27 thoughts on “TTC Service Changes Effective March 30, 2025”

1. I really like how the 927 has articulateds all the time now although the fact that the 939 is not set to return to articulateds like before and has a stop at Willowdale, alongside no mention of running the other express routes all day/weekends like the handful of routes we have now leaves a lot left to be desired. My local route is the 53 and I still wish we could have an all day route 953 using articulateds like it had for a brief period in time. Is there something I am missing here?

   LikeLike

2. 12 RAD overnight streetcars! “dispatched every 10 minutes starting at 2am and they will return at noon.”

   The homelessness problem has gotten to the point that even streetcars are sleeping rough!

   LikeLike

3. Hi Steve, I know it has nothing to do with today’s info, but have you heard anything about the opening of the Finch West LRT? Thanks for everything.

   Steve: Nothing definite. Fall rumoured.

   LikeLike

4. Steve, it’s official!

   Streetcars will make their much anticipated return to the 510 Spadina route, as work on the streetcar tracks inside Spadina subway station is now complete. What will happen to the shuttle buses which ran on Spadina Avenue the past nine months?

   Steve: Poof! They’re gone.

   There were some rumours of the 509 Harbourfront route operating with buses between Union subway station and the Exhibition loop.

   Steve: 509B buses from Queens Quay Loop westward.

   There’s no change to the shuttle bus operation on the south side of the 511 Bathurst (511B Bathurst) and 509 Harbourfront (509B Harbourfront) routes as work continues on the Bathurst-Fleet-Lakeshore project. This will be in effect until Saturday, June 21, 2025.

   LikeLike

5. 927 Highway 27 Express. All runs will operate with articulated buses. Four trips will be added from Queen’s Plate Drive at Rexdale Boulevard to Steeles Avenue West via Royalcrest Road to replace a portion of service previously provided by YRT Route 7 on weekdays.

   So is TTC replacing service within Toronto that was previously provided YRT? Was this another route that was to be studied for outside transit agencies to provide?

   Steve: I don’t think so. The main interest in joint operation was more from the west than the north.

   LikeLike

6. Do the 2 or 3 runs on the 927 still turn into 396 after the conversion of all 927 runs to articulated buses?

   LikeLike

7. Finch bus terminal only has a few Articulated bus pull in spots. That would limit options for scheduling 53 or 939.

   LikeLike

8. You’re reporting the 512 St Clair has been replaced by 312 on Sunday mornings but there is no changes to the route in the GTFS schedule. The 512 still operates in that “mystery” period.

   In response to the comment above regarding the 927 Highway 27 Express runs on the 396 Wilson. The GTFS schedule shows one of the overnight run and the early morning round trip operates from buses interlined with the 927. We’ll wait to see if they would dispatch a standard bus in place of an artic bus or not.

   The Monday-Friday 384 Sheppard West has been extended to 5:15am. Yes, it seems like they did mix it up.

   Steve: Thanks for the update. I sent a note to TTC Service Planning about some of the discrepancies but have not heard back, and did not yet cross check to the GTFS schedules. One problem with errors in the service memos I use as a source is that they also drive some of the public facing info in online announcements which, of course, are wrong. More recently, TTC has not put as much info into those announcements. This month is a perfect example where all we get is a list of routes that will change with the schedules to show up later, and riders are left to figure out what affects them. The quality of TTC public info is crumbling.

   LikeLike

9. Eglinton Eastbound is terrible during weekday mornings and afternoons. Literally two buses rush early and the next bus is 25 mins.

   LikeLike

10. I guess it will be another year before service is restored on the 941 Keele Express, which has been suspended since March 27, 2023, due to budget cuts.

    Steve: I assume that you mean weekday off-peak service as there is still peak operation. When it ran, the buses only came every 20 minutes.

    LikeLike

11. With the return of streetcars to 510 Spadina, the system will be its closest to full streetcar service in over a decade. Only the portion of 509 Harbourfront west of Spadina and 511 Bathurst between King Street and Exhibition Loop will not have streetcar service.

    Don’t forget the Queen section between Church and York that still has to be bustituted for years to cum. The entire streetcar system has never been in service for over 100 years, you need buses to rescue them.

    Steve: Shows how much you know. The section between Church and York is diverting with streetcars. There are no buses on Queen.

    LikeLike

12. Why do supervisors need to be mid-route for route management? This honestly seems like something that would be better done in front of a computer screen. Are they going to be using stopwatches to time vehicles while pax ask them for directions?

    Steve: There is a perception, I think, that on street supervisors will be more attentive and have a better rapport with operators. That will be challenging in poor weather, not to mention supervising two directions at once. Also, this approach simply does not scale to more routes and time periods. A common complaint from the operators is that when supervision was shifted from the division offices to a central location, they lost the ability to talk directly to people managing their routes. There was also a cutback in staffing that left some routes unsupervised.

    A related issue is that there is no systematic review or metrics for service quality, notably of gaps and bunching.

    LikeLike

13. I’m not familiar with the west end but glad 927 is full artic (as I assume it’s a route that’s always busy and could make good use of them?) I’m surprised they didn’t reduce the frequency/number of buses with the conversion like they usually do when they make a route full artic. I’ve always wondered why 36 doesn’t use them on weekends and if they plan on doing this. I’m still keeping my hopes up that we’ll get them back on the 939 soon once the timing of the gates at the railway crossings is fixed.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

14. Sick of them adding express stops, hurt the 937, 945, 995 and 996 and now with the 939.

    LikeLike

15. Hi Steve the TTC site is rather misleading when reading it. They mention 25 Don Mills as one of the routes with an improvement but pressing TTC for a direct response as to what change there is, they could not give a straight response.

    Steve: This is a classic problem with the TTC site. They don’t give detailed info about changes. In the case of 25 Don Mills, the only change is the addition of supervision during weekdays to improve headway reliability.

    In fairness to their web team, they have exactly the same problem as I do in that the service memo comes out very close to the effective date, and is sometimes held back because the pols want to do a “good news” presser and don’t want their event to be scooped. I have to scramble to do a detailed article, and I get the sense that the web team just gave up trying some months ago.

    LikeLike

16. When will the 353 Steeles night bus be extended from York University to Martin Grove?

    Steve: This is part of the 2025 service plan but with no announced date.

    LikeLike

17. Any news on when all the Orions from Malvern and Wilson will be fully retired? Will they be replaced by the electric buses?

    Steve: The date depends, I suspect, on the rate of new bus deliveries. I have not seen any details of a shuffle between garages, but of course electric vehicles are confined to those sites that have charging and maintenance capability.

    LikeLike

18. In response to ‘Flight81’ on March 26: there was the YRT 7 Martin Grove that ran south of Humber College to Queen’s Plate and Rexdale Blvd. Part of their 2025 service plan was to eliminate the route south of Humber College and that’s supposedly happening starting April 27. Bit early for TTC to be supplementing service though ahead of time, usually they are playing catch-up with the service and result in gaps and RAD buses!

    Steve: The next TTC schedule change won’t be until mid-May, and so the March 30 change is the point where TTC would schedule the replacement service.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

19. Flight81 wrote: 927 Highway 27 Express. All runs will operate with articulated buses. Four trips will be added from Queen’s Plate Drive at Rexdale Boulevard to Steeles Avenue West via Royalcrest Road to replace a portion of service previously provided by YRT Route 7 on weekdays.

    Steve: Actually, Flight81 was quoting from my article, which in turn paraphrased TTC text.

    Tom wrote: In response to ‘Flight81’ on March 26: there was the YRT 7 Martin Grove that ran south of Humber College to Queen’s Plate and Rexdale Blvd. Part of their 2025 service plan was to eliminate the route south of Humber College and that’s supposedly happening starting April 27. Bit early for TTC to be supplementing service though ahead of time, usually they are playing catch-up with the service and result in gaps and RAD buses!

    Did (does) YRT 7 operate differently from other YRT routes in Toronto? I.e. TTC customers could board it Woodbine and get off at points south of Steeles?

    LikeLike

20. Thank you for the detailed write-up, Steve!

    Something about those RAD streetcars doesn’t quite add-up: 8 RAD’s operating from Leslie from 2 AM until noon plus four RAD cars running in the AM peak only gives a total of 12 RAD cars from Leslie out in the AM peak hours – yet the vehicle allocation table shows 8 RAD cars out in service from Leslie at the time.

    Steve: Info on the RADs never adds up. I also think that some of those tables come from different parts of the TTC and reflect different info/plans.

    On an unrelated note – wasn’t the simulated/mock service on the Eglinton LRT supposed to start this board period? I am guessing it has been delayed if the TTC service memo gives no info on that.

    Steve: Service levels, notably the decline in the number of RADs, reflects the shift of operators to work on Line 5. What they will actually do there is a mystery, but I doubt it is “scheduled” and certainly not part of public service.

    LikeLike

21. The 927 is not articulated any more on Sunday they were all articulated then today morning march 31st they were all articulated. When I checked after 3 pm all of the busses were small had a id of anything other then 9000’s and only articulated buses begin with the bus id number 9

    So did the TTC give up or just postponed it.

    Steve: Not sure, but it’s worth watching in coming days to see if there is a pattern. The TTC has a long history of announcing that they will use larger vehicles, but they don’t seem to show up reliably on the routes.

    LikeLike

22. In response to 927 and articulated buses: It was all artic’s on March 31st. But later in the evening, it changed to all 40fters. So it appears the artic’s on 927 are used in the day and all switched to 40fters after PM rush.

    LikeLike

23. Steve, construction work continues on the Bathurst-Fleet-Lakeshore TTC track replacement project.

    The old concrete has been jackhammer out and the old tracks removed on Bathurst Street between Lakeshore Boulevard and Housey Street, just south of Fort York Boulevard. More recently, new tracks have been laid down and concrete is being poured around the tracks.

    There will be similar work done on Bathurst Street between Lakeshore Boulevard to Queens Quay West.

    The south end of the 511 Bathurst and the west end of the 509 Harbourfront routes continue to be operating with shuttle buses, effective until Saturday, June 21, 2025.

    LikeLike

24. Steve, sorry for going off topic, but I was out earlier today (April 6) and was traveling along Finch West of Keele. There was 4 cars on the FinchWest line out for training runs. A fifth car was moving around in the York Gate yard, so I assume that it was eventually coming out on the line too.

    Looks like this line will be opening very soon after Eglinton!

    Steve: That’s the hope, but until I see an official announcement including the major route restructuring that accompanies each opening, I’m not holding my breath.

    Thanks for the update.

    LikeLike

25. Hey Steve, wondering if you know, or more likely are able to find out, what the service impacts will be to service when the Spadina Platform Extension work resumes? I noticed that the contract is to be awarded in Q3 2025 according to the most recent Major Projects Update

    Wondering if the enabling works they just did will allow the remaining work to occur without having to halt streetcar service through the station? If service can continue, would it be with a reduced platform length to what is there today?

    Steve: I have sent a query to the TTC about this. Stay tuned.

    LikeLike

26. Steve, TTC track work on Bathurst Street has shifted from north of Lakeshore to the stretch from Lakeshore to Queens Quay.

    The west end of the 509 Harbourfront route continues to operate with shuttle buses under the banner “509B Harbourfront”. Also, the 511 Bathurst route continues to operate with shuttle buses under the banner “511B Bathurst”. At the same time, watermain work is being done on Bathurst, especially the stretch between Lakeshore to just south of Fort York Boulevard.

    Steve: Thanks for the update!

    LikeLike

27. Steve, there will be more TTC track replacement work this month.

    From May 5 to 15, there will be track replacement at the Bathurst-Eireann Quay-Queens Quay West intersection. This will be followed by TTC track replacement on Bathurst Street between King Street and Front Street from May 16 to 28.

    There will be a continuation of shuttle bus operation on the west end of the 509 Harbourfront route and the south end of the 511 Bathurst route effective until Saturday, June 21.

    Steve: Yes. The electronic version of the schedules was posted on May 1 and I have been reviewing the changes. The big one, of course, is the start of the King-Church intersection rebuild including a water main replacement. This will run to September. When I get the hard copy details of all changes, I will publish my usual article summarizing everything.

    LikeLike

Comments are closed.