College Street is completely different without streetcars

It's been just about two months now since the TTC removed all streetcars from both the 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton routes, and the people of Toronto have some thoughts.

The transit agency announced earlier this year that it would be moving the streetcars from Dundas and Carlton down to busier routes, like King Street's, to make up for a lack of newer, more reliable vehicles.

Not enough has been written about both College & Dundas loosing streetcars for a year because of Bombardier. Wretched jerking buses. Only upside is they’re a bit more frequent. pic.twitter.com/DTabYrLj0k

— Shawn Micallef (@shawnmicallef) March 27, 2018

Buses will be running along both routes instead until "at least 2019," officials say, or until Bombardier finally sends Toronto the streetcars it owes us.

College Street has been noticeably quieter since February 19, when the replacement program went into effect, and some local residents are loving it.

Why didn’t the city use busses in king st to experiment with reducing time for traffic? Busses are running on college and the gridlock that normally exists when streetcars are present is gone?

— CPM (@PaulatCPM) April 9, 2018

"Have you taken transit on College recently?" tweeted one fan. "It's superfast since they sent all the streetcars to #kingstreetpilot and replaced them with buses."

@jerryagar1010 Please do a piece on how bad streetcars are for traffic. College St doesn’t have them right now and traffic is a dream with buses and cars freely flowing. My commute has been reduced by ten minutes! The streetcar is perhaps the biggest sham forced upon this city.

— Jason C (@basebawler) April 12, 2018

Others – especially those who commute by transit every day – are desperate for the College streetcars to return.

And this is Tuesday on the 506 EB route (Clinton/College).

THIS is what an underfunded/mismanaged public transit system looks like when running replacement busses instead of larger streetcars. We deserve better. @ttcriders #TTC #topoli pic.twitter.com/emMyiUZInt

— Rose D'souza (@thewaywardrose) March 27, 2018

"Research suggests the Bombardier buses running along College and Dundas - replacements for the looooooong delayed new Bombardier streetcars - are deliberately designed to antagonize riders," joked one Twitter user this week.

"It's another francophone plot to stealthily undermine the morale of a majority anglo city."

Why do people smell worse on crowded buses than they do on streetcars? I want my college streetcars back!! #TTC #streetcarsarethebetterway

— Kendra Splock (@sharpasahawke) March 1, 2018

"Really not thrilled about the buses that have now replaced streetcars on Dundas St. for the next year because of aging fleet / delayed delivery of new streetcars," wrote another. "Buses + tracks + parked cars on a busy x-town bike route with no bike lane is bad news."

@TTChelps really hating the fact that the college and Dundas streetcars were replaced with busses:( there’s literally no space on these busses and they fill up way too fast.

— ♡TAT♡ (@peachytat) March 1, 2018

One thing everybody can agree on is that Bombardier needs to step its game up – and that we've all been saying that for way too long.