24 Victoria Park

Hi friends! Today's route is the 24 Victoria Park, which operates with two branches:

• 24A Victoria Park: Victoria Park Stn to Steeles
• 24B Victoria Park: Victoria Park Stn to Don Mills Stn via Consumers Rd

Some northbound early morning and southbound late night trips are extended:

• 24 Victoria Park: Kingston Rd to Steeles

The 924 Victoria Park Express provides limited-stop service, duplicating the 24A branch during peak periods. It is temporarily suspended.

This is my local route! So I have a lot of knowledge about this route specifically. This route provides the majority of the western boundary of Scarborough.

The Route

Northbound buses travel from Victoria Park Station via Victoria Park. After crossing the Dentonia Golf Course, the route services low-density areas. The route up until Eglinton is predominately low-density, but there are a number of higher-density sites: Dawes, Parma Court, Southmead, and Eglinton itself. Eglinton has many big-box stores, including at the Golden Mile Shopping Centre. One thing about this route is that almost every major intersection until Sheppard has a grocery store, so commercial uses are common here.

The next stretch of the route, until Lawrence, is almost entirely low-rise apartments, with a few high-rises closer to Lawrence. The route up until Highway 401 is a mix of single-family homes, townhomes, and apartment blocks. I personally find that they mix pretty well. North of the 401 is commercial on the east side (and single-family homes behind) with the Consumers Road area and its many office buildings to the west. The B branches off here, but we will follow the A for now. North of Sheppard, and until McNicoll, the route is almost entirely single-family homes, with some apartment buildings at Finch and a few townhomes around Morecambe. North of McNicoll is entirely an industrial area. Buses turn back at an off-street loop just north of Steeles.

The B branch operates through the Consumers Road area via Consumers, Yorkland Blvd, Yorkland Road, and Consumers. Buses then use Sheppard to provide additional service on the way to Don Mills Station through a mainly residential area with high-rises. This branch only operates on weekday daytimes, service during middays, weekday evenings and Saturday daytime and early evening is provided by the 167A Pharmacy North.

Sights to See

• Dentonia Golf Course
• Taylor Creek Park
• Taylor Creek Trail
• Eglinton Square
• the Meadoway
• Parkway Mall
• Consumers Rd Employment Area

Subway Connections

• Victoria Park
• Don Mills

Frequency and Ridership

The current schedule is affected by pandemic extras, which means that headways are uneven during some periods. During morning peak periods, each branch operates around every 9'30, with a combined headway of every 4'45. Midday service on the A is every 10', with B service being every 11', combining to an average of every 5'15. Afternoon peak service sees 9'30 headway on the A branch, with 9'45 service on the B branch combining 4'50. Early evening service is every 5'18, and late evening is every 9'30.

Saturday headways range from every 7'20 to every 9'30, and Sunday headway ranges from every 7' to 10'. As a result, this route is part of the Ten-Minute Network.

During the peaks, due to the cancellation of the 924 Victoria Park Express, and many of the extras being on the 24B branch there is a large reduction in service to Steeles that has not been corrected. When the 924 returns, this will likely be adjusted.

Ridership on this route is very high, and the Victoria Park corridor (including the 924) is top twenty on the TTC. 23,000 people take this route on weekdays, 17,400 on Saturdays, and 14,000 on Sundays. Please not that this does not include ridership along Consumers Road, which is provided by the 167A Pharmacy North off-peak.

Thoughts

This is my local route, so I have a lot of experience with it. Personally, I think the route is fine, but has some reliability issues. I have two main comments. Firstly, Saturday service being every 7'20 is way too infrequent. From experience, Saturday is the worst time to take the bus outside of afternoon peak, and so headway should be every 5' (12 buses an hour). Secondly, sometimes I think the 67 Pharmacy should operate down Consumers, because that route just ends north of Ellesmere, meaning connections to routes north of the 401 is next to impossible.

Future

Hopefully, by February, the 924 will return. In addition, a connection to Line 5 Eglinton will open in 2022, named O'Connor (I hate this name).