Earlier this year, the TTC conducted the first round of consultations on its 2025 Annual Service Plan. My comments on it include several maps and tables including an update on previously proposed changes that had not yet been implemented.

The following changes are in the second round of consultations:

• The proposed removal of 87 Cosburn service to East York Acres has been withdrawn for further review.
• The review of Community Bus routes now includes proposed extensions and restructuring, although the scope is limited by a lack of budget headroom. There is no discussion of where more routes might be added to the system but for a lack of resources to run them.
• Proposals have been added for alternate service during some, but not all, major construction projects planned for 2025.
• A proposal to review and consolidate mid-block bus stops has been added.

Except for the 87 Cosburn, all proposals from round one appear unchanged in round two.

The TTC’s survey is available here and will be open for feedback until November 11, 2024. If you have suggestions, please be sure to respond to the survey. Some TTC planning staff do read this site regularly, but feedback on the plan should go to them directly to be part of the record.

I participated in a recent stakeholder session on the plan, and was disappointed by its lack of ambition. There is no sense of a “Ridership Growth Strategy”, an aspirational statement of “here is what we could do”, as opposed to living within the existing budget. It’s almost as if John Tory and Rick Leary never left.

On an informational basis, the plan does not recap pending changes for the eventual opening of Lines 5 Eglinton-Crosstown and 6 Finch West, nor does it discuss past proposals that have not yet been implemented (see my article on round one for a list of these). This leaves riders to search through available background materials to get an overall sense of what will happen in 2025. There is no concrete discussion of general service improvements to attract ridership.

The remainder of this article details the proposals added in the round two consultation.

Community Buses

There is no change proposed for 403 Don Mills South. Also, the scope of changes to other routes is dictated by existing resources due to low ridership. There is no indication of what areas might benefit from expansion of the network, nor of the cost tradeoffs of new or improved Community Bus service versus WheelTrans, especially in an era when the TTC is trying to push riders onto the “conventional” system.

This is a classic example of “we can’t afford it so we won’t tell you” planning that has bedeviled TTC for years.

400 Lawrence Manor

The proposed extension would create a loop via Lawrence, Culford and Wyndale to serve Amesbury Sports Complex, Amesbury Park, and the Amesbury Park Toronto Public Library.

402 Parkdale

The route would be changed between College and Queen Streets to operate via Dufferin rather than via Lansdowne. Service around the loop via Macdonell would be removed. At Sunnyside, the loop would be expanded to the west side of St. Joseph’s Hospital returning east via Pearson to Roncesvalles rather than Sunnyside.

404 East York / 408 Victoria Park South

The existing 404 East York service would be split into two routes.

404 East York would operate via a revised route between Coxwell and Victoria Park Stations serving Main Street Station enroute. Service on Kingston Road west of Victoria Park would be removed.

408 Victoria Park South would operate from Bingham Loop at Kingston Road and Victoria Park to the Golden Mile on Eglinton looping at Warden. Service would be removed from the existing 404 loop south of St. Clair.

405 Etobicoke would be rerouted at its west end via Widdicombe Hill rather than Eglinton, and extended south on Scarlett Road to serve Lambton Square.

For reference, here is the current level of service provided on the Community Bus routes. This shows how paltry the existing resources are.

Construction Projects

The Plan discusses alternative service options for four major projects in 2025, but notably omits two that will have major effects on the streetcar network.

The TTC claims that plans for 2025 are influenced by “lessons learned” in 2024, but there no specific examples of what has happened.

King-Church

Planned work at King and Church includes replacement of a City water main, reconstruction of the track, and overhead upgrades for full pantograph compliance. The overhead work will also extend east on King to near Queen at the Don River, and on the Distillery branch via Sumach and Cherry.

Proposed service alternatives completely remove service from King east of Yonge to at least Jarvis (option 1) or to the Don (option 2).

Common to both options:

• 503 Kingston Road service is rerouted to McCaul Loop from its usual downtown destination of York & Wellington.
• 504 King and 508 Lake Shore services operate via Queen between Broadview and Spadina, and then via King to the western end of their routes. 504 service to the Distillery is removed.
• All service in the Queen Street corridor will operate via the Church, Richmond/Adelaide and York diversion.

Option 1:

• Service on King would be provided by a 504 bus running east to Broadview and north to Gerrard (using the same route as the existing 501B Queen shuttle bus). 504 buses would divert around the construction zone via Jarvis, Wellington/Front and Yonge.

Option 2:

• The 121 Front-Esplanade would receive more frequent service and would be extended north via Yonge to King and then west on King to Spadina. There would be no service on King Street East and riders would use service on The Esplanade or Queen as an alternative.

Neither of these is particularly appetizing. Various concerns include:

• How long the project will take. Combined City/TTC projects like this have disrupted transit riding for months. This will put the City’s claim to accelerate work and get jobs finished quickly to the test.
• The plan does not include proposed start and end dates, nor does it discuss the interaction with other planned projects on King Street West (see below for details).
• The existing 121 bus is infrequent and not particularly reliable. Considerably better service will be needed as an alternative to the 504 streetcars.
• Construction at King Station on Yonge Street will pose a problem for service reliability.
• The 121 bus does not provide a direct connection to the Line 2 subway at Broadview Station. TTC claims that there is no room for such a service due to competition from other routes including the 25/925 Don Mills service rerouted from Pape Station.
• It is not clear that a Broadview Station to Distillery streetcar service would be impossible except for the period of overhead upgrades in the affected area. This should be timed to occur quickly and allow streetcar service restoration.

Beth Nealson

In 2025, Beth Nealson Drive which links Thorncliffe Park to the Leaside industrial area will close for Ontario Line construction. This will require a split in the existing loop of the 88 South Leaside service. There are two proposals for this change.

Option 1 creates loops for each branch, one in Thorncliffe Park (88A) and one at Eglinton connecting with the Laird Station on Line 5 (88B). Option 2 runs all 88 service to Eglinton and provides a separate route 156 from Thorncliffe Park to Laird Station.

Note that the map below reflects the route structure after Line 5’s opening with 72 Pape extended north to Science Centre Station and the consolidation of 56 Leaside into route 51 Leslie operating to Donlands Station.

A tradeoff between these options is that Option 1 maintains the link to St. Clair Station from Thorncliffe Park while Option 2 focuses north to Laird Station.

Eglinton West / Cedarvale Station

Eglinton West Station will be renamed “Cedarvale” as part of Line 5 opening. (This is a result of Metrolinx’ desire to eliminate duplicate or semi-duplicate station names.)

The bus loop requires repairs that will close it for service affecting many routes. The TTC proposes a service scheme similar to one used earlier in the Line 5 project, but adjusted for new station connections that will be available.

• Route 34 Eglinton (formerly 32 Eglinton West) will use on-street stops outside of the station.
• Route 63A Ossington to Eglinton will be suspended, and all service will terminate at St. Clair in Oakwood Loop.
• Route 163 Oakwood will operate from Ossington Station to Lawrence West Station replacing the 63A and the south end of 109 Ranee.
• Route 90 Vaughan will loop at Oakwood connecting with Line 5 at Oakwood Station.

College/McCaul

Streetcar track will be replaced at the College & McCaul intersection. During this work, 506 Carlton cars will divert both ways via Bay, Dundas and Spadina, and there will be no service on College between Bay and Spadina. Service on 94 Wellesley will be improved to provide additional capacity in the area.

Note that the map shows 13 Avenue Road extending south to Gerrard, but the Service Plan proposes removal of this weekday daytime extension.

TOInview

The City maintains a consolidated project map at TOInview showing planned work on the road network. This includes three projects that are not included in the 2025 Service Plan:

• King Street West track and water main from Shaw to Bathurst
• King Street West track and water main from Dufferin to Close including the intersection at Dufferin
• College/Carlton overhead upgrades from Lansdowne to Parliament

I have asked the TTC for clarification on these projects and will update this article when info is available.

King Street West

Not included in the ASP is a planned project for water main and track replacement on King from Dufferin to Close in Parkdale. This is a continuation of the 2024 project, but no service details are provided. A TTC planner claimed that because this was a carry-over, the item was not included even though there are supposed to be “lessons learned” that might inform the plans.

Also missing is the planned track and water main replacement from Shaw to Bathurst.

There is no discussion of the timing of these projects relative to other events including the King/Church intersection work.

Much celebration accompanied the “early” completion of the work from Shaw to Dufferin a few weeks ago. What was not mentioned is that this was possible because a major component, the intersection reconstruction at King & Dufferin was moved from the 2024 to the 2025 plan. The work finished early primarily because the scope was reduced.

College/Carlton

TTC plans streetcar overhead upgrades on the 506 Carlton route from Lansdowne to Parliament in 2025, but this is not discussed in the ASP.

There are several opportunities for subdividing this project with a series of diversions around segments of the route, but it is not clear whether TTC will take advantage of this. Moreover, the timing of this work should obviously be co-ordinated with the track replacement at College & McCaul.

Mid-Block Stop Relocation

The Survey also includes questions about proposals to relocate transit stops based on the principles listed below.

We use the guiding principles below to review stops across the transit network in order to balance accessibility, pedestrian safety, customer convenience, community impacts, bus reliability and travel times:

• Locating transit stops as close as possible to crosswalks at signals, stop signs, and pedestrian crossovers.
• Maintaining reasonable access to key destinations like senior/nursing homes, schools, libraries, community centres, hospitals and shopping centres.
• Ensuring stops are placed at locations with adequate space for customer amenities and meeting accessibility requirements.
• Balancing the number of bus stops on a route to ensure customers have adequate transit access while also ensuring customers on-board have quick and comfortable journey times.

The first group of questions speaks to the distance to stops and the trade-off between additional walking time and the time saved by riders with buses stopping less often. The survey states:

Past studies have revealed that optimizing bus and streetcar stops (by moving, consolidating, or removing them) might add up to 3 minutes to some customers’ travel to a stop, but overall could save all customers on the route an average of 5 minutes on their trip.

This is a dishonest presentation of the issue because many stops could have to be removed for a time saving on average of 5 minutes per trip. No individual stop removal can achieve this. Moreover, some mid-block stops are less frequently used than those at major locations, and not all buses and streetcars stop at every mid-block stop. Moreover, there is a greater impediment to transit flow from the absence of transit signal priority than from a few extra stops along a route.

The second group asks about double stops where buses stop at both nearside and farside locations. The question is whether the convenience of two stops (typically to support easy transfer connections at wide intersections) is preferable to the extra travel delay for riders on board. There is no discussion of the relative lengths of time a single stop would take given that the boarding time now split between two stops would be consolidated, nor of traffic signal priority that would particularly benefit farside stops.

There is also a question about “single stops”, locations where there is a stop in only one direction. The implication is that these should be removed rather than providing the “missing” stop. The example shown is a mid-block stop, but there are cases where single stops exist at a traffic signal. The discussion also does not address street geometry which can affect stop placement.

The third group relates to amenities at stops and asks readers to rank their importance. It should be noted that some existing amenities are delivered under contract between the City and Astral Media whose interest is less in transit convenience than in marketing. TTC riders should not be held hostage to Astral’s spending and maintenance plans.

Finally, there is a demographic section.