On June 4, 2025, new reserved bus lanes were installed on Queens Quay westbound from Sherbourne to Bay, and eastbound from Jarvis to Sherbourne. The TTC projected travel time savings of up to 5 minutes, and more reliable service for riders using routes on this roadway including 114 Queens Quay East, 75 Sherbourne, 65 Parliament and 202 Cherry Beach.

Now that the June 2025 tracking data are available, this article reviews the actual change, if any, in travel times and headway consistency. For historic context, the data presented here go back to May 2024 when the 114 Queens Quay East route was split off from the south end of 19 Bay.

Here is a map showing the affected routes and location of the new red lanes.

Over the period before red lane implementation, the 114 Queens Quay East service suffered from schedule problems with an unrealistic high scheduled speed. This was reduced in October 2024, and then raised again recently in anticipation of red lane benefits. The current scheduled speed is not as high as the original design in May 2024. Service frequency has also been changed from time to time mainly in response to seasonal fluctuation, but in some cases to “stretch” buses over a longer running time. (Details later in the article.)

The original eastern terminus was an around-the-block loop via Logan, Lake Shore and Carlaw to Commissioners. This was changed to Lake Shore Garage (the Wheel-Trans garage on Commissioners west of Leslie) to provide a better, off-street location.

Service until the October 2024 schedule change was extremely erratic, especially in the PM peak, as buses could not maintain the original running times. Since October, there has been little change at most times of the day including in June 2025 after red lane implementation.

There is a very strong day-of-the-week effect in the PM peak for westbound travel times on Queens Quay with midweek days being the worst. In June, the worst of the peaks are down from April levels, but that month was unusually bad. There is not yet enough accumulated data to establish whether there will be a permanent “shaving” of peak travel times through the red lane area.

There is an analogy here to the King Street project where the travel times under normal circumstances changed little, but the peaks on days when there was a disruption or special event were shaved off improving overall reliability.

Any analysis of the benefits of the red lanes must be careful not to cherry pick “good” and “bad” days for comparisons.

The data here provides mainly a “before” view of service on 114 Queens Quay East. I will update these charts in the Fall when full traffic conditions have resumed.

Schedule Changes on 114 Queens Quay East

The headway (frequency of service) and scheduled speed for 114 Queens Quay East were changed at various times since the route’s implementation in May 2024.

Headway Date	AM Peak	Midday	PM Peak	Early Eve	Late Eve
May 13/24	8′	10′	10′	10′	12′
June 24/24	10′	12’30”	12’30”	10′	12′
Sept 3/24	8′	10′	10′	10′	12′
Oct 7/24	10′	12′	10′	12′	15′
May 12/25	8′	10′	10′	12′	12′
June 23/25	10′	15′	12′	15′	15′

Speed (km/h)	AM Peak	Midday	PM Peak	Early Eve	Late Eve
May 13/24	16.1	15.4	13.0	18.4	20.6
July 29/24	19.6	18.7	15.8	22.3	25.1
Oct 7/24	11.6	11.4	9.2	13.2	14.1
May 12/25	16.1	15.4	13.0	18.4	20.6

Screenlines

The screenlines used for this analysis are at:

• Bay south of Front (just south of the route’s western on-street loop)
• Yonge & Queens Quay
• Cherry & Queens Quay

Yonge Street was chosen as a screenline because for the pre-red lane era, the location is comparatively clear of congestion on Bay Street.

Cherry is used as the eastern boundary of operations on Queens Quay before the route heads south into the Port Lands.

Chart Format

Each chart shows data for all weekdays starting on May 13, 2024 with the route’s inauguration. Weekends and holidays are omitted. Data shown are for 5 hourly intervals corresponding to the five schedule periods from AM Peak through to Late Evening.

The values plotted are the 50th percentile (median) and 85th percentile (includes most values while lopping off the worst of the outliers).

Travel Times

Westbound from Cherry to Yonge

Except for the PM peak, travel times from Cherry to Yonge are fairly consistent. The 50th and 85th percentiles lie close together indicating that there is little scatter in the data values.

The PM peak (5-6pm) is interesting because of the “heartbeat” pattern in the chart. The extra vertical lines on the chart show the location of all Wednesdays, and these correspond to most of the peaks (some also occur on Tuesdays or Thursdays). Christmas and New Year’s Day, being holidays, are not included, and both fell on Wednesdays, hence the break in the run of verticals.

Note the extended peak in late February corresponding to the leisurely pace of snow clearing by the City of Toronto.

Westbound from Yonge to Bay & Front

The stretch from Yonge west to Bay and north to Front shows more AM peak variation than the section above east of Yonge above. The PM peak shows some mid-week variations, but not as strongly as east of Yonge. From October through April, late evening service saw many extended travel times.

The tracking data for the most recent late evening spike, April 22, 2025, shows that the congestion was mainly at the south end of Bay Street causing very slow travel for the buses. Some buses took alternate routes back to Queens Quay and they disappear from the charts. One bus short-turned without even reaching Union Station.

Eastbound from Bay & Front to Yonge & Queens Quay

This area does not have any red lanes, but is included here for completeness.

Eastbound from Yonge to Cherry

As with the westbound data, there is a strong day-of-the-week spiking in PM peak travel times from Yonge to Cherry, but not as high eastbound. At other times, there is little variation.

Headways

Headways were quite irregular from the route’s inception in May 2024 until the October schedule change. Would-be riders faced gaps up to one hour thanks to an unworkable schedule design and an absence of relief with extra buses. The TTC claimed it was improving service by making this a separate route, but instead provided very bad service that went uncorrected for five months.

Eastbound From Yonge Street

Westbound from Cherry Street