With the many route changes for the opening of Lines 5 and 6, an obvious “project” is to0 review how all of the new and updated routes are operating. I cannot guarantee that I will get to them all, but will nibble away at the list.

We still cannot see vehicle tracking data for 5 Eglinton LRT, but a route we can see is the vestigial replacement bus 34 Eglinton.

Full disclosure: The Eglinton East corridor is one I have used all of my life, and quality of service affects me personally. However, it also affects the many would-be riders along the line for whom transit “service” has all but disappeared.

This route shows a classic laissez-faire attitude of TTC management where buses appear to run more or less on a schedule of their own making. Riders on other routes are familiar with this problem, but 34 Eglinton shows how an infrequent service can be left to rot and discourage riders from using it. TTC has even talked of the 20-minute service as “interim” and that it might be cut in the future.

The idea of a parallel surface bus was to provide accessibility for those who could not walk to an LRT station, and this is, in theory, a key part of accessibility for the line. However, service is so erratic on this nominally 20-minute route that actually catching a bus requires good timing through a transit app to find one. To add insult to injury, the TTC removed several stops along Eglinton just before Line 5 opened, adding access time to the remaining riders in the name of speeding up a frequent bus service that was about to vanish.

TTC talks about its “family of services” scheme that encourages potential Wheel-Trans users to make part of their trip on the conventional system. 34 Eglinton demonstrates just how badly they actually deliver alternatives.

There is no excuse for the poor quality of service on this route, and three months’ data show that the current operation is “normal” with no visible effort to rein in irregularities.