New TTC Downtown / Humber Bay Express Bus
This Monday, residents of the west end will have another option to make their way downtown. The TTC is launching another downtown-express bus that will pick passengers up along Lakeshore, and drop them off downtown on both Adelaide Street and Richmond Street.
According to a press release issued by the TTC on Friday, the new 145 Downtown/Humber Bay express will provide customers with five eastbound trips in the morning, and six westbound trips in the afternoon. The rush hour service will serve existing stops on Lakeshore between Kipling Avenue, and High Park. (At the time of publication of this blog post, the route has not yet been added to the list of active routes on their web page, so exact route details are not currently available.)
To encourage use of the route, a bike rack is also provided on the buses. This makes taking my bike downtown easier, and also quite a bit quicker. Once you're at the drop off point, cycling to work or school is a time saver as well - forget walking or popping onto the subway.
Although residents of West-End Lakeshore will benefit from this service, it will come at a premium. An additional fare is required - almost doubling the price per ticket - an adult fare on any express route is $5. Metropass holders can purchase a 'downtown express' sticker for an additional $32.
Personally, I find five bucks a little steep. I would use the route in a time sensitive situation such as being late for work or accidentally sleeping in due to the festivities from the night before. Whatever the reason, at least the residents of the West-End Lakeshore area will get an alternative option to commute downtown.
Comments (11)
Those who are lucky enough to live near Long Branch or
Mimico stations of GO Transit can ride for only $4.05
single or less with multi-ride packs.
For the rest of the Etobicokeans, that $5 is a bargain
for transit that's faster than regular surface routes.
The metropass option with the express sticker seems like a fantastic deal. Works out to $2.82 per trip if you only use the pass on weekdays and it's tax deductible.
A TTC teleporter? Are you sure you want to trust yourself to such a thing? You may find out that your head got to Long Branch, but the rest of your body short-turned at various places along the way.
A cash fare of 5$ is crazy. It only costs a cash fare $3.75 (or 50 cents extra if using a regular ticket or pass) to ride any of YRT's express services, and they use the 407.
i wouldn't say it's an epic failure at all -- it takes time for people to be aware of things.
i don't see why there's such a huge premium to pay for this bus though --
Six passengers is not bad for a route the TTC gave zero publicity to until today. In any case, not many regular riders will crop up until November 1, as I doubt anyone out there bought an express sticker for their October pass.
The concept of the double fare is because the bus has to return back to empty. Your paying to ride it downtown and then send it back to Long Branch to get more people. That may or may not justify the price, but the other four routes have no problem packing in people at that rate.
Thank you TTC. I'll bike to this daily.
You've taken my car off downtown roads with this plan for sure.
This morning I tried to take this bus from the Marine Parade stop, waited 10 minutes past the posted time and had to take the regular 66 bus up to the subway; I guess it went by my stop too early or really late. On the stop there were 2 different schedules posted, one paper notice showing the last bus at 8:28 from Parklawn and one route schedule showing the morning buses going until 9:30. The TTC website has an awful schedule posted that doesn't show the departure times of the A buses at all. There are definitely still some kinks to work out on the new route.
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