Updated June 24, 2025: The TTC has now standardized the 504 King and 503 Kingston Road diversions so that both routes (and associated night services) operate via Queen and Shaw Streets

The diversions for track reconstruction on King Street will change again on Sunday, June 22. The TTC has posted conflicting information both on its website and in its weekly update memo regarding construction and special events. I have asked TTC for clarification and will update this page if and when they reply.

In an email on June 19, the TTC announced:

From 6 a.m. on Sun., June 22, until 4 a.m. on Sat., Jul. 12, the 503/303 Kingston Road streetcars will divert to accommodate streetcar track work on King St. between Shaw St. and Spadina Ave. 503/303 Kingston Road streetcars will run along Queen St. between Shaw St. and Dufferin St. 504D King replacement buses will be extended to run from King St. and Bathurst St. to Dufferin Gate Loop.

Affected routes:

• 503/303 Kingston Road cars which now operate via Queen, Spadina and King to Dufferin Loop will change to run via Queen Street to Dufferin and then south to Dufferin Loop. This changed on June 24. See below.
• 504D shuttle buses (Broadview/Bathurst) will be extended west from Bathurst via Queen and Dufferin to Dufferin Loop. In fact the buses ran west via King, not Queen.

Here are the original TTC maps.

It appears that whoever designed this change notice is unaware that the 503 does not now operate via Queen and Shaw, but in fact runs on King from Spadina westward.

Updated Monday, June 23 at 10:45pm: The erroneous map of the 504D diversion has been replaced on the TTC’s site. Here is the corrected map.

Updated Tuesday, June 24 at 5:00pm: The diversion of 503/303 and 504/304 services has now been standardized via Queen and Shaw Streets, and the notice/map also include the 504D bus extension west from King and Bathurst to Dufferin Loop.

Changes happening at the same time are:

• 511 Bathurst cars resume service to Exhibition Loop and will not operate east on King from Bathurst to Charlotte Loop at Spadina.
• 508 Lake Shore service is discontinued for the summer.

There is no reference to the existing 504 streetcar route which operates via Queen and Shaw to King, nor is there any explanation of why the 503 and 504D services cannot use the same route. (Corrected effective June 24.)

Here is the construction plan included in the June 22, 2025 service change memo clearly showing where the 503 car runs today, but this will not, in fact, be how the routes operate starting June 22.

Taking the TTC notices at face value, this means that service on parts of King will be affected in different ways:

• From Spadina to Bathurst, only the 504C/D shuttle buses will operate and will, presumably, dodge around construction as they have been doing in recent weeks during track margin repairs along King Street.
• From Bathurst to Shaw, there will be no transit service. This affects stops at Tecumseth, Niagara and Strachan. Updated: The 504D buses are supposed to run west on King from Bathurst to Dufferin, but few of them actually get beyond Bathurst.
• From Shaw to Dufferin depends on the continued operation of 504 King cars. As of June 24, 503 Kingston Road cars were also running via Queen, Shaw and King.

This is a repetition of the classic TTC communications cock-ups of past years where diversions are poorly or inaccurately explained. They are supposed to be “doing diversions differently” this year, but this is not a sterling example.

Updated 4:50 pm June 20: There are separate pages on the TTC website describing the 503/504 diversions which make no mention at all of the change effective June 22. They refer to the summer suspension of the 508 Lake Shore, but assure riders there are no other changes:

Starting Monday, June 23, 508 Lake Shore streetcar service will be suspended until early September for seasonal service adjustments. There will be no changes to 503/303 Kingston Rd, 504/304 King streetcars or to 504/304 King replacement bus routing. [Source: TTC Streetcar service changes.]

As of Tuesday, June 24, the separate streetcar diversion pages for the King and Kingston Road services still make no mention of the changes west of Bathurst Street.