The TTC has announced that streetcar service will be suspended, in part, over the 509 Harbourfront and part of 511 Bathurst at various times between Tuesday, September 3 and January 2025. This will allow the reconstruction and upgrading of the overhead system between Union Station and Exhibition Loop to be fully pantograph-compliant.
Information is posted in three separate items on the TTC site with the first being the most extensive.
The work will be done in three stages:
- Stage 1: September-Early October 2024
- Overhead work will concentrate on the area from Spadina eastward.
- 509 Harbourfront cars will be replaced by buses between Union Station and Exhibition.
- Buses will use the streetcar right-of-way eastbound between Spadina and York, stopping at the curb at other locations, and at all stops westbound.
- At Queens Quay Station, buses will serve the existing surface stops used by other routes.
- At Union Station, buses will drop off on the southeast corner of Front & Bay, and pick up on Bay south of Front.
- Stage 2: Early October to Late November 2024
- Work will shift to the section between Spadina and Bathurst.
- 509 Harbourfront streetcars will operate between Union Station and Spadina.
- 510 Spadina buses will be extended west to Exhibition Place.
- Stage 3: Late November 2024 to January 2025
- Work will move to the section west of Bathurst.
- 509 Harbourfront streetcars will continue to operate between Union Station and Spadina.
- 510 Spadina buses will continue to run to the Exhibition.
- 511 Bathurst streetcars will operate to Union Station instead of to the Exhibition.
In theory, based on the planned end date for work on 510 Spadina, everything should be back to normal just after New Year’s.
Steve Munro 
Hi Steve,
I feel like Stage 1 will be a bit of a disaster, based on how replacement buses near Union Station have been in the past.
For Stage 2, I’m wondering how streetcars will get to the part of the route that is in operation. The work for that phase is being done between Spadina and Bathurst, and Spadina is under construction itself. Also, from what I remember the Queens Quay loop was supposed to be worked on as part of the Spadina closure, so is that scheduled to be done by October?
Thanks for the update!
Steve: Obviously they plan to have the link south from King to Queens Quay open by Thanksgiving. Remember that the original timeline for the Spadina project only went to October, but was extended to December because of the work at Spadina Station.
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Why did TTC management decide to make the Spadina Bus worse? A Harbourfront Replacement Bus like in stage 1 makes perfect sense, this half-measure streetcar and worsened Spadina Bus plan for stages 2 and 3 is illogical. Plus without this half measure streetcar route they could turn Bathurst cars around the Spadina loop!
Steve: In stage 2, the overhead west of Spadina will be under construction, so no Bathurst cars to Queens Quay Loop. They need the extended 510 Spadina bus in stage 3 to cover the section west of Bathurst where streetcars will not be able to run.
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Is this insane? It’s Bathurst all messed up. So the stretch between Bathurst and Spadina will be fine. Just east of Spadina bollocked up? Is anyone thinking????
Steve: This is only overhead wiring replacement, not road excavation, and no traffic restrictions are planned.
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Oh, I never knew that Harbourfront wasn’t fully panto compliant. I thought that Harbourfront, and Spadina streetcars were first to use pantograph.
Thanks for the notice, Steve. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. 🙂
Steve: Although many frogs have been removed, all of the overhead is not yet self-tensioning. Also, some underground work is planned which, I suspect, has to do with aging feeder cables. There may also be some elderly contact wire.
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Have you seen a current map of which sections of overhead are in which phase of these upgrade and when they intend/hope to complete this work? You posted one a year or more ago and the TTC does seem to be getting more and more sections of the network overhead up to 2024 standards – once it is all done is that ‘it’ for overhead upgrades and we are back to (or reach?) ongoing ‘regular SOGR work”?
Steve: I have seen one, but it is out of date. There is still work to be done on the non-right-of-way lines including the western part of Carlton (2025), parts of King Street (to be bundled with 2025 track work) and Bathurst (deferred from 2024). At some point, yes, we do get back to “ordinary” work, but I am not sure of a date.
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Seems like a perfect time to do some preliminary work on expanding the Union Station streetcar loop and the Waterfront East LRT around Queens Quay West and Queens Quay East?
Possible excuse not to? Not enough funding.
Steve: First off, the design work is not complete, but more importantly the “preliminary work” you speak of is not a few months’ undertaking. Also Union Loop will be back in service after Thanksgiving.
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Finished by January … let’s hope so.
Gosh, are we actually looking at having all the lines running, from one end to the other, in January 2025 (though with the brief 501 detour onto Adelaide)?
Between the Queensway/Roncesvalles work, and the bustitution of various routes because of the streetcar shortage in the 2010s – how many years has it been since this happened?
(I’ve cursed it now – they’ll surely dig something new up in January).
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This is the song that never ends…. it just keeps going on, my friends. Some people started singing it and…. well you get the idea… but Streetcar shutdowns feel this way. Steve off-topic, there were some comments before on door speed of the streetcars. Can we talk about the doors on streetcars, because i’ve noticed (maybe I’m going crazy, I might be) but the doors seem to be even slower than before. It’s almost funny how slowly they close now. Like one person said, it’s as if the TTC wants to sabotage the streetcar system. By making it as inefficient as possible. “Death by a thousand cuts”
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Hi Steve, do you have any idea what next weeks service change for the TTC would look like or have you received the service memo yet? The TTC used to reveal changes a month ahead now it’s not until under a week.
Steve: They have been playing games with releasing the info at the last minute and I have not yet received the memo. It’s as if they want to get the initial announcement for themselves rather than having me publish first.
Of course the flip side of that is they typically oversell the changes, and then I come along to debunk them.
One change that is clearly visible in the GTFS version of the schedules posted last week is improved service on Line 1 weekdays except for the late evening period which is unchanged. No changes on Lines 2 or 4.
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Are they planning on closing King Street during TIFF this year? With all the streetcar closures, is it actually possible to go west from downtown by transit if King is closed?
Steve: I have not seen details, but TIFF is talking about a five-day closure over the opening weekend. Thanks to foot-dragging by the project to produce a bypass for the Ontario Line, the new track on Adelaide is not yet available and a westbound Richmond/Queen diversion is not possible. It’s going to be a mess.
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If TIFF is closing King street, they should probably delay the closure of the 509 until AFTER TIFF then. The City should also call up the traffic wardens and lighten up on the Gardiner construction during that week too. Honestly, I don’t understand why Olivia Chow doesn’t have a special events czar yet who coordinates traffic and transit responses to special events, floods, and other unusual circumstances. This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened during her watch.
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The 504 will probably turn back at Spadina eastbound and York westbound. The Richmond-Victoria-Adelaide loops appears to be closed still. A shortened 504 sharing the York loop with the 501 and a shortened 503 sounds like another disaster in the wings.
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