Readers with long memories might recall the early days of plans for a new streetcar order including discussions about how large a vehicle should be purchased. A major concern at the time was the possibility that the TTC would change schedules and run less frequent service with the larger cars just as they had when the articulated version of the CLRV (the previous generation of cars) arrived in the late 1980s.

That concern was softened by a TTC claim that service would actually improve. Peak periods would see slightly less frequent service, but a net increase in capacity, while off-peak periods would see little change in frequency effectively doubling the capacity of service. At the time, crowding was a big issue and this persisted right up to the pandemic in 2020, by which time all of the old cars had been retired. The management proposal was approved in July 2013.

As the CLRV/ALRV fleet aged, there were problems with reliability of older cars and the need to operate buses on some lines thanks to a shortage of working vehicles. Some repairs were done at considerable cost, but these were more cosmetic than a true life extension.

Moving forward to 2026, there has been a lot of talk of restoring pre-pandemic service levels. TTC fudges the numbers on this in many cases citing vehicle hours operated, not actual service frequencies which have been degraded by longer travel times.

(For example, if a round trip, including terminal layovers, takes two hours or 120 minutes, then 20 cars will provide a 6-minute service. If the round trip gets longer but no cars are added, the service is less frequent, but the number of vehicle hours stays the same. From a rider’s point of view, service is worse, but from a budget outlook, there is no change. This is at the heart of the discrepancy between TTC service claims and rider experience.)

After years of changing service levels and demand, the TTC’s Five Year Plan foresees a return to six minute headways, at most, as a new standard for daytime service. This has been rolled out on some routes over the past year, but not all.

• Already at 6 minutes or better: 504 King, 510 Spadina
• Improved to 6 minutes: 512 St. Clair (Sept/25), 511 Bathurst (Nov/25), 505 Dundas (Nov/25)
• Pending, but with no committed date: 501 Queen, 503 Kingston Road, 506 Carlton, 507 Long Branch.

The Five Year Plan (at p. 4) includes provision for extra spending in 2027 and 2028, but this is not tied to specific routes. There is nothing in the Plan for 2026.

A related issue is the size of the streetcar fleet. Leading up to 2020, the issue was how many cars were actually available, and some service cuts flowed directly from this. With the recent delivery of 60 additional cars, fleet availability should not be an issue although service can still be limited by a lack of operators. The TTC currently schedules 163 cars at peak out of a fleet of 264. If services now operating with buses due to construction were also using streetcars (503 Kingston Road and the Broadview branch of 504 King), the peak requirement would rise to 178. Allowing for maintenance spares this would drive the total requirement to 214 leaving 42 surplus for service improvements (allowing for 8 spares).

	February 2026 Schedule PM Peak	Full Streetcar Service	Possible Service
Peak Requirement	163	178	220
Spares at 20%	33	36	44
Total Requirement	196	214	264
Fleet	264	264	264
Surplus	68	50	0

The problem, of course, is that the TTC barely has budget headroom to operate existing services let alone increases.

In theory, some of the surplus cars will eventually operate the Waterfront East LRT extension, but that service is at least 8 years away even assuming Toronto finds the money to build it. In any event this will not require anywhere near all of the current surplus fleet. Another issue is that the “streetcar network” has not operated with 100% streetcar service for a few decades thanks to various construction projects and vehicle shortages.

There are parallel issues with the bus network, but they are complicated by issues of vehicle reliability and the need for a spare pool to cover the unreliable LRT service primarily on Line 6 Finch West. I will turn to the bus fleet in a separate article.

Back in 2013, the TTC proposed how it would operate with the new streetcar fleet. During peak periods, headways would widen particularly where existing service was very frequent. Notably on 501 Queen, there would only be a slight widening of the time between cars in the AM peak and no change in the PM peak. This reflected the fact that Queen was already running with the 75-foot long ALRVs and needed more capacity.

In the off peak, most routes would see no change in service level except for 510 Spadina due to its already frequent service of 50-foot CLRVs that could not be sustained at terminals with the larger new cars.

The overall fleet plan showed a buildup to a peak requirement of 168 cars plus 20% spares.

This plan gave a bright future for streetcar service and capacity growth, but things did not work out that way. Service today is generally lower than originally projected for the new fleet, and part of this reduction is due to slower operating speeds and greater provision for terminal recovery time even on routes with reserved lanes.

A related question is the effect that less frequent service has had on ridership. There is a post-pandemic slump on the streetcar system in part due to work-from-home for office jobs and remote learning for post-secondary students. However, even allowing for the pandemic era drop, the problem remains in attracting riders back to transit when streetcars are less frequent and slower, compounded by chronic problems with service reliability. Charts tracking streetcar ridership from 1976 to 2024, the last year published by TTC, are at the end of the article.

These routes are in the part of Toronto where transit riders should be easy to win, but a long decline in service frequency discourages those who have the option to use another mode including private autos, ride hailing or cycling. Service cuts during economic downturns do not magically get reversed as times improve, and ridership that might be wooed back to transit instead faces less reliable service and a political attitude that favours big spending on subway projects, not surface transit.

The remainder of this article looks at each route in detail to see how the actual service changed from the 2014 plan through the 2020s to today comparing:

• The 2014 headways for AM Peak, Midday and PM Peak in the management proposal.
• The proposed headways after routes converted to Flexity streetcars.
• The actual scheduled service in January 2014, January 2020 (just before the pandemic) and February 2026. Driving times are shown separate from terminal recovery times to illustrate how each component has evolved.

Quite notable on many routes is the growth in both scheduled driving and terminal times. Although it is common in the mid-2020s to regard extended travel times and traffic delays as a recent, post-pandemic phenomenon, this pattern started earlier and is evident in 2014:2020 comparisons. Surplus time, it was argued, would prevent short turns, a claim that is demonstrably false as most riders know on a daily basis, but it slows service, wastes resources and forces wider headways.

501 Queen

The 501 Queen car is a poster child for how transit demand can be driven away by service changes. The corridor suffered the effects of larger vehicles and wider headways earlier than most when it converted to ALRV operation in the late 1980s. Not only were cars less frequent, but the substitution of shorter CLRVs for longer, less-reliable ALRVs made for crowding during the latter years that fleet still operated. Even with a pre-pandemic rebound shared with other routes, and a partial rebound in 2022 from the depths of 2020’s losses, the 501 in 2024 carried less than half its pre-pandemic demand.

One might argue that this is a chicken-and-egg situation with service levels following demand. However, 504 King by contrast did not see a post 2020 fall-off and its ridership grew strongly through 2024. Have riders simply given up on the Queen car even before its further disruption with Ontario Line construction diversions? Until (and if) the TTC moves to six-minute service on the 501, we will not know whether riders can be lured back.

Some Ontario Line boosters argue that it will replace the function of 501 Queen, but this ignores the fact that most riders on Queen originate well away from future OL stations. (I cannot help remembering a short-lived 50% service cut on the King car when the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966 premised on the idea that many riders would shift to the faster new line. This did not happen, and most of the service was restored a few months later.)

Scheduled AM peak running times on 501 Queen (Neville-Humber) rose from 135 minute round trips in 2014 to 210 in 2024. The PM peak is worse with growth from 144 to 250 minutes. This greatly dilutes the expected service from the 2014 plan because far more cars are needed to achieve the same headway, or as happened on 501 Queen, the headway widened to compensate for the extra running time.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	4’15”	4’45”	5’10”	6’30”	10’00”
Vehicles			31A + 5C	27F + 6B	22F
Round Trip Time			130D + 5T	164D + 12T	198D + 12T
Midday Headway	6’10”	6’10”	6’00”	7’30”	10’00”
Vehicles			28A	26F	23F
Round Trip Time			136D + 12T	182D + 13T	204D + 26T
PM Peak Headway	5’08”	5’08”	5’08”	6’50”	10’00”
Vehicles			28A	30F	25F
Round Trip Time			138D + 6T	192D + 13T	226D + 24T

502/503 Downtowner/Kingston Road

Historically, service on Kingston Road was provided by two routes. The Kingston Road car operated from Bingham Loop at Victoria Park to McCaul Loop on Queen weekdays until the end of the PM peak. At other times it was replaced by an extended Coxwell bus service mirroring the former Kingston Road-Coxwell streetcar service that ran before the Danforth subway opened.

A separate peak-only service called the Kingston Road Tripper ran downtown via King rather than Queen with various western destinations, but in the timeframe of this review it went to York & Wellington Streets.

The routes were renamed as 502 Downtowner (a failed marketing ploy for a poorly used extension to Bathurst Station) and 503 Kingston Road. The surviving 503 service runs to York Street with buses looping via University Avenue. This runs at all hours providing supplementary service on parts of the King and Queen lines, although it suffers from the usual problems of branched routes with uneven integration where routes merge.

Until the recent change to bus operation due to construction west of Broadview on Queen, the 503 ran on a 10 minute headway at all times, but with no effort to blend 501 and 503 services westbound from Kingston Road. There is some debate within the TTC about whether streetcar service will be restored, and if so whether it will revert to the daytime-only service design of past years. Ridership numbers grew from 2020 to 2024, although part of that is due to the longer hours of service.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	6’00”	7’15”	6’00”	6’30”	6’00”
Vehicles			31A + 5C	17B	17B
Round Trip Time			McCaul: 84D York: 72D	York: 100D+11T	York: 95D+5T
Midday Headway	16’00”	16’00”	16’00”	10’00”	10’00”
Vehicles			5C	11B	11B
Round Trip Time			McCaul: 80D	York: 100D+10T	York: 98D+12T
PM Peak Headway	6’00”	7’30”	6’00”	7’40”	6’00”
Vehicles			13C	17B	20B
Round Trip Time			McCaul: 84D York: 72D	York: 119D+11T	York: 111D+9T

504/508 King/Lake Shore

King Street hosts various services over its length making comparisons more complex than other routes.

• Originally the King car ran between Broadview and Dundas West stations, a route over a century old between former Erindale and Vincent Loops.
• This was overlaid by Kingston Road Tripper service that once ran west to Roncesvalles, but more recently only to York Street (see above).
• In June 2016, route 514 Cherry was added between Distillery Loop and Dufferin Loop.
• In October 2018, routes 504 and 514 were merged with the 504A (Distillery/Dundas West) and 504B (Broadview/Dufferin) services we have today.
• Route 508 Lake Shore from Long Branch overlays King in the peak period, peak direction with various eastern termini, currently Distillery Loop.

The 2014 plan showed a 2’34” service of new cars, but actual service in 2014 was a base every four minutes overlaid by trippers that reduced the AM peak service to a two minute “wave” during the peak time and direction. This was a scheme to save on equipment.

By 2020, the combined service operated every 2’37” on the common segment from Sumach to Dufferin, roughly the same as the projected 2014 level. By 2026, this has dropped back to 4’00” on the common segment with 8’00” on the outer ends of the line.

Ridership on King spiked with the introduction of the transit priority corridor through downtown, fell in 2020, but has climbed back consistently since.

Comparing the nearby King and Queen corridors shows a marked difference both in service and ridership evolution.

The September 2025 schedules are shown here because the eastern end of the route is currently restructured thanks to construction on Queen west of Broadview.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Sept 2025 Actual
AM Peak Headway	1’42”	2’34”	4’00” + Trippers	504A: 5’15” 504B: 5’15”	504A: 8’00” 504B: 8’00”
Vehicles			42C + 7A	45F	31F
Round Trip Time			112D+8T	504A:110D+11T 504B:104D+11T	504A:132D+2T 504B:94D+10T
508 Lake Shore Trips			3 EB	5 EB	5 EB
Midday Headway	3’45”	3’45”	3’45”	504A: 7’15” 504B: 7’15”	504A: 10’00” 504B: 10’00”
Vehicles			30C	32F	26F
Round Trip Time			106D+7T	504A:111D+12T 504B:101D+8T	504A: 132D+18T 504B: 94D+16T
PM Peak Headway	2’21”	3’18”	2’50”	504A: 6’00” 504B: 6’00”	504A: 10’00” 504B: 10’00”
Vehicles			45C	42F	27F
Round Trip Time			120D+8T	504A:119D+13T 504B:109D+11T	504A: 43D+17T 504B:102D+8T
508 Lake Shore Trips			6 WB	5 WB	5 WB

505 Dundas

The 505 Dundas car has operated between Broadview and Dundas West stations since the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966. (The western leg to Runnymede was replaced by the 40 Junction trolley bus in 1968.) The line operated with buses for an extended period before the pandemic due to a shortage of streetcars and construction projects.

The table below shows the current six-minute headways implemented late in 2025, but streetcar service before then ran every ten minutes during most time periods. This was considerably less than foreseen in the 2014 plan. The TTC has not yet reported on the effect of the improved service. Travel times today are considerably higher than they were with streetcar service in 2014.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	5’15”	6’45”	5’15”	3’45”	6’00”
Vehicles			19C	27B	22F
Round Trip Time			94D+6T	95D+6T	121D+11T
Midday Headway	6’30”	6’30”	6’30”	4’00”	6’00”
Vehicles			16C	26B	23F
Round Trip Time			96D+8T	96D+8T	128D+10T
PM Peak Headway	5’20”	6’40”	5’20”	3’30”	6’00”
Vehicles		14F	20C	32B	25F
Round Trip Time			100D+7T	105D+7T	142D+8T

506 Carlton

The 506 Carlton car has operated between Main & Danforth and High Park Loop for decades. The original plan for service with new cars called for a five minute headway in the AM peak, but today it operates at half that level.

Between 2014 and 2020, travel times rose quite substantially, and this contributed to stretching out the available fleet into less frequent service. Ridership in 2024 was well below the level seen before the pandemic.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	3’45”	5’00”	3’45”	7’50” + Trippers	10’00”
Vehicles			32C	27F + 8B	16F
Round Trip Time			117D+3T	150D+23T	152D+8T
Midday Headway	5’15”	5’30”	5’15”	7’50”	10’00”
Vehicles			25C	22F	17F
Round Trip Time			124D+8T	156D+17T	164D+6T
PM Peak Headway	5’00”	6’08”	5’00”	8’30”	10’00”
Vehicles		24F	27C	22F	19F
Round Trip Time			127D+8T	176D+11T	182D+8T

507 Long Branch

The Long Branch car is the only surviving remnant of the suburban “radial” network predating the TTC’s creation in 1921. It has operated between Humber and Long Branch Loops for many decades, except for a period when an ill-considered plan to “save money” consolidated it with the Queen car. Every other Queen car ran through from Humber to Long Branch, but service was extremely unreliable thanks to a combination of congestion on Queen and short turns.

The route has strong local demand along Lake Shore Boulevard, especially outside the peak periods.

The 2014 service shown below slices off the western portion of what was then the amalgamated route for comparison with later years when the 507 was restored. Today it operated independently of 501 Queen until about 9pm when all 501 service extends through to Long Branch. Note that this undercounts demand west of Humber Loop because through riders are not counted as new trips in the stats.

By 2024, ridership on the Long Branch car had recovered roughly to the 1990 level, before that decade’s recession.

Travel times grew between 2014 and 2020, and with the round trip time now sitting at 80 minutes compared to 50-60 a decade ago. Note that Lake Shore Boulevard is a wide street not subject to the same severe, all-day congestion affecting downtown routes.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	Included with 501 Queen		10’20”	10’00”	10’00”
Vehicles			5A	8F	8F
Round Trip Time			50D + 1T	71D + 9T	71D + 9T
Midday Headway			12’20”	10’00”	10’00”
Vehicles			4A	8F	8F
Round Trip Time			49D	64D + 16T	64D + 16T
PM Peak Headway			10’15”	10’00”	10’00”
Vehicles			6A	8F	8F
Round Trip Time			52D + 9T	68D + 12T	68D + 12T

509 Harbourfront

The 509 Harbourfront car operates between Union Station and Exhibition Loop in reserved lanes and a tunnel under Bay Street. In 2014, major reconstruction was underway, and so the 2014 service shown here is with buses that did not have the protected corridor. Service from 2012 operating with streetcars is shown for comparison.

In 2026, service is considerably less frequent than projected in the 2014 plan, and travel times are about one-third longer even though the route has its own right-of-way.

Because the route overlaps 510 Spadina, ridership figures are consolidated for the two routes.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2012 Actual	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	4’00”	5’00”	5’15”	2’45”	6’15”	9’00”
Vehicles			7C	19B	8F	6F
Round Trip Time			34D+3T	50D+2T	44D+6T	46D+8T
Midday Headway	6’00”	6’00”	7’15”	4’00”	8’00”	9’00”
Vehicles			5C	13B	6F	6F
Round Trip Time			32D+4T	50D+2T	43D+5T	46D+8T
PM Peak Headway	3’30”	4’40”	4’45”	2’30”	8’00”	9’30”
Vehicles			8C	21B	6F	6F
Round Trip Time			34D+4T	50D+3T	43D+5T	48D+9T

510 Spadina

The 510 Spadina car operates between Spadina and Union Stations, although there are scheduled short turns at Queens Quay Loop. In 2014, Queens Quay itself was under construction and Spadina cars ran only south to King Street. The route runs entirely on its own right-of-way, although has perennial problems with cross traffic and signal delays.

(In earlier years, the short turn occurred at King Street, but was extended to Queens Quay to serve the growing population in the waterfront. Unscheduled short turns still occur regularly at King.)

510 Spadina is unusual in having very strong off-peak demand with more frequent service on weekends than weekdays during daytime periods. Scheduled peak service in 2026 is much less frequent than foreseen in the 2014 plan.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual Bloor-King	Jan 2020 Actual Bloor-QQuay	Feb 2026 Actual Bloor-QQuay
AM Peak Headway	2’30”	3’30”	2’30”	4’23”	5’00”
Vehicles			12C	12F	12F
Round Trip Time			28D+2T	48D+5T	49D+11T
Midday Headway	6’10”	6’10”	1’56”	4’52”	5’00”
Vehicles			16C	11F	12F
Round Trip Time			28D+3T	49D+10T	48D+12T
PM Peak Headway	2’00”	3’23”	2’00”	4’50”	5’00”
Vehicles			18C	12F	13F
Round Trip Time			31D+5T	53D+5T	53D+12T

511 Bathurst

The 511 Bathurst car runs from Bathurst Station to Exhibition Loop. It is in mixed traffic except at the southern end of the line where it shares reserved lanes on Fleet Street with 509 Harbourfront.

Until it recently joined the “six minute network”, service operated every 8-10 minutes, considerably less often than foreseen in the 2014 plan. Even in the “high season” for traffic to Exhibition Place, the scheduled service did not change, but was supplemented with extras as needed.

Scheduled travel time increased substantially between 2014 and 2020, although it has been trimmed recently.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	4’15”	5’00”	4’00”	7’15”	6’00”
Vehicles			13C	11F	12F
Round Trip Time			46D+6T	67D+13T	59D+13T
Midday Headway	5’00”	5’00”	4’00”	7’00”	6’00”
Vehicles			13C	11F	12F
Round Trip Time			48D+4T	65D+12T	59D+13T
PM Peak Headway	4’30”	5’30”	4’00”	7’45”	6’00”
Vehicles			14C	11F	14F
Round Trip Time			48D+8T	73D+12T	67D+17T

512 St. Clair

The 512 St. Clair route operates between St. Clair Station and Gunn’s Loop west of Keele Street. At one time there was a short-turn service with half of the cars turning back at Lansdowne in peak periods, but this has not operated for many years.

The route is in reserved lanes except for a short stretch east of Yonge Street and west of Old Weston Road.

Until the 512 joined the six-minute network, service operated every 8-10 minutes at all times. This is less than 50% of the service foreseen in the 2014 plan, and even the current 6 minute frequency provides only two-thirds of the originally planned service.

The original round trip times when St. Clair re-opened with its reserved lanes in June 2010 were in the 64-66 minute range, and this was still the case in 2014. By 2020, travel times had expanded by about 25% even though the route had its own right-of-way. Round trip times today are about 84 minutes. How much of this is padding added before 2020 and how much is due to operating conditions including longer stop dwell times and a lack of working signal priority is not known.

	2014 Service Plan	New Car Service Plan	Jan 2014 Actual	Jan 2020 Actual	Feb 2026 Actual
AM Peak Headway	2’30”	3’50”	2’36”	4’00”	6’00”
Vehicles			25C	20F	14F
Round Trip Time			56D+9T	69D+11T	69D+15T
Midday Headway	5’00”	5’00”	5’05”	5’10”	6’00”
Vehicles			13C	15F	14F
Round Trip Time			56D+10T	67D+11T	68D+16T
PM Peak Headway	3’20”	4’45”	3’20”	4’30”	6’00”
Vehicles			20C	18F	14F
Round Trip Time			58D+9T	69D+12T	69D+15T

Streetcar Route Ridership from 1976 to 2024

These charts consolidate ridership data published by the TTC annually from 1976 to 2024. Recent data are available on the Planning page on their website.

Historical events of note:

• 1980: First Gulf war related recession.
• 1990-95: Major business recession. Overall TTC ridership dropped by 20%.
• 2008: Banking crisis.
• 2020: Covid pandemic.