Only a few routes are changing at the end of July, although TTC has hinted that major service additions are coming in the fall. Given the state of the TTC’s budget, we will see in roughly a month just what that entails.
Rapid Transit Changes
2 Bloor-Danforth
Gap trains are removed from the weekday schedule due to a shortage of operators. This eliminates two trains in the AM and PM peaks, and five trains through the early and late evening periods. Four midday gap trains remain.
Night Service Changes
504/304 King
Three mid-evening trips eastbound from Humber Loop are added to provide a better transition between the 504B King and 501 Queen services west of Roncesvalles. There is no change to the 501 Queen nor to the 507 Long Branch schedule.
Schedules for the 304 King Night Car will be adjusted for reliability. Cars will continue on their present 20′ headway, but some driving time has been converted to terminal layover time.
305 Dundas
All-night service will be provided on Dundas over the same route as the daytime 505 with cars on a 30′ headway.
306 Carlton
Because Dundas is now a 24 hour route, the 306 Carlton Night Car will operate to High Park Loop, and will continue on a 20′ headway. (Note that although this is generally advertised as a 20′ headway, it actually widens to 30′ after 3am.)
332 Eglinton West, 334 Eglinton East & 354 Lawrence East
These routes will be changed to enter Eglinton Station via Yonge and Berwick rather than via the western entrance at Duplex. Stops at the south entrance to the station and at Berwick to provide transfer connections between these routes.
363 Ossington
Buses will serve the stop at Strachan and Canniff to provide a transfer connection with 304 King, and to match the daytime service.
Bus Changes
36 Finch West
Additional trips will be added in the AM and PM peaks, and in weekday early evenings to provide more capacity on this route. These are factory trips deleted in error in the June schedule change.
114 Queens Quay East
The 114 Queens Quay East bus has been using Lake Shore Garage as its eastern terminal since early July. This change is now formally in the schedule.
Buses run out of service east of Carlaw, but serve the Logan, Lake Shore, Carlaw loop in both directions.
123 Sherway
A trip from Kipling Station on the 123D East Mall service will shift from 6:11 to 6:12am to even out departures.
203 High Park
The 203 High Park shuttle operated with a Wheel Trans bus will now run east to Keele Station which provides an accessible connection to the subway. Buses will loop through High Park Station enroute. The headway is changed from every 20 to every 30 minutes.
937 Islington Express
Stops added at Dundas and at Rathburn to provide transfers to 40 Junction and 48 Rathburn.
945 Kipling Express
Stops added at Burnhamthorpe and at Rathburn to provide transfers to 46 Martin Grove, 48 Rathburn and 50 Burnhamthorpe.
Streetcar Service Maps
Streetcar Vehicle and Service Allocations
Streetcar fleet utilization remains well below the actual fleet size of about 220 (allowing for long-term out of service vehicles).
Bus Vehicle Allocations
Note that the peak vehicle requirement remains considerably below the actual fleet size of over 2,100 vehicles, and the spare ratio is over 40%, well beyond industry norms.
The allocations of Route 600 Run As Directed buses is quite high in the evening period suggesting that there are a lot of operators spare to crew this service. Come September when substantial service improvements have been strongly hinted at by the CEO and others, it will be interesting to see how this chart changes.
Construction Projects
The construction project outlook in the table below suggests that a rare sight may occur late in 2024 with all of the streetcar routes actually operating with streetcars. Whether the TTC finds some way to avoid this remains to be seen.
A date for through operation of the 501 Queen car via the Richmond/Adelaide bypass has not yet been announced, but construction of the eastbound track connection to York at Queen is underway.
Steve Munro 
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the update. It seems that not much is happening in this set of service changes, but that could be because all the major changes are happening in September.
I was just curious if you happened to know what the plan is for the 202 Cherry Beach route. It has been diverting onto Commissioners ever since it started service for the season. Obviously the Cherry Street bridge is out of the TTC’s control, but is there a plan if it doesn’t get fixed in the near future? The way the TTC has managed the diversion hasn’t been great as well. You would think that with a diversion this lengthy, they would be able to make some wayfinding adjustments to the destination signs and announcements, especially considering this is a route that caters to tourists.
Steve: The problem is that the other route to Cherry Beach via Unwin would require buses to cross a small bridge that cannot handle the load. Ports Toronto plans to have the bridge back in partial operation soon, but not fully until late August. The TTC shows the diversion as continuing to July 27.
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Hi Steve,
The work on Adelaide appeared complete when I passed by earlier this month, except for overhead. Do you think there’s chance of this being done and the Adelaide track being available for detour before TIFF?
Ah, but I guess it would also need Queen and York not to be dug up either, to allow the westbound routing?
Steve: Nope. Not in time for TIFF. This whole project has been going in slow motion and we will be lucky to seen Queen cars through-routed before year-end.
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I notice in the “Construction Projects” page – Sheppard Station driveway is now Q1 in 2025… All their posters in station say late 2024. Guess that means if it isn’t done in 2024 we are late.
This will be an absolute joy in winter as the temporary stops are nothing more than covered scaffolding. There is now about 15% of the project finished with poured concrete – the rest is levelled and some not even started yet. (Taking lessons from Metrolinx on speed of work)
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And that’s the last of the streetcar routes not having a night bus counterpart. Wonder why this took so long? Guessing a shortage of available operators? Well, better than never.
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The 305 Dundas Night Car will operate on a 30′ headway.
30 minutes divided by 2 is 15 minutes. Couldn’t the 305 and 306 operate out of Dundas West Station (Edna Avenue stop) alternating every 15 minutes? (Until they extend the 306 up to Keele Station next century.)
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The Cherry St bridge appears today, from a distance, to be down. At least, not up.
Did late evening/night Carlton cars ever use High Park loop, at least after Dundas West station opened? Apart from construction diversions, of course.
Even late evening 506 cars would switch to Dundas West from High Park, I think around 11 PM-ish, back in the early 1980s.
Steve: The Carlton car went to Dundas West after 1am. This is the “modern” version of a route over a century old when late night cars went to Keele & Dundas and wyed, later to Runnymede Loop, a practice that lasted until the portion of the Dundas route north of Dundas West became the Junction trolleybus route. Late evening service ended at 11:55pm until 1945, then 1:00am. (Info from Louis H. Pursley’s “Toronto Trolley Car Story”.)
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Re: stephenbennett2 about covered scaffolding as shelters at Sheppard station.
I envy your predicament. At Lawrence Station, the southern entrance and bus terminal are closed for 12 months. To transfer between the subway and the buses along Lawrence Avenue, riders must walk about 265 metres along Yonge Street to/from the northern entrance. If one is lucky, a 97 Yonge bus (roughly half-hour frequency) might show up to save the walk.
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Thank you Steve for doing the archeological work on the Carlton car. So absent construction detours, it seems that High Park loop was generally not in use overnight.
I do recall that back in the early days of CLRVs, residents along Howard Park greatly objected to the rumbling of the non-resilient wheels that the cars came with from the factory. Those were the days when, until the wheels were updated, PCCs were sent out in the evenings and to “sensitive” areas.
Steve: That was also an area where there was an early test of resilient track.
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Not sure if others have noticed that YUS subway service has deteriorated quite a bit in the past 2 weeks with the numerous slow orders being thrown up.
Why are there so many slow orders all of a sudden?
Something else that I have noticed is subway service is quite poor during rush hours on Thursday and Fridays. Gaps are quite significant and the slow orders compound the delays.
I’m hesitant to say it but service overall is getting slower and travel times are growing. Must be a sign the TTC is circling the drain. It’s disappointing that even on a Summer season schedule the TTC can’t even run service properly.
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With Ossington bus service, the northbound stop beyond Queen W is quite a ways north from Queen itself, almost half a block, ie. closer to that small sidestreet. Why is it so far north? Isn’t there some blah blah policy about making transfers convenient?
Steve: If you look at Google Street View, the stop has been at that location since at least 2007, probably to avoid buses backing up to Queen on a route that has had frequent service. The space immediately north of Queen is now a CafeTO location.
A recent change is the removal of the transit shelter at this stop (you can see an asphalt patch where it used to be).
“Convenience” is one of those elastic TTC terms observed when it is convenient for them, not necessarily for riders.
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Steve wrote:
A new shelter finally appeared at this stop in past month or so.
Steve: Thanks for the update!
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I wonder if it’s safe for the Sheppard bus station construction to go into the winter? I’ve never noticed any TTC bus accidents before, but I’ve already seen two TTC bus collisions due to the Sheppard bus station construction (the detour has tight corners, and they need to maintain a high frequency when the subway replacement bus is running). I can’t imagine how bad it will get during the winter.
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