36 Finch West (west of Keele)

 Hey pals! As a follow up to the previous post, we will know look at the 36 Finch West route west of Keele, which is the busier portion. This route operates with three branches:

• 36B Finch West: Finch West Stn to Humberwood
• 36D Finch West: Finch West Stn to Weston Rd and Milvan Dr
• 36F Finch West: Finch West Stn to Weston Rd and Milvan Dr via Fenmar

Just like the 36 east of Keele, through trips operate during some periods:

• 36A Finch West: to Finch Stn (internally 36J)

Note this doesn't ever affect the 36D and 36F branches. 

Let's get into it!

This post focusses on the 36, excluding the portion between the two stations.

The Route

Westbound buses on the 36B branch leave Finch West Station via Four Winds and Keele, before turning onto Finch. Buses travel direction along Finch until Humber College Blvd, where it heads south for a block, then west on Humberline and south on Humberwood, ending at Humberwood Loop, just south of Morning Star. Finch has a lot of single family homes that back onto it, with a number of apartments and townhomes between Sentinel and Jane. West of Jane is industrial, and near Weston and Rumike, it's an odd mix of industrial, single-family homes, and apartment towers. The industry disappears beyond Duncanwoods Park, with the single-family, townhome, and apartment mix lasting until Westmore, where some industrial crops up. The bus doesn't directly serve, but gets close to, Humber College at the western end. The portions of the route on Humberline and Humberwood are entirely single-family.

The 36D and 36F branches are rush-only branches that serve industrial areas in a one-way loop. The 36D follows the same routing at the 36A until Weston, where it loops via Weston, Toryork, Milvan, and Finch. The 36F does the same, but has a slightly larger loop via Weston, Fenmar, Ormont, Toryork, Milvan, and Finch.

Sights to See

• Black Creek Parkland
• Rowntree Mills Park
• Highfield Park
• Humber College
• Humberwood Park

Subway Connections

• Finch West

Frequency and Ridership

Buses run broken at Finch West on weekdays all day until 10pm, and on weekends during the daytime (early morning service is through). I'm keeping the 36A and 36D/F separate because the D/F are more or less extras. 36A service operates on weekdays every 4'30 during the morning peak, every 5' in the midday, every 6' during the afternoon peak, every 8' during the early evening, and every 10' during the late evening. On Saturdays, early morning service is every 10', every 6'15 in the morning, every 4'30 in the afternoon, every 8' during early evenings and every 9'15 during late evenings. On Sundays, early morning service is every 10', every 6'30 in the morning, every 5' in the afternoon, every 7' during early evenings and every 9'30 during late evenings. 

The 36D and 36F each operate every 18' during morning peaks, and every 25' during afternoon peaks. They are scheduled to provide a 9' and 12'30 headway on Milvan, respectively. 

Ridership is not clear, as the TTC only provides statistics for the whole route. 47,300 use the route on weekdays, 32,800 on Saturdays, and 23,700 on Sundays, which is very high. I would suggest that around 75% of the ridership of the whole route is west of Keele, but I cannot confirm this.

Thoughts

I don't have much to say about this route, as it seems to do its job fine. I do think that not serving Humber College directly is odd, but I also understand why it is done. In addition, I wish they would have extended this route to Westwood Square in Mississauga, as it is much more of an obvious terminus than Humberwood Loop.

Future

This route is nearly entirely to be replaced by Line 6 Finch West, set to open late 2022. I have included the map below. You can see the line will directly serve Humber College. I think this is a great plan, but some places may be slightly too long of a walk to a bus stop... we shall see. A few bus route changes are planned, all of which cover the portions of the route that are not being replaced with LRT, which is also mapped below. The 36F branch will be cancelled, and the 36D branch will be cleaved off into its own route, tentatively the 151 Milvan. In addition, the 37A Islington will be extended from Humberwood Loop to Humber College Station. This means Humberwood Loop will now be surplus.