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.
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.
The TTC has announced a diversion of 501 Queen streetcar service between Roncesvalles and Shaw via King due to Toronto Hydro work at Gladstone Avenue.
This diversion took some at TTC by surprise. I was alerted to it by a reader [with thanks] who received a notice from Hydro of an impending project and streetcar service suspension “as per TTC approval”. This was not mentioned in the September Service Planning memo, and when I asked the TTC, nobody seemed to know anything about it.
The services now operating on Queen are:
501L/B Queen bus from Long Branch to Broadview & Gerrard, with downtown diversion around Ontario Line construction.
501 Queen streetcar from Sunnyside Loop to McCaul Loop diverting via King and Shaw through Parkdale.
503 Kingston Road bus between the Don River and Kingston Road.
505 Dundas between Broadview and Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.
Needless to say, this arrangement completely bamboozles trip prediction apps, although transsee.ca makes a valiant attempt to keep up with the situation.
This will change on September 22/23 with the closure of Queen East at Degrassi for Metrolinx work on the GO corridor, and, in theory, completion of the Hydro work on Queen West. Stay tuned for updates.
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.
Steve Munro 