It looks like relief is in sight for the businesses of Riverside. The TTC says it is planning to reopen the intersection of Queen and Broadview a week earlier than scheduled following streetcar track replacement work.

TTC spokesman Brad Ross attributes the rare good news to "a lot of really good timing and hard work by everybody involved to get things finished ahead of schedule."

"The big push for us was to reopen that intersection, to resume our service, to allow traffic to start flowing through there again," he says. "Queen East this spring and summer has really borne the brunt of a lot of important work that had to get done."

As in Leslieville with the closure of Queen and Leslie earlier this summer, businesses that rely on the 501 Queen streetcar complained of a precipitous drop in revenue. Michael Summerfield of the bar Prohibition estimated business had fallen by 30 to 35 per cent earlier this week. He said the business had considered temporarily closing down.

Ross says some sidewalk work still needs to be carried out but that it will be undertaken at a later date. The east-end streetcar headache isn't quite finished yet, however.

The Broadview streetcar tracks between Danforth and Broadview subway station are due to close for six weeks starting this Sunday for rail replacement and overhead wire upgrades, just hours after the reopening of Queen and Broadview.

As a result, the 504 King will divert up Parliament, travel east on Dundas, then south on Broadview to Queen, back to Parliament. The 505 Dundas will divert up Parliament to Gerrard, travel east to Broadview, turn south and rejoin Dundas (see graphic.)

Shuttle buses will complete the connection to Broadview subway station for both routes.

Queen and Broadview is due to open late on Saturday when the TTC completes a series of safety tests. There are no diversions planned on Queen for the remainder of the year.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the scope of the closure on Broadview. Although the planned construction work is north of the Danforth, streetcars will not be able to go north of Gerrard on Broadview. Shuttle buses will run between Dundas and Broadview station, stopping at Gerrard.

Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.

Photo by Steven Hoang