Queen Car

by

East End Route Diversion Update

This post consolidates information about the diversions affecting east end bus and streetcar services as a convenience for readers.

Construction projects affecting these routes include:

  • Water main repairs on King between George and Sherbourne. This is a permanent repair for the problem that diverted all service in late October due to a sinkhole.
  • Reconstruction of Broadview Station Loop.
  • Adelaide Street reconstruction for the Ontario Line streetcar diversion.
  • Ontario Line construction at Queen and Yonge.

Routes as of Tuesday, December 5

501D Queen East streetcars run between Neville Loop and Distillery Loop via King west of the Don River. The easiest way to connect with these cars is to take any route headed east out of downtown that goes far enough to make a transfer connection with the 501D. Note that this is tricky at King and Sumach because stops are not well-located for a transfer connection eastbound there.

503 Kingston Road streetcars run between Bingham Loop and (officially) King and Spadina diverting via Queen between the Don River and Church Street. In practice, much of this service turns back via the traditional 503 downtown loop via Church, Wellington and York to King. If you want a 503 eastbound from anywhere west of York, it is best to get on any eastbound service and transfer to the 503 at Bay or Yonge. If you transfer at York, the 503 stops on the SE corner. Note that at Church and King Streets, eastbound 503 streetcars stop on Church just north of King. [Corrected 6:05 pm, Dec 5]

501B Queen buses that run between Bathurst (Wolseley Loop) and Broadview and Gerrard have swapped their route east of Church with the 503 cars. The 501Bs run on King Street, and the 503s run on Queen.

504 King streetcars are all turning back at Church Street looping via Church, Richmond, Victoria and Adelaide because they cannot run east on King.

504/505 King/Dundas shuttles operate from King and Parliament to Broadview and Danforth making on street stops on the NW and SW corners of that intersection. Subway connections are via a walking transfer. These buses continue west across the Viaduct to Castle Frank Station.

Both the 501B and 504/505 buses do not stop eastbound on Queen at Broadview, but instead stop northbound on Broadview beside the parking lot. Westbound buses stop at the usual southbound stop on Broadview at Queen.

504 King shuttles to the Distillery run from a downtown loop of Church, Wellington and York Streets, and they serve the eastbound stops on King at Bay and Yonge Streets, among others. At the Distillery, they are supposed to loop west from Cherry via Mill, Parliament and Front to Cherry. They do not serve Distillery Loop.

508 Lake Shore streetcars normally operate east on King looping via Parliament, Dundas and Broadview. They are diverting via Queen and Church. This is a peak only service.

There is no change to the 505 Dundas streetcars which continue to operate to Woodbine Loop via Gerrard and Coxwell east of Broadview.

Beware of TTC notices posted at stops as they are almost certainly out of date, incomplete or inaccurate thanks to the frequent route changes. There is a particular problem with outdated notices remaining at stops sometimes without a current replacement, or the “new” sign might be found in a different location (pole, transit shelter) than the “old” ones.

King Street water main work is supposed to be completed by the coming weekend, Sunday, December 10, and routes should go back to a somewhat less chaotic arrangement.

Effective Wednesday, December 6

Although Broadview Station Loop is still closed for construction, Broadview Avenue itself is open. Effective December 6, the 62 Mortimer and 8 Broadview bus routes will resume operation on Broadview stopping at Danforth at the NW (southbound) and SE (northbound) corners for subway connections.

These buses will continue south on Broadview to Gerrard, but will run out of service and loop via Gerrard, St. Matthews and Jack Layton Way. Riders making a transfer between these routes and the 504/505 King/Dundas shuttle should note that this does not stop at the same stops as the 8 and 62 buses. Southbound 8/62 riders would get off on the NW corner at Danforth and cross to the SW corner to catch a 504/505. Northbound 504/505 riders would get off on the NW corner (farside) at Danforth and walk back to the SE corner to catch a northbound 8 or 62 bus.

Effective Monday, December 11

For one week, the intersection of Bay and Adelaide will be completely closed to traffic. The TTC has not yet announced diversions for 19 Bay and 501B Queen (eastbound) buses.

Traffic congestion on King will no doubt be even worse during this period.

by

Yet Another King Diversion (Updated)

Not long ago, traffic and transit service on King Street were tied in knots thanks to a sinkhole that undermined the track east of Jarvis Street.

Starting Monday, December 4 and running to Sunday, December 10, the diversions are back, albeit in a slightly modified form for water main repairs.

Updated December 4, 2023 at 12:05 pm: The TTC (@TTCNotices on X) advises that there is a hydro cable installation today that runs until 5pm. After that time, the 501D Queen East service will run to Distillery Loop.

Updated December 4, 2023 at 11:20 am: The notice in the “Updates” section of the TTC’s site has been changed to show a December 10 end date. Meanwhile, as of this morning, the 501D Queen East cars are still running to York & Wellington, not to the Distillery Loop as shown on the map below. I suspect this will change as the day wears on and congestion builds up on King Street.

Updated December 3, 2023 at 8:15 pm: In the best TTC tradition there are conflicting notices on their website. Under “Service Changes” this diversion is to end on December 10, but under “Updates” it will only run to December 7. I will attempt to find out which of these is correct, and post an update here.

Apologies for the soft images. This is the condition in which they were published by the TTC on its Service Changes page. Also note that as of December 3, this information is not included on the omnibus Streetcar Service Changes page. Click on any image to open the gallery.

The changes are:

  • 501D Queen East streetcars will only come as far west as Distillery Loop via King.
  • 501B Queen buses which normally run east from downtown via King, Church and Queen to Broadview will instead remain on King Street
  • 503 Kingston Road streetcars will divert from King via Queen between the Don River and Church Street.
  • 504 King streetcars will loop via Church, Richmond, Victoria and Adelaide.
  • 504 King buses will operate from York Street to the Distillery district looping downtown via Church, Wellington and York, and at the Distillery District via Mill, Parliament and Front.
  • 508 Lake Shore streetcars which normally operate on King will divert via Church and Queen to their normal loop at Parliament, Dundas and Broadview.

In other news, Broadview Avenue has opened between Danforth and Pretoria following completion of track and paving work, but transit service has not yet returned to Broadview Station as work on Erindale and in the station is not yet completed. This is expected to change soon, but the TTC has not announced any details.

The intersection of Bay and Adelaide will completely close to traffic between 7am Monday, December 11 and 7am Saturday, December 16 for track installation. Service diversions have not been announced.

There is no word on whether any special effort will be made to unsnarl the intersection of King and Church with the many additional turning transit vehicles. King is already a total mess thanks to the lack of traffic management at University, among other intersections, and the added turns at Church will only compound this. In the following week, with Adelaide completely closed at Bay, traffic on King is likely to be even worse.

by

Adelaide/York Construction Update

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 York
Looking NE across Adelaide
Looking E on Adelaide
Looking E on Adelaide
Looking 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.

by

The King Street Diversion Debacle (III)

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.

Previous articles are:

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.

Continue reading →
by

The King Street Diversion Debacle (II)

This is a follow-up to my first article on this subject: The King Street Diversion Debacle.

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.

Continue reading →
by

Streetcars Return to The Queensway

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 entrance
Humber Loop looking W with Queen cars and the 66 Prince Edward bus
Looking E on the approach to the Humber River bridge
Looking NW at The Queensway and Ellis
Looking SW at The Queensway and Ellis
Looking E across Ellis on The Queensway
Eastbound car on The Queensway at Grenadier Pond
Westbound car on The Queensway at Grenadier Pond
Looking W from Parkside Drive on The Queensway
Looking E from Parkside Drive on The Queensway
by

The King Street Diversion Debacle

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 Announcement This 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:

  • 501D Queen/Neville service: 10′ / 6 cars/hour
  • 503 Kingston Rd Bingham service: 10′ / 6 cars/hour
  • 504 King Church service: 4′ / 15 cars/hour

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.

by

Streetcars Return to Humber Loop

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.

by

Streetcar Diversion Update, Sept. 24, 2023

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.

Route 512 St. Clair will remain a bus operation until summer 2024 for various construction projects.