Anyone who’s taken a streetcar across King Street can attest to the route’s futility as a time-saving method of transportation.
To ease the congestion – King Street’s 504 streetcar moves around 65,000 passengers each weekday – the TTC has proposed a new route that will run between the Distillery District and Liberty Village.
It’ll go by the name 514 Cherry and begin operating on June 19 if the transit agency’s board approves it at a meeting next week. The 504 route’s service will remain unchanged.
Though having more streetcars running essentially the same route will lighten the load of passengers to an extent, some of the east-west corridor’s main challenges – like not having a dedicated streetcar lane and cars being allowed to park on the right – remain.
The new 514 route will operate all day, every day according to the TTC report, with a peak-period frequency of every eight to nine minutes. Any more frequent and trains will literally be stacked atop one another as opposed to snuggling comfortably just metres apart as they currently are.
For now, it appears as though the new route will help in offering more streetcar space for passengers without actually making their journey more efficient.
“A lot’s happening in the area… a lot more people are going to be around to use it,” said one rider.
Precisely the problem.
[ad_bb1]