Streetcar News

[GTAmissions1]

8 minutes ago, Mark Walton said:

One of the reasons why, historically, TTC has always operated overnight service was lack of carhouse/garage space to store all their vehicles overnight!

True. Reminds me of the subway in New York City which also operates around the clock because there isn't enough yard space to store the rolling stock.

Though, the major TTC streetcar routes do generate enough ridership to offset the costs of running overnight service. Especially when the 304 King and 317 Spadina were part of the original Blue Night Network from 1987 until 1992. Both were eliminated due to funding cuts and service available nearby along adjacent routes. 

Restored in September 2015 under a major funding boost by Toronto City Council. 

[nfitz]

4 hours ago, GTAmissions1 said:

Though, the major TTC streetcar routes do generate enough ridership to offset the costs of running overnight service. Especially when the 304 King and 317 Spadina were part of the original Blue Night Network from 1987 until 1992.

Night streetcars on Spadina in 1992? They didn't put the tracks back until 1997.

[GTAmissions1]

11 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Night streetcars on Spadina in 1992? They didn't put the tracks back until 1997.

My mistake. Double checked and it was the 77 Spadina bus prior to 1997.

[Xtrazsteve]

6 hours ago, GTAmissions1 said:

True. Reminds me of the subway in New York City which also operates around the clock because there isn't enough yard space to store the rolling stock.

Though, the major TTC streetcar routes do generate enough ridership to offset the costs of running overnight service. Especially when the 304 King and 317 Spadina were part of the original Blue Night Network from 1987 until 1992. Both were eliminated due to funding cuts and service available nearby along adjacent routes. 

Restored in September 2015 under a major funding boost by Toronto City Council. 

Certain routes have enough ridership for 24/7 service even prior to the introduction of the 300 series night bus routes. Which was a rebranding of previous routes like how they rebranded the 18x/19x rocket and "E" branch routes into the 900 series express network.

Other near downtown routes like the 47 LANSDOWNE/315 LANSDOWNE BLUE NIGHT also operated from the 40s to 1992. Perhaps all the factory jobs disappeared from the core by the 80s and with the recession, it made no sense to operate routes like King, Lansdowne and Spadina anymore. This is why it made sense to introduce more frequent service on Finch, Jane and Wilson now instead of restoring the 315.

[nfitz]

20 hours ago, GTAmissions1 said:

My mistake. Double checked and it was the 77 Spadina bus prior to 1997.

The 77 bus was a classic! Though it's parking in those angled parking spots in the 1980s that sticks in my mind.

[drum118]

When TTC gets off their ass and string the Queensway, the sooner the streetcars can return to Long Branch.

There hasn't been anything stopping TTC from stringing the line close to a month other than a missing pole over by Park Side Stop.

There was some out standing work by the contractor in late Aug that had no effect on TTC doing its work and is now fully completed.

The city still has some landscaping to do by Park Side that has no effect on TTC as well turning on the Traffic Lights as Sunnyside Dr.

TTC stills needs to install the 2 shelters and the OS. Track cleaning to be done along with the testing of the elevated curve to see what the max speed it can handle regardless of the road speed.

501 service is backup now to the point 3 cars on the ROW and one in the loop waiting to go into service. When I left the area, another 501 in the ROW waiting to get into the loop for a total of 5 cars.

Drivers will find a huge change east of Parkside with the dip gone and a sloping grade don't have to slow down for compare to the past as well no traffic om the tracks to worry about now.

If service doesn't start in Oct, a few ppl need to be shown the door.

4604 is currently over at Russell carhouse been worked on.

[Orion V]

Not really news but I saw this pic of London over a 100 years ago and found it interesting they still operate a tram while digging underneath for the subway.

Imagine if we did this today with TTC streetcar nearby construction that shuts that portion of the tracks down how much of a non disruption it'll be VS the chaos we have now?

[Mark Walton]

On 9/23/2023 at 12:30 PM, Orion V said:

Not really news but I saw this pic of London over a 100 years ago and found it interesting they still operate a tram while digging underneath for the subway.

Imagine if we did this today with TTC streetcar nearby construction that shuts that portion of the tracks down how much of a non disruption it'll be VS the chaos we have now?

TTC did it 70+ years ago when they built the original Yonge subway. This little gem, dragged out of I don't know what rotten record bin for the 50th anniversary in 2004, shows how they did it. 

[Turtle]

They have 503 Kingston Rd as a streetcar again, looping through King-Spadina-Adelaide-Charlotte.

They opened up Church-Wellington-York-King to streetcars, but have the east end 501D Neville->York/King using Church-Wellington instead of the 503. 

 

Why not have the 503 use Wellington like it used to, and have the 501 go somewhere else? Or have both the 501D and 503 use Wellington?

 

Edit: sorry, my mistake. I posted the question here. The answer seems to be: just because. Just because that's the way the planning department decided to do it this month.

[wil9402]

14 hours ago, Turtle said:

They have 503 Kingston Rd as a streetcar again, looping through King-Spadina-Adelaide-Charlotte.

They opened up Church-Wellington-York-King to streetcars, but have the east end 501D Neville->York/King using Church-Wellington instead of the 503. 

 

Why not have the 503 use Wellington like it used to, and have the 501 go somewhere else? Or have both the 501D and 503 use Wellington?

 

Edit: sorry, my mistake. I posted the question here. The answer seems to be: just because. Just because that's the way the planning department decided to do it this month.

They were likely given separate terminal points to avoid blocking each other when taking any recovery time at the end. Based on feedback from passengers, they've been trying to keep a one seat ride between Line 1 and the east end. The 501D looping via Church-Wellington-York-King connects it to King Station.

[Turtle]

7 hours ago, wil9402 said:

They were likely given separate terminal points to avoid blocking each other when taking any recovery time at the end. Based on feedback from passengers, they've been trying to keep a one seat ride between Line 1 and the east end. The 501D looping via Church-Wellington-York-King connects it to King Station.

Looping the 503 at Charlotte gives 2 connections to line 1, King station and St. Andrew. I would have thought it would be more logical to give the 503 the "traditional" loop of Church-Wellington-York, and have the 501 travel through there somehow to connect with the rest of the west end of Queen St, maybe McCaul, Dundas, Church?

 

Looping the 503 through Wellington would still give you the two connections to line 1, and running the 501 as a continuous route through the downtown core with a diversion would probably be a better solution for a "1 seat ride" for other people looking to travel through the core. The only people that really suffer are those with a destination on Queen Street just east or west of Yonge, but nothing they can offer on surface transit will help that, maybe except an on demand community shuttle bus for those who are not able to walk that distance.

 

Shute, just get the track on Victoria back in service, and there could probably be an elegant and efficient detour in there somehow, I don't know I haven't looked at that track and the switches to see which way you can send streetcars through there. Or just abandon all streetcar service on Queen, train those extra streetcar ops to have a CZ and have them drive a bus on Queen for the next decade. Those things are fancy, they can drive them on streets that have no tracks.

[wil9402]

6 hours ago, Turtle said:

Looping the 503 at Charlotte gives 2 connections to line 1, King station and St. Andrew. I would have thought it would be more logical to give the 503 the "traditional" loop of Church-Wellington-York, and have the 501 travel through there somehow to connect with the rest of the west end of Queen St, maybe McCaul, Dundas, Church?

 

Looping the 503 through Wellington would still give you the two connections to line 1, and running the 501 as a continuous route through the downtown core with a diversion would probably be a better solution for a "1 seat ride" for other people looking to travel through the core. The only people that really suffer are those with a destination on Queen Street just east or west of Yonge, but nothing they can offer on surface transit will help that, maybe except an on demand community shuttle bus for those who are not able to walk that distance.

I think 503 gets quite a bit of recovery time (as much as 9 minutes) downtown. Assuming it's on schedule, I'd think Charlotte St would be a more suitable place to layover versus along Wellington or York St. I believe 501D only gets like 2-3 minutes of recovery time downtown. In terms of the McCaul-Dundas-Church routing you mentioned, are all those switches powered? Maybe they didn't want to route scheduled service through manual switches to avoid the slow down. If they are powered switches then I'd agree with you, a connected 501 from the west to east using this detour would make more sense.

[Turtle]

4 hours ago, wil9402 said:

I think 503 gets quite a bit of recovery time (as much as 9 minutes) downtown. Assuming it's on schedule, I'd think Charlotte St would be a more suitable place to layover versus along Wellington or York St. I believe 501D only gets like 2-3 minutes of recovery time downtown. In terms of the McCaul-Dundas-Church routing you mentioned, are all those switches powered? Maybe they didn't want to route scheduled service through manual switches to avoid the slow down. If they are powered switches then I'd agree with you, a connected 501 from the west to east using this detour would make more sense.

It's just the trouble with Charlotte is the residents in the condos are getting crabby about the streetcars sitting on Charlotte. There is a building under construction on the east side, and the southbound lanes are usually blocked by ubers waiting for their customers, or ubers picking up food at the local restaurants there, or fedex making deliveries. So between selfish uber drivers blocking the traffic lane, and fedex drivers just trying to find a place where they can stop for a bit to deliver a package, and the construction trucks trying to maneuver out and into the Charlotte/King condo site, it's a huge mess there.

 

No stopping on that street, except I guess if you are a streetcar without a plate that can't be ticketed for stopping in a no standing zone.On a bad day there, the streetcars back up onto Adelaide and block a lane there.

 

No matter how the streetcars are positioned on Charlotte, they are blocking a driveway or street.

[drum118]

Knock on wood, 501 and 507 will resume service to Humber with Nov board change as its been ready for sometime with testing underway.

Transit Priority being install along the Queensway west of KQQR, but will it work and will it be turn on in the first place??

The folk living next to Charlotte Loop need to move if they don't like the streetcars sitting on the road and blocking driveways. It was there long before those towers were built and another batch of owners failing to do their homework before buying there.

[WKLis]

"Knock on wood"? Oh, oh. Thought they didn't used wood on The Queensway, but metal and concrete?

[Orion V]

I was looking at this video and at this timestamp, noticed a streetcar at the Kipling loop which means they have started running streetcars west of the KQQR.

https://youtu.be/Q3n39JY7PPQ?t=101

 

[lip]

1 hour ago, Orion V said:

I was looking at this video and at this timestamp, noticed a streetcar at the Kipling loop which means they have started running streetcars west of the KQQR.

https://youtu.be/Q3n39JY7PPQ?t=101

 

They're testing streetcars, not revenue service.

[drum118]

17 hours ago, Orion V said:

I was looking at this video and at this timestamp, noticed a streetcar at the Kipling loop which means they have started running streetcars west of the KQQR.

https://youtu.be/Q3n39JY7PPQ?t=101

 

It supposed to be in Nov when service resumes after 2 years to west of Sunnyside Loop

[smallspy]

3 hours ago, drum118 said:

It supposed to be in Nov when service resumes after 2 years to west of Sunnyside Loop

https://stevemunro.ca/2023/10/27/streetcars-return-to-humber-loop/

[drum118]

4 hours ago, smallspy said:

https://stevemunro.ca/2023/10/27/streetcars-return-to-humber-loop/

TTC said one thing and then does this. The last thing I saw said Nov and Steve had no real date when I talked to him a week ago as he was still waiting for TTC to get back to him.

TTC restoring streetcar service to Humber Loop, improving west-end service from Sunday

October 27, 2023

Starting this Sun., Oct. 29, the TTC is restoring 501 Queen streetcar service west of Roncesvalles Ave. to Humber Loop, following completion of major infrastructure upgrades by the City of Toronto and the TTC in the King St. W., Queen St. W., Queensway, and Roncesvalles Ave. (KQQR) intersection area.

Beginning at the start of service on Sunday morning, it will be the first time since January 2021 that streetcars are operating along The Queensway, including to stops at Glendale Ave. providing direct access to St. Joseph’s Hospital.

501L Queen replacement buses will continue to operate both ways between Long Branch Loop and Humber Loop, via Lake Shore Blvd., Park Lawn Rd. and The Queensway. Customers can transfer between buses and streetcars at Humber Loop.

Additional streetcar service through to Long Branch Loop is scheduled to return on Sun., Nov. 19.

301 Queen buses will continue to operate between Long Branch Loop and Neville Park Loop in overnight periods, 7 days a week.

Additional service to Humber Bay Shores Neighbourhood

Also from Sunday, new 501M Queen replacement buses will operate both ways from Humber Loop to north Park Lawn Rd. via Lake Shore Blvd., Marine Parade Dr., Park Lawn Rd. and The Queensway, to provide additional service through the Humber Bay Shores Neighbourhood.

Customers at stops on Lake Shore Boulevard east of Park Lawn Rd. can board 501H/M Queen buses to access 501A Queen streetcars at Humber Loop, or access streetcars directly via walking through the tunnel leading to the loop.

508 Lake Shore service returns Monday

Starting Mon., Oct. 30, 508 Lake Shore streetcars will return to weekday peak-hour service, operating between Long Branch Loop and Parliament St. via King St. These streetcars will provide customers with direct downtown service to and from Humber Loop, without having to transfer vehicles.

Morning peak period trips will be scheduled to depart from Long Branch Loop approximately every 20 minutes starting at 6:40 a.m. through 8:10 a.m. Afternoon peak period trips will be scheduled to depart from King Station every 20 minutes from approximately 4:25 p.m. to 5:45 p.m.

The TTC is committed to keeping customers informed about work and events that impact service and about alternate routes. For the most up-to-date information, follow

@TTCNotices on X (formerly Twitter) or sign up for eAlerts.

[GTAmissions1]

Waterfront East LRT needs more funding to advance design work. An additional $63 million dollars to be exact with $36 million already spent with the design work and $36 million unspent so far.

The total cost if built would cost $2.6 billion dollars if funding were to ever be secured. Being in the works since 2011.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-waterfront-lrt-project-1.7011236

Final comments:

Even with the sunk costs into the design phase, the plans would most likely be shelved indefinitely until it gets brought up again. Citing "lack of funding to actually build it out."

[Turtle]

15 hours ago, GTAmissions1 said:

Waterfront East LRT needs more funding to advance design work. An additional $63 million dollars to be exact with $36 million already spent with the design work and $36 million unspent so far.

The total cost if built would cost $2.6 billion dollars if funding were to ever be secured. Being in the works since 2011.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-waterfront-lrt-project-1.7011236

Final comments:

Even with the sunk costs into the design phase, the plans would most likely be shelved indefinitely until it gets brought up again. Citing "lack of funding to actually build it out."

Wow, they love to waste a ton of money in creative ways. 

[T3G]

Toronto's finest are doing their utmost to keep the city safe.

https://old.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/17r231y/watched_a_cop_give_a_streetcar_driver_a_ticket_in/

[Turtle]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:39 AM, T3G said:

Toronto's finest are doing their utmost to keep the city safe.

https://old.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/17r231y/watched_a_cop_give_a_streetcar_driver_a_ticket_in/

We weren't there to witness what made that officer ticket that streetcar op and inconvenience 1000's of commuters across the line.

 

In my experience with them, officers are pretty forgiving towards public transit vehicles. They are generally forgiving of the minor misdeeds of ttc ops in their private autos too. I have benefited twice from being "in uniform" and being pulled over for speeding or aggressive driving of my private auto. I also have been given lenience once by them while driving a bus, and also had a very senior TPS officer rip a new one out of a belligerent ttc chief supervisor on my behalf for a very minor accident that I called in that I could have gotten away with.

 

In this case, it would have been nice if the disruption to the people using the system could have been minimized. Offload the car, have it travel to the nearest place where it can park without disrupting traffic or the line too much, and give the guy a ticket. In this case, that would probably be somewhere on church or richmond. 

 

 

You guys won't like the solution the union suggests for dealing with this:

 

Traditionally, if the streetcar couldn't make it across the intersection because private autos keep taking the room ahead of the streetcar by switching lanes, the streetcar would wait one entire light cycle and then force it's way through regardless if there is enough room to clear the intersection. Unofficial training, and completely violates the hta, but it is a 100' public transit vehicle carrying a bunch of people.

 

So now, they propose to wait nearside until there is at least 110' of room in the lane ahead past the intersection for the streetcar to travel through. If there isn't (there will never be) the streetcar will hold at the intersection until it can travel through and clear it.

 

Max hours of work and ESA plays into this as well btw.

[Tom1122]

On 11/9/2023 at 11:39 AM, T3G said:

Toronto's finest are doing their utmost to keep the city safe.

https://old.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/17r231y/watched_a_cop_give_a_streetcar_driver_a_ticket_in/

I wonder who would pay the ticket: The driver or the TTC as a whole?