Yesterday, Tuesday, February 26, was a day of burst watermains, fires, power outages and explosions, resulting in transit chaos for transit passengers in Toronto.

What happened?

In the morning, a watermain burst on Don Mills Road, south of York Mills Road, resulting in delays and detours for the TTC’s busy 25 Don Mills bus route.

In the afternoon, transit riders reported a fire at Downsview Station, with the TTC shutting down service on the 1 Yonge-University-Spadina subway north of Wilson.

During the afternoon rush hour, an explosion and fire at an underground hydro vault near Eglinton Avenue East and Mount Pleasant Road resulted in a power outage for 1500 residents living near Eglinton between Bathurst and Bayview and shtu down Eglinton between Mount Pleasant and Yonge Street. (James Bow described this incident in an earlier posting.) The TTC diverted service on several routes: 34 Eglinton East, 51 Leslie, 54 Lawrence East, 56 Leaside, 74 Mount Pleasant, 100 Flemingdon Park, 103 Mount Pleasant North, 141 Downtown Express via Mount Pleasant. A Transit Toronto reader reported that the westbound buses that would usually run along Eglinton instead operated northward along Mount Pleasant, westward along Roehampton Avenue, southward along Yonge and then into Eglinton Station by the south entrance, while eastbound buses operated eastward along Soudan Avenue and then northward along Mount Pleasant before resuming their route.

In the early evening, the TTC again shut down service along the 1 Yonge-University-Spadina subway, this time between Lawrence West and St. Clair West Stations, while the TTC ran shuttle buses between the two stations.

All day, 501 Queen cars remained on detour around the scene of last week’s fire on the south side of the street between Portland and Bathurst Streets. Streetcars continue to detour along King Street West between Shaw Street and Spadina Avenue. Although the TTC has not announced shuttle bus service, at least one transit rider spotted a 501 bus with the destination sign “Shaw” turning west along Richmond Street from University Avenue yesterday.

Whew!