Item - 2025.TE20.40

The Toronto and East York Community Council forwards the Item to City Council without recommendation.

Transportation Services is requesting approval, on behalf of the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), to install transit priority measures (TPMs) to support the diversion routes associated with the closure of King Street East and Church Street intersection for watermain and streetcar track maintenance from May 2025 to August 2025. The 503 Kingston Road, 504 King, and 508 Lakeshore will be diverted due to the closure. The diversion will result in 25 streetcars in the peak hour, up from seven streetcars in existing conditions, using Queen Street east of Spadina Avenue to Broadview Avenue and the existing diversion associated with the Ontario Line construction. The Queen Street diversion uses tracks on Richmond Street and Adelaide Street, between York Street and Church Street to by-pass the closure of Queen Street from Bay Street to Victoria Street. Therefore, the existing 501 Queen service will also be impacted by the diversion due to the increased number of streetcars using this route. The proposed temporary transit priority measures aim to mitigate the impact on the 102,900 daily customers primarily on streetcars that travel along the diversion route. The measures in this report are being approved as temporary, and a long-term plan for parking and traffic regulation changes on Queen Street West and Queen Street East between Spadina Avenue and Broadview Avenue will be brought forward to Toronto and East York Community Council in the near future.

This report proposes a suite of transit priority measures to support the diversion including new parking restrictions on Queen Street, additional no stopping zones, increased duration of turning restrictions, restrictions on CaféTO curb lane installations and, implementing a short eastbound transit-only lane at the intersection of Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue to support streetcar and general traffic operations.

In addition to the proposed TPMs, the TTC will work with City staff to support the diversion using the Traffic Agent program and signal timing optimizations where possible

As TTC operates transit service on Broadview Avenue, Queen Street, Richmond Street, Adelaide Street, Church Street and York Street, City Council approval of this report is required.