TTC Service Changes

[CJ.]

10 hours ago, Xtrazsteve said:

That will give them the possibility of running that 8/62 routing if they ever need to close Broadview Station. I really question the reliability of this interlined route, there are two major bottlenecks at O'Connor/Coxwell to O'Connor to St Clair and on Danforth/Main to Danforth/Victoria Park. 

I'm having trouble believing 24 minutes is enough time to get from Broadview to Warden Stations. 

It already takes roughly 24-25 minutes from Warden Station to Broadview just by driving. That is not even possible. Passengers etc, rush hour would make it upwards of possibly 35-40mins

[Doppelkupplung]

5 hours ago, Ed T. said:

That way people nostalgic for the RT

That's not a thing. 

[Xtrazsteve]

https://www.ttc.ca/news/2023/June/Media-Briefing---East-end-TTC-service-to-see-significant-changes-beginning-June-18

Let's see how the public reacts to all these East Toronto/East York changes on Monday. 

[T3G]

4 hours ago, Doppelkupplung said:

That's not a thing. 

Sure about that?

[nfitz]

8 hours ago, Doppelkupplung said:

That's not a thing. 

Isn't it? I love Line 3. Get's me to Scarborough Centre quickly ... I probably won't be there after 2023 until 2030. I wish they'd have extended it to Malvern in the east, and "south" to Scarborough GO and Kingston Road (though the last 850 metres would be challenging).

[Kelvin3157]

On 6/9/2023 at 9:49 PM, Xtrazsteve said:

184 ANCASTER PARK is the new route (I meant really old) from Wilson Station. 120 no longer services Ancaster Park.

This route may be interlined with the 104

[Ed T.]

On 6/10/2023 at 10:49 PM, nfitz said:

Isn't it? I love Line 3. Get's me to Scarborough Centre quickly ... I probably won't be there after 2023 until 2030. I wish they'd have extended it to Malvern in the east, and "south" to Scarborough GO and Kingston Road (though the last 850 metres would be challenging).

But 3 ANCASTER PARK would get you quickly to....hmm....well....okay never mind.

[CJ.]

506c Carlton is replacing portion of 22 coxwell. The new destination sign and route was released today. I checked the destination sign "506C CARLTON TO CASTLE FRANK STATION VIA COXWELL STATION AND GREENWOOD STATION". the stops listed include all 22 stops from Lower Gerrard to Danforth/Coxwell and all 300 Blue Night stops from Danforth Coxwell to Danforth/Greenwood. It also provides additional service along 31 Greenwood corridor from Greenwood station to Greenwood and gerrard back to route. It wont be so bad after all..  

[ilovettc]

Starting Sunday September 3rd 2023 the 501 will have streetcar service to Long Branch Loop instead of having the 501L Queen Replacement Bus to Long Branch Loop. Not my Photo by the way.

[Xtrazsteve]

1 hour ago, ilovettc said:

Starting Sunday September 3rd 2023 the 501 will have streetcar service to Long Branch Loop instead of having the 501L Queen Replacement Bus to Long Branch Loop. Not my Photo by the way.

They would just post in the website's news section anyways: https://www.ttc.ca/news/2023/June/TTC-501-Queen-Streetcar-Service-to-return-to-Long-Branch-Loop

[H4 5600]

Honestly, i regularily ride the 501 between windermere and long branch, and i wish they would make the buses permanent on lakeshore.

The 501L buses are so much faster then the streetcar, and when the streetcars are running the entire lakeshore section gets suspended whenever theres some minor issue and leaves everyone stranded. 

[nfitz]

11 hours ago, H4 5600 said:

Honestly, i regularily ride the 501 between windermere and long branch, and i wish they would make the buses permanent on lakeshore.

The 501L buses are so much faster then the streetcar, and when the streetcars are running the entire lakeshore section gets suspended whenever theres some minor issue and leaves everyone stranded. 

It's probably not so much the buses, but that the  buses only going 13 km to Dufferin, instead of 25 km to Victoria Park, through downtown. This will make the route more reliable.

I'd think that the solution might be go back to the older system where 501 stops at Roncesvalles or Humber Loop - while 507 goes from Long Branch and up Roncesvalles to Dundas West station. Ultimately if they ever build the streetcar-only right-of-way from Roncesvalles to the new Exhibition subway station (and onto Union)

I'd think 501, 505, and 506 reliability would both be improved if they weren't trying to service both sides of downtown - particularly 501 and 506. 504 seems more predictable with King Street changes - and also does a shorter route now (Broadview to Dufferin Gate and Dundas West to Cherry).

[Xtrazsteve]

39 minutes ago, nfitz said:

It's probably not so much the buses, but that the  buses only going 13 km to Dufferin, instead of 25 km to Victoria Park, through downtown. This will make the route more reliable.

I'd think that the solution might be go back to the older system where 501 stops at Roncesvalles or Humber Loop - while 507 goes from Long Branch and up Roncesvalles to Dundas West station. Ultimately if they ever build the streetcar-only right-of-way from Roncesvalles to the new Exhibition subway station (and onto Union)

I'd think 501, 505, and 506 reliability would both be improved if they weren't trying to service both sides of downtown - particularly 501 and 506. 504 seems more predictable with King Street changes - and also does a shorter route now (Broadview to Dufferin Gate and Dundas West to Cherry).

It has nothing to do with the routing but how it operates. The Flexitys have longer running times than CLRVs and buses.

I took the streetcar a few times back then (507 routing) and I would totally take the subway/bus from Line 2 instead. The are way too many stops and only one person gets on/off and the car dwells half a minute every 300m. You may only have 20 people on board and yet it takes much longer than a bus cause of the time it takes to stop this massive car and time for the doors to close. It's really not suitable for FLEXITY streetcars to operate this way. The CLRVs were way faster.

[lip]

The TTC loves screwing with service along Lakeshore and Queensway with or without buses; it's almost like a damned if you do, damned if you dont.

With replacement buses, although they travel much faster than streetcars, the TTC does absolutely 0 line management so you'll often see buses travel in packs because management chooses to pad those lovely schedules.

With streetcars the TTC screws the operations by reducing vehicle speeds with all the idiotic SOPs, and slowed timings to close doors.

So in one case the buses travel faster however line management is so bad someone would be forced to wait longer if they miss the convoy, in the other streetcars travel so damn slow and they show up more "reliably".

[nfitz]

On 6/16/2023 at 1:16 PM, Xtrazsteve said:

The are way too many stops and only one person gets on/off and the car dwells half a minute every 300m. You may only have 20 people on board and yet it takes much longer than a bus cause of the time it takes to stop this massive car and time for the doors to close. It's really not suitable for FLEXITY streetcars to operate this way. The CLRVs were way faster.

The CLRV doors were a bit faster - but I remember so many excessive dwells in CRLVs because it took so much longer for a dozen of people to squeeze in the front door. Or push through to get out the back door. And I really haven't observed that since the 506 went Flexities. Though it sounds like demand on Lakeshore West is different.

The bus door times still seem slow, even compared to the Flexities. Between that, and the extra time it has to do to manoeuvre off the lane, and into the stop, I do wonder why the time would be that different.

I see similar claims in my area when buses are running, but when you look at the actual travel times they are little changed; and when you have both buses and streetcars together (such as on Queen), I've seen buses overtake streetcars as many times as streetcars overtaking buses. I think part of it is perception, and because the bus is relatively small, shakey, with a lot of lateral movement, it feels faster. The only advantage I've seen is that buses are much smaller, and therefore have to run much more frequently.

[Ed T.]

Upper Gerrard loading patterns may be similar to Lake Shore loading patterns, mostly, I guess. Although other than morning rush hour peak, it was unusual to get standing loads on the Queen car much before Humber loop, heading downtown.

I expect that pulling into and out of stops is considerably easier on Lake Shore, which is mostly two open lanes plus a parking/bus stop lane.

Lake Shore also has a 50 km/h limit, unlike any part of the Carlton car's route that I can think of, with the possible exception of the short Main St. and Dundas west sections.

TL;DR: it's not very useful to extrapolate from one bustitution in one part of the city to another bustitution elsewhere.

[WoodbineSecondExit]

I'm seeing more and more eastbound 505 Dundas streetcars displaying TO VICTORIA / SHORT TURN instead of VICTORIA PARK via BROADVIEW & QUEEN. Some of the fake 503 buses are displaying 501 QUEEN TO COXWELL.

41 minutes ago, nfitz said:

The CLRV doors were a bit faster - but I remember so many excessive dwells in CRLVs because it took so much longer for a dozen of people to squeeze in the front door. Or push through to get out the back door. And I really haven't observed that since the 506 went Flexities. Though it sounds like demand on Lakeshore West is different.

The bus door times still seem slow, even compared to the Flexities. Between that, and the extra time it has to do to manoeuvre off the lane, and into the stop, I do wonder why the time would be that different.

I see similar claims in my area when buses are running, but when you look at the actual travel times they are little changed; and when you have both buses and streetcars together (such as on Queen), I've seen buses overtake streetcars as many times as streetcars overtaking buses. I think part of it is perception, and because the bus is relatively small, shakey, with a lot of lateral movement, it feels faster. The only advantage I've seen is that buses are much smaller, and therefore have to run much more frequently.

A lot of bus drivers on the replacements will drive on downtown streets as if they were suburban arterials.

[Xtrazsteve]

1 hour ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

I'm seeing more and more eastbound 505 Dundas streetcars displaying TO VICTORIA / SHORT TURN instead of VICTORIA PARK via BROADVIEW & QUEEN. Some of the fake 503 buses are displaying 501 QUEEN TO COXWELL.

A lot of bus drivers on the replacements will drive on downtown streets as if they were suburban arterials.

People are so impatient these days, if they drive slowly, everyone will overtake them. This just needs to them missing stops by 2 car lengths and forced to wait another cycle at the lights.

 

[nfitz]

21 hours ago, WoodbineSecondExit said:

A lot of bus drivers on the replacements will drive on downtown streets as if they were suburban arterials.

True - though most of my bustitution riding was in pre-Covid during the shoulder rush-hour, especially with the 503, which was often bustituted during the streetcar shortage. Especially between the Don and Broadview westbound, the buses would be stuck in a stop while streetcars overtook them easily. Road was never open enough for speed. Now on Upper Gerrard the bus can go like grease lightening - especially with the lighter loads, as the buses carry less passengers, so less drop-offs. But the streetcars do similar if they don't need to stop.

[CJ.]

72 Pape (Broadview Shuttle) and 100 Flemington Pk are interlined routes for those who are wondering. 8 and 62 is also an interline

I must say that the 8 Broadview frequency is pretty much garbage, it also doesn't make sense why 70A is still using the same amount of buses it used when both branches were still running, they might as well put a few of those buses on 8 Broadview and make it better rather than oddly frequent 70A service but slow 8 Broadview service

[wil9402]

5 hours ago, CJ. said:

I must say that the 8 Broadview frequency is pretty much garbage, it also doesn't make sense why 70A is still using the same amount of buses it used when both branches were still running, they might as well put a few of those buses on 8 Broadview and make it better rather than oddly frequent 70A service but slow 8 Broadview service

They have to keep service levels along Coxwell Ave the same.

[CJ.]

33 minutes ago, wil9402 said:

They have to keep service levels along Coxwell Ave the same.

And they don't have to keep service levels on O'Connor the same?

[wil9402]

27 minutes ago, CJ. said:

And they don't have to keep service levels on O'Connor the same?

If you compared the schedules you'd see that the current service levels on 8 are actually better that what 70C was operating at in all periods every day. It is also drastically better than the 30 minute service that 8 operated at all day every day.

[CJ.]

1 hour ago, wil9402 said:

If you compared the schedules you'd see that the current service levels on 8 are actually better that what 70C was operating at in all periods every day. It is also drastically better than the 30 minute service that 8 operated at all day every day.

While it does get better than 70C during rush hours, you still see 24 min during off-peak periods. Furthermore, it seems like the buses are having terrible runtime which is affecting schedules on 62 Mortimer and 8 Broadview too. Almost every single bus on both routes is quite behind schedule because run time on 8 is way too short. With this inconsistency, they obviously won't follow the schedule and it'll most likely be all over the place but its time to see how it goes this week

[WoodbineSecondExit]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:23 PM, Xtrazsteve said:

I wonder how terrible will this 72A/100A interlined route would operate. I predict it will be very unreliable.

I've been watching it on the maps for the last hour or two. It's running a lot like the 504/505 replacement bus: poorly. Buses are running in packs with gaps all around.