For those who have been wondering where my usual wrap-up of coming service changes is, it seems to be stuck in the managerial bowels of the TTC. A few weeks ago I was led to believe that its release was imminent, but as of the evening of February 11, crickets.
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There is an online public event on the evening of Thursday, February 15 for which you can register via the City’s site. You can also subscribe to updates on the City’s page (the link is at the bottom).
Major changes to routes in the Parkdale and Liberty Village area are coming on February 18, and the details have been posted for a while elsewhere. Time for me to catch up. When the service memo comes out, I will flesh this out with service frequency details. Here is a map showing the wandering routes in the west end.
King Street will be closed between Shaw and Dufferin for water main and track work. This is a multi-stage project, although from a transit point of view it will have two configurations.
Effective February 18, 2024:
King Street will close between Shaw and Dufferin. Various routes will change to provide service, such as they can.
63 Ossington will no longer loop northbound via Atlantic and King to Shaw, but will be extended west via Liberty, Dufferin and King to Sunnyside Loop west of Roncesvalles.
29/929 Dufferin routes are not affected at this stage of the project.
501 Queen will vary by time of day. The eastern terminus remains at McCaul Loop, but the western terminus will change.
- Until 10pm, all 501 Queen cars will run only as far west as Dufferin Street, and they will turn south to Dufferin Loop (CNE Western Gate).
- After 10pm, all 501 Queen cars will run through to Long Branch as they do now replacing the 507 Long Branch car.
301 Queen night car bus service will continue to operate between Neville and Long Branch.
504 King cars will also vary by time of day:
- Cars on both the 504A and 504B branches will divert via Shaw and Queen to Roncesvalles.
- 504A Dundas West cars will run north to Dundas West Station at all times.
- 504B cars that would normally run to Dufferin Loop will run west on Queen.
- Before 10pm, 504B cars will run through to Humber Loop replacing the 501 Queen service which will divert to Dufferin Loop.
- After 10pm, 504B cars will terminate at Roncesvalles.
- Note that streetcar service to Broadview Station will be restored and so the 504B cars will no longer end at Distillery Loop, but will run to their normal east end destination.
304 King night service will operate between Broadview and Dundas West Stations diverting via Shaw and Queen. [Updated Feb. 12 at 11:40am] The TTC media release confirms that the night service will operate with streetcars.
507 Long Branch service is not affected.
508 Lake Shore cars will divert via Shaw and Queen, but will otherwise operate on their normal route.
Effective Late June 2024
Note: The work at King & Dufferin has been postponed to 2025.
The intersection of King & Dufferin will close for complete reconstruction of the track. This will require changes in the 501 Queen and 63 Ossington diversions, as well as a revised south end for the 29/929 Dufferin services, but details have not yet been announced.
Effective August 2024
With the completion of work at King & Dufferin, routes should revert to the February configuration, but nothing is definite about TTC plans as riders know well. Stay tuned.
The work is supposed to continue until “early December” according to the TTC site, but until “November” according to the City site. Normally, the schedule change would occur in late November, and so it is not clear just what date they are aiming at. The usual December change is for the two-week holiday schedules just before Christmas.
Steve Munro 
Ahhh! That explains why the King cars I’m seeing at Dundas West seem to be spurious. I live adjacent, and not only couldn’t make sense of what runs where and when, but also the serious ‘tailbacks’ of streetcars in the late evening.
Steve: The service to Dundas West today is the usual 504A service unless the TTC is running extras that far west for the University subway closure this weekend. The queues of streetcars are caused by padded schedules.
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Do you know why the 501 would go to Dufferin loop and the 504 would go to long Branch? Wouldn’t it make more sense the other way around?
Steve: First off, the 504 will go to Humber, not Long Branch. Second, there were two options and the TTC conducted a poll, although I have not seen the distribution of responses. The 504 Humber version won out.
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I don’t understand why TTC decided to change the route for 501 to Dufferin Gate since the route is not affected by the construction on King Street. The 501 could have remain the same throughout the entire time. 504B could have served Dufferin Gate and customers would have only been affected by the 63 route change as well as 504A/B route change. Does anyone has an answer why TTC is doing that?
Steve: As I said in my response to the previous comment, the TTC conducted a poll, and it appears that the 504 Humber variant won out.
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Not a service change related, but do you have any information of those slow zones throughout the TTC system which many of them appeared all of sudden.
Line 1 alone has 15 slow zones in total and the worse area seems to be Northbound of Yonge line between Bloor/Yonge & Davisville.. I was going up to Sheppard-Yonge from Bloor/Yonge and it took me more than 30minute compared to 17-18 minute during the normal time.
I saw there’s a slow zone between Royal York and Jane on line 2 as well..
However, because of those slow zones on line 1, the headway has been broken resulting in longer than normal wait times. However, I feel like many riders are blindsided about those slow zones and the TTC is doing absolutely poor job on communications like why those slowzones poppoed up all of sudden and when will it end.
Steve: In the aftermath of the SRT derailment and other reviews of TTC maintenance practices, the TTC conducted a full track geometry review on the subway, and did not like what they found. Hence the many slow orders until the tracks are put back in good shape. The obvious question is why the situation was allowed to reach this state, and it echoes the problems that led up to the Russell Hill crash. Budget cuts and “we can make do” maintenance. A legacy of the penny-pinching Tory era.
The list of slow order zones is on the TTC’s site.
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This might be the first time there is a regular Dufferin loop-McCaul loop service.
Feels like a hundred years ago, when the TTC ran a grab-bag of tripper routes to handle factory shift workers. (Back then, we had factories with shifts, and the streetcar was the major transportation if you simply did not walk home.)
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December? Merry Christmas everyone!
If this was Japan, they’ll get the needed workers to do it all in a weekend. But with only the minimum number of workers, Toronto takes seemly forever, because it would be cheaper to spread the work out over months.
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I am very sceptical that the TTC makes decisions about route service changes through direct polling of users. It is more likely that they use polls to support the changes in reports to the city or board when the polling results support the changes, and bury the results when they don’t. The service changes are more likely to be influenced by factors such as vehicle use, and less likely to be influenced by the input from users.
Steve: I agree, but that’s the official story. Polls like this can show up after the point where a decision on route changes would have to be made for scheduling and crewing.
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You mentioned that “streetcar service to Broadview Station will be restored”. Does that include 505 Dundas as well as 504B?
Steve: Yes.
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From TTC website the king and Dundas platforms will switch at Broadview station. Do you know any possible reason they would switch this?
Steve: According to the detailed service memo (which I have only just received), the 504B King cars will be scheduled to take the majority of their break time at the west end of the line (Humber Loop effective Feb. 18). This will allow for a single car on the outer platform at Broadview while the 505 Dundas cars, which will have a longer break, will use the platform where two cars can fit.
I will publish the detailed list of changes later today (Feb 13).
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Any thought to adding the missing south-to-west curve at King and Dufferin and create a grand union? The curve would add flexibility.
Steve: As far as I know it will be rebuilt as is. There is a manhole in the path of a possible south-to-west, I believe.
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good move
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With the 504A, 504B, 508 and 63 making the turn from Shaw to King/Queen they might wait unit the diversion is almost over to install advanced turn signals.
Steve: Oh you cynic! This is precisely the kind of problem we have seen on previous major diversions where transit priority should be in place on day 1. Don’t forget also the occasional 501 turning left at Queen and Dufferin.
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Am I interpreting this correctly that they rebuilt everything but did not change the capacity of the platform?
Steve: Yes. The original plan to extend the platform fell victim to the local BIA and Councillor who value their parking lot east of the loop more.
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It would make excellent good sense, considering all of the reconstruction of the street and utilities that, if the City and TTC co-ordinated, that the manhole would be moved to allow the missing curve. However, given that there is no information out there means most likely that the missing curve is not the only missing thing. Hopefully not too late to make adjustments.
Steve: A manhole can be atop a larger underground chamber that cannot easily be shifted. This is not like simply replacing an existing water main.
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Apropos the missing curve at King and Dufferin. There’s a watermain break somewhere on Queen in Parkdale right now. Eastbound streetcars are running King to Dufferin to Queen to Shaw to King. Westbound 504A streetcars are running up Bathurst to Dundas to Dundas West station, while 504B loop at Dufferin Loop and some short turn back east while others turn from northbound Dufferin onto King westbound.
It’s a right hash and impacting everything from Roncesvalles to Humber loop.
Steve: Yes. Happening at the same time King is closed for construction makes a real mess. All I can say is that recent events with loss of pieces of both Queen and King have shown how important redundancy is in the streetcar network.
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It was a real mess when I commuted from Ossington to Humber Loop last week. The 63 bus dropped me off on Queen, then took a 504B streetcar seeing the Humber Loop as destination. After Gladstone hotel the operator mentioned that the car will be going to Dufferin loop and then will proceed further west after that, and to expect delays. So I got down at King and Dufferin hoping to catch some streetcar that’s already on it’s way back from the loop. But nothing was on the way, so I had to take another 63 bus from Spencer Avenue (around 250m walk) because apparently the 63 doesn’t stop on the King and Dufferin stop. Reached Roncy and was waiting for a streetcar to take me to Humberloop, but surprise surprise the next streetcar that came there with the Humber Loop as destination on the board decided to go into the Roncy streetcar yard, and the next streetcar was 20mins away. So finally walked across the flyover to the Sunnyside beach share bike post and took a bike to cycle back home. If I ever do this level of incompetent work in my life, I would’ve been fired the first day itself lol.
Steve: Yes, the operations on King and Queen West are a real mess between the construction on King and the water main repairs on Queen. I am surprised that they have not implemented a more rider-friendly arrangement.
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Really bad service if it doesn’t service Dufferin at King right there but then again the 501B replacement bus service had a terribly inconvenient looping and transfer point arrangement on westbound trips and didn’t serve the eastbound Broadview at Queen stop for several months until the old Thompson Street stop magically reappeared. The people concocting these service designs are the most out of touch people.
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