A major downtown Toronto intersection will be shutdown as of next week for the remainder of the summer, leading to the diversion of three TTC streetcars.
The City will be replacing the watermains at King and Church streets as of May 11 and the TTC will also be replace the tracks and updating critical infrastructure at the same time.
As a result, the 503 Kingston, the 504 King and the 508 Lakeshore streetcar routes will be diverting in both directions.
There will be no streetcar service on King St. between River St. and Spadina Ave and those travelling on King St. can transfer to a 504/304 King replacement bus, which will operate between Broadview Ave. and Gerrard St E. to Bathurst St., as well as in the Distillery District.
Meanwhile, the 503/303 Kingston Rd, 504/304 King and 508 Lake Shore will all operate on Queen, via Church Street, Richmond Street, Adelaide Street and York Street., and return to King on Spadina Ave.
The 503 Kingston Rd will be extended and will operate between Dufferin Gate and Bingham Loop.
The diversions are expected to affect 100,000 daily streetcar users with travel times estimated to be between five to 10 minutes longer depending on the destination.
“For our customers, it will mean inconvenience. We can’t sugar coat that,” said TTC spokesperson Stuart Green. “The good news is the City of Toronto has been working very closely with us so they have given parking restrictions on Queen during some of the busiest times. Traffic wardens [will be] in place to help direct traffic, keep traffic moving.”
However, some transit advocates can already predict the chaos. Cameron McLeod with CodeRedTO, said transit on Queen is already being diverted at Bay Street for Ontario Line construction and the influx of streetcars will be challenging.
“There are times when there are 20 or 30 streetcars travelling on Queen Street. And then there could be another 20 to 30 streetcars added from all of these other routes …The big challenge is that normally the streetcars are spread out across the actual route, but when there’s a slowdown, when there’s congestion, they start to bunch up.”
The TTC says it will be monitoring the situation very closely and will make adjustments as they go. These diversion are slated to last until early September.
