These are Toronto’s newest bus lanes. Located in Scarborough, these lanes are part of the
RapidTO program, which will see priority bus lanes implemented on five Toronto corridors
over the next couple of years. Today, we’ll be exploring the first of these lanes, which run
along Eglinton Avenue East, Kingston Road, and Morningside Avenue, servicing five TTC bus routes.
I’m Zach with Vanishing Underground, and let's take a look.
The Eglinton East Priority Bus Lanes are the first RapidTO corridor to be implemented in Toronto.
Running 8.5 kilometres from the intersection of Morningside Avenue and Ellesmere Road south and
west to Eglinton Avenue and Brimley Road, these dedicated lanes service five TTC bus routes,
with an initial cost of $7.8 million. The lanes were installed through the month of October 2020,
with red paint being applied to the curb lanes along the corridor, and signage being altered
to indicate the reserved lane. Along Eglinton Avenue East, the lanes replace the previous
high-occupancy vehicle lanes, which had operated in rush hours only for buses, taxis, bikes,
and vehicles with two or more passengers. The new lanes are reserved exclusively for TTC buses,
Wheel-Trans buses, and bicycles, and are in effect 24 hours daily, increasing their effectiveness.
No parking was impacted by the installation of the lanes, and drivers are still able to use the
lanes to access driveways along the corridor, and to make right-hand turns at intersections.
No special transit signals exist on the corridor,
requiring buses to leave the dedicated lanes when making the left hand turn onto Morningside.
In order to speed up service, various bus stops along the corridor were consolidated,
expanding the space between stops as a result. Before the implementation of the priority bus
lanes, 29 bus stops were located in each direction on the corridor between Brimley and Ellesmere,
with an average stop spacing of every 300 metres. As the corridor was rolled out, this was reduced
to 20 stops, increasing the average space to over 400 metres. While this partially helped to
decrease travel times, this has resulted in longer walking distances for many along the corridor,
which has generated some pushback from the local community. Given the long spacing between
pedestrian signals and the high speed of the roadways on which the bus lanes are located,
there are concerns that this longer walking distance will disproportionately impact seniors
and passengers with physical disabilities. Since opening, the TTC has re-evaluated the
elimination of some of these stops, with some locations being restored. Express buses along
the route service fewer stops, with the 905 Eglinton East Express servicing twelve stops, and the 986 Scarborough
Express servicing six. New stops were added to the 905 at the implementation of the bus lanes,
with buses on that route servicing every other local stop in both directions.
These new stops roughly align with those of the proposed future Eglinton East LRT,
which would extend the under-construction Line 5 further into Scarborough.
Over the corridor, five routes service various sections of the new lanes. Route 12D Kingston Road
uses the lanes on Morningside Avenue and Kingston Road, running in rush hours only to Victoria Park
Station. All branches of route 86 Scarborough use the lanes along Eglinton Avenue and Kingston Road,
with the 86D turning off one stop early at Lawrence. The 986 Scarborough Express follows
the 86 routing, running express between Guildwood GO Station and Kennedy Station, with a single
stop at Markham Road. The 116 Morningside uses the lanes along Eglinton and Morningside, as
well as a short section of Kingston Road west of Guildwood Parkway. The 905 Eglinton East Express
uses the full length of the lanes, serving limited stops along Morningside, Kingston, and Eglinton.
Preliminary estimates indicate that the new lanes save between two and five minutes off
of the average bus trip on the corridor, in addition to providing a more reliable travel time.
Thanks for watching! We hope you enjoyed this tour of the Eglinton East Priority Bus Lanes.
If you have a question or we got anything wrong, feel free to leave us a comment down below.
As always, leave a like if you enjoyed this video, and as for us here,
we’ll be Vanishing Underground, until the next one.