The Scarborough Busway opened for business on September 30, 2026 giving buses a faster, direct route between Ellesmere and Kennedy Station.
This article reviews travel times in both directions for route 38 Highland Creek between Brimley & Ellesmere (a common point for both routings) and Kennedy Station for the months of September and October. Also included is a comparison of headway reliability leaving Kennedy Station.
The difference in travel times is somewhat less than claims made by the TTC, but an important factor is that times are more reliable with fewer outliers caused by delays enroute. One aspect of travel time comparisons is that the routes differ with and without the busway:
- Southbound buses formerly turned off of Ellesmere at Midland, ran south to Eglinton, and then west to Kennedy Station. They now travel further west on Ellesmere and through the lanes giving access to Ellesmere Station and the busway.
- Northbound buses formerly ran via Eglinton, Kennedy and Ellesmere. Now they run directly north from Kennedy Station on the busway, then east on Ellesmere for a shorter route.
The charts of weekday headways at Kennedy Station show that in spite of whatever benefit the busway might give, departures are still widely scattered around what would be expected for regular service both in September and October. An irregular departure pattern can add wait time to trips partly undoing any benefit the busway might give for a rider’s total journey time.
Travel Time Southbound to Kennedy Station
The charts here show September data on the left and October data on the right.
The first three rows compare travel times, by quartile, for weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays respectively. The four quartiles are shown in block-and-whisker format:
- 0-25%: red line
- 25-50%: green block
- 50-75%: blue block
- 75-100%: purple line
The data for October show consistently tighter 2nd and 3rd quartiles (middle green and blue blocks) and shorter outer quartiles. This indicated that travel times were more reliable in October than in September.
The fourth row shows the weekday stats in a different format with each week charted separately, and the standard deviation of values shown as dashed lines. The October data show a consistent value along the 10-minute line, while September shows higher times for much of the day.
The underlying data are shown in the fifth row where each dot represents a single trip. The values are clearly more dispersed in the September data than in the October data.
Travel Times Northbound to Ellesmere
The charts below compare northbound travel times. They show a comparable pattern to southbound data with a tighter range of quartiles in October than in September
Headways Leaving Kennedy Station Northbound
Headways departing from Kennedy Station are more orderly in October as shown by the lower values for standard deviations, but they are still scattered over a fairly wide range particularly from the PM peak onward. Weekend data for October show improvement over September, but irregular headways well away from the main cluster of data points remain.
(Note: Week 1 of September falls before Labour Day and the headways are for summer schedules.)
The busway may have shortened travel times from Ellesmere to Kennedy Station, but headway reliability from the southern terminal remains a problem.
