King Street overcrowding

The TTC just added streetcars to King St.

Reluctant sardines of Toronto, rejoice! TTC officials have heard our prayers angry tweets about overcrowding on the King streetcar route, and they've got a solution.

Whether it's an effective solution remains to be seen, but hey – it's something.

Thirteen new, larger capacity streetcars were running along King Street this morning, according to the TTC's Brad Ross. Ten of those streetcars are on 514 Cherry and three of them are on the 504 route.

That represents three additional cars with a capacity of about 250 people per car compared to previous service on the street.

Capacity has been an issue among TTC passengers on King Street for years, but the early success of the King Pilot Project seems to have exacerbated the issue.

The project has cut down on the amount of time people spend on the streetcars, for sure, but some say that overcrowding has actually been worse since the pilot started.

Commuters have also noticed an uptick in the number of people waiting for streetcars that are already full.

It's not uncommon to wait 20 or 30 minutes during rush hour for just a chance to squeeze aboard an already jam-packed car on King.

Riding a streetcar with double the amount of people it should hold is the actual worst, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason some tourists say Torontonians look "angry." We are.

Ross said in his announcement on Twitter this morning that the new cars were added to King "in an effort to add much-needed capacity along the route."

This isn't the silver bullet we've been waiting for, but the TTC is clearly aware of the problem and doing its best to help overcrowding.

Fortunately, the number of new streetcars will grow when Bombardier delivers the rest of its order. Whenever that may be.

Lead photo by

City of Toronto


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