Finance

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TTC Annual Service Plan 2025

The TTC has released the first draft of their 2025 Annual Service Plan for comment on their site. Readers with suggestions should use the TTC’s survey for input to the plan.

Updated August 9 at 5:20pm: The TTC has supplied new versions of maps for routes 49 and 405, as well as for the Etobicoke Blue Night service change proposals. On their behalf, thanks to readers who have flagged issues on the original versions.

The consultation looks at three areas of TTC service:

  • Proposed 2025 Changes
  • The One Fare Program
  • Community Bus Routes (4xx series)

There will also be pop-up consultations at various locations around the city.

DateTimeLocationRoutes
Aug 74:30 to 6:00 amBus ride-along395, 385 and other affected night routes
Aug 76:00 to 8:00 amKennedy Stn334
Aug 76:30 to 8:00 amRouge Hill GO385
Aug 9Noon to 2:30 pmDufferin Mall402
Aug 129:30 am to NoonNorth Park Plaza400
Aug 134:30 to 6:00 amBus ride-along337
Aug 136:00 to 8:00 amKiping Station45, 49, 337 and other affected night routes
Aug 1412:30 to 2:30 pmBus ride-along13B
Aug 19Noon to 2:00 pmCoxwell Station22, 70 and 404
Aug 19Noon to 2:00 pmMain Station87A

In a recent Stakeholders’ session which I attended, it became clear that some of the 2024 ASP proposals that had not yet shown up in service would be coming in fall 2024. I asked the TTC for details of the outstanding 2024 proposals, and this information is in a table at the end of the article.

A further problem is that the substantial changes already planned for the Line 5 and 6 openings cannot be implemented until Metrolinx actually begins service there.

One key item that is not addressed by this round of consultation is the matter of service frequency. Most of the routes TTC proposes to modify suffer from infrequent service, and the benefit of the route changes will be muted by the absence of buses as opposed to lines on the map.

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Streetcar Stop Spacing

A recent X/Twitter thread began with a claim that the streetcar system suffers from slow operation because of closely spaced stops, specifically below 100 metres. I made a short reply showing the average spacing for each route, but have now generated charts showing all routes in detail.

There are only a handful of stops spaced closer to or below 100m, and so the claim that this is a source of much delay is easily disproved. The question then is what the typical spacings are, why, and how much “efficiency” could be obtained by eliminating some of them. I do not attempt to answer that question here, but simply present the actual stop spacing data so that there can be informed debate.

The TTC’s design goals for stops are set out in the Service Standards:

2.4 Surface Stop Spacing
Surface stops should be designed in accordance with the TTC’s Technical Criteria for the Placement of Transit Stops. When the locations of stops are being planned for a route, it is necessary to strike a balance between the competing objectives of passenger convenience, operating efficiency, safety and community impacts. In general, increasing the number of stops on a route results in shorter walking distances for passengers but it also slows down service. To achieve a proper balance, the TTC will place bus stops in accordance with the standard presented in Table 2 [below].

Service ClassificationStop Spacing Range
Streetcar300 – 400 metres
Bus – Local300 – 400 metres
Bus – Express (Tier 1)650 – 1,000 metres
Bus – Express (Tier 2, Limited Stop)650 – 1,000 metres
Bus – Express (Tier 2, Local/Express)650m for express portion;
300 – 400m for local portion
Bus – CommunityFlag stop

It’s important to remember that Toronto streets are not laid out on a repeating grid as in some cities, and one cannot simply stop at “every second street”, or whatever layout works. Existing pedestrian circulation patterns, transfer points, major origins/destinations all play a role in defining a “good” stop location. This is even more of a problem in suburban areas with longer blocks and poor opportunities to access transit stop from “nearby” (as the crow flies) neighbourhoods.

Methodology

The stop distances for each route have been taken from the GTFS versions of the schedules published regularly by the TTC. These are used by trip prediction and planning apps to understand the layout of the system. In a few cases where current operations do not match the historic route layout (e.g. 501 Queen, 504 King, 512 St. Clair), I have used older data sources from a period when routes operated normally.

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TTC Board Meeting: July 17, 2024

The July 17 Board meeting was extraordinarily long thanks to three in camera items, plus extended discussions of the CEO’s Report and of use of buses as homeless shelters during the winter.

The confidential session dealt with:

  • A collective bargaining update for two small groups of customer service and operations supervisor employees.
  • An update on advice from External Counsel. On a recorded vote, this was adopted with all Board members except Councillor Saxe in favour. As of the publication of this article (July 28), there have been no leaks about the subject of this report.
  • An update on the fare modernization program including the status of the Presto contract. The report was also discussed briefly in the public session later in the meeting.

The public meeting included:

  • The July 16 storm, flooding and hardening of infrastructure against climate change.
  • New subway trains and federal funding announced earlier the same day (July 17).
  • Prioritization of State of Good Repair projects. This item received scant attention although the report contains much interesting background on capital plans.
  • Safety on the TTC.
  • Use of shelter buses.
  • Transit network expansion update.
  • Fare Compliance Action Plan: See the updated version of my previous article on this report which includes the debate at the Board meeting.

Not discussed was the issue of hydraulic fluid leaks from subway work cars of which one quarter are still out of service. A report is supposed to be coming to the Board soon. It is not clear how much this situation is affecting the TTC’s ability to stay on top of track maintenance issues and the growing list of slow orders for track that cannot be safely operated at full speed.

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TTC Service Changes: July 28, 2024

Only a few routes are changing at the end of July, although TTC has hinted that major service additions are coming in the fall. Given the state of the TTC’s budget, we will see in roughly a month just what that entails.

Rapid Transit Changes

2 Bloor-Danforth

Gap trains are removed from the weekday schedule due to a shortage of operators. This eliminates two trains in the AM and PM peaks, and five trains through the early and late evening periods. Four midday gap trains remain.

Night Service Changes

504/304 King

Three mid-evening trips eastbound from Humber Loop are added to provide a better transition between the 504B King and 501 Queen services west of Roncesvalles. There is no change to the 501 Queen nor to the 507 Long Branch schedule.

Schedules for the 304 King Night Car will be adjusted for reliability. Cars will continue on their present 20′ headway, but some driving time has been converted to terminal layover time.

305 Dundas

All-night service will be provided on Dundas over the same route as the daytime 505 with cars on a 30′ headway.

306 Carlton

Because Dundas is now a 24 hour route, the 306 Carlton Night Car will operate to High Park Loop, and will continue on a 20′ headway. (Note that although this is generally advertised as a 20′ headway, it actually widens to 30′ after 3am.)

332 Eglinton West, 334 Eglinton East & 354 Lawrence East

These routes will be changed to enter Eglinton Station via Yonge and Berwick rather than via the western entrance at Duplex. Stops at the south entrance to the station and at Berwick to provide transfer connections between these routes.

363 Ossington

Buses will serve the stop at Strachan and Canniff to provide a transfer connection with 304 King, and to match the daytime service.

Bus Changes

36 Finch West

Additional trips will be added in the AM and PM peaks, and in weekday early evenings to provide more capacity on this route. These are factory trips deleted in error in the June schedule change.

114 Queens Quay East

The 114 Queens Quay East bus has been using Lake Shore Garage as its eastern terminal since early July. This change is now formally in the schedule.

Buses run out of service east of Carlaw, but serve the Logan, Lake Shore, Carlaw loop in both directions.

123 Sherway

A trip from Kipling Station on the 123D East Mall service will shift from 6:11 to 6:12am to even out departures.

203 High Park

The 203 High Park shuttle operated with a Wheel Trans bus will now run east to Keele Station which provides an accessible connection to the subway. Buses will loop through High Park Station enroute. The headway is changed from every 20 to every 30 minutes.

937 Islington Express

Stops added at Dundas and at Rathburn to provide transfers to 40 Junction and 48 Rathburn.

945 Kipling Express

Stops added at Burnhamthorpe and at Rathburn to provide transfers to 46 Martin Grove, 48 Rathburn and 50 Burnhamthorpe.

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TTC Contemplates Fare Evasion (Updated)

Updated July 22 at 11:10am: A section has been added at the end detailing the discussion and actions taken at the TTC Board meeting of July 17.

At its meeting of July 15, the TTC’s Audit & Risk Management Committee considered a staff report on the efforts underway and proposed to deal with the problem of fare evasion. This report, with amended recommendations, goes to the full TTC Board on July 17.

The debate video goes on for nearly three hours, and it revealed some troubling issues with the ARMC:

  • There is an overwhelming emphasis on recovering “lost” revenue with little sense of what target might actually be achieved, or the cost of reaching that level.
  • At least one member of the committee, a Commissioner since early 2021, does not know how the “Fair Pass” program for low income riders works.
  • In response to a question about how the Two Hour Transfer works, something any Board member or transit rider should know, management provided incorrect information about riding past the two hour line. In turn, that interpretation appeared to justify actions by Fare Inspectors that violate TTC policy.
  • There was no acknowledgement that the TTC Board, when it acquired vehicles with multiple entrances (including articulated buses and streetcars) and implemented Proof of Payment (aka POP), was quite aware of the tradeoff between vehicle utilization, service efficiency, labour costs and potential fare evasion. Some Commissioners act as if they just discovered this problem.
  • It was quite clear that some Board members have little sense of the dynamics of passenger movements on TTC vehicles, notably problems with congestion at the front of buses due to baby carriages, shopping carts and other impediments, and the need for centre door loading simply to allow riders onto vehicles.
  • There was also no acknowledgement that some riders do not tap immediately on entry because they do not have their card at hand, but do so after they have boarded, and not necessarily at the location where they entered. Discussions about ways to increase payment rates through constrained entry and monitoring were based on a faulty view of actual passenger behaviour.

Overall, the level of day-to-day knowledge of the transit experience was poor, and management was not particularly helpful in correcting assumptions made by Board members.

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Spadina Replacement Bus Shifts to St. George Station

The City of Toronto will be closing the intersection of Spadina and Bloor to all traffic from 5am Monday, July 15 to 5am Monday, July 22 for complete reconstruction. This is the west end of a project that has been working its way along Bloor Street for months.

TTC bus service will divert to St. George Station. Whether this will alleviate the bus congestion at the north end of the route remains to be seen.

Because this is a non-standard route, transit prediction apps will not work for locations off of Spadina, and southbound predictions will only work for stops and buses that are south of Harbord.

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Yet Another Streetcar Diversion

The TTC will be making repairs to the track at Church & King, a location that has needed serious tender loving care for some years. This project will run from 11pm Friday July 12 to 4am Wednesday July 17.

This event and the confusion it will add for downtown travellers is a direct result of delays in complete replacement of the intersection, compounded by the Queen Street closure for the Ontario Line and the still-incomplete work on the Richmond/Adelaide diversion around Queen and Yonge that limps along with a vague “fall” completion date.

501/301 Queen:

  • Streetcars in the east end will operate only to Parliament Street and will loop back via Dundas and Broadview.
  • The 501B shuttle buses will operate westbound via Richmond and eastbound via King between Church and University.
  • Night service will be provided via streetcars diverting onto Dundas as shown in the map below, and night service on the 301 bus covering the central part of the route on the same path as the 501B daytime service.

503 Kingston Road:

  • 503 Kingston Road cars will operate as far west as King & Sumach, and then turn south to Distillery Loop.

504 King:

  • 504A King Dundas West to Distillery: Cars will divert both ways via Spadina, Queen, McCaul, Dundas, Broadview, Queen, King and Sumach/Cherry to Distillery Loop.
  • 504B King Humber to Broadview Station: Cars will divert on the same route as 504A to Broadview, then run north to Broadview Station.
  • 504 buses will operate from Broadview Station to Bathurst over the regular King route.

508 Lake Shore:

  • 508 Lake Shore cars will divert via the same route as the 504B King cars.

How well any of these services will operate remains to be seen especially the 504A route that will be much longer than normal.

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Reserved Bus Lanes for Spadina?

Updated July 11 at 4:20 pm: The TTC has confirmed that planned overhead replacement on Bathurst shown on TOInview will not occur. They also confirmed that 2025 work on the west half of 506 Carlton will be done in stages, but have no further details at this point.

In response to the snafu with Spadina bus operations and traffic backlogs for the Gardiner Expressway, Toronto & East York Council has approved a proposal to implement a reserved bus lane between Queen Street and Queens Quay southbound. This must go to the full Toronto Council at its meeting of July 24.

The west curb lane would have all parking and cabstand space removed south of Queen. It would be reserved for transit vehicle and bicycles except for areas 30.5 metres north of King Street, Front Street and Fort York Boulevard which would be south-to-west right turn lanes. Between Richmond and Queen, stopping would be permitted outside of peak periods.

Speaking on CBC’s Metro Morning, Deputy Mayor Malik, sponsor of the motion, noted that planning for this type of event must substantially improve. The TTC was clearly caught out by the level of congestion on Spadina, something anyone who ventures downtown would know about. This did not appear overnight. A further question about the reserved lane proposal, which will be in effect at all hours, not just for the PM peak period, is how it will be enforced and what effect it will have on traffic feeding into this area.

A larger problem remains with the TTC’s planning for construction projects, and especially for streetcar replacements. In recent years, they have seemed quite willing to suspend service for extended periods in the interest of getting a lot of work done with a single closure. In practice, some of these have gone on far longer than they should have, and there have lengthy periods without any visible work.

The work on Spadina between King and Queens Quay, and later between College and Bloor, involves rebuilding the streetcar overhead to be fully pantograph compliant, as opposed to a hybrid pole/panto system. Some streetcar track repairs are likely during the streetcar replacement. This work should not take six months, the planned Spadina closure. This was originally announced as running only to October, but now to December. At Spadina Station the first stage of streetcar platform extension will occur taking advantage of excavation for a nearby condo project.

The City’s infrastructure plan viewer, TOInview, shows two other pending overhead replacement projects.

  • In 2024, Bathurst Street from Fleet to St. Clair
  • In 2025, College Street from Dundas to Yonge

Updated July 11 at 4:20 pm:

I asked the TTC if/when these projects will occur, and they advised that Bathurst will not be done in 2024. TOinview will be updated. College will be done in sections in 2025, but no further details are available yet.

It is not clear why at least the north end of Bathurst was not rebuilt while the St. Clair line was shut down for its own conversion and other projects along that route. This would have allowed streetcars to be based at Hillcrest as they were during previous roadworks on Bathurst. Do riders on St. Clair face another round of bus substitution?

College Street went through its own gyrations with substitute bus service during track replacement not long ago.

Many years have passed since the TTC streetcar system was entirely operating with streetcars, and the TTC seems to be happy to have some part of the network out of service almost all of the time. It certainly is not a question of vehicle availability, although their staffing is probably at a level where they could not field full streetcar service. This has implications for streetcar service levels generally, and for the resources more-or-less permanently “borrowed” from the bus network.

Consultation for the TTC’s 2025 Service Plan is about to get underway, and one topic planned for this is “construction”. Indeed, “doing diversions differently” is one goal of the current plan. On Spadina, that looks like an “own goal”.

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512 St. Clair Streetcars vs Buses: June 2024

With the June 23, 2024 schedule change, buses were replaced with streetcars running from St. Clair Station at Yonge to Gunn’s Loop west of Keele Street. Buses operated mostly in the regular traffic lanes, not on the streetcar right-of-way.

This article reviews the travel times on the 512 St. Clair bus and streetcar services to compare travel times over the route.

Although the streetcars in week 4 of June (beginning on June 23) are overall faster than the buses they replaced, the degree of this advantage varies by location and direction.

This is a companion piece to my review of the streetcar-to-bus change on 510 Spadina that happened at the same time.

The overall observation here is that although travel times are now shorter for many riders, headway reliability is very poor and gaps can undo the benefit of a faster trip.

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510 Streetcars vs Buses: June 2024

With the June 23, 2024 schedule change, streetcars were replaced with buses running from Spadina Station at Bloor to Queens Quay. Buses operated in the regular traffic lanes, not on the streetcar right-of-way.

To no surprise, during periods when Spadina Avenue is congested, primarily with traffic queued for the westbound Gardiner Expressway ramp at Lake Shore, the buses made glacial progress. This was not, however, the only place where buses were delayed by traffic.

The TTC has announced that it will change the south end loop in an attempt to speed service during the PM peak. No buses will operate between Blue Jays Way and Queens Quay, but instead they will loop via Front eastbound, then south and west via Blue Jays Way to Spadina. Traffic Wardens will assist with the turn at Front Street.

However, the congestion on the south end of Spadina can extend north to King and sometimes beyond Queen Street. It is not clear whether the new loop will address much of the problem. Buses will not be using the streetcar right-of-way, even though it has no centre poles north of Bremner Blvd. to bypass the traffic jam.

The TTC advises that this is an interim arrangement, and that they are working with the City on further, unspecified, changes to the bus operation.

It’s Not Just the Gardiner

An effect unexpected by some, I am sure, was that at uncongested parts and times, the buses make faster trips than the streetcars had only a week before the changeover. Anyone who rides the 510 Spadina car will know of their glacial progress through intersections thanks to the system wide slow order on all special trackwork. Spadina has many intersections. This type of pervasive delay is seen all over the streetcar system, but is worst on rights-of-way where one would expect streetcars to operate as quickly as possible.

Buses have a further advantage in that they are stopping nearside, and therefore can serve stops while awaiting a green signal, and then leave without a second farside stop.

The absence of priority with extended green phases for Spadina transit service affects the modes differently because an extended green would allow streetcars to reach their stops before a signal turns against them. Even if bus is caught on the nearside of an intersection, it will be stopping to serve passengers.

The left turn phase for auto traffic that blocks streetcars also blocks buses, and so this particular delay is common to both modes.

In addition to congestion at the south end of the route, buses also encounter problems during some periods approaching Bloor Street northbound.

The remainder of this article reviews travel times and service reliability on the main part of the 510 Spadina route over June 2024. (There is a companion article about the return of streetcars replacing buses on 512 St. Clair.)

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