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503 Kingston Rd

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503 Kingston Rd
A 503 Kingston Rd car proceeds east along
King Street, bound for Victoria Park Avenue
Overview
LocaleToronto, Ontario
Termini
Stations
WebsiteOfficial route page
Service
TypeStreetcar route
SystemToronto streetcar system
Route number503 (303 Kingston Rd during overnight periods)
Operator(s)Toronto Transit Commission
Rolling stockFlexity Outlook
Daily ridership9,417 (2022, weekdays)[1]
Technical
Line length9.8 km (6.1 mi)[2]
Track gauge4 ft 10+7⁄8 in (1,495 mm)
Electrification600 V DC overhead
Route map

Legend
 York Street
Union Station
 6   6A 
King Station
 97B 
Victoria Street
Church Street
Jarvis Street
Sherbourne Street
 75 
 Ontario Street
Parliament Street
 65 
 Trinity Street
Sackville Street
Sumach Street
501 & 502 to downtown
 King Street East
River Street
 501   502 
CN Kingston sub.
CP Bala sub.
Don River
 Don Valley Parkway
Carroll Street
Broadview Avenue
 504 
 ↓ Saulter Street/Boulton Avenue ↑
CN Lakeshore sub.
 Empire Avenue
↓ Booth Avenue
Logan Avenue
Carlaw Avenue
 72 
 Pape Avenue
 72 
 ↓ Caroline Avenue/Brooklyn Avenue ↑
Jones Avenue
 83 
 Leslie Street
↓ Laing Street/Alton Avenue ↑
Greenwood Avenue
 31 
Russell Carhouse
Connaught Avenue
↓ Woodward Avenue/Kent Road ↑
Coxwell Avenue
 22 
 ↓ Eastern Avenue/Queen Street ↑
 22B   501 
 Woodbine Loop
501 to Neville
 ↓ Dixon Avenue/Dundas Street East ↑
Columbine Avenue
Rainsford Road
Woodbine Avenue
 92 
 Elmer Avenue
↓ Waverly Road/Brookside Drive ↑
Lee Avenue
Main Street (Southwood Drive)
 64 
 Walter Street
Glen Manor Drive
St. John Church
Malvern Avenue
Beech Avenue
Scarborough Road
Bingham Avenue
Victoria Park Avenue
Bingham Loop
 12   22A   502 
 Transfer stop
Sunday-only stop
Carhouse
Route:
Connection  00  Terminus  00 
This diagram:

The 503 Kingston Rd (303 Kingston Rd during overnight periods) is an east–west Toronto streetcar route in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission. The 503 Kingston Rd travels on a route to the downtown financial district from the Bingham Loop along Kingston Road and shares much of its track with the 501 Queen and 504 King. Originally a rush-hour service, the route was upgraded in September 2019 to run weekdays excluding evenings after the consolidation of 502 Downtowner service into this route.[3] Route 503 in combination with overnight route 303 provide combined 24-hour service.[4]

Route

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Starting at the Bingham Loop on Victoria Park Avenue, the 503 runs southwest on Kingston Road then turns west along Queen Street. At the Queen Street Viaduct bridging the Don River, it then turns southwest along King Street, enters the King Street Transit Priority Corridor but leaves it by running south of King Street via Church, Wellington and York Streets. In the vicinity of St. Andrew station, the 503 returns eastbound on King Street.[5]

Overnight, this route operates with streetcars as 303 Kingston Rd, a part of the Blue Night Network, with a 30-minute frequency. The eastern terminal of both routes 303 and 503 is Bingham Loop, but the western terminals are different: Roncesvalles Avenue for route 303[4] and York Street for route 503.[6]

History

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See also: 502 Downtowner § History

Two streetcar routes, 503 Kingston Rd and 502 Downtowner, serve Kingston Road. Route 502 Downtowner was originally named "Kingston Rd" while 503 Kingston Rd was originally named "Kingston Rd Tripper". The Kingston Rd route (today's 502 Downtowner) ran from the McCaul Loop to the Birchmount Loop until 1954 when it was cut back to the Bingham Loop.[7][8] By 1968, the rush-hour route Kingston Rd Tripper (today's 503 Kingston Rd) was appearing in TTC Ride Guides.[9] "Tripper" here means a rush-hour variant of a base route which in this case was the Kingston Rd route (today's 502 Downtowner).[10][11]

In 1973, the Kingston Rd route was renamed to "Downtowner" (today's 502 Downtowner) with a route extension to Bathurst station that was revoked in 1984. Also in 1973, with the renaming of "Kingston Rd" to "Downtowner", the Kingston Rd Tripper became simply "Kingston Rd" and ultimately the 503 Kingston Rd.[10]

From June 19, 2017, to October 6, 2024, streetcars on route 503 terminated at Spadina Avenue (Charlotte Loop) as the western terminal instead of York Street due to construction on Wellington Street.[12][6] However, when there was temporary bus substitution, 503 replacement buses would operate only to York Street.[13][14][15]

From July 31, 2017, to February 16, 2018, buses replaced streetcars on the 503 Kingston Rd route due to a shortage of streetcars resulting from the late delivery of the Bombardier Flexity Outlook streetcars and the declining reliability of the older CLRV fleet.[16]

On February 20, 2018, streetcars returned to route 503 Kingston Rd. However, the roles of routes 502 Downtowner and 503 Kingston Rd were reversed. Until that date, route 502 provided base workday service supplemented by route 503 in the rush hours. Since that date, route 503 provided base service while route 502 provided rush-hour-only service. These changes were originally to support the King Street Pilot Project,[17] which resulted in increased ridership along downtown King Street.[18] However, effective September 2, these changes were reversed, with 503 Kingston Rd operating only in the rush hours.[19] A second reversal occurred on September 3, 2019, when the 502 Downtowner service was suspended to accommodate some construction projects and replaced with the 503 Kingston Rd service, which operated weekdays excluding evenings instead of just during rush hours.[3][20] The construction projects ended in November 2019; however, the consolidation of Kingston Road service into 503 Kingston Rd remained in effect.[21]

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a loss of ridership on the TTC. As a result, on March 24, the TTC shortened the 503 Kingston Rd route to run only along Kingston Road between Bingham Loop and Woodbine Loop.[22] Then, effective May 11, the 22A Coxwell bus replaced the remainder of the 503 route full-time[23][24] On June 22, streetcar service returned to route 503 Kingston Rd using the low-floor, accessible Flexity Outlook streetcars.[25]

Starting November 21, 2022, the TTC scheduled buses to replace streetcars on the route to allow upgrades to the overhead wires for pantograph operation.[26]

On May 7, 2023, route 503 Kingston Rd was suspended and replaced partially and temporarily with a diversion of the 505 Dundas streetcar. Unlike the 503 route, the 505 diversion would serve Kingston Road both day and evening, seven days per week. From Dundas Street, the 505 streetcar would divert south on Broadview Avenue, east on Queen Street and Kingston Road, terminating at Bingham Loop.[27] The reason for the 505 diversion was the rebuilding of the streetcar loop at Broadview station and construction work on Broadview Avenue north of Gerrard Street.[28] On July 4, the TTC reinstated the 503 route using replacement buses running between Bingham Loop and York street until 8:00 pm daily. After 8:00 pm, the 505 Dundas streetcar would replace the 503 bus along Kingston Road.[29] Effective July 30, 503 buses replaced 505 streetcars in the evening along Kingston Road with the result that the 503 route would provide service all day and all evening, 7 days per week between Bingham Loop and York Street.[30]

On October 8, 2023, streetcars replaced buses on route 503, operating again to Spadina Avenue (Charlotte Loop). Although the downtown loop via Church, Wellington and York Streets opened on the same day, the TTC temporarily assigned a diversion of the 501 Queen route to this loop instead of the 503.[31] On October 6, 2024, 503 streetcars reverted to their original western terminal at York Street.[6]

Effective September 1, 2024, the TTC created overnight route 303 Kingston Rd, running between Victoria Park Avenue (Bingham Loop) and Roncesvalles Avenue, thus providing 24-hour service on Kingston Road west of Victoria Park Avenue.[4]

Sites along the line

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From east to west:

References

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  1. ^ "Weekday boardings and service information for surface routes (bus and streetcar), 2022" (PDF). Toronto Transit Commission. 2022. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 11, 2024.
  2. ^ "Service Summary - March 29, 2020 to May 9, 2020" (PDF). Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 21, 2020. 2020 summary shows streetcar route lengths prior to the diversions of 2021–2023.
  3. ^ a b "503 Kingston Rd - Route update". TTC. Archived from the original on August 31, 2019. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c "TTC service adjustments". Toronto Transit Commission. September 1, 2024. Archived from the original on August 28, 2024.
  5. ^ "503 Kingston Rd". Toronto Transit Commission. February 12, 2018. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
  6. ^ a b c "Streetcar Service Changes". Toronto Transit Commission. Retrieved October 6, 2024.
  7. ^ "TTC System Map - September 1, 1938". Toronto Transportation Commission. September 1, 1938. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  8. ^ "TTC System Map - July 1, 1954". Toronto Transit Commission. July 1, 1954. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  9. ^ "TTC Ride Guide - May 11, 1968". Toronto Transit Commission. May 11, 1968. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  10. ^ a b Bow, James (January 17, 2018). "Route 502 And 503 - The Kingston Road Streetcars". Transit Toronto. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  11. ^ "TTC System Maps". Transit Toronto. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  12. ^ "Service Summary - June 18, 2017 to July 29, 2017" (PDF). Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 8, 2017.
  13. ^ "Service Summary - January 3, 2016 to February 13, 2016" (PDF). Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 10, 2022.
  14. ^ "Accessible streetcar service updates". ttc.ca. Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original on January 5, 2019. Retrieved January 4, 2019.
  15. ^ "TTC service improvements and changes". ttc.ca. Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original on January 5, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  16. ^ "Accessible streetcar service updates". Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original on January 14, 2018. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  17. ^ "503 Kingston Rd - Service change - King Street Transit Pilot". Toronto Transit Commission. February 19, 2018. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018.
  18. ^ Moore, Oliver (January 11, 2018). "Toronto's King streetcar sees 'spectacular' rise in ridership". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  19. ^ "TTC service improvements and changes". Toronto Transit Commission. September 2, 2018. Archived from the original on August 30, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  20. ^ "Editorial – September Board Period Service Changes". The Coupler. Toronto Transit Commission. July 31, 2019. Archived from the original on September 1, 2019. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  21. ^ "Editorial – November Board Period Service Changes". The Coupler. Toronto Transit Commission. October 27, 2019. Archived from the original on November 15, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  22. ^ "Coronavirus update". Toronto Transit Commission. April 20, 2020. Archived from the original on April 9, 2020. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  23. ^ "Bingham Loop". Toronto Transit Commission. May 10, 2020. Archived from the original on May 10, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  24. ^ Munro, Steve (May 3, 2020). "TTC responds to coronavirus with historic service cuts". Now. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  25. ^ "Seasonal service changes and improvements". Toronto Transit Commission. June 18, 2020. Archived from the original on June 20, 2020. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
  26. ^ "Kingston Rd–Bus replacement and routing change – Kingston Road overhead upgrades". Toronto Transit Commission. November 21, 2022. Archived from the original on November 19, 2022.
  27. ^ "503Kingston Rd–Temporary route change". Toronto Transit Commission. May 7, 2023. Archived from the original on May 7, 2023.
  28. ^ "Track Renewal and Expansion – Broadview Station". Toronto Transit Commission. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  29. ^ "Streetcar Service Changes effective July 4". Toronto Transit Commission. July 4, 2023. Archived from the original on July 4, 2023.
  30. ^ "503Kingston Rd–Service reinstated". Toronto Transit Commission. July 30, 2023. Archived from the original on July 31, 2023.
  31. ^ "October (2023) service adjustments". Toronto Transit Commission. October 8, 2023. Archived from the original on October 3, 2023. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
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