TTC: Streetcar Network

[Streety McCarface]

See nothing wrong converting 22 bus to streetcar other than ridership.

Just did some digging through the surface route statistics, and the 22 is sitting at 5550 PPD. Interestingly, the 502 has a ridership greater than that at 5970 PPD. Going back in time, the ridership of the 22 used to be 6,300 PPD in 2014, 7,100 PPD in 2012. The 502/503 was sitting at 7,800 in 2011, 6000 in 2012, and 6,200 in 2014. I've got no clue as to why these numbers are all over the place.

Nevertheless, the 22 is a 5.3km route, 2km on Coxwell. By contrast, the 509 sees 11K PPD and runs a 4km route. You could still run streetcars on Coxwell only during the peak hours and have it remain a 10-minute route, and run it down Kingston road when the 503 sees minimal service. Ridership would still be justified.

 

[drum118]

The EA for the line itself has been postponed, but there have been several other EAs in the neighbourhood that have make sure that the line is accommodated.

As for the loop, it was originally to be planned to be located in the parkette in the north-east corner of Scarlett and St. Clair. I don't see why that would change.

Dan

I known the EA has been postpone with the city trying to buy property when possible to widen St Clair and to protect the ROW. The west side of Scarlett was the prefer site as it open up another option to expand west beside Dundas as a branch line.

 

[innsertnamehere]

It's frustrating to me that they are not creating a dedicated left turn lane of some sort for vehicles at King and Roncesvalles, there is space for it and would improve service reliability immensely for the 504 in the evenings. The backups of left turning vehicles from King St can create 3-4 cycle waits to clear the intersection. Either getting cars through the intersection faster or out of the way of the streetcar would make a huge difference.

 

[blu_in_green]

Jane has been rule out as a surface route do to being to narrow and prefer to be underground. The plan for Jane was to have the line underground at St Clair and St Clair at Grade in it own ROW to Scarlett Rd with a loop on the west side of it. Taking the line under the new underpass is way down the road to Kipling.

The idea of taking the line to Dundas West is higher to happening than going west since there used to be tracks on Dundas. A new EA would be require to put tracks back on Dundas and would get 512 cars in/out of service faster than today, unless Hillcrest becomes their new home

Taking 506 to Keele is not only useless, but no room for it.

What is the proposed route to extend the Dundas West Streetcars north of Bloor?

 

[DSC]

What is the proposed route to extend the Dundas West Streetcars north of Bloor?

This is FAR from being at the stage of being 'proposed'. This discussion really belongs in the transit fantasy thread. At the moment all the available $$ (of which there are far from enough!) are destined for the waterfront line(s) and the new streetcars needed to actually offer service on them.

 

[torontocolin]

It's frustrating to me that they are not creating a dedicated left turn lane of some sort for vehicles at King and Roncesvalles, there is space for it and would improve service reliability immensely for the 504 in the evenings. The backups of left turning vehicles from King St can create 3-4 cycle waits to clear the intersection. Either getting cars through the intersection faster or out of the way of the streetcar would make a huge difference.

They should just prohibit left turns here. While they could fit a left turn lane, the goal is to shrink the intersection to make it safer for pedestrians. Cars which want to continue from King onto the Queensway can take Jameson up to Queen and make the left there. Though if they're turning it into a more normal intersection, they could maybe instead do an advance green for northbound traffic in the afternoon.

What is the proposed route to extend the Dundas West Streetcars north of Bloor?

The plan was to run the 505 to the loop at Dundas and Runnymede. Then a connecting track along Runnymede to St Clair would allow cars at Roncy to reach an extended 512 much faster, as well as providing redundancy as St Clair currently has just the one connection to the carhouses. The 1997 TTC Opportunities For New Streetcar Routes report (the one which resulted in the creation of the 509) recommending protecting for that possibility once there was more residential density along St Clair. Of course, with the size of the flexities, the loop at Runnymede could never manage the volume of streetcars from both the 505 and 512, even if you short-turned half the 505 service at Dundas West station and half the 512 at Gunn's, so a 512 extension would need a new loop at St Clair (presumably somewhere at Jane or Scarlett).

This scheme would probably also require a redesign of Dundas West station as you'd now have cars going both north and south serving the station. The station isn't really suited to on street boarding so you'd need a third streetcar platform. So now you're looking at a fairly significant investment for relatively minimal (public-facing) service improvement. If a developer was willing to subsidize it then maybe it's possible (the TTC has long maintained that if a developer on St Clair would like to pay to put in the track, they'd run the cars) but otherwise as mentioned the priority is very much elsewhere.

 

[innsertnamehere]

There is an advance green already, and banning left turns would do nothing but create tons of traffic infiltration into the neighbourhood around the intersection as people try to go around the intersection. The volume of left turns is huge too - probably 70% of traffic on King is doing that turn.

 

[micheal_can]

They should just prohibit left turns here. While they could fit a left turn lane, the goal is to shrink the intersection to make it safer for pedestrians. Cars which want to continue from King onto the Queensway can take Jameson up to Queen and make the left there. Though if they're turning it into a more normal intersection, they could maybe instead do an advance green for northbound traffic in the afternoon.

I am surprised the core area allows left turns anywhere.

 

[drum118]

What is the proposed route to extend the Dundas West Streetcars north of Bloor?

It would follow Dundas like it did before it got removed up to Runnymede, but extended it to Scarlett Rd or take it up Runnymede to St Clair. It would be in mix traffic. Going to Scarlett has its pro/cons and would join St Clair there.

This will never be seen by a good number board members in their life time, if at all, since it well below the line for funding.

Its shouldn't be in the Transit fantasy thread since TTC has already talked about doing this years ago. TTC wanted a faster route to get 512 cars in/out of service than it does today. This was before Hillcrest was been looked at to service 512 and 511.

 

[Amare]

They should just prohibit left turns here. While they could fit a left turn lane, the goal is to shrink the intersection to make it safer for pedestrians. Cars which want to continue from King onto the Queensway can take Jameson up to Queen and make the left there. Though if they're turning it into a more normal intersection, they could maybe instead do an advance green for northbound traffic in the afternoon.

Which is the exact opposite of what they should be doing; the intersection is already a mess and it doesnt work for vehicles, streetcars, or pedestrians. Sometimes I think they forget that a streetcar yard is there, so if you shrink the intersection it's going to cause major congestion issues getting cars into and out of the yard. It already takes streetcars eons to clear the intersection since they have to stop and proceed a million times to clear the tracks, so having on through lane for all traffic is a horrid idea.

Not only that, but shrinking the intersection will result in a backup of both cars and streetcars since the cars will have to wait for streetcars to service the stop before the rest of the traffic can clear the intersection, creating bump-outs close to the intersection is just bad planning.

Honestly the property at the southwest corner of the intersection needs to be expropriated to fully fix the configuration. As it stands right now, its a pinch point and a major visibility issue.

 

[nganmatthias]

4164 spotted running on 504 GREENWOOD & QUEEN this evening.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Concerning the plans to spit the 501 into two routes, the 501A and 501B.

Wouldn’t the 501B Long Branch to Riverside Loop be only a temporary route. Until that is, the Ontario Line (AKA Downtown Relief Line) goes into operation? Whenever that would be.

With the Ontario Line’s Leslieville Station or the Downtown Relief Line’s Carlaw Station (both located on Queen Street East), wouldn’t it become the new eastern “terminal” for the 501B? And would it be a on-street transfer or off-street paid-area transfer? For both the 501A and 501B?

That should put a wrinkle with Metrolinx plans.

 

[micheal_can]

Concerning the plans to spit the 501 into two routes, the 501A and 501B.

Wouldn’t the 501B Long Branch to Riverside Loop be only a temporary route. Until that is, the Ontario Line (AKA Downtown Relief Line) goes into operation? Whenever that would be.

With the Ontario Line’s Leslieville Station or the Downtown Relief Line’s Carlaw Station (both located on Queen Street East), wouldn’t it become the new eastern “terminal” for the 501B? And would it be a on-street transfer or off-street paid-area transfer? For both the 501A and 501B?

That should put a wrinkle with Metrolinx plans.

Maybe it is how things are done in the past, but why should a busy streetcar route be shut down when a subway that follows it is opened?

 

[Rainforest]

Concerning the plans to spit the 501 into two routes, the 501A and 501B.

Wouldn’t the 501B Long Branch to Riverside Loop be only a temporary route. Until that is, the Ontario Line (AKA Downtown Relief Line) goes into operation? Whenever that would be.

If it becomes a "temporary" route for 7 years, from 2020 till 2027 when the Ontario Line (possibly) goes into operation, then it will outlive quite a few other TTC routes.

With the Ontario Line’s Leslieville Station or the Downtown Relief Line’s Carlaw Station (both located on Queen Street East), wouldn’t it become the new eastern “terminal” for the 501B? And would it be a on-street transfer or off-street paid-area transfer? For both the 501A and 501B?

I think bigger changes will occur on the east side of Queen. It will make a lot of sense to run more frequent streetcar service east of Leslieville or east of Carlaw, as feeders from the beaches to OL, than in the central Queen where the streetcars will co-exist with the subway stations.

The west side of Queen will not see much relief from OL, at least from the first phase of OL, thus there will be fewer reasons to modify the western service.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Imagine if they did NOT remove the streetcar tracks on Yonge Street, Bloor Street, and Danforth Avenue. They would have the use of larger and longer vehicles to use as shuttles doing the subway shutdowns on weekends, and night streetcars as well.

From link. 1945 Streetcar System Map.

Notice the wye's at Scollard/Yonge and Price/Yonge.

From link.

What I'm worried about is the slow disappearance of trackwork that could be used for detours or short turns. I would like to see the return of wye's to allow for short turns instead of loops.