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Toronto Buses and Trolley Buses

Buses service in Toronto started in 1921, but it was not until the creation of the TTC did buses become a part of public transit. There were a few independent bus operators continued to provide inter-urban bus services:

  • Hollinger Bus Lines (East York 1921-1954)
  • Danforth Bus Lines (North Toronto-King City 1926-1954)
  • West York Coach Lines (York 1946- 1954)
  • Roseland Bus Lines (North York 1925-1954)

Today, the bus routes are the bulk of the TTC routes. The TTC also operates on contract to York Regional Transit for north-south service on select routes in York Region.

In addition, the TTC also connects to the Pearson International Airport:

  • 58A Lawrence West – Pearson-Lawrence West Station
  • 192 Airport Rocket – Pearson-Kipling Station
  • 307 Eglinton West  – Pearson-Eglinton Station
  • 300A Bloor Danforth – Pearson-Yonge&Bloor-Danforth&Warden

Table of contents

Roster

Here is a list of historic and current buses used by the TTC:

Today, the TTC operates over 1500 buses.

Facilities

Some of Toronto's current bus fleet use are stored outdoors and not in garages. These buses have a heat exchangers and auxiliary heating elements, know as UWE, that allow them to be started even on the coldest day in the winter.

Garages using UWE:

  • Eglinton/Comstock
  • Birchmount

List of bus garages:

  • Arrow Road Garage
  • Birchmount Garage
  • New Eglinton (Comstock) Garage
  • Lakeshore Garage
  • Malvern Garage
  • Queensway Garage
  • Wilson Garage

Former garages:

  • Danforth Garage
  • Davenport Garage
  • Old Eglinton Garage
  • Lansdowne Garage
  • Parkdale Garage

Source: The TTC's Bus Properties http://transit.toronto.on.ca/bus/8300.shtml

Trolley bus lines

The TTC first experimented with trolley buses from 1922 to 1925 on an early form of the Mount Pleasant route. The experiment was ended because demand on the route was too high, and it was converted to streetcars.

Between 1947 and 1954, the TTC acquired new trolley buses and converted several streetcar routes to use them, adding a second overhead wire for two-pole operation; new trolley bus routes were also introduced. But the last purchase of trolley buses was around 1970, and subsequent route changes were only to redeploy the existing fleet. Also around 1970, the entire trolley bus fleet was rebuilt with new bodies. When these reached the end of their working lives in the 1990s, they were temporarily augmented by trolley buses leased from Edmonton. But by now the TTC had come to feel that trolley buses were too inflexible operationally, and that it was not cost-effective to maintain a small fleet separate from the ordinary buses, so the decision was made to shut them down. Between 1991 and 1993 all routes were converted to buses, and a few years later the overhead wires were taken down.

At this time the TTC was experimenting with compressed natural gas buses, and they hoped that these would form a more environmentally friendly replacement for the trolley buses than standard diesel buses; but the CNG buses proved unsatisfactory and were soon withdrawn.

Because of the piecemeal way that TTC routes were converted to trolley buses, they never formed a coherent or even a connected network. In 1991 there was one cluster of 6 routes centered in the area west and northwest of downtown, and a separate group of 3 routes in the North Toronto neighborhood.The two areas used different bus garages, and vehicles could be transferred between the two areas only by towing. Further, the endpoints of each route were generally unchanged from when it had first been operated by trolley buses, due to the cost of erecting overhead; several of the routes were extended soon after the trolleybuses were removed from them.

Routes

Routes served by trolley buses:

  • 4 Annette
  • 6 Bay
  • 40 Junction
  • 47 Lansdowne
  • 61 Nortown/Nortown West
  • 63 Ossington
  • 74 Mount Pleasant
  • 89 Weston Road
  • 97 Yonge
  • 103 Nortown East

Here is a list of trolley vehicle types:

  • Packard/Canadian Brills ED
  • Canadian Car Foundry T44-T1, T44-T2, T44-T3 and TC48-T5
  • Marmon-Herrington TC48-T5
  • Western Flyer E700A-T8
  • GM T6H 53XX-T9/Brown Boveri Buses – leased from Edmonton Transit

Facilities

Trolleybus Garages:

  • Eglinton Garage
  • Lansdowne Garage
  • Wade Yard

Source: The Garage http://transit.toronto.on.ca/trolleybus/9300.shtml

Loops

Most TTC bus routes terminate at stations or loop around side streets at the other end. Here are some of the loops still used:

  • Albion Road west of Humberline Drive
  • Avenue Road and Bombay Avenue – loop replaced with wider Avenue Road
  • Bayview Avenue and Steeles Avenue East: northwest corner
  • Brimley Road and Steeles Avenue East – northeast corner
  • Burnhamthorpe Road east of Mill Road
  • Commissioner Street west of Leslie Street
  • Coxwell Avenue and Queen Street East (Woodbine Beach Park)
  • Doncliffe Drive and Mount Pleasant Road
  • Dufferin Street and Finch Avenue West
  • Eglinton Avenue West west of Renforth Drive
  • Esma Park Drive and Steeles Avenue East
  • Finch Avenue East east of Don Mills Road (Seneca College Newnham Campus
  • Glen Echo Loop (Glen Echo Road and Yonge Street) – redeveloped
  • Humberwood Blvd and Humberline Drive
  • Keele Street and Weston: trolley bus
  • Keele Street and McNaughton Road
  • Kipling Avenue and Steeles Avenue West: west of Kipling next to Esso station on northwest side
  • Kipling Avenue and Humber College Lakeshore Campus
  • Jane Loop (Jane Street and Bloor Street West) – now Jane Subway station
  • Lansing (Sheppard) Loop (Sheppard Avenue and Yonge Street)
  • Lawrence Avenue East east of East Avenue
  • Lawrence Avenue East east of Starspray Blvd
  • Long Branch Loop (Brown's Line and Lakeshore Blvd W)
  • Luttrell Loop (Luttrell Avenue and Danforth Avenue east of Dawes Road) – redeveloped
  • Markham Road and Major Mackenzie Drive
  • McCowan Road and Steeles Avenue East – northeast corner, across of Petro Canada

station

  • Middlefield Road and Steeles Avenue East – northeast corner
  • Morningside Avenue and Old Finch Avenue
  • Newton Drive and Bayview Avenue – replaced by Bayview-Steeles loop
  • Oak Street and Weston Road – redeveloped
  • Rathburn Road and Mill Road (Centennial Park)
  • Steeles Avenue West west of Martin Grove Road
  • Steeles Avenue West west of Islington Avenue
  • Steeles Avenue East between Yonge Street and Dumont Avenue
  • St Clair Avenue West and Lansdowne Avenue
  • St Clair Avenue West and Old Weston Road
  • Rogers Road and Weston Road (Avon Loop)
  • Warden Avenue and Steeles Avenue East: northwest side next to Warden Centre
  • Weston Road and Major Mackenzie Drive
  • Yonge Street and Steeles Avenue East: east of Yonge, south side of Steeles
  • York University Common

Shelters

Prior to the 1980s, the bus shelters on TTC routes were installed and maintained by the TTC and the city. A number of shelters are installed by Viacom Outdoor (formerly Mediacomm and TDI) and formerly by Transad (now Transad Outdoor Media). In addition, Viacom is responsible for all other forms of advertising on the TTC.

References







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