc only feeds updates to transit apps and Google every few weeks, with all these changes it’s impossible to find the way. Just waiting for the 504 EB at McCaul, apps says 27 minutes, while 7 pass the other way, meanwhile a 505 EB shows up in 5min not 27
TTC is a joke downtown these days.
Steve: There shouldn’t be any 504s at McCaul and anything. They are all actually on King now that the Tiff diversions are finished. West of Bathurst, the 504As to Dundas west are on Dundas because of the Ronces Polish festival, but they will be back to normal late this evening once Ronces reopens.
Yes, it’s a mess. I find myself helping lost tourists frequently, and even I have problems staying on top of “today’s” diversions.
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Friday evening at about 7:15, my wife & I left Sunnyside Park via the pedestrian bridge from Palais Royale to the south-west corner of Queensway and King. At KQQR, there no signs for a TTC stop anywhere to be seen. There were others looking for TTC, as well, all of us confused. We watched as a number of King cars came from the west and turned down King right in front of us. But none would stop for us. We had come to Sunnyside via a King car that ended its route at Queen, as did all the following King cars that I saw. Was there no streetcar on Roncesvalles? We went along Queen to the next stop, which is a far-side stop (though we really wanted a King car because of our planned destination). There was a young lady TTC employee that advised us to go back to King & go south a bit, there will be a stop there. But, there was no such stop. My lady suggested that we try the north-west corner of Roncy & Queenway, because there used to be a stop there. However, we did not see any TTC stop posted there either. But, surprise, a King car came down Roncy and opened its doors for us. I realise that there has been a complete rebuild of KQQR, but the TTC ought to seriously revisit stop placements at this intersection.
Steve: The 504B King service that normally terminates at Dufferin Loop is running west to Roncesvalles due to construction. It is supposed to loop around the carhouse so that it can leave via the North Gate and serve the southbound stop on Roncesvalles at Queen/Queensway. However, not all cars loop the “official way” and might exit from the carhouse via the South Gate and then turn south/east onto King thereby missing the stop.
There used to be a stop eastbound on King east of the intersection used by buses while Roncesvalles was closed, but this may have been removed. I plan to visit the intersection later this week to check on overall progress on the KQQR project.
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With the exception of eastbound stop on Queen (now farside), the stops at KQQR are where they used to be… Peter might have run into the other TTC KQQR specialty, “no streetcars for half an hour for no apparent reason”!
(Last Friday, 501 cars were coming from the west and turning south onto King, due to the work at Gladstone. The other other TTC specialty is of course lack of clear information about these detours. During the week I saw a temporary stop for the eastbound 501 on King just south of Queen, but it was the usual tape-on-a-pole effort that might have fallen off.)
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Steve, if you actually do come down to KQQR and write an update, can you also take a look at the switches and ask TTC for confirmation if they’re intended to be electrified or not?
I looked a bit more closely today and saw operators changing the following switches manually:
* northbound on King at Queen, the switch to go straight or turn onto Queensway was being changed manually with the iron (it’s being used extensively right now with the extension of 504B to Roncesvalles)
* westbound on Queensway just past KQQR, the first switch encountered westbound (to enter the yard) was being changed manually
This intersection has _just_ been rebuilt, it’s at a major streetcar yard, and the northbound switch would be used in regular service by 508 and possible 504 services, so I want to believe that TTC has specified these switches to be electrified like it’s the 20th century. But they’re not. I’m hoping there’s a reason or an update so I don’t have to lose what’s left of my sanity thinking about this project.
Steve: One thing I do know generally is that re-electrification following construction seems to take an unduly long time anywhere.
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