This post continues from Part I, and is broken off from it simply in the interest of keeping each article a reasonable size. For introductory comments please see Part I.
Routes included here are:
65 Parliament 70 O’Connor 72 Pape 75 Sherbourne 83 Jones 87 Cosburn 88 South Leaside
91 Woodbine 92 Woodbine South 111 East Mall 112 West Mall 114 Queens Quay East 154 Curran Hall 168 Symington
Problems seen on many routes in Part I show up here as well including:
Less reliable service on evenings and weekends
Missed trips due to missing buses without an attempt to rebalance headways to eliminate wide gaps
Most readers are only interested in some of the routes here, and that is why I have only published a few charts per route with links to details in PDF sets. Only the truly keen (some might say obsessed) and, of course, those whose job it is to know these details will look at just about everything.
Apologies if I’ve missed your route. I plan to look at others once the Line 5 and 6 changes fully cut in to see how new service designs work.
To those who ask why I publish so many of these route analyses, the answer is, sadly, that it takes a lot of data to make the point that erratic service is not found on only a few routes, nor only on major city-spanning bus and streetcar routes. “Traffic congestion” is too simplistic an explanation too often raised by the TTC, and it simply does not apply in some times and locations where these routes have poor service. TTC has no metric to report on this problem, and therefore no tracking mechanism to flag issues or the result of corrective strategies, if any.
For many, many years, there has been talk of expansion of the streetcar system into the eastern waterfront. The “Waterfront East LRT” would branch off of the Bay Street tunnel at Queens Quay and running east initially to Villiers Island and eventually link with a southern extension of Broadview via the new GO/Ontario Line station at East Harbour.
Anyone waiting for this service will age considerably before it opens at the now tentative date of 2036. This was supposed to be a “Transit First” neighbourhood, but the history mocks all the fine talk of “Transit Oriented Communities” we hear today. Meanwhile, any attempt to actually use transit to reach this area is, putting it mildly, challenging. A collection of overlapping bus routes with infrequent and irregular service fight their way through chronic traffic congestion.
The route structure changed on May 12, 2024 as shown in the TTC maps below from 2023 and June 2024.
2023June 2024
19 Bay
2023: From the central business district south on Bay and east on Queens Quay to loop at George Brown College near Sherbourne Street.
May 2024: Route shortened to loop via east on King, south on Yonge, west on Front and north on Bay.
72 Pape
2023:
72A service from Pape Station to Eastern.
72B service to Union Station from Pape via Commissioners, Cherry, Lake Shore, Queens Quay and Bay. The route changed from time to time as the area was rebuilt to create Villiers Island.
72C service from Pape Station to Commissioners Street peak periods only.
May 2024:
72A service to Eastern peak periods only.
72B replaced by 114 Queens Quay East.
72C extended west from Pape to Saulter Street and operated as the all day route.
114 Queens Quay East
May 2024: New route from Union Station to Carlaw replacing the south end of 19 Bay and the west end of 72 Pape.
Two routes were not changed:
65 Parliament:
From Castle Frank Station south via Parliament and west on Queens Quay to George Brown College.
75 Sherbourne:
From Sherbourne Station south via Sherbourne and west on Queens Quay to Jarvis returning north via Jarvis and The Esplanade.
There is also the seasonal 202 Cherry from Union Station to Cherry Beach. Like the 72 Pape bus, its route has changed from time to time due to construction in the Villiers Island area.
The TTC has announced route changes coming soon to routes serving Broadview and Pape Stations due to impending Ontario Line construction. This will occur in two stages. Note that the dates are approximate and depend on construction progress.
Effective Sunday, March 31, 2024
With the next schedule change on March 31, 2024, loading arrangements at Pape Station will change as shown in the map below.
All routes will drop off at Bay 1 just inside the station entrance from Pape.
72 Pape will shift east to Bay 2.
Wheel-Trans will share Bay 2 with the Pape bus.
25 Don Mills and 925 Don Mills Express will load on the street on Lipton Avenue. New bus bays will be built there starting on March 25 by Metrolinx.
81 Thorncliffe Park will load at a stop in front of the main entrance of Pape Station.
The weekend of Sept 23-24 saw another shuffle in the streetcar diversion list on which I last reported a few weeks ago. This round of changes is triggered by two events:
Metrolinx work on the Lakeshore East corridor at Queen & Degrassi streets prevents streetcar operation through the underpass, and at times the road will be closed to all traffic.
Toronto Hydro work on Queen West has completed to the point that streetcars are no longer diverting via King Street through Parkdale.
Services now operating on Queen Street include:
501L (aka 507) Queen bus from Long Branch to Dufferin. These buses do not appear on transit apps.
501B Queen bus from Bathurst to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop.
501D (aka 513) Queen bus from Victoria Street (looping via Church, Richmond and Victoria) to Neville Loop. These buses appear on transit apps as 513 Queen East.
503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.
During certain periods, the underpass at Degrassi will be closed to all traffic and the 501/503/513 services will divert via Broadview, Dundas and Carlaw.
Complete closures are planned for Sunday, September 24 all day, and from Friday, September 29 at 10pm to Monday, October 2 at 4am.
The 504 King car operates only west of Distillery Loop pending completion of road and track construction on Broadview from Gerrard to Broadview Station Loop. Heavy construction at the loop will begin on Monday, September 25. Paving in the curb lanes on Broadview south of Danforth has begun following completion of track work.
The 72A Pape bus serving King Street East will use the same diversion around Queen & Degrassi as the Queen services, and will not serve stops south of Dundas nor on Queen east of Broadview during periods when the underpass is closed.
The 505 Dundas car no longer serves Queen Street East except between Coxwell and Woodbine Loop. It now operates via Broadview, Gerrard, Coxwell and Queen to Kingston Road.
There is no map of the current route arrangement in the east end on the TTC’s Streetcar Service Changes page, and some maps for 505 Dundas reflect its route before the shift north to Gerrard Street. The 505 Dundas section also still includes a reference to the 506C bus from Castle Frank Station which no longer operates.
The 506 Carlton car is unchanged with normal service except at the west end where cars divert to Dundas West Station due to water main construction on Howard Park Avenue.
Routes 509 Harbourfront, 510 Spadina and 511 Bathurst are operating normally.
Further to my recent post about planned service changes effective September 3, the TTC has issued a revised set of route arrangements thanks to a change in the schedule for Metrolinx work at Queen & Degrassi.
There will be four stages to the service modifications:
Sunday, September 3 to Friday, September 22 at 10 pm
Friday, September 22 at 10 pm to Friday, September 29 at 10 pm
Friday, September 29 at 10pm to Monday, October 2 at 4 am
Monday, October 2 at 4am to Sunday, October 8
October 8 falls on Thanksgiving weekend which is the October TTC schedule change date. Service arrangements beyond that point have not been announced.
The information here is adapted, with corrections, from the TTC’s website Streetcar Service Changes page. As I write this (4:50 pm, August 29), there are several inconsistencies or errors on the TTC’s site. This article is an attempt to consolidate the available information.
This is a preliminary version based on GTFS data (the standard format for transit schedules used by online services) and some Service Advisories on the TTC site. I expect to receive the full list of September service changes early in the week of August 28 and will update this article accordingly including the usual detailed comparison of service levels.
Updated August 26 at 9:15 pm: 512 St. Clair updated to reflect complete bus replacement for work at various locations on the line.
Updated August 27 at 4:30 pm: At 10:30 am on August 28, the Mayor, TTC Chair and CEO will hold a press conference at STC Station to “outline how the TTC will increase service beginning September and into the fall.”
Updated August 29 at 5:30 pm: Due to changes in the Metrolinx schedule for work on the Lake Shore East Queen Street bridge, there has been a further revision of planned service. Please see this post for details.
Oh the irony! The TTC’s Annual Service Plan consultations are all about how to handle a few (but not all) of the construction projects coming in 2024, but the elephant in the room remains bad communications and changes on the fly.
The new routes implemented in May and June 2023 were in cases impractical thanks to a combination of unduly optimistic running times in schedules, less than adequate transit priority and line management whose priority was not the provision of well-spaced, reliable service. Several changes will take effect on July 4 and 5 to correct some of these problems, but the information is scattered through the TTC’s website, if you can find it at all.
First, a summary of the changes:
The 501/504 shuttle bus (an ad hoc service implemented to cover for the absence of the 503 Kingston Road car to King Street downtown) will be rebranded as “503” and will serve Kingston Road to Bingham Loop until 8pm every day. This will become a scheduled bus service at the end of July, and will revert to 503 streetcars likely in October.
The 505 Dundas car will only operate east on Queen from Broadview to Woodbine Loop, except after 8pm when service to Bingham will be provided by streetcars.
The 506 Carlton car will only operate to Queen and Broadview and will return west to route via Queen and Parliament Streets without running east to Woodbine Loop.
The 512 St. Clair car will be restored, temporarily, west of Lansdowne to Gunns Loop. While it lasts, this will correct for the erratic service now provided there by the 47 Lansdowne extension.
The challenge is to find out that this is happening to your route. The TTC website is very poorly organized with information in many places that is inconsistently placed and linked (or not) to the main route pages affected. Some items are out of date, but remain in place to confuse riders. Some items describe major changes but are hard to find if you don’t know the site in detail.
These are the hallmarks of a site maintained by many groups each with its own (probably jealously guarded) responsibility for providing information. Nobody appears to care about overall site consistency and ease of navigation, or if they do, are in any position to change what is a clearly broken process. Some information is just plain wrong indicating that whoever created or updated the page was either sloppy, or does no know what is actually happening.
Updated July 4, 2023 at 7:10am: Changes to the TTC website since this article was posted are noted in various places below.
Updated July 5, 2023 at 4:30pm: Changes to the TTC website since the July 4 update are noted throughout the article.
The TTC is part way through production of its 2024 Service Plan as well as a 5-Year Service Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan. In Round Two, consultation will focus on plans for service changes triggered by major construction projects. Five pop-up sessions are planned at Flemingdon Park, Union Station, Liberty Village, Finch Terminal, and Pape Station between June 29 and July 12, 2023. Details are available here.
Also available on that page is a link to a survey seeking feedback on various proposals. Please note that my site is not an official TTC conduit for feedback, although it is no secret that many at the TTC do read articles and comments here. Any specific feedback for the TTC should be submitted through their own survey.
Round Three in August-September will present draft concepts for the 5-Year Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan, and these will be refined into final drafts for Round Four in October-November.
The remainder of this article presents an overview of the survey and proposals for construction-related service changes.
There are no proposals for new routes nor of overall service levels in this round. The election of Olivia Chow as Mayor will no doubt bring a review of existing services, but that is not in the scope of this round.
An important issue left over from the 2023 Budget process and the recent service cuts is the question of Service Standards. These are described as “Board Approved”, but in fact the 2023 changes were implemented by management as part of the budget with only retroactive consent from the Board. Moreover, the actual effect of the changes was withheld from the Board and Council until well after the budget was approved.
Transparency in budgets and service planning will be an important change looking ahead to 2024. With a new Mayor I hope to see a much improved process.
This article describes the transit services affected by various construction project in the east end and the changes that will take effect on Sunday, June 18, 2023. This is a follow-on to my original article, and some of the information there is out of date due to changes in the TTC’s plans.
Updated June 14, 2023: Information about the 304 King Night Bus added.
Construction projects affecting streetcar service are summarized in the map below. Some of this work is underway or completed already.
TTC overhead upgrades for Flexity streetcar operation with pantographs on King and Kingston Road was completed in the Spring. All routes in the system now operate with pans, although there are selected areas that have not been modified yet and operators must switch to trolley poles if cars run there.
Repairs to the Queen Street Don Bridge were completed a few weeks ago, and streetcars are now operating over the bridge, albeit only for carhouse moves and short turns.
Repairs at Main Station are underway and will continue through the summer.
The sewer work at Coxwell & Gerrard has completed, and work will now shift to track replacement.
Sewer work on Broadview is underway.
Changes Effective June 18, 2023
Here is a map showing the route configuration from June 18 to July 29, 2023.
The major service change is that there will be no north-south service on Broadview from Danforth to Gerrard due to track and road reconstruction. Work in this area includes:
Reconstruction and expansion of Broadview Station streetcar loop to accommodate two streetcars at a time on both the 504 King and 505 Dundas platforms. The first phase of this (June 18 to early July) will require Broadview to be closed to traffic from Erindale to Danforth for track replacement. Work will shift into the loop in a second phase to allow streets to re-open. The planned expansion of the loop has been deferred.
Track reconstruction between Gerrard and Danforth. The first phase (July 4 to early August) will run from Victor to Sparkhall with track storage between Gerrard and Victor. (See maps in the original article linked above.)
The affected routes are:
504/505 Broadview/Parliament shuttle bus: This route will not operate and there will be no bus service on Broadview between Danforth and Gerrard and beyond to King & Parliament. This will be replaced by:
72A Pape: This branch of the Pape bus now operates to Pape and Eastern Avenue, but it will be redirected and extended effective June 18 to operate west from Pape on Queen and King to loop as Parliament the way the 504/505 has been doing.
The 304 King Night Bus will operate to Pape Station via Queen, Carlaw, Riverdale and Pape.
Not shown on the map but also effective on June 18:
100 Flemingdon Park: This route now operates to Broadview Station, but it will shift east to Pape Station effective June 18.
8 Broadview, 62 Mortimer and 87 Cosburn will remain at Broadview Station, but looping arrangements have not been announced for the various stages of construction.
In the previous article, based on maps in a March 2023 presentation regarding Main Station, there was a new route “519” that would split off the west end of the 72B Pape to Union Station service. This proposal is not part of the June 18 package, and the 72B will continue to serve Union Station.
The 501B Queen shuttle bus will be modified to improve its westbound connection with the 501 Queen streetcars. Before June 18, the 501B loops north on Broadview to Gerrard, west to River and south to Queen. This loop will be changed so that buses run south on River only to Dundas, and then return east to Broadview and south to Queen. This will provide an overlap between the 501B and 501 services at Broadview in both directions.
The 501 and 505 streetcars will continue on the same diversions and schedules:
501 Queen cars will operate via McCaul, Dundas and Broadview to bypass Ontario Line construction, and thence east to Neville Loop.
505 Dundas cars will operate via Broadview, Queen and Kingston Road to Bingham Loop at Victoria Park.
The 506 streetcar diversion will be changed westbound:
506 Carlton cars will operate eastbound from Gerrard and Broadview via Broadview and Queen to Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.
Westbound 506 cars will change their route. Until June 17 it is (officially) via Queen, Broadview, Dundas and Parliament to the regular route at Gerrard. This will change on June 18 to run via Queen and Parliament to Gerrard. Many cars do this already.
The schedule for 506 Carlton has not been updated and is still short of running time. Many cars will likely continue to short turn at Broadview and return west rather than going east to Woodbine Loop.
The pseudo-503 Kingston Road service will continue to be provided by 504/501 buses running from Kingston Road & Queen to York & King. These buses are now scheduled as part of the 501 service and should appear on tracking apps. Current plans call for the 503 service from Bingham Loop to King & York to return as a bus at the end of July, and as a streetcar in the Fall.
Track reconstruction at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard will cause changes in three routes:
22 Coxwell, which has been operating between Danforth and Queen with diversions enroute, will be suspended.
31 Greenwood will operate from Coxwell Station (its current terminus during reconstruction of its home station for accessibility) to Woodbine Loop via Danforth, Greenwood and Queen. The routing at the south end via Eastern Avenue is not known as I write this.
506C Carlton bus service will continue to run between Castle Frank and Victoria Park Stations, but it will divert via Greenwood, Danforth and Coxwell to Upper Gerrard in both directions. 506C buses will make on street stops at Coxwell & Danforth. They will not enter Coxwell Station.
There will be no service on Coxwell between Upper Gerrard and Queen. The normal 22, 31 and 506C routes will resume on July 30.
Reconstruction of Main Station continues through the summer. All of the bus changes with route interlines and extensions to Victoria Park Station will remain in effect.
The TTC has three key messages about the pending changes.
Updated June 13, 2023 at 2:50pm: The proposed expansion of Broadview Station Loop has been deferred to an unspecified date. Street trackage at the loop will be replaced this year as planned. The planned removal of most bus service from Broadview Station will not occur. Routes 8 Broadview and 62 Mortimer will continue to serve the station. Route 100 Flemingdon Park will be rerouted to Pape Station where it will interline with 72A Pape to King and Parliament.
Other changes have been made in future plans and this article should be used only for historical reference to the original plans. See also:
Steve Munro 