Service Analysis

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Travel Times on Route 504 King (Updated)

Updated on January 28, 2017:

Changes include:

  • Addition of data for November and December 2016.
  • Reformattied chart pages so that data for years 2014, 2015 and 2016 appear on separate sheets.

With the launch of Toronto’s TOCore project, the city set in motion a complete rethink of what “Downtown” means and how it will evolve in coming decades. On some counts, one might argue that this work is long overdue as concentration of office and residential space in a very small area brings many problems for residents and businesses, not to mention a very competitive demand for a crucial resource – road space.

I will leave the debate on many of these issues to other people and forums, but as this is a transit blog, my focus is on understanding how transit works (or doesn’t) and what effects might result from various proposals.

In the Globe & Mail, Oliver Moore writes about “Complete Streets” and how this design philosophy could affect Toronto. Without question, better attention must be paid to improving the safety and usability of major streets by pedestrians (who are also transit riders) and cyclists who collectively outnumber the motor traffic.

King Street has long been the busiest of the downtown streetcar routes carrying about 65,000 riders every weekday. But these riders do not all travel to and from the business district at King & Bay, nor do they all travel in conventional am and pm peak commuting times. New demands on the shoulders of downtown such as Liberty Village and the St. Lawrence district include not only residents bound for jobs at Bay Street, but workers and students headed to offices and schools on counter-peak trips. Indeed, the term “counter peak” can seem odd when one looks at some of the demand patterns.

In 2014-15, I was retained by the City’s Transportation Department and the TTC to review the major streetcar routes with a view to identifying locations on the shoulders of peak periods where parking and turning restrictions should be extended beyond the traditional two hour window. As a result of this and other surveys conducted by the City, traffic regulations were changed in several areas. This brought some improvement, typically eliminating anomalies where the pm peak, for example, actually was worst for transit service in the hours just before and just after the “official” rush hour.

However, that review was considerably smaller than the goals of TOCore. A redesign of a street like King is an all-day effort, and one that could, depending on its scope, affect a great deal of the streetcar route. This is not a case of tweaking a few hours a day, but of reinventing the street.

Continue reading →

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The Travails of Cherry Street

A recent meeting of the Corktown Residents’ and Business Association included a discussion of problems with the new 514 Cherry service. As reported by thebuletin.ca

… a resident of the King/Sumach area … commented that the screech of the streetcars turning at King and Sumach was so loud as to prevent sleep. Apparently the issue has been ongoing since the inauguration of the 514 (Distillery Loop–Dufferin) line on June 19.

…

The issue—which took the meeting somewhat by surprise—was amplified by other attendees, who also noted that there were substantial problems with streetlight timings at the Cherry/Front and Cherry/Eastern intersections, as well as with poorly-delineated turning lane stripes which have led to vehicles accidentally getting onto the streetcar right-of-way and then being unable to get off. (There have been earlier, similar incidents with the slightly older right-of-way at Queen’s Quay.)

Deputy Mayor and area councillor Pam McConnell’s office was aware of the issues and noted that streetcar service was now suspended (replaced with shuttle buses) between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. A public meeting was subsequently scheduled with the councillor’s office and the TTC.

Problems at King & Sumach have continued since the 514 opened for service including:

  • dewirements causing overhead to be pulled down
  • derailments
  • traffic signals that do more to delay transit service than “prioritize” it (this is also a problem further south on Cherry)

When the TTC began rerouting the 514 service late in the evening, the alleged purpose was “railgrinding” and this is still reflected in the URL for the service notice which is called “514_railgrinding.jsp”. The activities underway at the intersection were clearly aimed at the derailment problems by altering the rail profile on the curves.

There is a long-standing slow order for east-west operation on King that has nothing to do with this, but is no doubt related to a few cases of overhead failure.

Meanwhile, the traffic signals here and at other locations on Cherry appear to be on a fixed cycle that has no relationship to whether transit vehicles are present. So much for “transit priority”.

On the subject of wheel squeal, the TTC’s official line is that the new streetcars are supposed to be self-lubricating, and that this would be triggered by GPS information. That’s a good line, but it does not fit with actual conditions.

  • There is a wheel greaser on the southbound approach to Distillery Loop.
  • The GPS-based automatic greasing has not yet been turned on for the new cars. (Anyone with contrary information is welcome to correct me in the comments.)
  • Most of the service on 514 Cherry is provided by CLRVs that do not have automatic greasers.

I have outstanding requests for further information on these issues to both the TTC and to City Transportation, and will update this post as and when they reply.

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The TIFF Gorilla Returns For 2016

Once again, the Toronto International Film Festival (aka TIFF) will take over King Street between University Avenue and Peter Street for its opening weekend from Thursday, September 8 to Sunday, September 11. Transit riders rank second to this Toronto event, one which is well-connected at City Hall and can elbow aside other users of the street to suit its purpose. Imagine King Kong descending from the CN Tower for his annual visit.

An attempted compromise that would have kept streetcars running on King during the weekday daytimes fell in place of the benefits of the festival. That’s the official story, anyhow.

Several routes will be disrupted by this arrangement:

  • 504 King will be split into two routes with the eastern segment operating to the Church, Wellington, York loop normally the home of 503 Kingston Road Tripper cars. The western segment will use the 510 Spadina route’s short turn loop via Spadina, Adelaide and Charlotte to King. This is a change from 2015 when the western branch of the route turned north on Bathurst Street.
  • 514 Cherry cars will operate as one route bypassing TIFF via Queen between Church and Spadina. This route already has problems staying on schedule, and the diversion will make things even worse at both ends of the line.
  • 504 buses will bypass TIFF via Richmond and Adelaide (WB and EB) between University and Spadina.
  • 304 King night car will be supplemented by a bus shuttle running from Parliament to Spadina.

The full details are on the TTC’s website.

This arrangement is further complicated by the continuing diversion of 501 Queen service between Spadina and Shaw via King for watermain construction on Queen Street.

The TTC notice says that:

Toronto Police will be positioned at key intersections to assist with traffic flow.

I hope so. The complete lack of transit priority signals to assist in diversionary routings is a long-standing problem for the TTC and produces no end of delays at intersections where turns across traffic must happen. This has shown up already in 2016 as queues of Queen cars eastbound at Spadina (to which the King cars will be added).

There are priority signals for turns off of Spadina to east-west streets, but not for turns onto Spadina. The situation is made worse by the number of electric switches that are out of service because it is the switch controllers that tell the signals when an extra phase for turning streetcars is required.

Diversions like this downtown are commonplace. Both the TTC and City of Toronto should do more to provide transit priority assistance for these as part of the standard installation at all major intersections where streetcars have to make turns during these events.

According to the TTC’s Brad Ross, TIFF is paying for most of this arrangement, although the TTC Ambassadors (extra staff to direct riders to the relocated services) will be covered by the TTC. It is unclear how much of the extra service the TTC will operate (and that’s assuming they do actually provide some) will come out of the TTC budget. This sort of thing is an ongoing issue for the TTC which is expected to arrange alternate services as a community benefit, but usually does not receive compensation for doing so. It is one of those hidden costs of doing business for the transit system.

Full disclosure: I am a regular attendee and donor at TIFF, but I do not agree with the degree to which they disrupt transit service on a major downtown route during workday hours.

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How Much Service Actually Runs on King Street?

In many past articles, I have reviewed the quality of service on various routes from the point of view of headway regularity, travel times and short turns. While these analyses can show that disordered service is commonplace, they do not address a more basic question: what is the actual capacity of service offered, how consistently does the TTC actually provide room for passengers to ride?

This article uses vehicle tracking data in a different manner.

Service at Bathurst & King picks up almost all transit vehicles in both directions without effects of short turns. However, raw vehicle counts do not directly represent “capacity” because this must be adjusted for vehicle size. For example, twenty streetcars in one hour can carry more passengers than twenty buses. The capacity per hour is affected by the combination of two factors: how many vehicles of each size actually passed the intersection, and how many vehicles even operated in the peak period. The latter factor is important because “missed trips” don’t just arise from erratic service, but also from a failure to field all of the scheduled vehicles.

Hour-by-Hour Capacity

The following sets of charts show the capacity of service passing Bathurst Street eastbound during the AM peak (0600 to 1000) and westbound during the PM peak (1500 to 1900). Data are shown for all weekdays from September 2013 to July 2016 except for February 2016 (because I do not have data for that month).

There are three types of chart in each set:

  • Vehicle counts by type by hour
  • Capacity of the vehicles observed by hour
  • Total capacity over the four-hour period

504_CapData_Bathurst_EB

504_CapData_Bathurst_WB

Visible in these charts is the fluctuation from time to time in the proportion of service provided with standard CLRV streetcars, articulated ALRV cars, buses and new Flexity LFLRVs (since June 20, 2016). Very low values on individual days correspond to situations where a diversion to much or all of the service away from the intersection, typically to Queen Street. Another factor is that occasionally information for the time in question does not exist in the data provided by the TTC.

Over the length of an hour, a small day-to-day variation might be expected in vehicle counts through minor service irregularity. However, the mix of vehicles affects overall capacity. Late 2014 saw the onset of bus replacements of streetcars, and the drop in streetcar counts came primarily from ALRVs which are much larger vehicles. The number of bus trips required to replace ALRV trips was substantially larger as the charts show. However, there remains a considerable fluctuation from day-to-day in the number of each type of vehicle.

Capacities are calculated from the TTC’s service design values:

  • CLRV: 74
  • ALRV: 108
  • LFLRV: 130
  • Bus: 51

Note that vehicles can carry more people than these numbers suggest under crush conditions, but service cannot be designed based on crush loads on every trip.

What is quite striking about the capacity charts is the fluctuation over a range of about 500 passengers per hour, roughly 25% of the typical value, during the busiest periods. In other words, even if the vehicles arrived evenly spaced and, therefore, evenly loaded, there would be a considerable change day-to-day in the quality of service experienced by riders.

This begs the question of whether the days with lower capacity arise from “traffic congestion”, the TTC’s favourite explanation for erratic service, or if another factor could be at work.

Vehicles in Service

Another way to look at the data is to simply count the number of vehicles in service on the route. The next charts report on the number of vehicles of each type observed on the central part of King (Jarvis to Jameson) from 0700 to 0900, and from 1600 to 1800.

504_CapData_VehicleCounts

What one would expect to see if the schedules are to be believed is that the vehicle counts would stay more or less the same for a series of weeks corresponding to one or more “board periods”, the five-to-six week periods for which set of schedules remains in effect. However, what we see, particularly for streetcar modes, is a substantial change day-to-day in the number of vehicles the TTC actually fielded. The total vehicle count has fluctuated quite a lot (a range of about 10 vehicles on a likely scheduled total in the high 50s in the AM peak).

The numbers here do not translate directly to capacity, but they are linked:

  • More streetcars and fewer buses can lead to higher capacity depending on the replacement ratio, but this can be offset by the degree to which larger streetcars (ALRVs) are used.
  • Schedule changes to increase running times, even at similar headways, result in more vehicles in service (because the round trip time is longer) but not in more capacity (the vehicles/hour counts are unchanged).

The TTC speaks of the bus trippers on King as “expanding capacity”. As the charts clearly show, they do not achieve this effect because they are only replacing streetcars, and not necessarily on an equal capacity basis. The buses are a response to a shortage of streetcars, not a service improvement, except in the sense that without them the remaining streetcars would be even less able to cope with demand.

One factor which the vehicle-based data cannot reveal is the degree to which runs are cancelled because there are not enough operators available to drive them. This is not just a manpower issue, but one of schedule design and the degree to which all runs are part of regular crews, and how many depend on spare or overtime operators whose availability fluctuates. Trippers that operate for a short period are especially vulnerable to this because they are short pieces of work more likely to be crewed as extras.

The TTC has many challenges on King Street, and the City is now studying ways to redesign the street to aid transit operations, among other goals. However, fielding a consistent level of service is an essential part of delivering a consistent quality to riders on the line, and the TTC does not achieve this.

There has been some growth in capacity of service provided on the central part of the route, notably with the service redesign for 514 Cherry, but how long this will last in an era of trimmed budgets remains to be seen.

Note:

The counts and capacities shown here include service on 514 Cherry starting in late June 2016, but do not include service on 508 Lake Shore. This service was suspended due to the streetcar shortage in January 2015 (PM peak), and June 2015 (AM peak). It contributed a small amount of added capacity when it operated, but this was quite erratic because the arrival times and numbers of vehicles assigned varied considerably. I do not have 508 tracking data for many of the months included in these charts, and so have omitted the route from the analysis.

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Streetcar Track Construction Update: Summer-Fall 2016

Reconstruction of streetcar track, mainly special work at intersections, continues this year with the intersection of College & Lansdowne. This forms one third of “College Loop” at the triangle of Lansdowne, College and Dundas. The west leg at Dundas & College is planned for 2018, and the south leg at Dundas & Lansdowne in 2019. These dates are subject to change as track projects are co-ordinated with other work, notably that by Toronto Water.

Updated August 11, 2016:

I inquired of the TTC about some aspects of this work. Here are my questions and the replies from Stephen Lam, Head of the Streetcar Department.

1. The trailing switches have boxes similar to the one used for facing points for electric switch machines. [See last photo in the gallery below.] What is this for?

The larger boxes on the trailing switches (east/west) are in place in order to accommodate the mechanical parts to a new prototype switch we are planning on testing out.

2. The track northbound on Lansdowne now veers to the left rather than running straight north so that the position of the curves at College is shifted slightly. Is there an intersection redesign going on as part of this work that requires this? On a related note, the north to east curve was supposed to be non-clearance for a turning CLRV and a vehicle running through straight west. Has this been changed with the curve in a new location?

The track northbound veers to the left due to realignment of the northbound shoulder lane, this will allow for two proper shoulder lanes northbound and southbound. The north to east curve is designed to allow both north to east and westbound cars to traverse through the area at the same time.

3. Parts of the new track appear to be at a lower level than the surrounding curb lanes. Is the intersection being regraded?

The City redesigned some of the grades within the intersection to allow for improved slope to the catch basins.  When standing from the street, it can be deceiving when looking at the rail in relation to the road.  You have a better perspective when standing inside the pit. The grades still need to be set by the City.

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514 Cherry: Analysis of Early Days’ Operation June 2016

The new route 514 Cherry began operation on Sunday, June 19, 2016. The route is effectively a scheduled short-turn of 504 King operating between Distillery Loop (Cherry & Mill Streets) in the east and Dufferin Loop (Exhibition West Entrance) in the west.

Service on 504 King itself has been reduced to provide the resources (operator hours) for the new route. During peak periods, this effectively converts some of the 504 bus trippers back to streetcars running over more-or-less the same territory. Outside of the peak, the 514 Cherry runs are created by widening headways on the full 504 King route and overlaying the 514 service.

The 514 Cherry cars run over a notorious section of King Street where running times can vary immensely (see charts in my recent article about stop removals), and this variation is an all-day problem with many seasonal and event-specific triggers.

This article reviews the new route’s operation for its first 12 days. I will update this review when additional data are available as the year progresses. A related issue will be the degree to which, if at all, the 514 cars blend with the 504 King service and the actual combined level of service between Dufferin and Sumach compared to the pre-514 Cherry era.

Continue reading →

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504 King: Did Eliminating Car Stops Make Any Difference?

On Sunday, June 19, 2016, the TTC eliminated several carstops on the central portion of the 504 King route with the alleged purpose of speeding up service. This is an idea that sounds good in theory – fewer stops means faster trips – but that’s not necessarily what happened.

The stops in question were located at:

  • Victoria Street westbound
  • York Street both ways
  • Simcoe Street both ways
  • Brant Street both ways

Another stop outside of the core that was removed was on Broadview north of Queen, northbound. This was originally created for the Don Mills night bus when it served Broadview, but had become a popular location for riders making the transfer from westbound Queen to northbound King cars without having to make a double-crossing of the intersection. That convenience is gone in the name of faster service.

Readers of this blog will know that a common thread through many of my service analyses is that some of the worst ongoing delays come from poor or non-existent transit priority including badly timed traffic signals or the lack of transit-only green time for turns. Other major delays arise when there is anything unusual such as utility construction with no corresponding change in traffic/parking regulations to retain as much of the street’s capacity as possible.

When the TTC floated the idea of eliminating minor stops at various locations, the idea sounded plausible. Did the change actually achieve anything?

Continue reading →

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501 Queen: Construction Effects on Service (Updated)

Since May 8, 2016 and continuing until Thanksgiving weekend, route 501 Queen is diverting around water main construction on Queen west of Spadina. The westbound diversion takes streetcars south to King at Spadina, west to Shaw and back north to Queen, and eastbound service follows the same route in reverse.

This article compares the line’s operation before and after the diversion took effect.

Updated July 26, 2016 at 4:00 pm: A chart has been added shown the delaying effect on King Street service eastbound at Spadina caused by queues for left turning eastbound Queen cars.

Continue reading →

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512 St. Clair: Construction Effects on Travel Time

Through the summer, the 512 St. Clair route will be under construction for various projects:

  • Modification of loading islands,
  • Reconstruction of the portal ramps and track at St. Clair West Station,
  • Reconstruction of overhead wiring at St. Clair West Station,
  • Reconstruction of the roofs at St. Clair Station streetcar and bus levels.

Buses are now operating over the entire route and this will continue until the Labour Day weekend when streetcars will return from St. Clair West Station to Keele. The work at St. Clair Station will not complete until late fall 2016, and buses will remain on the eastern section of the route.

The buses share the road lanes with auto traffic and generally do not make the trip as quickly as the streetcars. This article shows comparative data from early June 2016 when streetcars were still operating and late June after the buses took over.

Continue reading →

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TTC Service in 1928

A recent comment sent me looking for service levels early in the TTC’s existence (post 1921), and I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover that this information is in a book, now long out-of-print, by John F. Bromley called TTC ’28. This book provides a view of the system when the electric street railway in Toronto was at its height.

In a recent presentation to the TTC Board, staff argued that the streetcars were an integral part of the growth of Toronto, but their viewpoint was comparatively recent, from the 1950s onward, and even that did not fully show the former extent of the transit network which was once almost entirely operated with streetcars.

I often get questions about the streetcar system as it was, and this article is intended to consolidate the bits and pieces in one place. The route histories will give some indication of why there is so much streetcar track in apparently odd places today. Remember also that the downtown one-way streets date from the 1950s when the DVP/Gardiner recruited several streets as on/off ramps to the expressway network and “optimised” them for use by motorists.

Information for 1928 is taken mainly from Bromley’s book. Other sources are Rails From The Junction by James V. Salmon, Riding the Radials by Robert M. Stamp, and The Toronto Trolley Car Story by Louis H. Pursley.

The following map shows TTC routes in August 1928. It was scanned by Pete Coulman from a guidebook, and the original scan lives on the TransitToronto website’s maps page.

ttc-map-1928-08-22

Only a few routes on this map are bus operations, generally small lines on the periphery of the system.

Serving Downtown

Anyone born in the past half-century is used to the idea that the Yonge-University and Bloor-Danforth subways (now known as Lines 1 and 2 respectively) provide the lion’s share of transit capacity into the core area, supplemented by the streetcar network and GO Transit. However, before the subways opened, their role was provided not just by streetcars on their namesake streets, but on parallel routes that fed into a common area. This was an essential part of service design not simply to spread out the network through many neighbourhoods, but because all of the streetcars needed to serve the core could not fit onto one street.

“Downtown” was quite different from the area we think of today, and much of the development was concentrated south of Dundas with areas to the north more residential than commercial. Construction of Eaton’s College Street store began in 1928, and it was thought to be a huge risk building so far away from downtown. The building is much smaller than original plans because of the combined effect of its location and the recession.

The land around the port and the railway corridor was used mainly for industrial purposes, and the large workforce in these areas required a lot of transit service. This land is now home to tens of thousands as the condo boom recycles the old city and changes travel demands.

Services to downtown in 1928:

  • Bathurst cars ran south from Vaughan Loop at St. Clair to Front, then east to Frederick Loop at Sherbourne Street. (Although there was track linking Bathurst to the Exhibition ground, it was used only during special events such as the CNE or Royal Winter Fair.)
  • Bathurst trippers (peak period cars) ran from Caledonia Loop on St. Clair east to Vaughan/Bathurst, south to Adelaide and then east to Church.
  • Bay cars ran from Caledonia Loop on St. Clair east to Avenue Road, then south to Bloor, east to Bay and south to Ferry Loop (York & Queens Quay where the circular ramp from the Gardiner is today).
  • Beach cars ran between Neville Loop on Queen to Sunnyside Loop west of Roncesvalles. Today the route is 501 Queen.
  • Beach trippers ran from Neville Loop to King & Bay looping via Bay, Wellington and Sherbourne. Today’s 503 Kingston Road Tripper is a descendant of this route.
  • Queen cars ran initially from Bingham Loop on Kingston Road (still in use by routes 502, 503 and 12) looping downtown via Victoria, Richmond and York. During 1928, service was extended east to Birchmount Loop, but streetcar service was cut back to the City of Toronto boundary in 1954 with the creation of “Metro Toronto”. Today’s 502 Downtowner is a descendent of this route.
  • Bloor cars ran between Luttrell Loop (between Dawes Road and Victoria Park on Danforth) and Jane Loop (south side of Bloor opposite the foot of Jane Street).
  • Danforth trippers ran from Luttrell Loop west to Church & Bloor, then south to Queen looping via Queen, York and Richmond.
  • Carlton cars ran between Luttrell Loop and High Park over almost the same route as today’s 506 Carlton. College Street ended at Lansdowne, and so streetcars jogged south to Dundas to continue their trip west.
  • Carlton tripper cars followed the east end route to Parliament, then jogged south to Dundas and west to loop via Victoria, Adelaide and Church.
  • Church cars began at Christie Loop (corner of Dupont & Christie) and ran east via Dupont, Avenue Road and Bloor to Church, then south to loop via Front, Yonge and Wellington.
  • College cars took a rather scenic route from Royce Loop (southeast corner of what is now Lansdowne & Dupont, formerly Royce Street) via Lansdowne, College, Bay, Dundas, Broadview, Gerrard, Carlaw, Riverdale and Pape to Lipton Loop (current site of Pape Station).
  • Harbord cars also originated at Royce Loop, but took a different route into downtown via Lansdowne, Lappin, Dufferin, Hallam, Ossington, Harbord, Spadina and Adelaide to Church looping via Richmond and Victoria. Sunday service followed much of the College route from downtown to Lipton Loop. This evolved eventually into a consolidated Harbord route which was its form until 1966 when the BD subway opened.
  • College trippers ran from Royce Loop to College and McCaul where they turned south and then east to York looping via Richmond, Bay and Adelaide.
  • Dovercourt cars ran from Townsley Loop at St. Clair & Old Weston Road (the loop still exists as the western terminus of 127 Davenport) then later in 1928 from Prescott Loop (a small parkette west of the railway at Caledonia). They operated via Old Weston, Davenport, Dovercourt, College, Ossington, Queen, Shaw to loop via Adelaide, Crawford and King. This route served the Massey-Ferguson industrial district which is now the eastern part of Liberty Village. Peak period service extended via King looping via Church, Front and George Streets. The most substantial remnant of the Dovercourt car is the 63 Ossington bus which was once operated with trolley coaches taking advantage of the electrical system already in place.
  • Dovercourt Trippers originated at Davenport & Dovercourt (reversing using the wye at that location as there was no loop) and followed the main route to King & Church.
  • Dundas cars operated between Runnymede Loop (now the western terminus of 40 Junction) and City Hall Loop (from Bay via Louisa, James and Albert Streets). This route has operated through to Broadview Station (now as the 505) ever since part of City Hall Loop disappeared under the Eaton Centre development.
  • King cars operated over essentially the same route as they do today between Vincent Loop (across the street from Dundas West Station) and Erindale Loop (one block north of Broadview Station). Peak service was extended in the west to Jane Loop and in the east to Danforth & Coxwell with some trippers looping downtown via Sherbourne, Front and Bay.
  • Parliament cars ran from Viaduct Loop (now a parkette at Bloor & Parliament) south to Queen then west to loop via Church, Richmond and Victoria.
  • Sherbourne cars ran from Rosedale Loop (at Rachael Street) south to King and then west to York and Front to Station Loop (Simcoe, Station and York Streets). Peak service operated east to Danforth & Coxwell rather than to Rosedale Loop.
  • Spadina operated with double-end cars between crossovers at Bloor and Front.
  • Yonge cars operated between Glen Echo Loop (east side of Yonge, just before the hill down to Hogg’s Hollow, the originally proposed name for York Mills Station) and Station Loop. Short turn services operated as far north as Lawton Loop (now a parkette on the west side of Yonge north of Heath Street) and AM peak trippers originated at Eglinton Carhouse (of which parts remain in the bus garage now recycled into a “temporary” bus terminal).

This is a huge number of routes that collectively linked the commercial and industrial core of Toronto to the residential neighbourhoods, some of which were comparatively recent “suburbs”.

The level of service was equally impressive. In the table below, numbers under “Two-Car Trains” give the number of trains (a motor car plus a trailer) operated followed by the total number of runs so that, for example, the Beach car has 44 runs of which 37 operated with trailers.

Route                 PM Peak      Two-Car
                      Headway      Trains

Bathurst                2'00"        3/30
Bathurst Tripper        5'00"        9/14
Bay                     1'15"
Beach                   2'30"        37/44
Beach Tripper           3'00"
Bloor                   3'00"        All 41
Carlton                 3'00"
Carlton Tripper         4'00"        14/17
Church                  4'00"
College                 4'00"        2/23
College Tripper         7'00"
Danforth Tripper        7'30"        7/10
Dovercourt              2'45"
Dovercourt Tripper      4'00"
Dundas                  2'00"
Harbord                 2'30"
King                    2'00"        31/54
King Rush               4'00"
Parliament              3'00"
Queen                   5'00"        16/17
Queen Tripper           5'00"
Sherbourne Tripper      2'45"        10/26
Spadina                 2'45"
Yonge                   1'45"        All 42

The West End and Suburbs

In addition to many routes listed above, a few were entirely “local” to their areas, and others were part of separate suburban network, the lines called “radials” that had been built separately from the “city” system.

  • The Davenport route was a remnant of a longer route on the Toronto Suburban Railway, but by 1928 was reduced to operating a shuttle service from Bathurst to Dovercourt. It survived until 1940 when it was replaced by a bus.
  • Lansdowne operated as two separate routes because of the railway level crossing (now an underpass) north of Dupont (Royce). The Lansdowne North route operated as a shuttle from St. Clair to the north side of the railway. Service from Royce Loop southward was provided by the College car weekdays and Saturdays, but there was a Lansdowne South Sunday service from Royce Loop to Dundas.

The TTC operated routes for York Township under contract.

  • Oakwood cars operated from Oakwood Loop at St. Clair (still existing) north to Eglinton and west to Gilbert Loop (west of Caledonia Road).
  • Rogers Road cars also operated from Oakwood Loop north to Rogers and west to Bicknell Loop (east of Weston Road).
  • Lambton cars, a remnant of the Toronto Suburban Railway, operated from Runnymede Loop west to Lambton Park. The line did not carry well, and it was converted to a bus route in August 1928.
  • Weston Road cars operated from Keele & Dundas north to Humber Street in Weston. This was another TSR line that originally had operated to Woodbridge (1914-1926). The line was converted to TTC gauge in stages, and for a time ended at a loop at Northland Avenue (at the City limits).

The Oakwood and Rogers routes eventually became trolley coach lines as part of what is now 63 Ossington, although Rogers Road has been extended and split off from Ossington for many years. The Weston Road route also became a trolley coach, although streetcar service remained as a peak-only extension of St. Clair until 1966. That extension was not possible until the opening of the “St. Clair Subway” under the Weston rail corridor in 1932, and the streetcars originally operated to Northland Loop. That is the reason why St. Clair cars were signed “Northland” even after they were extended to Avon Loop at Rogers Road.

Another leftover from the radial system was the line on Lake Shore Boulevard West.

  • Mimico cars operated from Roncesvalles Carhouse via the old trackage on Lake Shore (pre-Gardiner Expressway) west to Stavebank Road, just east of the Credit River in Port Credit. In the fall of 1928, the city trackage was extended to Long Branch, and the “Mimico” route disappeared. “Port Credit” cars ran on the remaining “radial” line until February 1935.

Updated: I have been remiss when listing routes operating in 1928 by omitting the Toronto Suburban’s line to Guelph. This was not a TTC operation, but remained part of CN’s electric operations to the end.

The line began at Keele & St. Clair, but was abandoned in 1931. This electric railway was never extended into downtown and suffered from its “suburban” nature even though its terminus was on the CN corridor now used by GO’s Kitchener-Waterloo service. The small station building remained for decades after. A fragment of the line still sees streetcar operation as the Halton County Radial Railway museum.

The East End and Suburbs

Most of the services in the east end ran to the downtown area and they are included in the main list above.

  • Coxwell cars shuttled between Danforth and Queen with Sunday/Holiday service extended via Queen and Kingston Road to Bingham Loop. This route exists almost unchanged today.

Service on Kingston Road east of Victoria Park was provided by the Scarboro radial car to a point east of Morningside Avenue where Kingston Road and Old Kingston Road diverge today. In late 1928, the line was double-tracked to Birchmount, the city routes were extended into Scarborough and the radial service operated from there east. Rail service ended in two stages: east of Scarborough Post Office in 1930, and the rest of the line in 1936 to allow highway widening.

The North End and Suburbs

The northernmost of the remaining streetcar lines is on St. Clair. In 1928, it operated from Caledonia Loop to Mt. Pleasant Loop at Eglinton, although service on St. Clair was also provided by the Bay and Bathurst cars west to Caledonia (see above). Eventually, the line was extended west to Keele Loop (replaced now by Gunn’s Loop) when the underpasses at Caledonia (1931) and at Weston Road (1932) opened. Caledonia and Prescott Loops were no longer needed.

By far the most extensive of the radial lines was the Metropolitan Division of the Toronto & York Radial Railway. This was not taken over by the TTC until 1927. Cars ran from Glen Echo Terminal north to Richmond Hill and Lake Simcoe with the line ending in Sutton. Service operated every 15-20 minutes during peak periods to/from Richmond Hill with some cars running through to Newmarket every 45-60 minutes all day. Cars to and from Sutton operated every two hours or so leaving from Sutton between 5:50 am and 10:25 pm with a running time of 2 hours and 25 minutes. The Lake Simcoe route was cut back to Richmond Hill in 1930.