The Toronto Transit Commission will meet on Wednesday, January 23 at 1 p.m. in Committee Room 1, second floor, City Hall, 100 Queen Street West.

Among other items, the commission will discuss a TTC staff report reviewing operational difficulties on the 501 Queen streetcar route and discussing ways that the TTC hopes to improve the service. Many passengers — especially those traveling to and from the extreme eastern and western ends of the route — have expressed their frustration about the unreliability of the service. This report results, in part, from a public meeting that the transit advocacy group, the Rocket Riders, hosted in December to address the issue.

The report notes that TTC has already implemented a number of changes to the service, including:

• managing short turns with a customer focus instead of a schedule focus;
• assigning “service assistance crews” to the line to assist in responding to service irregularities. (The crews may operate extra cars to fill in service gaps in the route or take over for streetcar operators, reducing the number of short turns);
• assiging additional supervisors to the route;
• addressing workforce availability issues at the streetcar divisions to make sure that the divisions deliver streetcar service consistently; and
• using more articulated streetcars on the route.

The report recommends that TTC staff report further to the commission in May on whether these measures have improved the service.

It also suggests that TTC staff may look at breaking the route into smaller routes as a pilot project this fall.

You can read the complete report here and view the the main and supplementary agendas here.

Toronto Transit Commission meetings are public meetings. If you wish to comment on an item on the TTC’s meeting agenda, you can take part by contacting the TTC’s Co-ordinator of Secretariat Services, who is responsible for co-ordinating the meeting process. E-mail the co-ordinator at gso@ttc.ca before noon tomorrow to add your name to the speakers’ list.