TTC to create five new dedicated bus lanes
Board votes to make masks mandatory for riders beginning July 2
The TTC is pushing ahead with plans to create dedicated bus lanes on as many as five busy routes by September in a bid to improve transit service during Toronto’s COVID-19 recovery. The agency’s board unanimously approved fast-tracking the dedicated lanes at a meeting Wednesday, during which they also voted to make it mandatory for riders to wear face masks on the system.
The TTC initially proposed creating the dedicated bus lanes as part of a five-year service plan published in December. But board member and Beaches-East York Coun. Brad Bradford put forward a motion to accelerate the plan, which he said would make bus service more efficient and help reduce transit crowding that poses a health risk amid the pandemic.
He noted that the proposed bus lanes would serve communities outside the downtown core that are home to large numbers of low-income workers in essential sectors like health care, food processing and manufacturing who have ntinued to take transit during the pandemic.
“Improving our bus network is critical to connect communities that have been historically underserved by transit, and remove those barriers to accessing employment and get the economy restarted,” Bradford said.
He described the bus lanes — which according to TTC staff could be set up using measures that include red paint in curb lanes and transit-priority traffic signals — as “quick, low-cost interventions that could greatly improve the lives of tens of thousands of travellers per day.” The proposed locations for the bus lanes are:
Jane Street from Eglinton Avenue to Steeles Avenue
Dufferin Street from Dufferin Gate to Wilson Avenue
Steeles Avenue West from Yonge Street to Pioneer Village Subway Station
Finch Avenue East from Yonge Street to McCowan Road
Eglinton Avenue East/Kingston Road/Morningside Ave from Kennedy Station to the University of Toronto Scarborough
TTC staff will consult with the city’s transportation department and report back next month on a plan to install the bus lanes, with the Eglinton route as the priority. Bradford acknowledged in remarks to the board that it may not be feasible to install all five by his motion’s target date of Sept. 1. Bradford said the intent of his motion was to get the bus lanes set up in time for the fall in case ridership spikes as people return to work and school, depending on provincial government decisions about reopening.
Together, prior to the pandemic, bus lines serving the five corridors carried nearly 250,000 people per day. Although system-wide TTC ridership has dropped to as low as 14 per cent of normal levels during the crisis, passengers are starting to return as the city opens up and physical distancing is already becoming impossible on much of the bus network. The agency’s five-year service plan estimated the lanes would cost $41.8 million over five years.
Mayor John Tory, who supports the bus lane plan, told reporters Wednesday the lanes likely couldn’t be installed using a “cookie cutter approach” and different routes might require different designs. He vowed the lanes would “be done right” and would be more than “paint on a street.”
“I want these to be effective. There’s no point in doing them if you’re not going to have them effective,” he said.