TTC Blunders on Queens Quay

I took this photo in frustration while waiting for a streetcar to arrive on a recent frigid day in the city. This is a regular scene on the Spadina/Bathurst/Queens Quay/Union streetcar route. In transit passengers stranded for 15 or 20 minutes during the morning rush.

For some reason, the TTC schedules an inordinate number of its streetcars to dump passengers off at this stop at Queens Quay near Spadina. The streetcars originate at Bathurst or Spadina station. These passengers - myself included - are the unlucky ones. Union station is our destination but only the rare streetcar goes that far.

Instead, many streetcars unexplicably end their journey at Queens Quay and Spadina, forcing their passengers to get off at this stop and wait to tranfer to a streetcar that rarely comes.

No doubt the TTC will give some rationale about load factors but the reality is that it's a Catch-22 situation. The effect this practice has is that this route becomes unreliable, and it takes too long for passengers to travel a relatively short distance. So traffic goes down as people seek more reliable routes.

But for the rest of us who continue to stick it out we appeal to the TTC to come to their senses. Send more streetcars to Union station and reduce or eliminate the practice of having streetcars empty their load and turn around at this barren intersection by the lake.