The construction work on Broadview north of Danforth has not run particularly quickly with a few intervals where nothing happened at all for over a week. This appeared to be not the TTC’s problem, but rather the contractor, Sanscon, who simply did not have anyone working on site at times.
As of November 16, they have only now reached the point of excavating the north end of Broadview Station Loop. Both track and concrete are incomplete, albeit progressing, on Broadview and at the loop entrance. Broadview Avenue cannot reopen until this track work has finished and the pavement is restored.
The reopening of the station for bus service is now expected in December (exact date unspecified).
The schedules for “normal” operation at Broadview Station are already in place, but service will operate in an interim configuration pending completion of work at the station.
8 Broadview will operate from Broadview & O’Connor Mortimer to Warden Station. It will no longer interline with 62 Mortimer. [Corrected 6:35 pm, November 16]
62 Mortimer will operate from Broadview & Mortimer to Main Station. It will no longer interline with 8 Broadview.
87 Cosburn will continue operating to Pape Station via Mortimer and Pape.
72 Pape will no longer provide replacement service for Broadview Avenue, but this will be taken over by a 504/505 shuttle. 72A Pape will no longer be interlined with 100 Flemingdon Park.
100 Flemingdon Park will operate from Pape Station independently of 72A Pape.
The 504/505 Broadview shuttle will operate from Castle Frank Station to King & Parliament via Bloor, Danforth, Broadview, Queen and King, and it will use on-street stops at Broadview & Danforth.
304 King Night Bus will operate from Castle Frank Station east to Broadview and then over the 504 King daytime route to Dundas West Station.
322 Coxwell Night Bus will divert to Pape Station.
When Broadview Station Loop reopens, routes 8, 62, 87, 100, 504/505, 304 and 322 will resume their normal routes to that loop.
The TTC has not yet published information about on street stops for the temporary western terminals of 8 Broadview and 62 Mortimer.
Here are two views of construction work at the north end of Broadview Station on November 16.
Looking SW from Erindale to BroadviewLooking S into Broadview Station from Erindale
Streetcar operation to Broadview Station will resume in mid-February 2024 following sewer rehab work by Toronto Water.
The intersection of Adelaide & York is taking shape with special work installation for the 501 Queen Ontario Line diversion.
Curves have been installed:
South to east for the 501 diversion.
North to east.
East to north.
Of these three, the north to east is net new compared with the track layout half a century ago as shown by a map drawn by John F. Bromley and hosted on the Transit Toronto website.
Here are my photos of the work in progress on November 10, 2023. (Yes, dear readers, I made a point of visiting when the sun was aligned with the downtown office canyons.)
Looking NE from YorkLooking NE across AdelaideLooking E on AdelaideLooking E on AdelaideLooking SE from York
Still to come is the installation of tangent track southbound from Queen to Adelaide, and the provision of an east to south curve at York and Queen. York Street will become two-way from Queen to Adelaide after its long era of one-way northbound operation implemented when the Gardiner Expressway opened.
This is the final article in a series reviewing the effects of diversions around various construction and road repair project downtown during the month of October 2023, and especially the period from October 18 to 25.
In the third installment, I look at the effect of the route changes and congestion on the quality of service on affected major routes: 501 Queen, 503 Kingston Road and 504 King.
Service was badly disrupted not just downtown, but on other parts of these routes which already suffered from erratic headways (the interval between vehicles) in “normal” TTC operations. A major problem with TTC service quality reporting is that it does not consider the fine-grained detail, and yet that is the level at which riders experience the system.
“Congestion” is something the City talks about in the abstract, but does not really address especially in acknowledging that some roads are full.
There are many detailed charts in this article, more than I would usually publish. They show how the view of data changes as one moves down from broad averages to specifics, and how seriously unreliable service was on routes affected by the sinkhole diversion even without that extra layer of problems.
Equally importantly, these charts show that problems are not occasional, but a chronic feature of TTC operations.
Data here goes only to the end of October, although the effects of the diversion carried over into early November. Even after service returned to “normal”, regular congestion effects remained on parts of King Street showing the underlying issue that was compounded by the diversion and its delays. I will turn to that in early December when I have all of November’s data.
From October 19 until early November, there was a major disruption of transit service downtown due to concurrent construction activities and the complete absence of transit priority or traffic management.
A sinkhole of King east of Jarvis blocked all streetcar service from the afternoon of Wednesday, October 18 to Tuesday, October 24. From October 25 onward, streetcars diverted only weekdays until 7pm.
Construction on Adelaide Street for the Ontario Line 501 Queen eastbound diversion track continued including the relocation of several underground chambers. This work closed York Street northbound at Adelaide.
Construction on Queen Street at Yonge for the Ontario Line closed that street from James to Victoria.
This event showed what can happen when a transit service and the streets it runs on are nearing the point of gridlock, and are pushed over the edge by loss of capacity. It also showed, quite starkly, how Toronto’s talk of managing congestion is much more talk than action.
This is a vital lesson in planning for future diversions and special events.
An important issue here is that some of the congestion problems pre-dated the sinkhole. Moreover, congestion did not occur in the same time at all locations, and some of it did not correspond to traditional ideas of peak periods.
The volume of turning movements overloaded the capacity of the intersections to handle transit, road and pedestrian traffic. A detailed list appears later in the article.
Streetcars and buses stop to serve passengers at many intersections, a fact of life for transit vehicles which behave differently from other traffic. Often two traffic signal phases would be consumed per vehicle: one for it to pull up to the stop, and one for it to make the turn. This limited the throughput of some intersections to fewer cars/hour than the combined scheduled service of the routes.
The electric switch southbound at King and Church was unreliable, and operators had to manually throw it so 501 Queen cars could go straight south to Wellington while other cars turned west on King. On its own, this would be an annoyance, but it compounded other delays.
Only 501 Queen ran on its scheduled route looping south on Church to Wellington, then west to York, north to King and east to Church. During some periods, the congestion was so great that the 501 Queen service was redirected from the Don Bridge westward via King to Distillery Loop. Off-route operation plays havoc with trip prediction apps adding to riders’ woes in finding when and where the service they needed would be.
In this article, I review the vehicle tracking data and travel times over the route from Queen and Parliament, west to Church, south to King and west to Peter (east of Spadina) using the 503 Kingston Road car as the primary subject. This was the only route that travelled the full length of the area during the diversion. Some cars did short turn, but most operated west to Charlotte Loop (King, Spadina, Adelaide, Charlotte) and they give a good representation of travel times experienced by all routes.
In the third and final part of this series, I will review the effect the delays downtown had on service of the three streetcar routes. This type of event has effects far from where it occurs, and these are not always acknowledged. A related problem is the inherent irregularity of TTC service even without a major diversion and congestion added to the mix.
After the break, there are a lot of charts for people who like that sort of thing, but there is also a summary for those who want the highlights.
Sunday, October 29 saw streetcars return west of Sunnyside Loop after a long absence during many construction projects. Service operates as far as Humber Loop on route 501, but with rush hour 508 Lake Shore trippers to Long Branch. The 507 Long Branch car will return on Sunday, November 19 at the next schedule change running between Humber and Long Branch Loops. Late evening service will run through with 501 Long Branch cars.
Here is a gallery of photos taken on November 3 and 5 of the restored operation.
While it is heartwarming to see streetcars back on a right-of-way that dates to the 1950s, the operation is hampered by the TTC’s fetish for caution with stop-and-proceed rules at all facing point switches (four between Queen & Roncesvalles and Sunnyside Loop, and even at the Humber Loop tail track), and at all intersecting roads. The concept of “transit priority” is diluted almost to vanishing.
Humber Loop looking W at the tail track entranceHumber Loop looking W with Queen cars and the 66 Prince Edward busLooking E on the approach to the Humber River bridgeLooking NW at The Queensway and EllisLooking SW at The Queensway and EllisLooking E across Ellis on The QueenswayEastbound car on The Queensway at Grenadier PondWestbound car on The Queensway at Grenadier PondLooking W from Parkside Drive on The QueenswayLooking E from Parkside Drive on The Queensway
Starting on October 19 mid-afternoon, streetcar service on King Street east of Church was blocked by a sinkhole caused by a broken watermain. Streetcar service was diverted from King to Queen, and the 501B Queen bus was shifted south to King.
The sinkhole repairs completed a few days ago, and effective October 25, the diversions are only in effect until 7pm while water main repairs continue. While this arrangement does improve evening service, it perpetuates the operational problems caused by the total lack of transit signal priority and traffic management at key intersections.
Updated Oct 27 at 11:15pm: The modified routes will not be in operation over the weekend, but will resume on Monday morning, October 30 according to the @ttchelps X account.
A separate problem occurs at the transition back to “normal” service in the evening. The buses revert to normal or run back to the garage, but it takes some time for the congestion to abate and normal streetcar service to resume. This puts a large gap between the two services.
Diversion AnnouncementThis diversion announcement linked below has disappeared from the TTC site. As the TTC updates their info, I will amend this article.
Diversions in Effect Daytimes on 501, 503 and 504 Services
In summary, here are the normal (now evening only) and modified (daytime) routes through the affected area:
501B bus: Bathurst to Broadview/Gerrard
Normal: Via Queen, Bay, King/Richmond (EB/WB), Church to Queen
Diverted: Via Queen, Bay, King to Queen at the Don River (Both ways)
501D streetcar: Neville to York & Wellington
Normal: Via Queen, Church, Wellington/York/King loop
Diverted: No route change, but many Queen cars never get to York street and are short turned further east including to Distillery Loop during the most congested periods.
503 streetcar: Spadina to Bingham
Normal: Via King, Queen, Kingston Rd
Diverted: Via King, Church, Queen, Kingston Rd
504 streetcar:
Normal: From King West to Distillery Loop via King, Sumach and Cherry
Diverted:
Streetcars short turn at Church via Church, Richmond, Victoria, Adelaide, Church
Bus shuttle to Distillery looping downtown via Bay, Adelaide, Yonge to King
This arrangement has extremely severe effects on transit and traffic in general notably at locations where streetcars must turn. There is no Transit Signal Priority (TSP), no Traffic Warden (aka “Agent”), and no attempt to manage the conflicts between turning streetcars, other traffic and high pedestrian volumes at affected intersections. Concurrent work on Adelaide Street diverts traffic to Yonge Street and adds to congestion on streets used for the bus diversion.
Travel times of half an hour and more between Spadina and Church are common.
The situation makes total mockery of the City’s recent Congestion Management Plan by showing how they are utterly unprepared and unwilling to respond to an event that requires major reallocation of road space and time among various types of users, and active management in place of passive acceptance of chaos.
A fundamental part of traffic planning is to determine intersection capacity. This is not rocket science. If there are “N” green phases per hour, and in practice it is only possible for at best one streetcar to turn per cycle, this sets an upper bound on capacity. In fact, one per cycle is amazingly optimistic and could only likely be achieved with both TSP signalling (a “white bar” transit only phase) and a Traffic Agent to ensure the TSP was respected.
Service frequencies on the streetcar routes, and the equivalent cars/hour are:
This translates to the following demands by turning cars/hour:
King/Church
Eastbound left: 35
Southbound right: 25
Queen/Church:
Westbound left: 20
Northbound right: 20
Church/Richmond:
Northbound left: 15
A typical traffic signal cycle time is 80 seconds, or 45 times per hour. It is self-evident that attempting to turn 35 cars/hour would be a challenge. This is compounded by the fact that many cars will stop to serve passengers before turning and will almost certainly lose one cycle for that purpose.
Another source of delay is that the electric switches for turns do not always work requiring operators to manually set their route where some cars turn and others go straight through. This can also affect TSP signals where they do exist because the switch electronics “tell” the signals that a transit phase is needed.
This is a crisis-level example of why TSP should be installed everywhere that streetcars might need it, not just for standard scheduled movements (e.g. eastbound at Queen and Broadview, turns at King & Sumach). It is precisely during events where operations go off kilter that the best possible priority is needed. If the facilities were sitting there, they would benefit occasional diversions and short turns, as well as major service interruptions like this one.
The City’s plan is utterly silent on this need, and that must change. For its part, the TTC must insist on improved TSP for streetcar and bus routes. This is not a panacea, but an important contribution to transit reliability and credibility.
The TTC has announced that streetcar service west of Sunnyside Loop (where 501A service now ends) will be extended to Humber Loop on Sunday, October 29. Service to Long Branch will be provided by the 501L shuttle bus operating between Humber and Long Branch as shown below.
A 501M Marine Parade bus will operate from Humber Loop.
The 508 Lake Shore streetcar service will resume to Long Branch Loop on Monday, October 30. Cars will leave Long Branch roughly every 20 minutes from 6:40 to 8:10am. Westbound trips will leave King Station from about 4:25 to 5:45pm.
The eastern terminus of the 501A cars will continue to be at McCaul Loop.
The extension is possible between regular schedule changes because running time is already provided in the October schedules for 501 operation to Humber, and for 508 operation to Long Branch.
Full 507 Long Branch streetcar service will be restored at the next schedule change on Sunday, November 19.
Night service will continue with the 301 Queen Night Bus because of the need to divert around Ontario Line construction.
At its meeting on October 25, 2023, Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee will consider a report about the City’s Congestion Management Plan. I will review that in a separate article, but to set the scene, it is worth looking back at the success and failure of the King Street transit priority pilot.
The original idea was to establish King Street, by far the busiest streetcar corridor downtown with consistently high demand, as a mostly-transit street to speed trips through the core area. A combination of forced right turns, enlarged boarding areas at stops, together with other road changes would make travel by car between Jarvis and Bathurst Streets difficult, if not impossible.
The scheme was quickly watered down thanks to protests from the taxi industry, including carriers like Uber whose vehicles were not branded, and this presented an immediate problem for enforcement. That problem was compounded by the lackluster efforts of Toronto Police who had more important things to do with their time. Occasional blitzes were separated by long periods of laissez-faire non-enforcement.
Despite these limitations, the changes actually did improve travel times, and in particular, the reliability of travel times, over the affected section. Then came the pandemic, and traffic downtown evaporated along with any vestigial efforts to enforce traffic laws. Motorists became used to driving as they pleased, and that has survived into the post-pandemic period along with the unsurprising result that many benefits of the transit priority scheme have been lost.
This article looks back at the actual data for 504 King cars operating through the core to show how travel times have evolved. I have included data going back well beyond the implementation of the King Street transit priority pilot in November 2017. Some of these charts appeared in earlier reviews of King Street, but they are included here for “one stop shopping”.
All data for the analysis here were supplied by the TTC from their CIS and Vision vehicle tracking systems, for which much thanks. The presentation and conclusions are my own.
This article continues my reviews of bus operations on 512 St. Clair in September 2023 and of streetcar operations in the preceding months.
One aspect of any route’s operation is the degree to which vehicles have time for a layover at terminals. If this time is too small (or worse, none at all), service can be disrupted by the simple need for drivers to answer calls of nature and just decompress for a few minutes.
There is no formal break built into schedules in Toronto as can be found in some other transit systems, but a quick look at the TTC’s schedule summaries will show that most routes have built in “recover time”. This is intended to compensate for random events during a trip, although sometimes it is simply a mechanism to make the round trip time come out to a multiple of the scheduled headway.
Some of the “service reliability adjustments” the TTC advertises with schedule change are nothing more than shifting time from “recovery” to “driving” time without actually changing the round trip time. In other cases, time is added or removed without changing the total number of vehicles causing the service headway to get longer or shorter.
When schedules have excessive travel and/or recovery time, vehicles queue up at terminals causing congestion on the approach if there is no place to park off-street.
In the case of 512 St. Clair, the time spent at St. Clair Station (the eastern terminus) was fairly consistent up to the end of June 2023, but things got really messy. This corresponded to the point where service on the line as a whole became considerably worse as we saw in earlier articles.
This was caused by two competing factors in route operations.
In July and August, the TTC extended streetcar service to Gunn’s Loop west of Keele even though it was only scheduled to run to Earlscourt Loop at Lansdowne. This made keeping “on time”, the TTC’s holy grail of service management, impossible.
The approaches taken in July and August were quite different, but a common factor was that streetcars spent more time sitting in St. Clair Station Loop to get back on time at the expense of providing the advertised service on the route.
Steve Munro 