Public Transit Challenges in CityPlace and Fort York

 On this blog, I rarely speak about downtown transit issues. This is for a few reasons: there are lots of other people doing it, and in terms of the basics of providing transit service, downtown has a solid grid shape. This works well for transit, except for the areas to the southwest of Union Station.

In this blog post, I will outline the basics of this area, outline its recent transit history, and what I think the next steps should be.

The Area

The area in question is roughly defined as anything bounded by Lake Shore, Strachan, King, and York. This area is high-density, and there are significant development pressures here. Neighbourhoods include CityPlace and Fort York. In addition, numerous attractions can be found here, including the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, and Fort York.

In this block, there is east-west transit service along King, as well as along Queens Quay, just south of Lake Shore Boulevard. There is north-south transit on Bathurst, Spadina, and via Line 1 from Union (which is at the far eastern edge). As such, this means there is a very large gap in east-west transit service between King and Queens Quay, and there is also no north south service along Strachan that crosses south of the Gardiner.

In practice however, it means that just the streetcars on Spadina (510), and Bathurst (511) are useful for accessing this area, to varying degrees of effectiveness. The Gardiner is a barrier from Queens Quay for much of the area, and the rail corridor means that there are minimal crossings of King. As such, this area of 2 square kilometres is served by two north-sound corridors, with no super convenient link to Union Station, Canada's busiest transit station (I know you can take the 510A south and travel to Union, but this avoids most of the destinations along the way, and the 510A does not run all the time).

Looking at the map, the Fort York/Bremner corridor, as well as Front Street, appear to be good options for east-west transit service. However, in past attempts along this corridor, success has been very mixed.

Recent Transit History

In 2016, TTC introduced the new 121 Fort York-Esplanade route, providing a new through service at Union Station. Through the area identified for this blog post, buses ran via Fort York, Bremner, Navy Wharf, Blue Jays Way, and Front. The only major change in routing came in 2019, when buses were formally detoured via Spadina and Front to avoid congestion near the Rogers Centre during the summer months.

A map of the 121, from 2016-2021.

The attempt at avoiding congestion was kind of funny for me, as this route could simply not avoid congestion. The densities in CityPlace meant that there was heavy pedestrian traffic, and vehicular traffic crawled. The area around the Rogers Centre is rife with Ubers and taxis doing drop-offs and pick-ups. This is not even to mentioned Front Street, which crawls at any hour of the day.

The impact here was significant, as customers on the Esplanade got screwed over by the constant delays on the Fort York side. Ridership numbers fell heavily, as there was little benefit for Esplanade customers to wait for relatively short trips. It was far faster to walk on the Fort York portion, so the bus never had more than a handful of people on it.

The route was modified significantly in 2021. The route became the 121 Esplanade-River, with service running east of Union Station, serving new developments in the Canary District and along River Street. The Fort York portion was not given an alternative service, as it just wasn't worthwhile.

A map of the new 121, when it was implemented in 2021.

I want to point out that the City had long proposed to built a streetcar from Union Station along Bremner to Strachan. The proposal aimed to facilitate travel to the Rogers Centre and CN Tower, and to the newer developments in CityPlace, as the first phase of a Waterfront LRT. While the roughed-in tunnel below Scotiabank Arena is fine, the proposed portal exit close to York or Simcoe has likely been compromised by the foundations of some recent condo developments.

Future Steps

Unfortunately, any attempt at a bus route here would be in vain, as the traffic is just not worth dealing with. I argue that building a streetcar route in a right-of-way, like on Spadina or St Clair, is the only way to go, building off of the proposal for the Bremner route of years past. I mapped a brief concept below that offers a good east-west connection from Union Station, extending through Liberty Village, another neighbourhood with similar challenges. This line could mix on-street right-of-ways with both underground and elevated portions. 

While the line would be expensive, it would need to be considered should we want to provide a good transit grid to these high-growth areas. Sadly, I don't see this happening.