McCowan North Bus

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Analysis of 129 McCowan North – September/October 2024

This article reviews the quality of service and crowding on the 129 McCowan North bus in September and October of 2024.

Updated Nov . 18/24 at 5:00 pm: Bus spacing charts were omitted in the original posts, and they have been added. Also, crowding and spacing charts have been added for Wednesday, October 2 as an example of route behaviour before the October 6 schedule change.

Summary

This route has two branches:

  • 129A operates north of Steeles under contract to York Region to Major Mackenzie Drive.
  • 129B operates to Steeles Avenue.

In the September schedules, much of the 129A service was provided as an “every nth” through bus on the Steeles service. This changed on October 6 so that the 129A and 129B services operate independently, and the 129B service changed from regular-sized to articulated buses. Service in peak periods is scheduled to be uneven even if it is “on time” by TTC standards.

With a combination of bus sizes and uneven headways, the effect on crowding can be severe if a smaller bus is travelling on a headway designed for a larger one.

Details of the scheduled service are in the main part of the article.

Construction at Sheppard severely affected travel times for much of the last two weeks in October. In turn, there was more bunching and gaps, and headway reliability declined considerably.

The segment of the route where bus crowding is most reported lies between STC and Steeles, and extends into York Region.

Service leaving Kennedy Station northbound shows a small range of headways only with the September schedule which had regular departure intervals. From week 2 of October onward, and compounded by effects of construction, headway reliability at Kennedy Station was poor. The situation was worse further north on the route. Southbound services merging at Steeles did not do so on a controlled basis even though the schedule purports a “blended” service.

Service north of Steeles can be quite erratic northbound. Southbound service benefits from recovery time at the Major Mackenzie terminus, but can still be uneven.

The remainder of this article contains many charts for readers who like the detailed analysis.

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Service Reliability on the Scarborough RT Corridor (Part 1)

When the Scarborough RT closed, it was replaced by a bus shuttle, 903 Kennedy-Scarborough Express, running frequent service over streets paralleling the former SRT route. In previous articles, I reviewed actual travel times to determine how much traffic interference and transit priority contributed to speedy travel. See:

Since mid-November 2023, service between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station has been provided by many routes with the intention of eliminating transfer delays at STC. The following routes were extended south to Kennedy Station following the same route as the 903 Express. At the same time, service on the 903 was reduced as buses were redeployed to the other routes.

  • 38 Highland Creek
  • 129 McCowan North
  • 131 Nugget
  • 133 Neilson
  • 938 Highland Creek Express
  • 939A/B Finch Express
  • 954 Lawrence East Express
  • 985A Sheppard East Express

Debate over the planned busway in the former SRT corridor focuses on travel time savings using a private road from Eglinton to Ellesmere, but an important aspect for any rider is the wait time for their bus. The benefit of a faster ride can be undone by an unpredictable wait. This series of articles reviews service reliability on the extended routes as well as the remaining 903 Express operation between mid-November 2023 and the end of February 2024.

With all the focus on the shared route between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station, there remains the much longer portion of routes that have been extended. While the red lanes, and later the BRT roadway, should minimize further sources of irregularity, this does not change the fact that some of these routes have service issues east and north of STC.

This is part of a more general issue across the bus network that improvements are needed that will not come quickly or easily simply with a few transit priority projects. Moreover, riders need to see improvements now, not in the indefinite future after studies, priority lists and endless debates about who “deserves” better transit.

Included in Part 1 are routes 38, 938, 129, 131 and 133. The remaining express routes are in Part 2.

Updated Mar. 16, 2024: Route map added.

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