The TTC has announced that the Queen car diversion around Ontario Line construction at Yonge Street will be simplified effective Sunday, November 10, 2024.
Streetcars will operate westbound via Church, Richmond and York, and eastbound via new track on York, Adelaide and Church. Connections to the subway will be via walking transfers south from Queen Station to Richmond (westbound service) and north from King Station to Adelaide (eastbound service). Connections to the University Line will be at Osgoode Station both ways.
Updated Nov 8 at 6pm: The TTC has confirmed that there will be no stops at Victoria, Bay or York as these are within walking distance of other stops.
The 501B shuttle bus from Broadview/Gerrard to Wolseley Loop at Bathurst Street will no longer operate.
There will be no 501/301 service on King Street at King or St. Andrew Stations.
Other services in the King Street corridor will remain: 503 Kingston Road, 504 King and 508 Lake Shore.
[An earlier version of this article cited November 6, not the 10th.]
Steve Munro 
Do you know when Adelaide west of Victoria last saw scheduled service?
Steve: Bathurst streetcar to Church and King via Adelaide. Service ended when the BD subway opened in February 1966.
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Reserved track right-of-ways on the one-way streets (Richmond & Adelaide)? Assuming likely no, because the automobile gods would be displeased.
Real transit priority for traffic signals along Queen, York, Richmond, Adelaide and Church? Assuming likely no again, because that would anger the automobile gods.
If the city does, for how long before (Mayor) Doug Ford changes it?
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I haven’t had a chance to walk along the detour route. There are no protected turn signal phases along the diversion I take it?
Steve: I have not been there in the past few weeks, but there was supposed to be TSP. It would not surprise me one bit if this was “forgotten” in our transit-friendly city. Will check.
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They should have taken York two way to King and put in all the switches from east and west to North on York and from South on York, BUT, there are probably man hole covers in the way.
Steve: The last time this intersection was rebuilt, they forgot that they were planning to add the east-to-north curve. Not sure when they get their next chance. Looking at Google Street View, there does not appear to be a conflict for that curve, but south-to-west could be a problem. It also looks like there are a few hydro vaults under where a southbound track would go between Adelaide and King.
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Has there been a decline beyond the ‘normal’ pandemic from this lack of good continuity? Just another cost of the OL?
Steve: This is hard to say partly due to different route configurations, and the lack of recent TTC riding data updates.
Aside from the diversions for OL and other construction work, the west end of the route is now reported separately as 507 Long Branch, the 508 Lake Shore service has returned, and there is now all-day service on 503 Kingston Road overlapping part of the east end of the route. This is further complicated by the fact that these are “boardings”, not “trips”, and so 507-501 riders who used to be counted as one boarding now count as two. Note there is very good local demand on the Long Branch part of the route, and this is probably growing thanks to more reliable service without depending on whatever got through from downtown on the combined 501 route in past years.
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Do we know where the stops on Richmond/Adelaide will be in each direction? I can make some assumptions based on what riders would want, but the TTC management usually has no idea what their riders would want.
Steve: The GTFS version of the schedules which includes a record for each car at each stop has not been issued yet. The October 6 actually were based on using Richmond/Adelaide, and they had only stops both ways at Yonge. The new info should be up shortly as it usually comes out about a week before the board period change which falls on November 17.
Updated 6pm Nov 8: The TTC has confirmed that there will only be stops at Church, Yonge and University. Former stops at Bay and York are within walking distance.
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I note that the TTC now have the new Route map up for the 501 and they seem to be REALLY cutting back on stops!
Eastbound it stops at Queen and University (Osgood Station) and then not again until Adelaide and Yonge followed by Church at Queen.
Westbound it stops at Queen at Jarvis, Church at Richmond, Richmond at Yonge and Queen at University (Osgood Station).
At least a stop at Bay in both directions would seem like a good idea plus one at or near Adelaide and Church going eastbound.
Steve: TTC has confirmed that stops at York, Bay and Victoria have been dropped as they are in walking distance of other stops. Frankly I think this is a mistake considering where the existing bus service stops along the way. Nothing like making transit easily accessible.
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Stop spacing should also consider time as well as distance. In slower sections, riders can make the “choice” to get off at an early stop and walk some distance, more or less pacing the streetcar, or hope that there is not too much of a delay to get to the next stop which is a bit too far. The King revisions where it used to stop eastbound at both Simcoe and University nearside, changed to University farside, made it sometimes the best choice — but still an annoying one — to get off at John and hoofing it.
Likewise, westbound on this diversion, you have the “choice” to get off at Yonge and hoofing it, or hoping that the voyage to York and north to Queen and then west to University takes not too long, and walk possibly back a bit.
But hey, there are hardly any destinations worth mentioning in that stretch!
Steve: The TTC claims to be following its own standards, but they say the upper bound for local streetcar and bus services is 400m. It is 800m+ from University and Queen to Yonge and Adelaide, roughly 700m for the WB trip via Richmond. TTC i not following their own standards.
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I would be interested in whether TSP will actually work on this stretch. If the streetcars actually never stop at York, Richmond, Bay (eastbound), the stopless journey will feel a lot different than if it’s the same old waiting for cars and pedestrians at intersections.
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If the streetcar stops because of a red light, will the driver let passengers off during the few seconds of stoppage?
(Or only to customers travelling alone by streetcar between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.? 😇😇)
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I don’t know if it’s intentional or an accident, but there is a stop at York and Queen (heading north), and the cars I’ve been on have all used it.
Steve: Yes. That seems to have been added after TTC told me that a stop there was too close to University Avenue. Considering that this diversion is going to run for years, I think we have lots of opportunity to get other stops restored.
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I walked along Adelaide Street between York and Church Streets at about 2PM, and streetcars were getting stuck in an eastbound traffic jam that seemed to ease up after Victoria Street. I think I could have walked as fast as the streetcars. Westbound on Richmond Street seemed to be less of a problem.
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I wrote to Chris Moise, my Councillor and a TTC Board Member. Here is his office’s response:
I think they MAY make the streetcar faster if they have fewer stops but if a passenger travelling eastbound wants to go to Adelaide and Church they will certainly not get there faster if they have to walk from Yonge and Adelaide or Queen and Church!
Steve: Chris Moise has been a disappointment at the TTC, and this response simply parrots the official TTC line. The giveaway is that we have fewer stops to avoid “delays caused by traffic” even though the stop spacing violates the TTC’s own standards. Only when we have board members willing to call out management for this type of BS will we start to see a change in responsiveness from the Leary/Tory era.
If the TTC tried to drop stops on King (beyond what they have already done), Dundas or Carlton/College, there would be howls. But still an ineffective local Councillor.
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But everyone else on the streetcar will, if not opening and closing doors allows them to not miss a green cycle.
This is a Queen streetcar. It’s never stopped at Adelaide and Church before. The passenger who wants to go to Adelaide and Church would have had to walk from Queen and Church for the past 50 years. I find it hard to believe it’s a big deal now.
Stops on York at Adelaide (sb) and on Richmond at York (wb) might make sense.
Steve: For the record, the former stops on Queen were at University, York, Bay, Yonge, Victoria, and Church in both directions. Even the 501B bus stopped at Bay, and sometimes at York (depending on construction status). The TTC cut 50% of the stops and created a gap double their own standards between University and Yonge. Also, as for through riding time versus stop locations, remember that people have to get on and off streetcars, not just ride them, and they have to walk to stops.
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I received this response from the TTC today regarding the removal of some stops and the distance between stops. As a person who works in the area and has chronic medical conditions that limit my mobility the response to take Wheel-Trans was extremely disappointing. Instead of keeping stops (York) that already existed they prefer people who still have the ability to take up valuable Wheel-trans availability.
The TTC also claims that the distance between stops is only 430 m. How did you get your figures for the distance between the stops? I would like to use that in my reply.
Steve: I will insert the stop distance info here to get that out of the way. You can use Google Maps to measure distances, and it is important when doing so to follow a pedestrian’s path by “walking” along the streets, not taking the diagonal.
Steve: Here are the distances measured from Google Maps which you can use to measure distances. It is important when doing so to follow a pedestrian’s path by “walking” along the streets, not taking the diagonal which is shorter, but physically impossible.
Eastbound
University to York: 140m
Queen to Adelaide: 234m
York to Yonge: 474m
Total: 848m
Yonge to Church: 295m
Adelaide to Queen: 233m
Total: 528m
Total distance: 1.376 km
Westbound:
Queen & Church to Richmond: 80m
Church to Yonge: 292m
Total: 372m
Yonge to York: 475m
Richmond to Queen: 86m
York to University: 142m
Total: 703m
Total distance: 1.075km
The TTC Service Standards are misrepresented here. There is a table at the bottom of page 10 that clearly states that the stop spacing range should be 300-400m for bus and streetcar routes. Not 400m walking distance from the midpoint, but 400m between stops implying a 200m maximum distance.
Other technical considerations do apply, but the statement that the overall spacing between stops is approximately 430 metres is a complete lie. It is impossible for the average stop spacing between three points (i.e. two intervals) to be only 430m when the distance from University to Church via Adelaide is 1.376km. Somebody needs to get a new calculator.
Even the electronic version of the 501 Queen schedule shows that the spacing from University to Yonge eastbound is over 800m, and from Yonge to Church is over 500m. (I won’t bother including how to look this up as it is rather complex, but I deal with these files which are on the City’s Open Data site all of the time.) In other words, the TTC’s own schedule data shows measurements in the same range as I quote here, while the TTC’s explanation is a piece of misdirecting fiction.
Finally, as someone whose walking is not what it once was, I sympathize with the overall problem that the TTC wants to get people off expensive Wheel-Trans trips, but then in the name of efficiency makes it harder to use the conventional network. It is really ironic that getting to City Hall is no longer as convenient, and the closest stop is at Bay & Albert where the bus will pass by very infrequently and unpredictably.
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I had a look at the route along Adelaide and did see separate transit signals for turns but only witnessed the one at Church in use. I did not have a look at the westbound route for any signs of extra signals there.
Steve: There is no signal for the west-to-south at Queen/Church nor for other turns enroute where pedestrians (who tend not to notice such things) can be a problem.
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And it’s gone again. The signage is removed, and on my trip yesterday the streetcar blew past it straight to University. I noticed several people like me were obviously expecting to get out there.
The inconsistency is maddening. I’ve even had an operator going eastbound stop at Adelaide and Church to let riders off. It’s like they are making it up as they go along or the operators have been badly trained and aren’t sure what to do.
Steve: I have heard that operators want the stops restored, but management is being stubborn.
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To answer my curiosity: no, TSP does not work or is not present at all, and streetcars stop a lot.
Usual Toronto worse-than-mediocrity.
Steve: There are rather naive assumptions about the presence and benefits of TSP on many parts of the system.
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Hey Steve, have you found out what those highway sized jersey barriers are for? A man was killed pinned against the barrier. Sadly, I predicted this in a comment here several months ago. A distracted pedestrian cannot get out of the way if they don’t see the waist high barriers while crossing just outside the crosswalk. Why is there highway infrastructure here? Was it a TTC requirement?
Steve: My gut feeling is that this is just more bad design by Toronto Transportation Services.
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