Many of the service analyses on this site concern larger, major routes like the streetcar lines and bus routes crossing substantial distances in the suburbs. The picture of service quality is not a pretty one. Starting with this article, I will review service on several of the shorter routes, many with infrequent service, to see how the TTC fares. Short routes get frequent stops at terminals where headways can be reset, but irregular service can mean long waits for riders.

Many of these routes show very irregular service and one cannot help asking how this affects ridership. The TTC talks about improving service on major routes with interventions such as reserved lanes, but seems incapable of managing headways on relatively minor routes. There is a parallel here with declining maintenance quality where issues with the “little things that don’t matter” start to bleed into the major services and the system drives away as many riders as new services might attract.

Common problems seen on most of the routes reviewed here are:

• Headways do not generally stay within a narrow band, but can be badly scattered especially for evening and weekend service.
• In spite of this scatter, it is quite possible that the routes meet the TTC’s service standards which merge performance over an entire day, and provide a wide margin for data points outside of the target range (40%).
• Review of the detailed tracking data (not included here in the interest of space) shows that some of the widest gaps occur because of missing buses. There is a metric in the service standards for missed trips with a goal to “minimize” them, albeit with no target. Trips can be missed because no operator or vehicle is available, or because of a short turn before a bus reaches the terminal, or because of such extreme lateness that it might as well not have operated. This statistic has never been reported in the monthly service quality metrics.
• Bus bunching occurs even on routes with scheduled headways of 20-30 minutes, and this can persist for multiple trips showing little effort to space out service. Where the quality metric is “on time performance”, spacing service to compensate for bunched or missing vehicles can actually work against a “good” score even though what riders see would be more reliable.

Routes included in this article are:

An additional 13 routes will be included in Part II of this series.

After the “more” break, data for one route, 8 Broadview, are shown in detail as an introduction. Further routes are shown only in summary, but with links to PDFs containing all of the charts for readers interested in them.

The TTC “Annual Service Plan” has been rebranded as the “Network Plan” in the interest of clarity, but based on the2026 edition’s meagre content so far, this is an infinitesimal network. In particular, it really does not deal with the transit network as a whole, but only small tweaks at the edges. Big decisions such as long range, city-wide plans, budgets, service levels and the future of transit as part of Toronto are all made elsewhere.

Issues such as strategies for improving ridership and budget reviews which bear directly on the amount of service riders see arenot in this plan. Nor is any discussion of basic service quality and management, nor of the fractured nature of TTC information for and communications with its riders.

Round One of the Network Plan consultation addresses only a handful of proposed route changes. More substantial work including an Express Bus Network review and discussion of construction-related service changes won’t appear until Round Two in August.

The Network Plan presentation lists several parallel studies under developmentparallel to but not included inthe Annual Network Plan consultations. Only those keen transit watchers know about all or most of these, and it is a hard slog keeping up. The table below is from the Round One presentation deck.

• 2026 Annual Service Budget
  • Sets service levels for each board period in 2026
  • Includes number of vehicles, service hours and distance
• 2026-2028 Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS)
  • Cost-benefit analysis of service, fare, infrastructure and customer experience initiatives
  • Could achieve ridership growth over the next 3 years (if funded)
• RapidTO Transit Priority Lanes
  • Completed: Queens Quay East
  • Next: Dufferin St and Bathurst St corridors (pending July 2025 Council approval). Target: ready for 2026 FIFA World Cup
  • Feasibility and design studies are on-going for the Jane Street, Finch Avenue East, and Lawrence Avenue East roadways
• FIFA World Cup Transit Service Plan
  • Increased service on key downtown routes
  • Additional service on match days and during Fan Festival
• Reducing bunching and gapping
  • Efforts to reduce bunching and gapping on 10 of the most problematic routes with enhanced on-street presence as well as scheduling related changes

There are also:

• 5-Year Service and Customer Experience Action Plan
• Fare Policy Study and Outlook
• Corporate Plan
• 5-Year Accessibility Plan
• 5-Year Diversity & Human Rights Plan

This may suit the TTC’s fragmented internal structure, but it drives people outside of the TTC mad. One does not have to be a seasoned transit advocate, merely a daily rider, to rail at the frustration of “consultation” on a handful of minor route changes. Basic service issues across the system must wait for the budget (no public consultation there at all), the Ridership Growth Strategy (budget limits again) and a Board that, until recently, actually believed (or chose not to challenge) management claims about quality.

Two burning issues are service quality (with associated crowding and unpredictable waits), and the effect of construction projects on routes (not to mention abjectly poor and inaccurate communications to riders). We will have to wait until Round Two in August to address at least some of these problems.

Consultation

An online survey opens July 7-16. There are separate consultations with the Advisory Committee on Accessible Transit (ACAT) and the TTC’s Planning Advisory Group which after many years now has a formal name. (Full disclosure: I am a regular contributor to that group.)

Pop-Ups will be held from 4-6pm at the following dates and locations:

• July 9th: University of Toronto Scarborough Campus
• July 10th: St. George Station
• July 15th: Sherbourne & Rosedale Stations
• July 16th: Lawrence West Station & Sunnybrook Hospital

The TTC has announced several service changes to accommodate crowds expected at the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concerts at the Rogers Centre on November 14-16 and 21-23. For full details, seetheir site.

On concert nights, subway service will be improved between 5-8pm and 11pm-1:30am with Line 1 trains operating about every 3 minutes, and Line 2 trains every 4 minutes.

509 Harbourfront service will be restored between Union Station and Exhibition Loop from November 1-24 with at least 11 cars, up from the usual 7 on the line, on concert days .

511 Bathurst cars will operate from Bathurst Station to Union on November 14-16, and starting on November 17 on a scheduled basis.

19 Bay, a normally infrequent service, will have 10 extra buses. Post-show they will operate express northbound stopping only at King, Queen, Dundas and College enroute to Bay Station.

510D Spadina bus will similarly provide an express service stopping at the same intermediate destinations as 19 Bay enroute to Spadina Station.

The express services will be styled as “Swiftbus”. Extra service on504 King will be styled as “Swiftcar”.

Access at Union Station will be monitored and controlled to prevent the overcrowding that occurred on past occasions with large events.

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.

• 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.

Back in 1987-88, I photographed the Bay trolleybus a lot. The route was threatened for a time by a proposed one-way pairing with Yonge Street, and the south end of the route went out of service for construction of the Harbourfront line.

Looking at these photos 36 years later, two things are quite striking: the changes all along the route where the canyon of newer buildings had not yet materialized, but also the frequency of service. Getting shots with two or three buses at a time was easy, far different from today when the service is infrequent with the “best” being a 14-minute PM peak headway, and 20-30 minutes at other times. This route saw a vicious downward cycle of riding loss and service cuts, and now is simply not worth waiting for.

For a history of the route, see theTransit Toronto site.

The route’s conversion to trolleybus was an offshoot of the 1972 decision to retain streetcars. The surplus TBs from 97 Yonge, released when the subway extension to York Mills opened, were originally intended for the St. Clair streetcar route, although the proposed service level would have been worse than the streetcars to be replaced. The Streetcars for Toronto advocacy group (which I chaired for a time) pushed for deployment of the surplus TBs on Bay given its frequent service and downtown location well placed to use the existing power distribution infrastructure. (A less obvious motive was to eliminate a potential threat to any other streetcar lines with the TBs looking for a home.)

The galleries below run from south to north along the route with photos from Fall 1987 and Spring-Summer 1988. Photos of 9200, the first production bus of the “new” TBs, are from a fan excursion.

The City of Toronto will completely close the intersection of Bay & Adelaide from 7am Monday, December 11 to 7am on Saturday December 16 to all vehicles. Bay and Adelaide Streets will be open only for local traffic in the immediate area of the closure. This continues the work of (re-)installing streetcar track on Adelaide for the eastbound 501 Queen streetcar diversion around Ontario Line contruction.

Updated: Work at Bay and Adelaide actually completed on the afternoon of Friday, December 15 and the intersection reopened earlier than planned.

This will require diversion of the 19 Bay and 501B Queen bus routes.

The 19 Bay bus will divert via Dundas, Church and King both ways.

The 501B Queen bus which normally operates on Bay from King to Queen will use York Street for north/westbound trips and University Avenue for south/eastbound trips. Buses will operate both ways via King Street, and there will be no westbound service on Richmond Street

[Apologies for the soft images. They are from a City construction notice, and I used what is available.]

End of the King East Diversions

As the map for 501B Queen above shows, service is supposed to resume the normal routes east of Church with the completion of water main and Hydro work on the coming weekend which has a December 10 end date. This means that:

• 501B Queen buses return to Queen Street east of Church
• 503 Kingston Road streetcars return to King Street between the Don River and Church
• 504 King streetcar service to Distillery Loop resumes

Updated December 11, 2023 at 4:15 pm

Another diversion has been added to the list. The 505 Dundas cars will divert both ways via Parliament and Gerrard. A 505 shuttle bus will run from Jarvis to Jones.

This diversion is required for track repairs, and will last until Thursday, December 21, 2023.

Updated:This diversion ended on Tuesday, December 19.

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 Kingstreetcars 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 busesdo 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. Theydo 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 the505 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 thisdoes 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.

The TTC will make several changes in its service on June 23. Many of these are the usual summer service reductions, but others will see changes for construction projects, to improve reliability on some routes, and to redeploy the streetcar fleet.

Subway

On 1 Yonge-University-Spadina, the dispatching of trains will change to increase the use of the north hostler track and exit from Wilson Yard (all days), and to restore the full capacity of Davisville Yard following expansion of the carhouse (weekdays).

On 2 Bloor-Danforth, a gap train will be dispatched from Greenwood or Keele Yard in the AM and PM peak as needed to fill service gaps. There will also be the usual summer service reduction on this line.

On both routes, crew procedures at Finch, Vaughan, Kipling and Kennedy will be changed to single step-back operation.

Streetcars

The 501 Queen car will be formally scheduled as a low-floor route entirely with new cars. In recognition of their larger capacity, headways will be widened somewhat, but not on the scale Toronto saw when the two-section ALRVs replaced the CLRVs on a 2:3 ratio with correspondingly wider headways. Although in theory the scheduled capacity remains the same, the actual capacity could fall because new larger cars have already been operating on the shorter CLRV headways. I will explore this in a separate article.

Night service will be improved on 301 Queen to reduce overnight storage needs with the large number of new cars now on the property together with remnants of the old fleet, and the partial closure of Roncesvalles Carhouse for reconstruction. This continues a change introduced on 304 King in May.

CLRVs will continue to operate on the Long Branch segment of the route. This is expected to change to low-floor operation in September. The peak period trippers that run through from Long Branch to/from downtown will be dropped, but will return in the September schedules.

The 511 Bathurst route will revert to streetcar operation. The exact mix of cars will depend on availability and day-to-day decisions about allocation. The service memo shows a small allocation of ALRVs to the route, but these could turn out to be Flexitys instead just as happened on 501 Queen. (Click to expand the table below.)

Leslie & Eglinton

For the summer months, Leslie Street will be closed at Eglinton, and a temporary loop will be created north of the intersection. This will be used by 51 Leslie and by some of the 54 Lawrence East service. Weekdays from 5:15 am to 9 pm, and weekends from 8 am to 7 pm, the Starspray and Orton Park branches will terminate at the Leslie/Eglinton loop, and there will be a separate service running from Eglinton Station to Lawrence East Station via Don Mills & Eglinton. Outside of these periods, the Starspray and Orton Park services will run to Eglinton Station via Don Mills, and a supplementary shuttle will run from Leslie/Eglinton to Lawrence/Don Mills as part of the 51 Leslie route.

All 51 Leslie service will terminate at Leslie/Eglinton.

The 954 Lawrence East Express is not affected.

Service on 34C Eglinton East to Flemingdon Park will be increased slightly to offset changes to 54 Lawrence East.

See the linked spreadsheet for details of the various routes, headways and hours of service.

Lawrence Station

Because of construction at Lawrence Station, part of the bus loop will be closed for paving and the 52/952 Lawrence services will loop via the east side of the station. Service on 124 Sunnybrook and 162 Lawrence-Donway will be extended west and north to Roe Loop on Avenue Road. Transfers between these routes will move to surface stops.

Wellesley Station

Construction at Wellesley Station will complete and the 94 Wellesley will return to its normal operation with its eastern branch terminating there rather than at Queen’s Park.

Royal York Station

Buses were planned to return to Royal York Station on May 24, but the schedules will not formally be revised until August. Interlining of 15 Evans with 48 Rathburn, and of 73 Royal York and 76 Royal York South, will continue until then.

Bay Bus

Service on the 6B short turn at Bloor will be discontinued during the peak period and all buses will run north to Dupont.

Dufferin Bus

All service will terminate at Dufferin Loop rather than at Princes Gates due to frequent summer events that make bus operation through Exhibition Place difficult.

Road Construction in Scarborough

Several routes will be affected by road construction projects.

Danforth Road from St. Clair to Danforth Avenue:

• 113 Danforth

Midland Avenue from Danforth to Lawrence:

• 20 Cliffside
• 57 Midland

Brimley Road from Progress to Huntingwood:

• 21 Brimley

Huntingwood Drive from Kennedy to Brimley:

• 169B Huntingwood

20190623 Service Changes

The May 2018 service changes bring:

• Addition of two AM peak “gap trains” on 1 Yonge-University-Spadina and other operational improvements.
• An update to the schedules for service on the King Street Pilot to reflect the improved travel time on the street and to reduce vehicle queues at terminals.
• Changes to all routes serving Main Station during construction that will close the loop to transit vehicles.
• Diversions of the Parliament and Carlton routes around track construction at Gerrard & Parliament.
• Changes to Don Mills bus schedules to reflect actual operating conditions and Crosstown construction effects.
• Seasonal changes to reflect declining ridership to post-secondary institutions during the summer.
• Summer improvements including extension of 121 Fort York Esplanade to Cherry Beach during all operating periods, improved weekend service on 92 Woodbine South, and later service to the Zoo.
• There is a new summer route 175 Bluffers Park on weekends between Kennedy Station and the park’s parking lot.
• Service cuts and running time reductions on 6 Bay.
• Weekend reliability improvements on 96 Wilson and 165 Weston Road North.
• Weekday reliability improvements on 199 Finch Rocket.

2018.05.13_Service_Changes

Here are the highlights:

1 Yonge-University-Spadina

Two “gap trains” will be added to the morning peak schedule to provide additional service as needed southbound on Yonge. One train will be stationed in Eglinton pocket track, and the other on the hostler track at Davisville.

Trains leaving service in the evening to Wilson Yard will now do so southbound from Vaughan rather than northbound at Wilson. This avoids conflicts between the yard movements and southbound service.

King Street Pilot

Running times on 504 King will be reduced during almost all operating periods, and the saving will be converted into slightly shorter scheduled headways with no change in total vehicles. The four peak period ALRV trippers will be replaced by six CLRV trippers. Flexity cars will now be formally scheduled to cover part of the service with priority going to runs that stay out all day.

514 Cherry service will be improved during the AM peak, weekday early evening, Saturday afternoon and Saturday early evening periods by the addition of one or more cars.

Peak period crewing practices will be changed to step back operation to reduce terminal delays.

Main Station

Main Station Loop will be closed until September 2018 for construction. During this time routes serving the station will be reorganized:

• 20 Cliffside and 62 Mortimer will be interlined as a single route from Broadview to Kennedy Station.
• 23 Dawes will be extended west to Woodbine Station.
• 64 Main will be extended north to Eastdale.
• 87 Cosburn will loop on street via Danforth and Chisholm.
• 113 Danforth and 135 Gerrard will be cut back from Main to Victoria Park Station.
• 506 Carlton will be extended east to Victoria Park Station via Gerrard covering the mileage of the shortened 135 Gerrard route.

Parliament & Gerrard

During the reconstruction of this intersection, buses will divert:

• 65 Parliament will divert via Sherbourne between Dundas and Carlton.
• 506 Carlton will divert via Dundas between Sherbourne and River.

Bay Bus

Service on 6 Bay will be reduced by the elimination of one or two buses during most operating periods, and headways will be widened as a result.

This route suffers from excessive running time as shown in a previous analysis I published, and I will be updating this with current data in May.

This is the second article reviewing the effects of the pilot King Street transit priority scheme. Part 1 looked at the behaviour of the 504 King streetcar route, and Part 2 concerns the operation of 501 Queen and 6 Bay during the same period.

Among the effects anticipated from the pilot was an increase in traffic on parallel streets with the effect reaching as far north as Queen Street. Queen suffers badly during the shutdown of King for TIFF in September, and by extension some problems were expected to show up with the pilot’s changes changes on King.

Another effect that was expected was congestion on the north-south streets crossing King. Only one transit route in mixed traffic, 6 Bay, operates on such a street.

The City of Toronto is monitoring traffic behaviour on many streets in the study area and will publish their own preliminary findings in mid-December.

The charts presented here are in the same two formats as those in Part 1:

• One pair of charts shows the travel times between Bathurst and Jarvis on Queen, and between Dundas and Front on Bay, both ways. Each day’s data are plotted individually to show the difference between individual trips, the evolution of travel times over the day, and the degree of dispersion in travel time values (i.e. the predictability, or not, of travel time for any journey).
• One pair of charts shows average times, by hour, for each day to illustrate daily fluctuations and any before/after changes concurrent with the King Street Pilot.

For both routes, there is almost no change in the average travel times after the pilot began. Values on Queen bounce around a lot, but they do so both before and after the pilot began.

There is a quite striking weekly pattern with much higher than usual averages during the PM peak eastbound on Queen and southbound on Bay with low values usually on Mondays, and much higher values later in the week. This shows the importance of studying route behaviour over several days, while remaining aware that external events can create patterns in the data, or can create one-time disruptions for special events such as parades or sporting events.

501 Queen:

• 501_201711_WB_JarvisSt_BathurstSt_MonthLinks
• 501_201711_Jarvis_Bathurst_MonthLinks_Avg

• 501_201711_EB_BathurstSt_JarvisSt_MonthLinks
• 501_201711_Bathurst_Jarvis_MonthLinks_Avg

6 Bay:

• 6_201711_SB_DundasSt_FrontSt_MonthLinks
• 6_201711_Dundas_Front_MonthLinks_Avg

• 6_201711_NB_FrontSt_DundasSt_MonthLinks
• 6_201711_Front_Dundas_MonthLinks_Avg