The weekend of Sept 23-24 saw another shuffle in the streetcar diversion list on which I last reported a few weeks ago. This round of changes is triggered by two events:
- Metrolinx work on the Lakeshore East corridor at Queen & Degrassi streets prevents streetcar operation through the underpass, and at times the road will be closed to all traffic.
- Toronto Hydro work on Queen West has completed to the point that streetcars are no longer diverting via King Street through Parkdale.
Services now operating on Queen Street include:
- 501L (aka 507) Queen bus from Long Branch to Dufferin. These buses do not appear on transit apps.
- 501B Queen bus from Bathurst to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
- 501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop.
- 501D (aka 513) Queen bus from Victoria Street (looping via Church, Richmond and Victoria) to Neville Loop. These buses appear on transit apps as 513 Queen East.
- 503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.
During certain periods, the underpass at Degrassi will be closed to all traffic and the 501/503/513 services will divert via Broadview, Dundas and Carlaw.
Complete closures are planned for Sunday, September 24 all day, and from Friday, September 29 at 10pm to Monday, October 2 at 4am.
The 504 King car operates only west of Distillery Loop pending completion of road and track construction on Broadview from Gerrard to Broadview Station Loop. Heavy construction at the loop will begin on Monday, September 25. Paving in the curb lanes on Broadview south of Danforth has begun following completion of track work.
The 72A Pape bus serving King Street East will use the same diversion around Queen & Degrassi as the Queen services, and will not serve stops south of Dundas nor on Queen east of Broadview during periods when the underpass is closed.
The 505 Dundas car no longer serves Queen Street East except between Coxwell and Woodbine Loop. It now operates via Broadview, Gerrard, Coxwell and Queen to Kingston Road.
There is no map of the current route arrangement in the east end on the TTC’s Streetcar Service Changes page, and some maps for 505 Dundas reflect its route before the shift north to Gerrard Street. The 505 Dundas section also still includes a reference to the 506C bus from Castle Frank Station which no longer operates.
The 506 Carlton car is unchanged with normal service except at the west end where cars divert to Dundas West Station due to water main construction on Howard Park Avenue.
Routes 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 511 Bathurst are operating normally.
Route 512 St. Clair will remain a bus operation until summer 2024 for various construction projects.
Steve Munro 
Which decade will all the streetcar routes return to “normal”?
Steve I can’t count that high.
The Ontario Line will be screwing things up until at least 2028 (that’s for street restoration, but no service), and there will always be projects here and there for track and water main renewal. The real challenge will be to make the so-called co-ordination by the City and various utilities actually work so that we don’t have on-and-off projects while things are redesigned to suit on site conditions that were discovered after, rather than before, work began. Hydro is particularly bad for this.
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Quite literally. Apparently none of the diverting services stop anywhere along the detour and simply run express while off-route. I can’t see any place where this is made clear. How’s that for customer service?
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I wouldn’t be surprised if part of the reason the TTC doesn’t seem to be making sure the 501L buses are on transit apps is that the service is downright horrible. My mum had to wait over an hour at rush hour, got to the stop at 16:30 going Westbound from Mimico or Superior. She’s had that issue at other times, and other passengers reported similar problems on a regular basis.
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I for one am really excited to have Wellington Street streetcar construction finished only to not have any streetcars on it due to east end construction for the next decade.
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Who’d have thought that in 2023, we’d have the 507, 508, and 513 all in service; even if they were signed as other routes.
I’m quite happy to consider 501 as back in full service, once the Adelaide/Richmond detour is working fully. It will be a one-stop ride from Neville to west of the Humber (somewhere), with only a short walk to Queen.
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Is there any indication as to the specific dates when the Degrassi underpass will be closed? Or is more like on a random basis depending on how the construction is going?
Steve: The known dates are in the article. Further complete closures will occur, but they have not yet been announced, and yes it will depend on construction progress. Buses will run via Queen when it is open, via Dundas otherwise. A date for the return of streetcars east of Broadview has not been announced, and this will also be an on-again, off-again situation for future stages of work on the overpass and on Riverside Station.
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This constant game of “What’s Not Running?” undoubtedly affects ridership. Riders want consistency. They want to be able to walk to a stop or station and get on their ride after not waiting very long. If I were not a follower of this site, I’d wind up showing up somewhere only to find there is a route diversion or we’re expected to cram into shuttle buses (being a downtown liberal elite, I rarely take buses and seek to avoid them).
Just this weekend I had to travel with a disabled family member. We had to book WheelTrans in advance. The service was fine and the outbound and return trip went smoothly. However, it would have been faster and cheaper for TTC if we had taken the streetcar. However, the ride would have required travelling on two lines and I just could not recall if there were any disruptions or diversions on the way. Therefore, we didn’t take the streetcar. If we’d had a car, we might have driven. Frequency and consistency are the keys to maintaining ridership and the TTC seems to be doing all it can to drive folks away.
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This seems to be the default mode for ALL diversions. A few weeks ago the 65 Parliament bus was diverted south of Front Street as Parliament Street was totally blocked for Enbridge work. The TTC, eventually, noted this on the website but the diversion brought the bus up Lower Jarvis and along Front to Parliament. It appeared to make NO stops while on this quite long diversion – certainly no official ones. “Customer Service” is really an oxymoron at TTC!
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That would be news to me. Perhaps with ad hoc diversions this might make sense but planned diversions? It makes no sense. The streetcars usually make stops along diversions, planned or not.
In the distant past when some of the Queen services were bustituted and used Dundas east of Broadview there were temporary stops placed.
At the end of the route I suppose it isn’t as bad but leaving an 800m gap in the middle of a route and not announcing it on detour notices, via PA by the operator, or by any other means until the vehicle is already off route smells suspiciously like Leary.
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I made a mistake in my last post. The distance between stops actually stretches another 400m to 1.2km for eastbound trips of the 501D/513 and 503 when operators avoid making stops before and after their left turns at Broadview and Carlaw.
As a customer the only way you would know this is after you’ve boarded and you’re being taken for a ride. It’s astoundingly bad service.
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If I was a betting man I’d say the 501 won’t be open into the west end until at least summer next year with the winter coming now.
Steve: I am told they are still planning for November. Now it’s down to the TTC overhead crew to finish their work. No contractors to blame any more.
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On the ttc.ca website, “Streetcar service changes” says that the 501D bus will run between Neville Park Loop and Church Street from “October 2 (5 a.m.) to October 8”. It does not mention what happens after October 8. The “October service adjustments” page says the 501D streetcar will run between Neville Park Loop and York & King Streets. So after October 8, would you know which is running: the 501D bus or the 501D streetcar?
On Thursday, there was still a sign hanging from the overhead wires on the south side of Church and King saying that streetcars were not to use the track there. I suspect 501D will be bus service.
The “501 Queen” page says “513/501D Queen (not operating until September 22)”. This page has a service advisory titled “501|301 Routing change” and dated September 3 saying “501 Queen streetcar service will be replaced by 505 Dundas streetcars on Queen Street between Broadview Avenue and Neville Park Loop”. I know this is obsolete.
Steve: I have just posted the omnibus article showing all of the changes effective October 8 (I only received the memo about 24 hours ago with all of the details).
Yes the 501D will be a streetcar running from King & York to Neville Loop via Church & Queen. The 503 will also return as a streetcar running west to Spadina.
There is a severe ongoing problem with out of date and incorrect info on the TTC website. I flag it when I see it, and sometimes they fix things. However, I will wait until Sunday to see if the info is all updated for the new routes.
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