TTC Flexity LRV #4425 turns from northbound on Sumach onto westbound King, in service on 514 CHERRY on the morning of February 16, 2017. Photo by James Bow.

The TTC is hosting a meeting next week to update residents in the King Street East and Sumach Street area about its efforts to reduce noise from streetcars operating along the 514 Cherry route.

At this meeting, TTC staff are releasing the results of noise and vibration measurements, which they conducted at three intersections with similar track geometry in May 2017: King East / Sumach; Bathurst / Fleet; and Queen East / Broadview.

The meeting takes place:

Tuesday, June 27,
6:30 until 8:30 p.m.
Toronto Cooper Koo Family Cherry Street YMCA Centre
Second floor,
461 Cherry Street.

(Streetcars operating along the 514 Cherry route stop at Front Street East, just south of the YMCA.)

The TTC launched its new 514 Cherry route just over one year ago — June 19, 2016. The cars operate on brand new tracks south of King Street East on Sumach and Cherry Streets and over a new track junction at King East and Sumach.

Unfortunately, residents living near the junction complained about loud noises resulting from streetcars turning from King to Sumach and the reverse — particularly when older Canadian light rail vehicles (CLRVs) passed across the switches and curves.

In August, 2016, the TTC agreed to withdraw all streetcars from serving the new route late evenings and early mornings until it could resolve the issue. Instead, it operated Wheel-Trans shuttle buses between King Street East / Parliament Street and Distillery Loop between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Mondays to Fridays, and between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m.Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, as a temporary measure to reduce streetcar noise for residents.

In November, 2016, the TTC hosted a meeting to discuss the issues. During that event, it agreed to:

• continue to divert the 514 Cherry route off Sumach and Cherry Streets until it could operate the route entirely with new, low-floor Toronto Flexity cars.
• wait until streetcar wheels wore a path through the new junction to see if that further reduced noise.
• conduct more noise measurements.
• operate the Wheel-Trans shuttle bus late-evenings / early mornings until it had fully deployed the new streetcars along the 514 route.

The TTC has been operating only Toronto Flexity cars along the route since May.

According to the TTC, “The 514 route improves service to 40,000 customers/day supporting the heavily travelled 504 King streetcar service that carries 65,000 riders daily.”