12 Kingston Rd

 Hey! I took a day off because, y'know, life, but I'm back for a very confusing route. I mean, it's straightforward, but on a map, the 12 Kingston Rd is a mess. The route operates with four branches.:

• 12A Kingston Rd: Victoria Park Stn to Kennedy Stn via Variety Village and Brimley
• 12B Kingston Rd: Victoria Park Stn to Kennedy Stn via Brimley
• 12C Kingston Rd: Victoria Park Stn to St Clair and Barkdene Hills
• 12D Kingston Rd: Victoria Park Stn to UofT Scarborough

A fifth branch operates during afternoon rush, as a school trip from Neil McNeil:

• 12E Kingston Rd Express: to Victoria Park Stn

Lastly, a sixth(!) branch as the last eastbound trip of the night:

• 12G Kingston Rd: to Bingham

As you can tell by just the number of branches, it's not exact the easiest route to understand. Below is the map, but it is not much help at all.

The Route

I'm going to separate the branches here to make this easier to understand.

First is the 12A and 12B branches. These two branches never operate at the same time, so when the 12A is running the 12B is not, and vice versa. Buses leave Victoria Park Station via south on Victoria Park. Buses then travel northeast on Kingston Rd. The route branches at Birchmount. The 12A buses travel north on Birchmount and east on Danforth to serve Variety Village during its operating hours, whereas the 12B stays on Kingston. They combine back onto Kingston Rd after the merge, and keep going northeast on Kingston. They travel north on Brimley, then back west on Eglinton to Kennedy Stn. 

The 12C follows the same routing as the 12B, but loops via Brimley, Barkdene Hills, Brooklawn, St Clair, and Brimley. It does the loop in that order (counter-clockwise) before 9am; after 9am, it operates the loop clockwise.

The 12D operates the same route as the 12BC, but instead of turning onto Brimley, it provides a through service on Kingston Road. At Morningside, it turns north, and then heads east on Ellesmere. It does not directly serve the UofT Scarborough Bus Terminal, and instead loops via Ellesmere, Military Trail and Morningside. 

All buses heading back towards Victoria Park Station, upon reaching Kingston and Victoria Park, travel west on Kingston, north on Bingham, and east through Bingham loop before continuing towards the station.

Sights to See

• The Toronto Hunt
• Birchmount Stadium
• Variety Village
• Harrison Properties
• Rosetta McClain Gardens
• McCowan District Park Trail
• St Augustine's Seminary
• Cathedral Bluffs Park
• Gates Gully
• Bellamy Ravine
• Morningside Park
• Centennial College Morningside Campus
• University of Toronto Scarborough Campus
• Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre

Subway Connections

• Victoria Park
• Kennedy

Commuter Rail Connections

• Guildwood
• Kennedy

Frequency and Ridership

The branches that operate are dependent on the time of the week, so bear with me. 

During the weekday morning peak, the 12A operates every 20', as does the 12C, providing a 10-minute combined service. The 12D also operates at this time, every 27'. The average headway is every 7'18... sure. During the midday, the 12A and 12C operate every 25' each, combining to every 12'30. In the afternoon peak, the 12A and 12C operate every 23' each, combining to every 11'30. The 12D operates during this period every 30', providing an average headway of every 8'19. In the early evening, the 12A and 12C each operate every 20', combining to every 10'. In the late evening, due to Variety Village being closed, the 12B operates, every 23'.

On weekend daytimes, the 12A and 12B each operate every 30', combining to every 15'. On weekday early evenings, the 12B operates every 17', and during the late evening every 22'.

Are you confused yet? In case it isn't clear, some sections of the route have more frequent service during evenings and on weekends than they do on the weekday. In particular, Brimley has midday  service of every 25', whereas weekend daytime service is every 15' (this doesn't even include the 175 bus that operates on weekends during the summer).

Anyways, ridership. On weekdays, 10,200 people take this route, dropping to 5,800 on Saturdays and 4,300 on Sundays. Not too bad.

Thoughts

At this point, you know what I'm going to say. The route is confusing as hell. Oh, you need to get to Variety Village? 12A. You need to get off at Glen Everest? 12B, 12C or 12D. Brimley? 12A or 12B. It's a bit of a mess. I will say though, that the route does its job pretty well, evident in ridership. The 12B itself is probably the most important branch as its the simplest. I think the 12A takes way too long to get to Variety Village, especially considering its the only route that does. I'm not opposed to a new route that operates from Victoria Park Station to Barkdene Hills via Variety Village, with the 12B being the only branch left (besides the 12D of course), unless they want a short-turn branch that doesn't travel all the way to Kennedy Stn. Beside St John Henry Newman Catholic School, at Brimley and Barkdene Hills, is a small loop... if the TTC bought this and took my suggestion, bidirectional service could be provided on Barkdene Hills at all times, including weekends. 

The 12D is good beside it provides service for the length of Kingston, but it is very infrequent and thus has low ridership. It's far faster to take a mainline route and just transfer. I noticed last year a large number of Neil McNeil students use this bus to get to school, so maybe its worth keeping, but still...

A long-standing proposition is to reinstall the tracks on Kingston from Bingham to Birchmount and provide through streetcar service on the 502/503. I personally am opposed to this. This is very much situated for the downtown commuter, which, post-COVID, may not be such a large amount of overall commuters. Passengers on Kingston where the track would be built would have to transfer to another bus before reaching the subway, and it doesn't provide a logical terminal for the 12s coming from Kennedy.

One last thing: this route has a weird shape that isn't entirely clear with the map above. A 12A, 12B or 12C has to operate north, south, east and west on one trip. This is due to the curvature of the lake, and also how southwestern Scarborough services are oriented more for the subway than they are for through trips on corridors, which honestly makes sense for this stretch of the city. 

from Jelo Gutierrez Cantos

The Future

The only reasonable change I see for this route is making the 12D operate outside of rush, because its a nice connection.