City Council has voted to approve dedicated bus and streetcar lanes on two of the city’s busiest downtown routes.
Following a lengthy debate at City Hall on Wednesday, council voted 18-5 and 20-3 in favour of a plan to install transit-priority lanes on Bathurst and Dufferin streets from Bloor Street West down to Lake Shore Boulevard.
The plan initially called for the lanes to extend up to Eglinton Avenue but was scaled back following opposition from resident groups and business owners along the respective routes.
The curbside lanes on Dufferin Street will be converted to priority bus lanes while on Bathurst Street, the centre lanes will be converted to priority streetcar lanes.
The cost to implement the new transit priority lanes will be about $8 million and involve the removal of 277 parking spaces along with 21 pay-and-display machines along Bathurst, while 75 parking spaces and 10 pay-and-display machines would be lost along Dufferin.
City staff say more than 15,000 riders ride the 511 Bathurst Streetcar daily, while more than 40,000 passengers ride the 29 Dufferin and 929 Dufferin Express buses every day. The changes would see transit trip times improve by 13 per cent and 29 per cent, respectively, on those routes.
“Dedicated bus lanes mean faster, better and more reliable services,” said Mayor Olivia Chow.
A few councillors, though, expressed strong opposition to putting priority bus lanes on busy downtown streets.
“You can’t just fold all of the traffic that’s in two lanes into one lane and expect there not to be a column of congested traffic, an entire column of traffic in one,” said Coun. Stephen Holyday.
“They work well in Scarborough where you don’t have a lot of lanes to turn or streets you’re going to turn onto,” added Coun. Jon Burnside.
Coun. Brad Bradford’s motion to make the lanes temporary from May 1, 2026, until July 31, 2026, failed by a vote of 17-6.
“I don’t think paint on the road is the type of legacy infrastructure that people were expecting for the World Cup,” said Bradford.
City staff have also been directed to provide quarterly updates on various data points for two years following the installation of the lanes.
Construction of the new lanes is expected to begin in the fall, and the plan is to have them ready in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when it’s estimated that 300,000 fans will descend on the city for six scheduled games.
Shauna Hunt contributed to this report
