Under Construction

Introduction

This site is in draft stage only at this time as I gather the various data from various source before I start my final rewrite once I reach a certain point that I am not jumping back to rewrite new information only to find more elsewhere in the unusual place. The site will be always under construction as there is so much information that needs researched due to conflicting information from various sources as well adding more detail on what has been obtain so far. In some places it is hard to determine which piece of information is correct or not. I will note the various sections that have conflicting information for you. With the exception of a few places, I have taken the various data off the various pages and put it into my own wording. The sections I have noted in this colour are a copy and paste as there is no way around it as since they are actual quotes, court ruling, company incorporation, or comments.

At this time, you will have to do a lot of scrolling until I break it into 10 year time frame pages and maybe less depending on what is taking place at that time. I am look at about 250 pages plus at this time based on the amount of scrolling I am doing on a 24" monitor.

I will highlight the sources where my information has come from to give them credit for it in the first place and there are numerous contributors with some having information spread out the whole article.

It should be noted that a fair number of the street up to the mid 1920 had a different name than what we known then by today. Some were duplication when the City of Toronto annexed the various lands outside of it up to 1912, well other were change for various reason. Then, some of those street do not exist anymore due to redevelopment well others are a combination of a number different streets as well been relocated. If you have better information or links that will help to make this History page as correct as possible, I would appreciate it for that information.

Since I started to do research on the History of Streetcars, I found myself been amassed how visionary people were back in the early 1900's to the mid 1960's regarding transit compared to what has happen since then. I also amass myself on my views as to where transit should be today based on the plans and reports I have done since 2000 when I first got involved with transit as well never seeing or hearing of the various plans that are noted in the coming pages, that my vision is similar to what was put forth in the early 1900's. Based on the information I have come upon, I will be creating separate sites surround the various lines with some lines getting very little or no information on them since I have yet to come upon it to large amount on it that will house more on it. Before I started this section, I started the Yonge Subway page based on what I knew about it before I started my research that will require me to do a far amount of rewriting as well adding the new information that is noted here.

I have been involved in a fair number of Environmental Assessment (EA's) over the years surrounding TTC various projects as well been a member on a number Community Liaison Committees giving me first hand knowledge on parts of the History Page.

I have added other history information and various tidbits, as they will play a role in not only developing Transit, but the City of Toronto itself. Also, it is information that most people are unaware how their City and Transit came into being and take things for granted surrounding Toronto. As for one who was born and raised in Toronto as well traveled to all the corners of the City over my life, there are numerous things I never knew until I did this reach search.

There are things I have a come upon that lack information and I hope over time I can fill in this lack of information as well more detail information for the site.

I will provide highlight of various quality of service as it would consumed a fair amount of space as well I don't have nor the time to do the research on it. Transit Toronto and Angelfire are 2 sites that have better information on quality of service than I can come up with.

Major of the lines up to the early 1900's were single tracks and when they became double track is unknown in many cases or assumed when they did from various maps or notes.

It is unknown what TRS and TRC practices was for replacing rails, but TTC would place temporary tracks on top of the road next to where tracks had to be replace or work on, to allow no disruption to service. It is believed this practices stop in the 1940's due to complaints by the traffic folks. At the same time, it would take a haft to 2/3 less time than it does today. The only time service was disrupted was when switches and intersection had to be done. Even with all today new technology and equipment, less work gets done than the 1940's. There are a number of reason why this take place today and I will not go into that area for various reason.

  

Begin History

• 1830
  • 1818/19 would see Joseph Bloore arrived in Canada and would sell this Inn north of the Saint Lawrence Market and buy land at 2nd Concession Road (Bloor Street) and the now known Sherbourne Street to set up a brewer this year. He would go on to help started up Yorkville and the Village of Rosedale to the point that 2nd Concession was named Bloore Street after him. Over time, Bloore became Bloor for some reason and no date as to when.

• 1840
  • The Carlton Village, name after Canada's first Governor (1768) Guy Carleton comes into existent that is located south of what was known as Weston Road (now Old Weston Road) and then Third Concession Road which would become (St Clair Avenue) in future years is located 4 Kilometres north of what was known then as Base Line, also Lot Street (now Queen Street). It would play a major role involving both streetcars as well railways. It encompass the land up to where the Grand Trunk Railway (Now GO Transit Georgetown Line) would go in 1856, that was west of Weston Road, land to the east of where the Ontario Simcoe & Huron Railway Company (Now the GO Transit Barrie Line) would go in 1865, that was just west of Station Street (now Caledonia Road) and to Davenport Road to the south. It would be home to a race track call Carleton Racecourse on the lands of W.C. Keele's located at Keele Street and today Annette Street until 1857 where it saw the first four Queen's Plates run there. There has been various debates over how St Clair Avenue came about, but this is one of those stories that seams to be the one being used now and click the link to read about it.
  • The Third Concession runs east to west from Kingston Road in the east end and to Humber River in the west end with a fair number of breaks in it caused by valleys, rivers and ravines. It is unknown why the Third Concession did not travel further west of the Humber River like 2nd Concession (Bloor Street) to the south and 4th concession (Eglinton Avenue) to the north. If it had done so, a different outlook for building of the City of Toronto and transit for the City most likely would had taken place. At this time, the Third Concession stops of the west side of what is known today as Vale of Avoca section of Rosedale ravine that is just east of Yonge Street. There was a missing section at () between what is known as Spadina Road and Bathurst Street today.

• 1849
  • The first real transit line to operate in the City of Toronto was Williams Omnibus Bus Line that started operation in 1849 by Burt Williams who was a cabinet-maker by trade with a store on Yonge Street who saw an opportune to make some money. Some say he was also an local undertaker. It operated as a stagecoach from St Lawrence Market located at King St and Jarvis Avenue to the Red Lion Hotel in Yorkville (that was bound by the 2nd Concession Road to the south, Davenport Road to the north, Avenue Road to the west and Yonge St to the east) along King Street West to Yonge Street using 6 passengers coaches. It would travel north on Yonge Street and go two blocks north of 2nd Concession Road (Bloor Street) which was the City Limits of Toronto at the time to Yorkville Avenue. The fare to ride this line was sixpence. Up to this time, there were a number of stagecoaches line, but they ran outside the City of Toronto. Yonge Street would become a major road in the coming years for transit as well becoming the longest Road in the world until the mid 2000's as some have claimed, yet if one looks at today maps, it does not go any further north than Holland Rivers.
  • It should be noted that it is very possible that the operation of Omnibus Bus Line was restricted to Monday to Saturday service due to the "Blue Law" that prevented people from working on Sunday as it was supposed to be a day of worshiping and rest.
  • Burt Williams would build all the coaches for his line in his shop.
  • Given the fact that horse were only able to pull coaches for about 4 to 5 hours a day or a dozen mile, as many as 10 or more horses were required to pull one coach that lead to large stables and feed to maintain the horses.
  • Ontario Simcoe & Huron Railway Company was incorporated that would change the shape of Toronto and the area surrounding it in the coming years.

• 1850
  • January 1st, would see The Township of Etobicoke come into existent.
  • Williams Omnibus Bus Line would add 4 more stagecoaches that held 6 to 10 people for the 10 minute journey from end to end to the Fleet Street. Over the next few years, more coaches were added were service was only a few minute wait.
  • Deer Park a thriving neighbourhood located at Yonge Street and the Third Concession Road that was located 4 Kilometres north of then Lot Street (Queen Street) that would become St Clair Avenue East at a later come into existent and would plan a big part for transit in the coming years. It encompass an odd shape that was part of the 40 acres of land own by the Heath family.
  • At this time, the City of Toronto City Limits were Dufferin Street to the West, the Lake of Ontario to the South, 2nd Concession Road (Bloor Street) to the North, The Don River to the East, Land south of Kingston Road from the east side of the Don River to Mcclean Avenue in the east.
  • At this point in time, Kingston Road (Queen Street/Maple Street) ran east from the Don River along what is now call Queen Street East and follow the current routing for today Kingston Road that would continue eastward to Kingston Ontario.

• 1851
  • The Don and Danforth Plank Road Company starts construction on the Danforth easterly from Mills Road that ran along the edge of the Don River to Kingston Road that would play a major role for both the City of Toronto as well transit in the 1900's.
  • Danforth would be known as an Avenue from the Mill Road that would come Broadview Avenue in 1884 to Kingston Road. Danforth Road branches of Danforth Avenue east of Leyton Avenue or west of Warden Avenue. Danforth is name after Asa Danforth who cut the path for it in 1799.

• 1852
  • Alphonse Loubat would developed the grove rail that would lay flush with the surface of what every material been used for the roads that would be used for tracks systems. (Today, TTC uses 115 lb rails for their system.) This rail would reduce the friction of pulling a cart/coach with riders on it at a faster rate of speed between 6 to 8 miles per hour. At the same time, the amount of horse required to pull a cart/coach would be less than an Omnibus and would get rider to where they were going faster. It help to reduce the operation cost for a line as well allowing more riders to be carry by a cart/coach over these rails.
  • Ontario Simcoe & Huron Railway starts construction of their line that is now known as GO Transit Barrie Line today, but it would be known as the New Market Sub Division until GO bought the line in 200(). Their operation was from the now Lake Shore Blvd West and Bathurst Street area that would service the various wharfs that existed there at the time to Lake Simcoe.
  • November 10, saw the incorporation of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada that would not only make an impact on Toronto and the surrounding areas of it, but North America.

• 1853
  • May 16, saw the departure of the first train in Toronto when the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railway started service on their Toronto to Lake Simcoe Line. It would depart from a station at Bay Street and Front Street (where the current Hummingbird Centre: conflict location) and east of where the current Union Station sits today. It also serviced the station at Davenport Village.
  • Yorkville is incorporated as the Village of Yorkville this year after reaching a population of 1,000.
  • July 15 would see Toronto and Guelph Railway who were building an line between the Toronto and Guelph that would run along the current GO Transit Line To Georgetown, merge with Grand Junction Railway, Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada East, St. Lawrence, Atlantic Railway and Quebec and Richmond Railway to form the Grand Trunk Railway. This was one of many mergers that would follow leavening very little trace of those companies's that got taken over, over time. For Grand Trunk, it would go on to consumed other railways as well a name for itself, only to go bankrupt in the early 1900's.

• 1855
  • 1855 would see the Great Western Railway (GWR) constructed the Hamilton-Toronto Line along present day Lakeshore Line and would be the 2nd railway to service Toronto. Same will say it was the third with Grand Trunk being the 2nd.

• 1856
  • July would see Grand Trunk Railway running service from Toronto and Guelph.
  • October 27, would see the first through train to Montreal from Toronto depart the Don Station by Grand Trunk Railway. The station would remain in service until 1967 when Canadian National Railway who took control of Grand Trunk in 1918 would stop passenger service. The Don Station was the only station to be saved from destruction that existed in the Toronto limits today and can be seen on display at the John Street Roundhouse.
  • Grand Trunk would operate on land in front of Fort York and on land fill that was dump into the lake to push the shore line out from where it was at the time. You can still see where the tracks where at that time if you look east off the Strachan Avenue bridge and under the Gardiner expressway.
  • It would be this time that the Grand Truck Railway would start to throw its weight around with the City of Toronto to allow them to build tracks along the water edge to connect its two lines together and that would start to see the existing waterfront changes of what was there to what we have today. Today shoreline is 2,000 to 3,000 south of the existing shoreline in 1850.
  • The City of Toronto would buy 119.75 acres of the farm land running from the Toronto waterfront to Danforth Avenue in the north, Don River to the west and to Mills Road (Broadview Avenue) in the east from the Scadding family for $40,000. John Scaddling was given a grant of 230 acres in 1793 that would be used for his mills. The City of Toronto would use this land to build the Don Jail as well industrial farms that were outside the city limits at the time. The Don Jail still exist today as a working jail with rest of the land as sports field and mostly parkland.

• 1857
  • After the railways starting throwing their weight around and the City of Toronto treating to forced them out of the City, the railways were granted land along the waterfront by act of Legislation that would set the stage for the existing waterfront edge moving south to where it is today. It is stated that the railways (Grand Trunk Railway) were planning on building tracks across Queen Street at this time and one reason why the current tracks exist today.

• 1859
  • Alexander Easton published a report according to the Act of Congress on the "Practical Treatise on Street or Horse-Power Railway surrounding the Omnibus System". It was on promoting a tram system that could be used by various towns and City to travel about.
  • It is not clear as to when Alexander Easton came to the City of Toronto from his home in Philadelphia or what got his attention to come here in the first place, other than him trying to promote his horse-drawn "Haddon Car". Only assumptions can be arrived at as to what was going on at the time.

• 1860
  • During the 1860's you could still catch an omnibus on Yonge Street that would take you north of the City limits and this would last until the 1890's when radial lines would offer the service outside the City limits. One can say that there was transit services on Yonge Street before the arrival of a true transit system starting in 1861.

• 1861
  • The City Limits were Niagara Street to the West, Lake Ontario to the South, Bloore (Bloor) Street/2nd Concession Road to the North, Don River to the West, Kingston Road (Queen Street) East of the Don River to Howard Avenue to the East. There is a conflict as to what name was used for the eastern section as it is shown as Mcclean Avenue elsewhere.
  • After Omnibus Bus Line becoming overloaded, The City of Toronto realize there was a need for public transit, but I think that happen a few years earlier. From 1849 to this time, various business leaders were watching this Omnibus Bus Line as they were always on the look for new investments or ventures where they could make a profit as well expand their empire.
  • After obtaining bids, the City issued a 30 year Transit Franchise (Resolution 14, By-law 353) with Toronto Street Railway Company known as TSR as the winner on May 29. This Franchise was for a rail system using horses. NOTE: According to the court documents of 1894, Toronto Street Railways Company headed by Alexander Easton enter into an agreement on March 26th, 1861 for building of an streetcar line and the maintenance and operation for a period of thirty years. This is one of many conflicting information that will show up from time to time.
  • May 18, 1861 according to court documents, by the Act of the Province of Canada pass 24 Vic. ch. 83 that said Alexander and others were incorporated as the "The Toronto Street Railway Company" and the agreement of March 26th, 1861 and confirmed and held to be valid and binding. It also stated that the 6 month noticed be given by both parties prior to the expiration of said agreement as to what their intention was to do after the expiree of the agreement. This would included arbitration to determine a fair value if the company is sold. It is assumed based of the court document that Alexander Easton was the major shareholder of the company.
  • September 11, Toronto Street Railways starts service on their first line known as the St Lawrence Hall-Yorkville that ran on King Street and Yonge Street to the Town of Yorkville Town Hall that was located 2 blocks north of 2nd Concession Road (Bloor St) and on Scollard Street, west of Yonge St leading into the Village of Yorkville. A Condo now sits on the land where The Yorkville Town Hall used to be. The fare to ride this route was sixpence. Some say it was a nickel or $.05 with haft hour service.
  • Toronto Street Railways would use a double end "Haddon Car" that would allow the horses to un-harness at one and harness at the other end, allowing the car to be stationary on the single track.
  • Toronto Street Railways would over the years built the Bloore, Carlton, Dovercourt-McCaul, Front, North Toronto-Union Station, King, Queen, Sherbourne, Spadina, St Lawrence Hall-Yorkville, St Lawrence Market-Woodbine, Yonge line.
  • It is not clear as why the gauge of 1,495 mm (4 ft 10 7/8 in) in was chosen for the rail system that exist today and it is assumed it had to do with the existing wheels of Omnibus Bus Line or prevent it from using the new rail system. Then there was the thought it had to do to with preventing the railways from using the system to wheel spacing of wagons that travel the streets of Muddy York. It is also said that a gauge of 4 ft 10 3/4 inches was used to allow wagons to ride the rails and avoiding rutting the dirt streets. At this time, the war of 1812 was not far from memory with the railways in the United States ran on standard rail gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 inches. The railways in Canada ran on Provincial Gauge of 5 ft 6 inches with some using narrow, but no standard gauge was allowed until 1870 as this was one way of stopping the Americas from bring forces easily across the boarder by train.
  • Another though was, it was to prevent "Good's Toronto Locomotive Works" from running steam locomotives from their shop located at Queen Street and Yonge Street in the north east corner to Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railway tracks. "Good's Toronto Locomotive Works" who would move 23 locomotives over temporary tracks and wagons from their shop along Queen Street to York Street and then south with the last been moved in 1859. The company stop producing locomotives due to the fact that City leader refused to grant the company land near the railway for easier movement.
  • Toronto Street Railways would build a carhouse in Yorkville located west of Yonge Street between Scollard Avenue and Yorkville Avenue. It would stay in serviced until 1922, when TTC builds a new carhouse at Yonge and Eglinton Avenue on the west side. The Yorkville site would be redeveloped a number of times over the years.
  • December 2, saw a 2nd line open for Toronto Street Railways come into service that would operate along Queen St which was known as Lot Street up to 1850. It would run west from Yonge St to Dundas Street (what is now known as Ossington Avenue) every haft an hour. At the time of the opening of the Queen Street Line at Dundas Street, there was the site of the Provincial Lunatic Asylum located on the south side that was called 999 Queen St West. Some people referred it as the Nut House because of its high brick wall that ran around it as well the people in it. Today it is call 1001 Queen Street West, operating under the name of Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CHAM). There is only a small portion of the existing wall standing and can be seen along Shaw St. The existing site is going under major redevelopment. TRS was supposed to started service with 11 cars, 70 horse on a 6 mile system carrying 2,000 riders a day and charging a nickel to ride the system..
  • Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe saw Dundas Street as a major road between Toronto and the United States crossing at the Detroit. The current Dundas Street is makeup of various street names as well location as the various section of land was divided up for construction lots over time.
  • Since the arrival of Streetcars in Toronto starting this year to present day, there has been noting but hate and love for them from both sides. Over the years, there would be many fights between the local residents, store owners, employees and the riders.

• 1862
  • Omnibus Bus Line was out performing Toronto Street Railways for ridership, but since Toronto Street Railways had more funding than Omnibus Bus Line, Omnibus Bus Line could not compete with Toronto Street Railways and was force to sell its assets to Toronto Street Railways in 1862. Also, The council for the City of Toronto supported the Toronto Street Railways more since it was made up of powerful local businessmen.
  • Burt Williams would return to the cabinet-making business (Undertaker) after selling Omnibus Bus Line to Toronto Street Railways.

• 1865
  • Saw the start of moving the existing shoreline along the waterfront of Toronto which was basely south of Front Street about 2,000 to 3,000 feet to where it is today. It was done so to meet the city growing need for industries, shipping, but most of all, railway use. The end to moving the shoreline would come to a halt in 1920. This area would become a blight for the city in the late 1940 onward as various industries relocated elsewhere, down size, or cease to exist anymore. Today and over the next 25 years or so, it been transform back to public space as redeveloped with transit at the fore front.

• 1867
  • Would see the Railway Committee of the Privy Council of Canada come into existent and would play a roll surrounding transit in the coming years.

• 1868
  • The Bondholders became the owners of Toronto Street Railways and it was sold in 1869. Conflict of year as another source in detail said 1869.
  • The Railway Act for Ontario comes into existent.
  • March 4th, saw the incorporation of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway by George Laidlaw that would run on narrow gauge of 3 ft 6 inches from Toronto to Owen Sound. It would merge into after over building it infrastructures and builds as well see less demand for its needs. Also, the decision to go to narrow gauge verse Provincial gauge of 5 ft 6 inches was a saving of $3,000 dollars per mile, but it would end up being the wrong choice. It would built its yard and roundhouse in Parkdale.
  • March 4th, saw the incorporation of the Toronto and Nipissing Railway by George Laidlaw that would run on narrow gauge of 3 ft 6 inches from Toronto to Lake Nipissing through Scarborough and York. It would merge with the Midland Railway of Canada in 1882. It had its terminus and yards at the foot of Parliament Street that were beside the Gooderham and Worts distillery and mill.

• 1869
  • Construction got underway for the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway, on October 4, by having Prince Arthur of England doing the honour of ground breaking since he happen to be in the Weston area at the time on a Royal Tour. It should be noted that the tracks were on the east side of the Toronto rail corridor, south of the West Toronto Junction and that line is being used as the West Toronto Rail Path today running from Cariboo Avenue, that is just north of Dupont Street to just south of Dundas West Street. The plans call for this path to go to King Street.
  • Alexander Easton who started the TSR up in 1861 sees his vision to make money and promote his "Haddon Car" fail to the point that the Bondholders applied for and were granted the Act for Relief this year. TSR was sold to William T. and George Washington Kiely who happen to be Americans. They would form a new company using the old name in 1870. It can be said that with the failure of the TSR venture, Alexander Easton would return to his home in Philadelphia as there is no information what happen to him after this time frame. Another confliction of date as it was stated it was 1868.

• 1870
  • William T. and George Washington Kiely would incorporated a new company known as TSR and would set the course for more expansion of the existing system only to loose controlling interest in the company in 1881. As the new TSR expanded, it created a fair number of problems along the way and they would show up in the coming years.

• 1871
  • February 1st, the Credit Valley and Railway Company saw their incorporation change under chapter 50, 46 vice that would allow them to either amalgamate or lease their line to the Ontario & Quebec Railway and the Canadian Southern Railway Company by the Legislative of the Assembly of the Province of Ontario. It should be noted that the Ontario & Quebec Railway was not incorporated until April 14 and that raised the question as to when did Ontario & Quebec Railway really come into existent as everything today said after this time frame.
  • February 15, saw the Ontario Legislature granting the incorporation of the Credit Valley Railway Company that wanted to build tracks to St Thomas as well a branch line from Streetsville (Mississauga) to Orangeville and running service from Toronto. This would formed the north to west cut off at the Toronto Junction and would form the mainline for CPR to gain access to the United States at Detroit. GO transit would use this line for their Milton Line today.
  • February 17, Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) is incorporated and would play a large role in joining the country together as well expand into the United States of America. It would help to shape the West Toronto Junction in the coming years.
  • March 21 see the Ontario & Quebec Railway (O&Q) incorporated under Statute 44 Chapter 44. This company would be mainly a "paper" company for CPR in the coming years.
  • April 14, would see the incorporation of The Ontario and Quebec Railway that would exist as a "paper" railway company until May 1881 when it was reincorporated. At that time, it would go on to build tracks from Perth in the east and to the Toronto Junction (West Toronto) and Parkdale. It would maintain a yard and roundhouse there until 1890 when CPR builds a new roundhouse for the Lampton yards. It would become a "paper" under lease to the Canadian Pacific Railway.
  • Would see Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway build a line to Orangeville that would go through Woodbridge and would help to form the Toronto West Junction.

• 1873
  • March 29, saw the incorporation of a new (TRS) company using the old name Toronto Street Railways under 36 Vic. ch. 101 by the Ontario legislature and rescind 24 Vic. ch. 83 of the old name that was granted on May 18th, 1861.

• 1874
  • Toronto Street Railways stated to expand the existing system as well purchasing new equipment. Lines were to be built on Front Street, Avenue Road, Bathurst, Belt Line, Bloor and McCaul Broadview, Carlton Street, Sherbourne, Church Street, College, Dovercourt Road, Dundas, McCaul Street, Dupont, Harbord, King, Parliament, Queen, Winchester, Yonge Spadina Avenue, Danforth Avenue, Coxwell Avenue, Parliament Street, Harbord Street, McCaul Street, Victoria Street.

• 1874
  • The Woodbine Riding and Driving Club (Greenwood Racetrack) would open this year at Queen Street and Woodbine Avenue that would more people wanted together and an need for transit in this area. It would close in 1993 and converted to a housing complex and park.
  • 1874 and the coming years saw Toronto Street Railways expanding their current system to meet the growing needs of the City. Toronto Street Railways would start services on:
    • The third line would become the King Street Line that was name after King George. It would run from Bathurst Street in the West to the Don River in the east since Lot Street (Queen Street) still had not reach the Don River yet;
    • On Front Street going south on Church Street from King Street and the west to an unknown point at this time and it could had been Simcoe Street or John Street.
    • On Sherbourne Street from King Street to Carlton Street and east on it to Parliament Street.
  • March 24, saw Toronto Gravel Road and Concrete Company which had applied to the Ontario Legislature to amend its incorporation passed as Act 37 Vic ch. 90 that empower them to build a single or double tramway from their gravel pits at Benlamond (Main Street) in the township of Scarborough, in the county of York, through the township of York to some point within the City of Toronto municipality of York and Scarboro' to the City of Toronto. They were allow to obtain all the lands to do this that would carry and transport goods, material and passengers using cars, carriages, vehicles over their said road. Passengers would charge an reasonable rate imposed by the directors of the company from time to time. July, 1874 saw the company applied to the council or York for permission to build a tramway on the highways negotiating with the property owners, with county council, a draft agreement dated July 24, 1874 was approved on August 10, 1874.
  • August 10th, the Toronto Gravel Road and Concrete Company incorporated under the Act of Legislature of the Province of Ontario, 36 Vic, ch. 114, enter into agreement under the Act of the Parliament of Ontario with the municipality of York and Scarboro' to construct a tramway from their gravel pits to the City of Toronto that stated that the Toronto Gravel Road and Concrete Company must discontinue using their tractor engine or any other traction engine upon or along such public highway. The company claimed that the clause allowed the company to put a steam engine. It was the intent of the company to run steam locomotives along Kingston Road from their gravel pits located at Benlamond (Main Street) to the City of Toronto. The agreement call for 2 passengers cars each way daily from the Don Bridge to Norway that was most convenient to the company. The agreement call for the use of horses for the first 5 years for the tramway at which time they build a railway.
  • December 21, saw the incorporation of the Toronto, High Park and Mimico Tramway Company under the Act of Legislature of the Province of Ontario as well under CL LX where the company would run an line west of the City Limits of Toronto where Dundas Street and Queen Street intersect along the common highway or through lands westerly to Mimico Village. The gauge of the tracks is to be the same as Toronto Street Railway. Anyone failing to pay their fare after been asked by the conductor or driver and refused to vacate as requested is subject to a fine of $10. There is no information if this company every built any tracks or supply service at this time.
  • December 21, under the Act of Legislature of the Province of Ontario CAP. 62 38 vic. saw the The Central Station and Warehouse Company incorporate owning lands between Bay and John Street, south of the Esplanade Street and the water edge in the City of Toronto to service the railways.

• 1875
  • By this time, the citizens were complaining that TSR was having a good life at the expense of them as well not supporting the City other than the $5 yearly charge that TSR had to pay for each car it had. Then it was to do with the snow clearing that on January 25th, The Globe printed an editorial article:
    
    • TORONTO STREET RAILWAY
      • ...Our Commissioner brings up before the Police Magistrate householders who neglect to clear away snow from before their doors. And he is quite right doing so. We only wish he extend this operation pull up two or three times more than he at all the troubles. Sure we are that any informer could find dozens houses, on our great thoroughfares, which before which the snow has not all this winter even been removed once. But well the householders are fined; the great offender-the Street Toronto Railway Company-goes scot free. To suite its own convince and profit, the company has throughout this all this season persistently keep to wheeled vehicles, and thereby made such deep ruts in the snow that there is no possibility of a sleigh or cutter crossing without imminent danger of being overset. The whole centre of the streets is in the way practically reserved for the company....
          We Torontonians are a long suffering people. The wronged-doer has only to put a bold face on, and persist in his iniquity, to be left "master of the situation".
  • When one read this editorial today, it is no different than someone driving a car vs. a sleigh.
  • February would see the battle take place between the storekeepers and TSR employees that was fuel with the editorial written on January 25th. During the winter months, TSR employed wing plow's on their cars to move the snow away from the tracks for easing pulling and make the road impassible to other wagons and sleighs. This would see less business for the shopkeepers that they would go out and shovel the snow back into the track area. This cause numbers of cars to become stuck or out of service to the enjoyment of the public. Again we can see the love-hate relation between business then as well today surrounding transit. It also raised the question "were business owners misleading the public as to space for wagons considering the amount of room one would take up with horse pulling it to the day car that takes up less space?" as this seams to be a problem for some areas while not for others. One can understand back then for a need since the city was not built up like it is today as well there would be blocks of open space with next to no residents there in the first place.
  • June 9, the Kingston Road Tramways Company was incorporated to run service east from the Don River along Kingston Road know known as Queen Street East using horse drawn cars. It should be noted the eastern section where Kingston Road intersects Queen Street was call Maple Street then as it was used as a summer resort during the summertime. This area would become known as the Balmy Beach, Kew Gardens and the Beaches. This is another conflicting information based on the information above for 1874 and else where. It is said the Kingston Road Tramway was part of Toronto Street Railways who expanded their King Street over the Don River as Queen Street had yet to reach that area at the time. The Kingston Road Line would run easterly to the Benlamond Hotel at Main Street where it turn around.

• 1877
  • Toronto Street Railways would extend the King Street Line west of Bathurst Street to Strachan Avenue that was name after () that would allow visitors going to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition a shorter walking distance to it that was located to the south at this point which ran the first two weeks in September.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds an line on Spadina Street (Spadina Avenue) going north from King Street to College Street. Service would run from King Street and George Street along King Street to Spadina Street and then north to College Street in a tree line ROW in the middle of the street and the trees were large in size. Not the same as what we have today. Again some conflicting year as another sources said 1878 and this could be the construction year with 1878 as start of operation.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds 2 sections on Queen Street that would see the Queen Line running from the Don River in the east to Dundas Street in the west. The first section was between Yonge Street and Sherbourne Street and the 2nd section between Parliament Street and the Don River.
  • Toronto Street Railways would build the Dundas Line that is no way close to what we see today when tracks went north (Ossington Avenue) off Queen Street where it turn west on today Dundas Street and travel westerly to the City Limits at (Dufferin Street).
  • March 2nd, the Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto was incorporated with a franchise from the City of Toronto to run service from Yorkville to the Village of Eglinton, but only operated from St Clair Avenue, north to Glen Grove Avenue (Also known as Glen Echo) that was north of the City limits by 1884 using horse drawn duel end cars. They would build a carhouse and shop on the south-west corner of the intersection of Yonge Street and St Clair Avenue West. There is conflicting information as to where the line starts as one source said's it was Summerhill while another said Eglinton. It is possible had been St Clair Avenue since that was where their carhouse and maintenance complex was until 1922. It is unknown why they did not build their track to Yorkville which their franchise allow them to do so at this time.
  • March 2nd, the Ontario legislature passed 40 Vic. ch. 85 that required Toronto Street Railways to do a number of things related to their tracks and road system and would lead to a law suite by the City of Toronto against TRC.
  • The Credit Valley Railway would start service running from Parkdale to Milton along the rail corridor operated today by GO Transit Milton Line with a station at Queen Street known first as North Parkdale and then Parkdale. It would become CPR Galt Subdivision line also in the future and would connect to the CPR Mac Tier Subdivision as well CNR Weston Subdivision.

• 1878
  • Toronto Street Railways would build an extension to the Sherbourne Line by extending it north of Carlton Street to 2nd Concession Road (Bloor Street).
  • The first publication of the name St Clair appears for the third Concession appeared and there is still great debate as to how the name came about. I cannot say if the current reason for naming the street is correct as I have not come upon any real information to say it right or wrong.
  • The Kingston Road Tramway Line is extended eastward to Victoria Park Avenue. It should be noted that this section of Kingston Road was part of the existing Kingston Road that exist today and would be known as Queen Street in the coming years. The section of the road that continue east at this point was call Maple Street back then and it too would become Queen Street. Also, there is a plaque stating the line reached Blantyre Avenue at this time and that a block further to the east than what has been written on the line. It is also not clear if the tracks were on Kingston Road itself or on Maple Street (Queen Street).
  • June 1st saw the opening of a park call "Victoria Park" that was build by a number of businessmen from Toronto on land leased from Peter Patterson, who own the land in the now Toronto (Scarborough) at Blantyre Avenue and now (Roland Caldwell Harris Filtration Plant) which over look Lake Ontario. A number of buildings, landscaping, and walkways were built as well a walkway out into Lake Ontario that would allow visitor and picnickers to the park get off The Davies Steamship Line Ferry from Toronto. Other activities were to be found from canoeing to eating amount other thing. The lease for this was for 10 years and would see Brewer Thomas Davies buying the land in 1896 before the lease was up. TRC would lease the lands in 1900 after Davies wanted to closed the park and turn it into a residential area.
  • October 7, a station (West Toronto) was open for the various railways on the south side of Queen Street and the east side of Dufferin Street to service the Parkdale area. This grade crossing would go on to cause all kinds of problems that it would see grade separated construction on it in 1885.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds an line on Spadina Street (Spadina Avenue) going north from King Street to College Street. Again some conflicting year as another sources said 1878 and this could be the construction year with 1878 as start of operation. Service would run from King Street and George Street along King Street to Spadina Street and then north to College Street in a tree line ROW in the middle of the street. Not the same as what we have today.

• 1879
  • January 1st, saw the Village of Parkdale becoming a municipality that was comprised of 487 acres of land bound by Dufferin St to the east, Roncesvalles Avenue on the west, Lake Ontario to the south and while the northern limit was along the southwest property line of the GTR from Dufferin to Jameson Avenue North (now Lansdowne) thence west to Roncesvalles between what is now Wright and Fermanagh Avenues. It should be noted that King Street west of Dufferin Street to Roncesvalles Avenue did not exist at this time.
  • Toronto Street Railways extends the Queen Line westward from Dundas Street (Ossington Avenue) to the west boundary of the City at (Dufferin Street).

• 1880
  • By the 1880's, over 425 railways using the grove rail were operating in North America over six thousand miles of rail and carrying close to 200 million riders yearly.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds a carhouse at 132 Front Street East and would be demolished in 1979 for a condo tower.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds tracks on College Street west of Spadina Street (Spadina Avenue) to the City Limits at Dufferin Street.
  • Saw Queen Street open from the Don River to Woodbine Avenue and York Township surveying Queen Street East, east of Woodbine Avenue to the Scarborough Township boundary.

• 1881
  • Would see the Village of Brockton incorporated as a Town of Brockton that was bound by Bloore (Bloor) Street to the north, Dufferin Street to the east, Indian Road to the west and High Park Avenue to the south that would travel east from Indian Road to where it would meet the railway corridor and then travel south to Queen Street. It would be the home to the Dufferin Park Racetrack that was open to the public in 1907 on the estate of Charles Leslie Denison who built the track in the first place. It closed in 1956 is now home to the Dufferin Mall and a high traffic generator for TTC 29 Dufferin Bus Route today. If it was for the Dufferin Jog and hills, it most likely would had seen tracks built on it.
  • May saw the Ontario & Quebec Railway reincorporated and would build tracks across the north side of Toronto which is known as CPR North Toronto Line and would run west to the West Toronto Junction and then follow the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway Line into Toronto. It would build
  • With Ontario & Quebec Railway building across Yonge Street at Summerhill, the Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto would be forced to relocate its track and station north to Farnham.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds a small extension on Strachan Avenue, south of King Street to Wellington Street that would take the riders closure to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition and a shorter walking distance to get there. That line does not exist today.
  • Senator Frank Smith who had been the Mayor of London, appointed as the first Roman Catholic Senator by Sir John A MacDonald in 1871 and a board member of the Toronto Saving Bank, bought controlling interest in TSR that would lead labour unrest. Senator Frank Smith had no use for Union's that he made a policy that no one was allow to join a labour group and doing so would lead to dismissal. This policy would caused a strike in March of 1886.
  • Toronto Street Railways extends the Sherbourne Line on College Street that had stop at Parliament Street in 1874 by going north on a small section of Parliament Street to Winchester Street and travel east on it to the Rosedale Ravine edge around the Sumach Street area. This routing was to link up with the heavy trail that ran up the Don Valley at the time. None of these tracks exist today.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds another small extension onto Queen Street off the Sherbourne Street Line to Parliament Street.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds the Church Street Line running north off King Street to 2nd concession (Bloor Street) as Bloore Street still not exist at this time in this area as a name. The Church Street line ran through "Molly Wood's Bush" that was known to be an area of hankie panty in the 1800's on the estate of a merchant and magistrate in Upper Canada known as Alexander Wood who was forefather of the guy community. "Molly" was a slang word at the time related to "homosexual" and that change after 1981 to what is now known as The Church Wellesley Village and is home to the gay and lesbian community. Only the tracks south of College Street remain today and used for short turns.

• 1882
  • Canadian Pacific Railway buys 46 acres of land in West Toronto bound by Keele Street in the west, north of Dundas Street that would see a new yard and roundhouse built there in 1890.
  • 240 acres of land next to Canadian Pacific Railway Development for the Keele and Dundas Streets area was bought by D. W. Clendenan and D.J.Laws who turn into building lots that would be call the West Toronto Junction that would come in to play in the next few years. That area is bounded by Keele Street to the West, Bloore Street West to the south, Dundas Street West to the north, Lake View Road (Evelyn Avenue) and Kennedy Park to the east. It would see CPR building a yard westward from Keele Street to Scarlett Road. It would also see the building of the stockyard and meat plants between the tracks and St Clair Avenue to the north and to Elizabeth Street (Runnymede Road) in the west. Some conflicting information surrounding CPR since it did not come into existent until 1883 and the land was own by Ontario & Quebec Railway that was formed 1881 and was merged into CPR on January 1884. That land would become the Lampton Yard that we know today.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds tracks on Parliament Street, north of Queen Street to Gerrard Street and then goes east to the Don River.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds a major facility at Front Street and Fredrick that stills exist today as the The Young People's Theatre. It would function as a power plant to feed the power for the electrify system, maintain streetcars for its as well build new ones as well build cars for Montreal, Winnipeg, Mexico systems also. It would remain in service until 1924 when TTC who took over facilities in 1921 built their Hillcrest complex.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds the McCaul Line that ran on McCaul Street name after John McCaul who was an educator that ran between Queen Street and College Street. Today, TTC used these tracks for short turning as well using the McCaul Loop just north of Queen Street to turn the 502 Downtowner line today.

• 1883
  • February 1st, The Village of Yorkville north of Bloore Street that was the city limits at the time was annexed by the City of Toronto at the request of the Village of Yorkville and its name was change to St Paul's Ward with the Town hall been change to St Paul's Hall. Note: in some places it state it was February 5th, not the 1st.
  • Toronto Street Railways would extend the Spadina Line north to Bloore Street.
  • Toronto Street Railways builds tracks on College Street east of Spadina Street (Spadina Avenue) to McCaul Street.
  • August 1st, Ontario & Quebec Railway take control of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce and this force CPR to move its operation from Parkdale to West Toronto.
  • The Toronto Industrial Exhibition that ran the first 2 weeks in September, approached John Joseph Wright who own Toronto Electric Light Company on setting up an electric railway for them, similar to the one in Chicago. The first attempt of getting a system to work on a 350 yard line would end up as a failure.
  • November 20, The Credit Valley Railway merged with Ontario & Quebec Railway and would become one of many railways that would see the same thing happen to them in the following years as well fade in to history or the lake of it.

• 1884
  • January, Canadian Pacific Railway takes over The Ontario & Quebec Railway and this could be the time frame for the yard known as Lampton Yard to be built.
  • January 1st saw the Town of Brockton annexed by the City of Toronto and some conflicting time line as it is aide to happen in 1887.
  • January saw construction get underway on building the grade separation on Queen Street West at Dufferin Street at a cost of $20,000 at that time and would open in 1885. The corner stone for this underpass says 1897. It is very strange and unknown why the section of Dufferin Street between Peel Street that was located one block north of Queen Street and Queen Street was not built at that time. Up to the time the railways came along, that area was a swamp and one reason Dufferin Street stop at Peel Street. It would take until November 18, 2010 before that missing section of the road would surface when the new Dufferin Street underpass was open for use the first time. This would put the end to the famous Dufferin Street Jog at a cost of $40 million dollars.
  • City of Toronto renamed Mills Road to Boardview Avenue that would house a transit line on it, a few years later. Mills Road was a wagon road that services the lumber mills along the Don that was owned by Timothy Skinner who owned the mills along the Don River at that time until order by the Government of Upper Canada to build a accrual road in 1798. At that time, the road ran from Kingston Road which would be change to Queen Street years later. The section of Broadview south was known as Scadding Street and the section north of Danforth would be call Mills Road until 1913-22.
  • The City of Toronto expands it City Limits east of the Don River by annexing the Village of Riverdale that ran south of Danforth, North of Queen Street and east to Mcclean. At the same time, it took in 108 acres of land known as Sunnyside that was on the west side of the Village of Parkdale. It would also absorbed the Town of Brockton that was incorporated in 1876 and became a Town in 1881.
  • A second attempt was under taken to try to run an electric streetcar for the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. This time with the help of Charles Joseph Van Depoele, a railway pioneer as well the inventor of the electric railway for Chicago, built a 3,000 foot line and it operated successfully this time. The line was built on the grounds of Toronto Industrial Exhibition.
  • Saw the service on the Kingston Road Tramway discontinue with the annexed of Riverdale for some reason and another piece of conflicting information as there is a plaque showing it stopping in 1893 and running as far as Blantyre Avenue in the east.
  • Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto would build their track south on Yonge Street under their 1877 Franchise with the City of Toronto to Summerhill (Montgomery Avenue) that was just south of St Clair Ave and would be home to CPR Summerhill Station in 1914.

• 1885
  • Would see construction start on the King Street West grade separation as it was causing the same problems as Queen Street, was having due to the amount of railway traffic crossing it. The cost to build this underpass was $15,500 at the time. For some unknown reasons, Dufferin Street was not deemed a major Street at the time nor there were any plans to do so and why there was no underpass built for Dufferin Street at this time. It would take until 2008 before this road would see that badly missing section of underpass that opened on November 18, 2010 at 3:00 pm at a cost of $40 million dollars.
  • November 16th, the Supreme Court of Canada rules against the appeal of the Toronto Gravel Road and Concrete Company to allow them to run a stream locomotive along Kingston Road to service their gravel pit as well run passenger service to Toronto.
  • July 25th saw Toronto Street Railways running service on Bathurst Street from Bloore Street that was home to Seaton Village that would go south to College Street, east to Spadina Street (Spadina Avenue), east on King to Fredrick Street, south to Front Street until 1891.

• 1886
  • January 1st, the Village of Parkdale cease to exist as it became the Town of Parkdale.
  • Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto extended their Yonge Street Line north to York Mills that house the Village of Hogg Hollow. There is conflicting information as to date as it is noted elsewhere as been 1892.
  • March would see an number TSR employees fired after they join the Knights of Labour that saw on the March 11th about 300 to 400 men go on strike over these firing. Near the end of the day, everything had come to a halt for TSR to the point that the public was taking part in this strike by support the fired men as well believed TSR had grown too well at their expense. As usually with strikes, mobs would form to cause all kinds of problems as well excitement. The crowds gather at King Street and Yonge Street with the TSR employees meeting at the Knights of Labour at the Arcade on Yonge Street. The mob un-hitches the horse from various cars and sent them flying now the track on Yonge Street where they ended up in the snow banks. The following day would see the police getting involved were they would travel on cars to get the system moving as well preventing any confrontation that make take place along the routes. During this confrontation between Senator Frank Smith and the Union, former employees of TSR try to setup their own streetcar system. After a fire at a stable was been used by the ex-TSR employees, they gave up on trying to run a competing streetcar company in June with Senator Frank Smith winning the day. The sweet victory for Senator Frank Smith would be short live.
  • May 28th would see the first electrical streetcar line in Canada when the Windsor started to run service on their 1.5 mile (2.4 km) line and it would another 6 years before Toronto saw one.
  • June 7th saw the City of Toronto pass a bylaw: "A by-law to provide for an issue of five per cent ten year local improvement debentures, being the proportion to be borne by the Toronto Street Railway Company of the cost of construction of cedar block roads on certain streets herein named, and for rating the said Toronto Street Railway Company therefore. " You can read more of that bylaw Here in more detail. Upon the City passing this bylaw and billing Senator Frank Smith for these cost, Senator Frank Smith refused to pay this cost as well help to The Kiely Franchise renew in 1891.
  • At this time, TSR office were located at the St Paul's Hall on the ground floor that were once the Yorkville Village Town Hall before Yorkville was annexed in 1882(?)
  • 1886 to 1887, Toronto Street Railways builds a complex at 165 Front Street East that still exist today as the Young People's Theatre.

• 1887
  • March 2, under the 40 Vic. ch. 85 by the a statute of the Ontario legislature was pass and would have a bearing in the law suit brought forth by the City of Toronto in the coming years requiring TSR:
    • 1. That the said Toronto Street Railway Company should be bound to construct, renew, maintain and keep in good order and repair, the roadway between the rails, and one foot and six inches outside of each rail, using for that purpose the same material and mode of construction as that which should from time to time be adopted and used for the remaining portion of the street by the corporation. Provided, that where the corporation of the city of Toronto should adopt and use in any street or portion of street traversed by the railway a permanent pavement of wood, stone, asphalt or other material of the like permanent character, the said Street Railway Company should not in such case be bound to construct the same or to pay more than the cost price of such pavement over the space between their rails and for one foot six inches outside of each rail, and as against the said company, that such price should not, in any case, exceed the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per square yard.
    • 4. That in every case of construction or renewal of any kind of permanent pavement upon any of the streets occupied by the said Street Railway Company, the said company should have the option of constructing their portion of any such pavement, or at their request the said corporation of the city of Toronto should construct the same and that in every such case the corporation should assess an annual rate, (covering interest and sinking fund extending over the like period as that upon which the. assessment upon the adjacent ratepayer's is adjusted) upon the said company for the cost thereof not exceeding the sum of two dollars and fifty cents per square yard with full power to the said corporation to raise such sum by an issue of debentures and to collect the same in the manner provided under the Municipal Act for the construction of local improvements.
    • 5. That if the corporation should at any time elect to assume the said street under the provisions of the agreement and by-law in that behalf, the arbitrators appointed to determine the value of the real and personal property of the said company should also estimate, as an asset of the Company, the value to the said company of any permanent pavement thereafter constructed or paid for by the said company for the balance of the life of the said pavement.
  • With the change to the statute explains why we see 18 inches of concrete on outside sides of the rails today.
  • The Kingston Road Tram cease operation after getting as far east as Blantyre Avenue on Kingston Road.
  • Saw the boundaries of Toronto expanding again with the annexing the "Toronto Annex" (land north of Bloore Street to the now CPR tracks, west of Avenue Road to Bathurst Street) west of Yorkville and north of Bloore (Bloor) Street as well land east of Yonge Street to the Rosedale ravine and north of Bloore (Bloor) Street. The Town of Brockton that was south of Bloore (Bloor) Street and west of the City limits was also annexed (it is stated else where this happen in 1884). The area south of Kingston Road East/Queen Street East, east of the Don to Mcclean Avenue is also annexed.
  • Toronto Street Railways extends service east to Woodbine Park along Queen Street East. This would be known as the St Lawrence-Woodbine Line. Some more conflicting information as to time frame.
  • June saw the lands known as West Toronto Junction incorporated as the Village of West Toronto Junction that included all the land south of the CPR Toronto to London line to Bloore (Bloor) Street West, West to what is call Runnymede Road. At this time, the Villages of Davenport and Carlton refused to join as they wanted to create the Village of Stanley, name after the Governor General of Canada at that time.
  • The Railway Committee of the Privy Council of Canada order the City of Toronto and the various railways crossing King Street and Queen Street to build an underpass on both streets due to the fact that over 250 trains cross these roads at grade and it was a very dangerous crossing for all parties with the cost been split among all parties. According to court documents, agreement was only reached on October 21, 1887 and this conflicts with the date of 1885 of the start of the bridge been built.

• 1888
  • January 1st, the Village of East Toronto was incorporated that saw various hamlets, Villages of Norway, Benlamond, Leslieville amalgamated after they voted to be removed from the York Township in 1887(?).
  • Toronto Street Company builds the Broadview Avenue Line running from Queen Street East north to Danforth Avenue.
  • City of Toronto annexed a small area of land between the Town of Parkdale and Town of Brockton (Brockton was now part of Toronto).
  • October 27 saw the residents of the Town of Parkdale vote in favour to be annexed by the City of Toronto. It would become St. Alban's Ward in 1889.
  • The King Street underpass is completed allowing better traffic flow for pedestrian, streetcar and traffic.
  • January would see TG&B servicing the Parkdale station and this would make the TRC Queen Street Line a very important link in its system outside the city core.
  • The City of Toronto was granted powers to borrow what every funds it needed to take control of TSR when its franchises expired in 1891 as well the power lease or sale the assets of TSR to another else at a later date after taking controls of TSR, carhouses, stables, office space, tracks and other properties. This was done under an provincial legislature ACT granting the City of Toronto powers that would also allow it to operate the system themselves if they so chose to do so.

• 1889
  • January 1st, once more saw the City of Toronto expanding its boundaries when it took control of the Town of Parkdale as well a small section of land north of Yorkville.
  • March would see the Village of West Toronto Junction becomes the Town of West Toronto Junction and expanded by taking in the Villages of Davenport and Carlton who refused to join the Village in 1897 and after both villages fail to merger into the Village of Stanley, name after the Governor General of Canada at that time.
  • June 22, The Town of West Toronto Junction becomes the Town of West Toronto.
  • Toronto Street Railways extends the Queen Street East Line east from Woodbine Avenue to Lea Avenue.
  • Saw the end to The Toronto Industrial Exhibition electric experimental line after carrying over 50,000 riders over the years. The City of Toronto saw a future of transit being electric power that would reducing operating cost as well see the removal of horses off the City Streets.
  • December would see Toronto Street Railways running service along new track on Bathurst Street, south of College Street to King Street that would connect to the King line and travel east to Fredrick Street and Front Street.

1890 to 1899 Page

• 1890
  • Davenport Street Railway Company built their Dundas Line westward from Runnymede to Lambton Park at the Humber River with a passing track located 2 block east of Jane Street at Willard Avenue.
  • CPR start moving their Parkdale complex to the West Town Junction as the Parkdale complex is too small, but the yards would remain.
  • Toronto Street Railways starts building the Bloore (Bloor) Street Line starting at Sherbourne Street that is located east of Yonge Street and traveling westward toward Clinton Streets that was a block east of Christie Street, but was finished by the City of Toronto after the expiree of the franchise own by Toronto Street Railways who control the streetcar lines for the City of Toronto.
  • Toronto Belt Line Railway start building another ring line running from the Don River and the Grand Truck Lines to the northern limits of Toronto north of St Clair Avenue and then westerly over to Canadian Northern Railway (now CNoR) line west of Caledonia Road, then south back to Union Station, but is unable to complete the line due to financially problems in 1894.
  • September saw the Toronto Industrial Exhibition running steam locomotives on the electric experimental line for the last time.
  • November 14, saw the incorporation of the Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company that would run service from Sunnyside along the Lakeshore to Humber River using duel end cars. It is assumed that the tracks were on the lower level somewhere around Sunnyside and Roncesvalles Avenue since Queen Street which was on the higher level stop at Sunnyside Avenue as no road went west of here other than the Sunnyside frame and that land was been used for farming at this time. A road to be Lakeshore ran from the lower level to the top level that would cross the level grade crossing of the railways. This grade crossing would be removed at a later date when a bridge was built over the track and this would allow Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company streetcars to gain access to the King-Queen-Roncesvalles junction.
  • November 12, under the Ontario Street Railway Act that came into existent in 1887, the Weston, High Park and Toronto Street Railway Company, Limited was the first company to be incorporated under this Act to run service in West Toronto Junction, York and Etobicoke Townships. Before any construction took place, its name was change to City & Suburban Electric Railway Company in 1891.
  • December 23, Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company is given permission to start construction on its line running westward from Queen Streets West and Roncesvalles Avenue using Toronto Street Railways track gauge by York Country. At the same time, York Country issued the company a 21 year franchise to operate a railway as well sell hydro to the residents along the route. The Provincial Government would grand the company the right to obtain land for its Right-of-Way as well stations between Roncesvalles Avenue and the City Limits of Toronto at Dufferin Street. It would purchased 4 larger double end cars from TRC to be used on the new line. It is not clear where the tracks starts at this time since Lakeshore Rd started on the west side of Roncesvalles Avenue with the road crossing the railway tracks at Sunnyside to the south and all photo's shown of this crossing at the time show no tracks. In the following years of photographs for the crossing, no tracks are every shown for this crossing, nor the eastern section up to Roncesvalles Avenue.
  • By year end, between Toronto Street Railways and TRC, they would build 79 open and close horse cars for the system.
  • The Radial lines would electricity their lines well before for Toronto system does to the point that Sir Adam Beck who control the Hydro Electric Power Commission Ontario would used then as a source of cost cutting to supply power to the outlay area that they severed.

• 1891
  • Toronto Street Railways builds a single track north of Bloore (Bloor) Street on Bathurst Street that would travel north to Hammond Street (Dupont Road), next to the CPR tracks to allow better transferring to the Davenport Line that was on the north side of the tracks.
  • The Davenport Electric Railway and Light Company Limited was created by Allan H. Royce a barrister and resident of Davenport which would become Davenport Street Railway Company.
  • Saw the incorporation of the City and Suburban Electric Railway Company, Limited.
  • February 11, the Davenport Street Railway Company was incorporated.
  • March 26, the Toronto Railway Company control by William Lyon Mackenzie been given a 30 year franchises by the City of Toronto. Toronto Railway Company would use the horseless streetcars Filey to operate on the lines under its control for the City of Toronto. Some conflicting time frame.
  • March 26 would see TSR franchises expired that would allow the City of Toronto to run a transit system themselves based on what had happen over the years with dealing with TSR. Conflict information as to date as it was noted it was May 16 in various places.
  • April 20, the Davenport Street Railway Company is given a 20 year franchise by the Town of West Toronto Junction to operate service within the limits of the Town.
  • May 16, the Toronto Street Railways 30 year Franchise expired allowing the City of Toronto to try to run a Public Transit System. The City tries to force Toronto Street Railways to turn their system over to them without entering into a contract to buy the system from them in the first place. At this point, Toronto Street Railways removed all their equipment off the streets of Toronto. Toronto Street Railways and the City enter into arbitration where cooler heads prevail to the point a selling price of $1.4 Million was reached at the end of May. At the end of the franchises, Toronto Street Railways had built 68 miles of track that saw 1,372 horses pulling 361 streetcars over them. It only take the City of Toronto and the residents of Toronto a few months of operating the system to realize that there were great risk involved in operating the system that the City and the citizens were not prepared to take this risk on at this time.
  • Toronto Street Railways had a fleet of 262 cars, 100 omnibuses, 100 sleighs and 1,356 horses when its franchises expired.
  • May 20, under the control of the City of Toronto, horse drawn streetcars would start to run on the Bloore (Bloor) Line from Sherbourne Street to Clinton Streets and would see the line extended to Christie Street that year. Some more conflicting information. The citizens and the employees of the TSR who now work for the city of Toronto were expecting more from the City than what was provided under TSR such as higher wages and working condition for the employees with riders seeing better service, transfer as well lower fare, but they would end up being disappointed when this didn't happen.
  • August saw Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company start construction of their Mimico Line at the Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue that would reach Humber River by July 1892. The line would follow the Lake Shore Road westward. It is not clear where the tracks started, but since the Lake Shore crossover the railway tracks around the current location of Glendale Road, it is assumed it the Lake Shore Line cross those tracks to get to the King-Queen-Roncesvalles intersection and stop just west of Sunnyside Avenue.
  • From May to August, the City of Toronto found out first hand what it took to run a transit system like TSR did, by see all kinds of complaints of various types, claim for accidents or injury, maintaining the fleets as well adding to it, the up keep, interferences from council members as well influence-peddling within the system itself and the various write ups in the newspapers. This lead the city to look for an party to operate the system as it was not prepared to take the various risk to operate a system as well expanded it like it wanted to do at this time.
  • September 1st, after being approached by a number of businessmen about taking the Transit System off the City hands with great incentives, the City granted a new 30 year Franchise to the Toronto Railway Company to be known as TRC. The company would be control by William Lyon Mackenzie who would go on to purchased controlling interested in other companies as well start new ones in the coming years, only to loose them in the early 1900's. George Washington Kiely was also an partner with Mackenzie in controlling TRC at this time, who happen to buy TRS in 1870 with his bother William T. to only loose control of it in 1881 to Senator Frank Smith. Both men were to follow a number of agreements that TRC would have to full fill in obtaining this franchise from electrifying the system, building more lines, paying a fair wage to its employees, setting a new fare and so on. TRC would charge $.05 to ride the system with special rates for students and children along with transfer to change from one of TRC lines to another. Also, the speed of streetcars was to faster than the current 6 miles after the system was electrify as well offering schedule service. TRC would go on to build lines on Bathurst Street, Bloore Street, Front Street
  • Except for 10 cars, Toronto Railway Company cars built of wood were built in-house at their shop located at Front and Frederick Streets. Toronto Railway Company also had an other company call Convertible Car Company of Toronto that would build cars for the system as well, Mexico, Western Canada, South America and a number of large cars for the Toronto and York Radial Railway.
  • Toronto Railway Company builds a line on Dufferin Street from Queen Street West south to a loop next to the Grand Truck Railway line that would be used to carry riders to the Industrial Exhibition later to be call the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) with the loop being call Dufferin Loop. That loop still exists today. At this time, Dufferin Street was the City Limits and most of King Street to the west of it was not built.
  • Metropolitan Street Railway Company of Toronto starts electrifying their line and put an end to horse drawn cars. Is was done was the management where in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1889 were they saw an electric streetcar in service there that year.
  • Toronto Railway Company extents the Bloore (Bloor) Street line westerly from Christie Street to Dufferin Street. Upon the completion of the extension of the Bloore (Bloor) Line to Dufferin Street, it created what is call the "Belt Line".
  • TRC builds a single track north of Bloore (Bloor) Street to the north side of Dupont Street, next to the CPR tracks and allow better connection to the new Davenport Line that was under construction at the time that would stop on the north side of the CPR tracks. At the same time, tracks are built south of King Street to Front Street.
  • October 23, saw the end to the Bathurst Car using the College Street/Spadina routing when it would operate as a north-south line only.
  • Mid November, TRC Line combines the Spadina Line and the Bloore-Sherbourne line for this belt line that saw operation in both direction on Sherbourne, King Spadina and Bloor Street. It also saw Bloore (Bloor) cars going south on Spadina Avenue, east on Queen Street, south on York Street, east on Front Street to Yonge Street. It would continue after TTC took control of TRC in 1921.

• 1892
  • January 1st, the citizens of Toronto voted to maintain the "Blue Law" that prevented TRC from operating service on Sunday.
  • City and Suburban Electric Railway Company, Limited started to operate service from Dundas Street West and Keele Street westerly along Dundas Street West to Gilmour Avenue. It would run through the villages of Davenport and Carlton.
  • June 1st, saw Grand Trunk Railway taking over the bankrupt Toronto Belt Line Railway and completed the line.
  • July 30th saw the Grand Trunk Railway starting to run passenger on the 40 km (25 miles) Belt Line with 6 trains for the loop and charging $.25 to ride it.
  • August 16, Toronto Railway Company lived up to their promises by electrifying the Church Street Streetcar Route. The rest of the lines would be electrify in the coming months.
  • August 18, saw Toronto and Scarborough' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company that was going to provide streetcar service in the Township of Scarborough outside the City Limits of Toronto in the east. Service ran on Queen Street East from Coxwell Avenue to Victoria Park Avenue, Little York from Kingston Road to Main and Gerrard. Duel end cars were used on these lines. It said that the carhouse was located on Kingston Road around the Notre Dame Convent area. One branch line would go south of Kingston Road on Blantyre to Queen that would be used only during the summer months as the area around Queen Street was a summer resort as well a amusement park. Another line ran north by Walter, Lyall and Kimberley to Gerrard.
  • TRC would start to operated service over the new Front Street Line that would run from Fredrick Street in the East to Bathurst Street in the West.
  • September 5, TRC King Street Line is electrified. Some conflicting time line as it is stated elsewhere it happen on April 19.
  • September 6, Davenport Street Railway Company started electric service on their new line that begin at the Junction at Keele and Dundas going north to St. Clair, then east to Ford Street, (one block east of the old Weston Road) south to Davenport Road, east to Bathurst Street and south to the CPR mainline just north of Dupont Street. A carhouse would be built on the south side of St Clair Avenue West between Old Weston Road and Keele Street.
  • September 10, service on the Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company is suspended until July 1st, 1893.
  • TRC starts to run service to the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (CNE) west end by running cars south of King Street on Dufferin Street to a loop at Springhurst Avenue and would be moved to the current location in 1906.
  • December 2nd, Toronto Railway Company changes the route of the Bloore (Bloor) to Yonge Street by Spadina Avenue to Spadina to Dufferin (need more info).
  • Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto convert their system of horse drawn cars to electric car after management saw electric cars in service in 1889 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania
  • Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto extended their Yonge Street Line north to York Mills that house the Village of Hogg Hollow. There is conflicting information as to date as it is noted elsewhere as been 1886 as well May 1895.
  • Toronto and Richmond Hill Electric Railway comes into existent that sees them being given an franchise by the County of York. It would be incorporated provincial legislation in 1894, put it would not build the line after the County of York refused to allow them when they ran afoul with the County.
  • TRC started the process of converting it horse cars to electric ones as well build 3 sprinklers and two sweepers for their system an 3 sweepers for Montreal Tram System.

• 1893
  • Saw TRC running service from Lea Avenue, that was west of Main Street, along Kingston Road to the section now call Queen Street East toward the Don River where it follow King Street to Dufferin Street, making it the first cross city line. At the same time it would run summer only service along Queen Street East, east of Kingston Road to Balsam Avenue.
  • The Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto name was change to Metropolitan Street Railway and be now known as Metropolitan.
  • The City and Suburban Electric Railway Company, Limited extend the Dundas line south to Louisa Street (St. Johns Road), east to Fairview Avenue and south to Evelyn Crescent. The Dundas line was also built east to Humberside Avenue which happen to be the City Limits for the City of Toronto where it connected to Toronto Street Railways who reached this located also in 1893.
  • July 1, William Mackenzie buys controlling interested in Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company Line that would allow the company to resume service on it route as well to expand. It would go on to extend the Lakeshore Line from the Humber River to Mimico Creek by July 10, 1893 and to Kipling Avenue by September 23, 1893. It would offer 20 minutes service during the day and help to encourage development along the line.
  • August 1st, Toronto Railway Company electrify the Bloore (Bloor) Line.
  • December 23, TRC buys the Dundas line east extension from City and Suburban Electric Railway Company, Limited allowing Toronto Street Railways to operate on it to a Wye at the Dundas Street West and Keele Street intersection. Toronto Street Railways double track the line from Humberside to Indiana Grove. Conflicting dates as the Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited is not incorporated until 1894.
  • TRC would start to run streetcar service to Sunnyside Beaches to the point that a special program was introduce later on that saw free transit for any child wearing a bathing suite and carrying a towel. This service would last until August 1950 when TTC discontinue the practice, due to declining ridership. It is assumed that with William Mackenzie buying control of the Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company Line on July 1st, this year that Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company Line is now a division of TRC that would allow the TRC Queen Street line to reach Sunnyside in the first place. Also, there is conflict information and photo showing TRC car 11 been the first TRC car to service Sunnyside in 1896.

• 1894
  • May 5th saw the incorporation of the Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited under Ontario Act, 57 Vic., Cap. 94 to purchase the Davenport Street Railway Company, as well the City and Suburban Electric Railway Company, Limited. Allan H. Royce along with his brother took control of the company from the original shareholders. It also used the old Toronto horse car track gauge of 4 feet 10 and 3/4 inches that allow wagons to ride along the rail to avoiding rutting the dirt streets.
  • May 1st, sees the Supreme Court of Canada rule in favour of the City of Toronto against TRC that requires TRC to maintain 18 inches on the out sides of its rails.
  • July 4th saw a WYE come into service on Bathurst Street at Dupont Street to service the Bathurst Line.
  • August 31, the last horse drawn streetcar for the Toronto Street Railways Dovercourt route was removed off McCaul Street.
  • November 7, Grand Trunk Railway cease passenger service on Toronto Belt Line Railway.
  • The Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company extend the Lakeshore Line from Mimico to Etobicoke Creek, the current site of the Long Branch Loop that using duel end cars. It was 400 meter east of the current boundary for the now City of Mississauga. The line would run along the Lake Shore Road west of Dwight Avenue that was the western boundary of The Village of Mimico. It would not be unit 1930 that this area would become the Village of Long Branch.
  • It should be noted that the Royce family are related to the Rolls-Royce industries as well the Ferranti-Packard that exist today.
  • Toronto Railway Company started to build single end cars for their system. Only the curb side of the car was open and there were no aisles, allowing for greater carrying capacity. During the winter months and when it rain, a curtain would be unroll from the roof to protect the riders. Considering the winter months were unattached to riders using this curtain, Toronto Street Railways developed the convertible car where the curb side was removed in the spring and reinstalled in the fall.
  • TRC would build the first double truck and 20 single truck cars for Montreal Tram system.
  • The Weston Road Line for the Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited come into service that ran north on Keele Street using the Davenport Line track and then north onto Weston road. It ran north to the south side of Village of Weston, south of Eagle Avenue (Lawrence Avenue West) until a franchise was issue. With the issuing of the franchise, the line was extended north to King Street with the requirement that line continue north to the Village limits. It ran as a single track line with a passing track using 4 ft 10 3/4 inches gauge.
  • Metropolitan Street Railway starts operation of their Yonge Street line from Summerhill to Glen Grove Avenue (Also known as Glen Echo). Summerhill would see Canadian Pacific Railway build their Summerhill Station there in 1916. Conflict as to year as one source said 1892 while another said 1896.

• 1895
  • TRC would build 10 more cars for Montreal Tram System.
  • May saw Metropolitan Street Railway Yonge Street Line reaching York Mills Hogg's Hollow where horse drawn cars and wagons had a hard time climbing the hill going south. The line was also electrify at the same time. Again conflicting information as this was supposed to happen in 1892 and 1896. A power plat would be built at Hogg's Hollow to supply the electricity for the line. It is not known and very possible a power plant was built down around St Clair Avenue. The line was single track with bypass tracks space along the line to allow streetcars to run in both directions at the same time. It was done this way to reduce capital cost as well maintenance cost for double tracks.
  • Toronto Railway Company built a carhouse at Queen Street West and Roncesvalles Avenue on the north-west corner call Roncesvalles. That carhouse still exist today and is used by TTC streetcars. TTC would rebuilt the building in 1920's on the existing site with larger capacity.
  • March 6, TRC gains controlling interest in Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company.
  • Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company is hired to store 13 streetcars overnight for Victoria Park to allow visitors to sleep over and raise a question what were the sleeping arrangement like as to where were these cars stored? It is assumed that it was the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company who were supplying the cars on Blantyre Avenue since TRC still had not reached this area at the time.
  • July would see the Village of Richmond Hill Council been petition to grant a $10,000 bonus to get Metropolitan Street Railway Company of Toronto to extended their line from Hogg's Hollow to their Village. To do so, it would required Council to pass a by-law to allow payment of this $10,000, but it would be until 1896 before anything took place.
  • July would see the last departure of ferry boats to Victoria Park as the streetcar service was cutting in to its bottom line.
  • September The Toronto Industrial Exhibition electric streetcar lines was extended from TRC King Street Line at Strachan Avenue and into the Exhibition itself for a distance of a 1 i/4 mile.

• 1896
  • January 1st, the Bloore (Bloor) line is renamed Bloore & McCaul that would operate to downtown Toronto at Front Street and Yonge Street.
  • May the TRC Bloore Line is extended from Dufferin Street to Lansdowne Avenue.
  • TRC would build a sweeper for London Tram system, four large double truck open cars for the Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and a large double truck closed car for the Hamilton & Dundas Street Railway.
  • The heirs of George Munro, who pass away in 1878, leased 6 to 10-hectare of the 25 hectare of "Painted Post Farm" that started up in 1847 on the east side of Victoria Park (now Roland Caldwell Harris Filtration Plant) to TRC for ten years. TRC would build an amusement park to drawing riders to used system in off hours. It would build an picnic area, bandstand, dance hall and rides. (Conflict as to location since Munro estate was west of here.)
  • October 19 would CPR open their Don Station next to Lower Queen Street bridge after trying to get down the Don Valley from Leaside since 1883. This lower queen Street Bridge and rail crossing would be replace in 1911 after a grade crossing accident that saw a number of streetcar passenger injured and killed. The station closed on December 5th, 1967 after CPR stop running passenger service.
  • October 22nd, The Liberal reported that Mr William Mackenzie was having supper in Richmond Hill as owner of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company of Toronto and some thing was a foot.
  • October 24, Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto is given approval by both the County of York and charter approval to build 16 sixteen kilometers of single track from Hogg's Hollow to Richmond Hill. A crew of about 400 men would build this line in various sections as it was to be completed by November 20, 1896. Note: Another source said construction got underway on October 26.
  • November 16, the first radial car for the Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto arrives at its terminus at the corner of Yonge Street and Lorne Avenue in the centre of Richmond Hill. It was a horse drawn do to the fact that a lot of the overhead was not in place and it would be not until February 1, 1897 before service start.
  • TRC starts to run service to the Lake Shore Line this year with car 11 having the honour of being the first car to service this line. The line would run west of the Queen-King-Roncesvalles intersection. It is said that TRC gain control of this section of tracks from Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway when it gain controlling interest in the company in 1894 and this raised the question when did TRC really start to service Sunnyside? At the same time, where was Lakeshore Road in the first place as well the correct name for it?

• 1897
  • January 1st, by a narrow margin, the "Blue Law" was repelled when the citizen voted for the referendum on it. Up to this time, only streetcar service that could be run on a Sunday was for the delivery of milk.
  • January 14, saw the first electrical Radial car on the Yonge Street Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto arrived in Richmond Hill. It was a state of the art car produce by Pullman Palace Car Company.
  • February 1st, Metropolitan Street Railway start service from Richmond Hill to Toronto City Limits by offering 4 round trips daily at a cost of $.40 for a single trip or $.65 for around tip. Service would then be extended south of the City limits to the CPR tracks at Summerhill. The travel time from Richmond Hill to the Summerhill was 45 minutes now compared to the 3 hour stagecoach ride by Thompson's stagecoach Line that would cease to exist overtime as it could not complete with the radial line. The power to produce the electrics to operated the line was supply from a power plant at Davisville.
  • May 16, 1897, TRC starts running Sunday service since the "Blue law" was defeated on January 1st, 1897 and it would lead to a higher demand for service on that day of the week.
  • The Metropolitan Street Railway saw the Toronto Railway Company getting controlling interest of the company.
  • The Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company extends its tracks southerly from Kingston road down Blantyre Avenue to Victoria Park at the foot of it. It would offer summer only service as very few people lived in the area as it was used as a summer home area as well the amusement park at Victoria Park.

• 1898
  • When the Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited Weston Road line fail to go north of Church Street in the Village of Weston, a disagreement took place to the point that both rail service and hydro service supply by Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited was cut off to the Village of Weston for 3 months. On November 10, 1898 both sides came to agreement where the line would be extended 1,000 feet north of Church Street, just south of the Grand Truck Line in place of the Village of Weston Northern Limits. This extension north of Church Street would remain until the very end of streetcar service on Weston Road.
  • TRC would ended up having a disputed with East Toronto about placing track further east of Victoria Park Avenue to their amusement park at Munro Park. This would lead to confrontation with the local residents and business owners.
  • After Toronto Railway Company and East Toronto came to terms on the Maple Street extension, the Queen Street Line was extended east of Balsam Avenue into Munro Park that would only see summer service only since no one really live in the area during the winter months. It would go on to build a 16-20 carhouse to the east of the park entrance, a yard and a loop on the ground at the entrance.
  • The Toronto and York Radial Railway is incorporated under the charter of Dominion of Canada and owned by the Toronto Railway Company (city system).
  • Davenport Street Railway Company was given an extra 10 year extension to its franchise by the Town of West Toronto Junction.
  • The Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company re-laid the tracks on Kingston Road and extends the line easterly from Blantyre Avenue to Hunt Club at ().
  • Saw Metropolitan Street Railway expanded north on Yonge Street again to Newmarket under the operation of Toronto Street Railways. It would build a power plant at Bond Lake that would produce 1,000 horsepower to power this expansion and would sell excess power to the surrounding area along the route. It would offer 4 trips daily in both direction as well having more bypass tracks along the route. A carhouse would also be built at Bond Lake as well a storage track.
  • Bond Lake was the place to go to the point Metropolitan Street Railway bought The Bond Lake Farm from Mr.'s Bell to build an picnic, boating and bathing area for its employees.

• 1899
  • Metropolitan Street Railway operated the Tavern, William legge after it was sold to them by the owners, but it was destroy by fire in September and end the old time taverns between Toronto and Newmarket.
  • November would see the Villages of Davisville and Eglinton being incorporate as the Village of North Toronto. Davisville was started by John Davis who started the pottery works and why the name Davisville exist Davisville would go on to play a large role for TTC when the Davisville Yards were build for the Yonge Subway in the 1950's. Eglinton would go on to house the carhouse for TTC and become a hub in 1954 with the opening of the Yonge Subway. It still a hub today.

Back  1899 to 1909 Page

• 1900
  • April would see the Village of North Toronto become the Town of North Toronto that would only last until 1912 when it was annexed by the City of Toronto.
  • TRC would build 23 closed and 4 open single trucks cars for the Winnipeg Electric Railway Company.
  • The Toronto Suburban Street Railway Company Limited name was shorten to Toronto Suburban Railway Company.
  • Unknown date as well who, but it was to build a line on Keele Street, south of Dundas Street to Humberside Avenue, and along Humberside avenue and Annette street or either of them easterly to the Dundas Street.
  • Since the City could not wait until 1921 for Toronto Railway Company franchises to expire and not service the new areas of Toronto, it decided to form its own transit system to build these new services.Toronto Civic Railways was formed to provide the service to these annexed areas where the public was clamouring for service in 1912.
  • TRC would lease the Victoria Park and it would be run by its management team for Muir Park that was to the west of this park. TRC would discontinue the practice of using streetcars for sleeping overnight as well camping. It would stop all night-time actives with police strictly enforcing the policy. Some would say TRC was forcing people to used its Muir Park facility to cut down on operating cost.

• 1901
  • TRC would continue it practices of having disagreement when it had to deal with one with the Munro Family over the Muir Park that its lease was not renewed in 1906.
  • Saw the Village of East Toronto annexed Little York and Colemans Corners.
  • Saw Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company extended the Kingston Road line easterly from Victoria Park Avenue (Blantyre Avenue?) to Halfway House at Midland Avenue.
  • The population of Toronto had grown to 208,000 residents that would help to build Toronto as well put more pressure on transit and service.

• 1903
  • The Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company was renamed Toronto & Mimico Railway Company (T&MRyCo). It would get permission to expand westerly toward Oakville where it would meet the Hamilton Radial Electric Railway and close the gap between Hamilton and Toronto. This would required the existing tracks as well the new tracks to be build to standard gauge 4 ft 8 1/2 inches from the 4 ft 10 3/4 inches.

• 1904
  • Toronto Railway Company makes the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company a division of it.
  • Would see the call for grade separation between trains, vehicles and streetcars at busy intersections and grade crossing after a Canadian Northern Railway hit a Queen Street Streetcar that saw 3 people kill and severally injured. This lead to numerous bridges been built over railway tracks or under them.
  • Toronto and York Radial Railway begin service outside of the City of Toronto with the merger of a number of existing lines. The first line Toronto and York Radial took control 1904 of was the Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company and extended the Lakeshore Line westerly from Long Branch to Port Credit located at Lakeshore and then Highway 10 now known as Hurontario Street. This extension branch off the existing line to the south side that saw a shelter built between this new extension, as well the existing stub track to house riders as they transfer from one line to the other line. That shelter still exists today and sees riders transferring between TTC and Mississauga Transit. The line was to continue westerly to the Town of Oakville to meet the Hamilton Radial Electric Railway there.
  • Toronto and York Radial Railway Company merge Metropolitan Street Railway of Toronto and Schomberg and Aurora into it. Schomberg and Aurora would be converted from steam locomotives to new Radial car in 1916. The track gauge of both lines were converted to standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 after been incorporated into Toronto and York Radial Railway Company so allow freight interchange at North Toronto and Aurora.
  • Would see the first convertible open-closed cars go into service for TRC and would do away of having two type of fleet with one for winter and the other for summer. It would also do away with the roll up trap.
  • Would see Toronto Industrial Exhibition being call the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) a.k.a the EX with the main entrance been moved to the western end at Dufferin Street.
  • November 1st, 1904, Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway would merge with TRC and would become Toronto & York Radial Railway Company (T&YRR) Mimico Division.

• 1905
  • Sees Toronto annexing the Village of Rosedale as well land west of Deer Park, south of St Clair Avenue to the City Limit and west to ().
  • December 24, Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway tracks running along Lakeshore Road reach highway 10 (Hurontario Street) in Port Credit (Mississauga).
  • The Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company their line easterly from Midland Avenue to the Scarborough Post Office at Eglinton Avenue. There is no information that I have come upon so far stating when branch lines were built off this line that would see a line go north on Walter Street to Gerrard Street East and on south on Blantyre to Victoria Park that is the current the site of the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. The Blantyre was a summer time only route and existed until Toronto Railway Company extended the Queen Street East Line to a wye on Neville Park Blvd, on the south side of Queen Street East. A loop would be built there at a future date.

• 1906
  • The City of Toronto buys 40 acres of land that would formed the western end of the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (CNE)
  • TRC leased is not renew this year for the Muir Park and it is unknown if it had to due with the disagreement in 1901 or they were unwilling to compete with the new Scarboro Beach Park slated to open in 1907. TRC removed all their building and equipment with an eye to set up another locating later on. The Munro property was clear and divided up into building lots to the point the only thing remaining of that land is Munro Park Avenue and the shoreline known as Beaches Park.
  • Toronto and York Radial takes control of the Metropolitan Street Railway line outside of Toronto as well the Toronto and Scarborough' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company. Conflicting dates as Toronto and Scarboro' became a Division of Toronto and York Radial in 1904
  • The Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company extends their line easterly from Eglinton Avenue to West Hill.
  • June would see Brewer Thomas Davies who had been trying to sale the Victoria Park the last 6 years, would loose the property by foreclosure due to the fact that he was unable to maintain the mortgage and it was sold for $29,000 to Henry Eckardt who close the park later that year.
  • October the 11th would see the Bathurst Line operating from a new WYE on Dupont Street at Christie Street.
  • November 19, Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway tracks are extended west of highway 10 (Hurontario Street) to the Port Credit River and that is far it would get to connecting to Hamilton Radial Electric Railway in Oakville even though the that section was surveyed. The company ran out of money at this time.

• 1907
  • Toronto and York Radial extended the Metropolitan Street Railway Line Yonge Street Line from Newmarket to Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe.
  • Metropolitan Street Railway name was change to Metropolitan Railway according to one source.
  • It is said that TRC built their Yonge Line north from Yorkville where it stop in 1861 to the south side of the CPR tracks, but TRC could never make the final connection between it and Metropolitan Street Railway Line Yonge that was on the north side. It been said a number ways were tried, but Mackenzie could never do it legally or otherwise until 1921 when TTC did it.
  • Toronto Railway Company build another carhouse located at Dundas Street West and Howard Park Avenue call Dundas and was removed from service in 1930's by TTC with the opening of the Lansdowne Carhouse.
  • Would see TRC adding an addition onto the Roncesvalles Carhouse as well expand the yard.
  • June 1st, Harry and Mabel Dorsey would bought The House of Providence Farm from the The Sisters of St. Joseph's after the City of Toronto refused to buy the land, the Scarboro Beach Park open based on what Luna parks at Coney Island as well the New York's Dreamland had at that time and would cease to operate in 1925. The land was bound by Maple Street (Queen Street) to the north, Leuty Avenue to the west and MacLean Avenue to the east. Its entrance would be the today Scarboro Beach Blvd. TRC would buy this park in 1912.

• 1908
  • The area of Deer Park is annexed as well East Toronto.
  • On December 15, 1908, both the City Of Toronto and the Town of East Toronto came to terms on annexing East Toronto into Toronto that saw the condition that no industries or hotels be built south of Kingston Road. This remains the same as today.
  • April 14, 1908, the Town of West Toronto becomes the City of West Toronto and it will exist as a city for only a few months before been annexed by Toronto that had 1,600 acres of land and 12,000 residents at that time.

• 1909
  • April 29, the Evening Telegram News Paper printed an article about a subway to be built in Toronto. It reported a meeting between City Engineer Rust and the Kearney High-Speed Railway Company of London, England took place that would see Kearney High-Speed Railway Company willing to build and operate 2 underground lines at a cost of $1 million dollars per mile to build. The first Line would run up Yonge Street to Eglinton Avenue in the Town of North Toronto from Front Street. The 2nd line would run east from East Toronto along Queen Street to Dufferin Street then to Dundas and then to West Toronto. Once it was explained to Kearney High-Speed Railway Company that any franchise issued for these lines would end in 1921 when the City would take over all the franchise and run their own transit system, Kearney High-Speed Railway Company disappeared and was never heard again about from on their plan.
  • May 1st, The City of Toronto annexed the City of West Toronto, Midway, land east of East Toronto, land north of Danforth, Wychwood and Barondale, which would be second largest expansion of the city boundaries.
  • Toronto and York Radial extends the Metropolitan Street Railway Line from Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe to Sutton.
  • December 15, the 187 acres comprised of "Balmy Beach's", was annexed by Toronto after Toronto agreed with the condition of no industries, hotels or rooming house be allowed in the area. Today, if one walks that area and read about it, it is a very low density area with very few buildings over 3 stories tall and being residential with stores along Queen Street.
  • In the early 1900's, the City of Toronto had absorbed a number of surrounding Towns, villages and Townships at a faster rate than providing transit. It approached The Toronto Railway Company heavily handle trying to get Toronto Railway Company to expand their services to these new areas. Since Toronto Railway Company had less than 10 years to go on its 30 year franchises and knowing that the City was going to start their own system come 1921, it refused to meet the City of Toronto demands. After a number of court battles, Toronto Railway Company received the backing of the courts stating that it did not have to provide service outside the core of 1894 franchise, putting another nail in the coffin for not having its franchises renew in 1921. Since the Toronto Railway Company Canadian Northern Railway having financially problems at this time, the Toronto Railway Company was not prepared to run a first class system with no guarantee that its franchises would be renewed in 1921. This did not set well with the City of Toronto and reinforced the comment that the City of Toronto should be running its own Transit System. Toronto Street Railways showing some good faith, supply some new wood cars in place of steel car since it was not prepare to spend more than it had to. The Toronto Street Railways was letting the system to deteriorate.
  • City of Toronto council decides to formed their own streetcar company car, The Toronto Civil Railway that would look after building and maintained new transit lines where Toronto Railway Company was unwilling to do so. The TCR would be managed by City of Toronto's Department of Works, Railway and Bridge division. Roland Caldwell Harris would become the manager of TCR and would go on to play a major role for the City of Toronto during his life well working for the City. The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was name after him in 1950's.
  • The City of Toronto annexed the Village of West Toronto Junction and surrounding area with the northern boundary north of St Clair Avenue to Rowntree Avenue, east along CN tracks, west to Jane Street as well south to Bloore Street. The area is also known as the West Toronto Diamond.
  • The idea was put forth about build subways in Toronto. One subway would run north on Bay Street that ran from Front Street to Queen Street, Teraulay Street that ran from Queen Street to Greenville Street, now known as Bay Street after been change in 1922, angle north easterly to Yonge St and then to St Clair underground using streetcars that would continue north on Yonge Street. Stations would be at Front Street, City Hall, Dundas Street, Bloore Street, south of Davenport, north of Davenport, south of St. Clair Avenue and St. Clair Avenue.
  • The 2nd line would run along Queen Street underground from University Avenue in the west and Church Street in the east on the north side of Queen St. It would travel further west in an open cut to Niagara Street and then north to Bloor Street West, for the west end. The east end would travel east along Queen Street East to Carlaw in an open cut and embankments. It would then go north to Danforth Avenue at (). Rest of Queen Street for both sides of these cuts and embankments would be at grade level. Station would be at Roncesvalles Avenue, Lansdowne Avenue, Dufferin Street, Dundas Street, Bathurst Street, Yonge Street, Sherbourne Avenue, Broadview Avenue, Pape Avenue and Coxwell Avenue.
  • Given the fact that Toronto Street Railways was providing poor service to the City of Toronto as well refusing to expanded beyond its 1891 franchise, the City thought this was one way to punish Toronto Street Railways for its failures. In November 1909, a report was submitted to council stating that it would cost $5 million dollars to build this subway. After a 4 hour debate, council approved the referendums that would go to the voters on January 1st, 1910. Major of council including the Mayor supported the subway plan.
  • November 11, the Bloore & McCaul route is renamed Bloore and would run from Lansdowne Avenue to Church Street with an alternate Bloore & McCaul route downtown via the way of southbound on new tracks on Ossington Avenue and then eastbound on Harbord Street to Spadina Avenue.
  • November 16, 1909, saw the alternate Bloore & McCaul route been name as the Harbord Streetcar. Due to the fact that the CPR and CNR rails cross Bloore Street west of Lansdowne Avenue, it would be about 30 years before the Bloore line would connect with the rest of the Bloore Line operating west of Dundas Road.

Back  1910 to 1919 Page

• 1910
  • On January 1st, 1910, the residents of the City of Toronto were asked to vote on this Subway referendums "Are you in favour of the City of Toronto applying to the legislature for power to construct and operate a municipal system of subway and surface street railway, subject to the approval of qualified ratepayer's?"
  • George R. Geary who did not support the subway plan was elected as mayor over the incumbent Horatio C. Hocken who did. Even thought the voters approved the voted for the subway plan by 19,268 to 10,697, Mayor George R. Geary refused to allow the building of the subway system.
  • After the City of Toronto lost it's case before the Judges of the Imperial Privy Court trying to get TRC to expand its service beyond the Franchises limits, the decision was made to formed a company to built lines to the areas that had been annexed and not been serviced by TRC.
  • Sees TRC building a carhouse on Lansdowne Avenue at Patton Road that is 2 blocks north of Bloore Street West. In the coming years it would house a number of routes for TRC as well when TTC took control of it in 1921.
  • Sees the City of Toronto annexing Moore Park that would play a role for transit in the coming years. Moore Park encompass the area bound by the Canadian Pacific Railway to the south, Mount Pleasant Cemetery to the north of St Clair Avenue East, Moore Park ravine that was formally known as Spring Valley ravine to the east and the Vale of Avoca section of Rosedale ravine to the west and east of Yonge Street. It would also the Villages of Earlscourt and Dovercourt.
  • May 25 saw another plan and report that was prepared by the firm Jacobs & Davies company of New York City, who recommended 3 lines be built from Front Street and Yonge Street. The first line would run up Bay Street and then Yonge Street to St Clair Avenue. The 2nd line would run north-easterly to Broadview Avenue and Danforth Avenue East. The 3rd line would run north-westerly to Keele Street and Bloore Street West. The report was release on August 25 for the 11.6 miles of subway that had a price tag of $23 million dollars. The report and recommendation went to Council September 1st, 1910.

• 1911
  • Tracks would be built on Adelaide Street running from Bathurst Street in the west and to Church Street in the east. At this time, Adelaide Street was a 2 way street but that would change in () when it came one way eastbound. At this time, the Harbord Line would run service along this route until 1933 when the Bathurst Car Line would service it.
  • The Royce Family who own the Toronto Suburban Railway Company, sell it to Mackenzie, Mann and Company who wanted the Railway Charter in the first place. Mackenzie already own Toronto Railway Company that operated in the City of Toronto along with Toronto and Scarborough' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company, Toronto and York Radial. Mackenzie, Mann and Company also own the steam railway Canadian Northern Railway running east to Ottawa as well out west to British Columbia.
  • Toronto Suburban Railway Company started to survey the Guelph Radial Line running from St Clair Avenue West and Keele Street to Guelph Ontario that was located 49 miles to the west using standard gauge and a 1,500 volt DC overhead centenary system running on 60 lb rail. Construction got underway in 1912.
  • Toronto Civil Railway start construction on the St Clair West line that started at Yonge St in the Village of Deer Park that was formed in 1850 and travel westward to Lansdowne Road to service the Village of Carlton located at know known Old Weston Road that was formed in 1840. The line opens for operation in 1914. The line was service by the Wychwood Car House located a block south of St Clair Ave off Wychwood Avenue. It is known as St Clair Route 512. It was also built in its own Right-of-Way (ROW) and I have a more detail History page on the 512 Route as well the ROW on my site. There is conflicting information as to when service started on the line as well Toronto Civil Railway using the Toronto and York Railway Carhouse at Yonge Street. Some conflicting information on the carhouse.
  • Horatio C. Hocken who was elected to the Board of Control in 1911 and became Chief magistrate in 1912,continue to push for subway until the 1912 referendum. After the defeat of referendum, Horatio C. Hocken did not raise the question again as there was very little support for it after the 1912 referendum.
  • During the building of the St Clair Avenue and line, small steam locomotives were used on track to haul material for building the road from the Canadian Northern Line at Station Street in the west. There was a large ravine between the now Spadina Road and Bathurst Street call (Nordheimer?) that would have to be filled up. Also, the building the double track system would be in its own Right-of-Way using grass. This Right-of-Way would be removed by 1935 in the name of traffic that would come back to haunt both TTC and the City of Toronto after this point, until it started to build an new Right-of Way between 2005 and 2010.
  • Toronto Civil Railway builds an outdoor storage yard next to the Canadian Northern Railway tracks, west of Station Street (now Caledonia Road) that was call Station Street. Small steam locomotive used this yard that were used to build St Clair Avenue. They also transfer material from the Canadian Northern Railway line that was used to build St Clair Avenue.
  • In the fall, council press forward with the subway development by issuing an tender for the construction tube structure made of concrete for a 3 mile long tunnel running from Bay and Front Street to Yonge Street and St Clair Avenue. The tender came in at $2.6 Million and allowing for track, equipment and the electrical system, it would be about $5.2 Million.
  • November 20 saw a follow up report prepared by E.L. Cousins, the Assistant City Engineer submitted to council stating that the diagonal lines would not be built without the corresponding roads. Since these roads could not be feasible, he recommended an alternate plan similar to James Forgie of the Jacobs & Davies Company of New York. E.L. Cousins would see 2 east-west lines running along Queen Street and Bloore-Danforth from High Park in the west end to Broadview Avenue in the east where the lines would connect to each other forming a large loop. The Bloore line would see stations at Roncesvalles Avenue, Dovercourt, Bathurst Street, Yonge Street, Sherbourne Avenue, Broadview Avenue.
  • The City of Toronto builds the existing high level Queen Street east bridge over the Don River as well the existing railway tracks after 1904 accident between a train and streetcar occurred where Queen Street streetcars cross both the tracks and river at grade. Stairs would be built from the bridge to gain accuse to the Don Station that no longer exist there today and can be found at the John Street Roundhouse on display.

Based on E.L. Cousins idea for a subway on Bloore Street, Roland Caldwell Harris who became Commissioner of Public Works for Toronto in 1912 when Pubic works was created, cease that idea by incorporating that requirement in the design of the bridge over the Don Valley connecting Bloore Street and Danforth Avenue. There was great opposition to have this lower deck built when the bridge was built from 1913 to 1918. In the end, both Edmund W. Burke the designer of the Prince Edward Viaduct and Commissioner Harris were able to get their way with the building of the lower deck at the time of building the bridge. This foresight would come into play with the building of the Bloor-Danforth Subway in 1960's.

• 1912
  • January 1st, the voters were again asked to vote for this subway plan. Based on the strong opposition of major of the newspapers and the unwillingness of the votes to deal with the extra taxes to build the subway, it was voted down by a 11,291 to 8,486 margin. Conflicting vote’s counts as one sources said this number while another said 11,130 (no) to 7,697 (yes).
  • Would see the largest area annexed for the City of Toronto when North Toronto became part of Toronto.
  • Toronto ends the practices of annexing suburbs lands as it brought nothing for the residents of Toronto other than higher taxes to supply service to them. In the coming years, various communities asked to be annexed, but the City refused to do so.
  • Toronto Railway Company would buy Scarboro Beach Park, who previous own the Munro Park as well the "Toronto's" lacrosse team. It would go on to build the "Trolley Park" to the point it would build a loop (?) near the entrance as well a yard and carhouse to the east of the entrance. The park was sold to the City in 1925 due taxes and land value and TTC having no interested in keeping it. The City would sell it to a developer would converted the park to streets and houses. The TRC cars would bring in residents of Toronto along the Queen Street line and the cars would turn down Scarborough Beach Boulevard and travel south to the entrance.
  • Would see the opening of the Hillcrest track at Bathurst & Davenport on a farm that would be short live and come home to the current TTC Hillcrest Complex starting in 1924.
  • The Toronto Civil Railway started service on the Gerrard Street with 4 wood double end streetcars purchased from McGuire-Cummings Manufacturing Company out of Paris, Illinois and would see service until 1936. The route ran from Greenwood Avenue east to Main Street which would become the forerunner of the 506 Carlton streetcar Route. The 506 route would run eastward from the High Park Loop located on the east side of Parkside Drive in High Park along Howard Park Avenue where it would connect to the Dundas Street West line. It would then travel east to where College Street West connects to the Dundas Street West on the east side of the (). This is a block west of Lansdowne Avenue. It would travel eastward along college Street West to where it connected to Carlton Avenue at Yonge Street. Continue eastward to Parliament Street where Carlton Street East stops. The car would travel south on Parliament Street until it hit Gerrard Street East. It would then travel eastward along Gerrard Street East to where it met Main Street. It would then turn north and travel to Danforth Avenue and then loop at the Main Street Loop. The length of the route is about 14.815 km (9.21 mi) long.
  • Toronto Street Railways had to deal with a strike by its employees where the City of Toronto created the () where Roland Caldwell Harris was put in charge of it to deal with this strike.
  • Toronto Civil Railway starts construction on the Danforth Division Line with service starting October 30 that year. The Danforth Line would eastward from Broadview Avenue to Luttrell Avenue that was the City limits of the City of Toronto at that time. Again some conflicting dates as to when this line really started to operate with one source saying 1912, another saying 1913 well another says 1915. Riders using TCR would transfer to the Toronto Railway Company Broadview Line that would take them to the City core of Toronto.
  • During the building of the Danforth Line, Toronto Civil Railway builds an branch off it that would go south on Coxwell Avenue and would connect with the Gerrard Line.
  • Toronto Civil Railway starts building the Gerrard Street Yard and Carhouse that was located on Gerrard Street East near Morton Road to service the new Gerrard Line. It would remain in service until 1921 when it took is take control of Toronto Railways Company that and transfer its operation to the Danforth Carhouse.
  • Bion J. Arnold who was a traction expert for Chicago reported in 1912 that the City of Toronto suffer from a number of issue that could be solved very easy and subway be looked upon as the last resorted. He stated that there were 3 main reasons why transit was not working and how the City could deal with them.
    • 1. If trailers were removed and tracks were upgraded, streetcars would be able to travel a lot faster.
    • 2. If Toronto Railways Company built more routes to allow less cars on the busy lines especially the Yonge line, there would be less congestion, better service and better use of equipment. Bion J. Arnold stated that if Avenue Road and Carlton cars were rerouted down Bay Street which was known as Teraulay in 1912 and allow other cars to used Church and Victoria Streets, it would improve the operation of the Yonge Line.
    • 3. Poor track maintenance as Toronto Street Railways was putting very little money to do the work since its franchises was nearing its end and wanted to save as much money as it could.
  • Bion J. Arnold suggested that if the City of Toronto could not come to some kind of agreement with Toronto Street Railways on these issues, that a underground streetcar line be built under Yonge Street. A loop would be built beneath Queen, Bay and Temperance Streets and run to St Clair Avenue. There would be a branch off the Yonge line at Bloore Street allowing for service to go east to Broadview. in 1915, a report was prepared on this plan and it was determent that there was no need for this subway.

One can only wonder what the City of Toronto would look like if any of these subway plans were every built. It is very likely that the open cuts and embankments would have seen a tunnel built over them for the Queen Street Line to allow more development to take place. At the same time, the suburbs surrounding the city of Toronto would have grown a lot faster, leaving the city core a business district only like a large number of cities in North America would do.

• 1913
  • This year would see the Federal Thomas Joseph Stewart MP make a comment remarked that Sunnyside was a "dirty, filthy hole." regarding the conditions of it along the waterfront to the point that the Toronto Harbour Commission would start to spend $25 million dollars on land filling the waterfront from the Humber River in the west to Ashbridge's Bay in the east.
  • Saw the start on the controversy Bloore Viaduct bridge that would connect Bloore Street East to Danforth Avenue that would play a vital role when the Bloor-Danforth Subway Line was built in 1960's.
  • Toronto Civil Railway starts construct on the Wychwood Carhouse for the St Clair Line that was located between Wychwood Avenue and Christie Street, one block south of St Clair Avenue. The Wychwood Carhouse would continue to service TTC until 1978 when the operation for the St Clair 512 route was moved to Roncesvalles Carhouse that haunt TTC today. The carhouse sat on 4 hectare of land in the Village of Wychwood and the reason for the Carhouse to be known as Wychwood Barn.
  • Saw Toronto Civil Railway close the St Clair Avenue Station Street Carhouse with the opening of the Wychwood Carhouse. There is conflicting information surround the St Clair Carhouse as to if TCR used it since it was under control by TRC at the time since it own the Yonge Radial Line at the time.
  • Saw Toronto Civil Railway purchasing 20 double end streetcars from Niles Car and Manufacturing Company located in Niles, Ohio. These cars would see service up to 1948. These cars would be used for the various routes the TCR was staring as well for future lines.
  • Toronto Civil Railway would started to use the Toronto and York Radial Carhouse located at 25 St Clair Avenue West who had taken over Metropolitan Street Railway in 1904. There is conflicting information surround this carhouse as Toronto Railways Company was supposed to taken over the operation of the Yonge Street line within the City limits in 1897 and selling the outside section to Toronto and York Radial in 1904 as well TCR not starting service on St Clair until 1914 and building the Wychwood Carhouse in 1913 for the St Clair Line in the first place.
  • The Russell (Connaught) Carhouse located on the south side of Queen Street East and Connaught Avenue was built by TRC and is sill used by TTC Streetcars today. TTC would rebuild the carhouse after taking control of Toronto Railways Company due to the fact the building suffer from poor foundation. The only thing remaining from the original building is the powerhouse building that is located at the foot of Greenwood Avenue.

• 1914
  • April 14 saw the opening of the new Wychwood carhouse for TCR that had 3 service inspection bays as well 2 repair bays.
  • Would see the City of Toronto trying to adopt an "ACT" that would allow the City to purchased the TRC that year, but was not passed due to the World War I. The City would have to wait until 1921 to take control of TRC.
  • Construction got underway this year with the land filling taking place for the waterfront by the Toronto Harbour Commission that would see an L shape steel bridge south of the junction of Queen-King-Roncesvalles intersection that would be used for both traffic and streetcars that would pass over the railways tracks. At this time, hydro transmission towers and lines were built along the waterfront on concrete footings in the water edge and would be inland after the land filling was done. If one stands at the foot of the King-Queen-Roncesvalles intersection where the pedestrian bridge is today, this would be the location of the first L bridge was and the waterfront was just south of the current railway corridor. By doing so, you can see how far the current waterfront edge is from where it is to day. If you look east of this point, the waterfront edge followed the current railway corridor.
  • Saw Toronto Railway Company being order by Ontario Railway Board to provided better service to the residents east of Scarboro' Beach Park that was often cut back to there and to provided regular service to Neville Park.
  • Toronto Civil Railway starts service on St Clair Avenue West, running from Yonge Street to Lansdowne Avenue. There is conflicting information as to when service started on this line.
  • Would see the grade separation take place at Bathurst Street where the CPR tracks cross it, but it would be 1921 before the Bathurst Line would go north of Dupont as TRC was unwilling to build the track north to St Clair Avenue.
  • Saw hydro been delivered to the City of Toronto and the various transit system in the area that would see Toronto Railways Company close their power plant at their Front and Frederick facility that would continue function.
  • Saw Toronto Civil Railway building a single track line on Bloore Street West from Quebec Street to Dundas Street in the west as this was another street where Toronto Railways Company refused to build their system on. It would be known as the Bloore Division and was renamed Bloore West in 1921 when TTC came into existent and operated under that name until service was stop in 1966 with the opening of the Bloor-Danforth Subway.
  • Toronto Suburban Railway Company started to run service to Pine Street in Woodbridge by the Woodbridge Radial Line on Weston Road from Keele Street just South of Dundas Street West. Some more conflicting information as to date since it is stated elsewhere it started on October 19, 1917.
  • June 28 would see the start of World War I when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated and Canada sending troops to Europe to fight this war that would increased the ridership of the various transit system to help manufacture items for the war needs.

• 1915
  • The Ontario Railway & Municipal Board would rule this year that no more open cars were to be built after an accident on the International Railway that saw a great numbers of riders killed.
  • Would see the Village of Weston become the Town of Weston.
  • Saw Toronto Civil Railway building the Danforth Carhouse that was located at Coxwell Avenue on the Danforth Avenue on the south side. It would remain in service until 1966 when the Bloor-Danforth Subway open. It also replace Toronto Civil Railway Gerrard Street Yard and Carhouse when TTC took over the Toronto Railways Company operation in 1921.
  • Saw Toronto Civil Railway build the Grand Trunk Railway Davenport Station that was located on Davenport Road west of Lansdowne Avenue at Wiltshire (). It would service the Lansdowne Division until ().
  • Toronto Civil Railway builds the Indian Road Carhouse located at Indian Road and Howard Park Avenue and remain in service until ().
  • The city would again looked at a subway on Yonge Street using Streetcars, but nothing comes out of it.
  • February 23, 1915, Toronto Civil Railway starts services on the Bloore Division Line and would double track the line by the end of the year. There is conflicting information saying the Danforth Division line also started this year, not 1912.
  • September 15, 1915, the corner stone for the Summerhill CPR station is place by Mayor Tommy Church. It would also see the removable of the grade separation on Yonge Street that would allow the 2 Yonge Street lines to connect.
  • October 18, 1915, tracks on Ossington Avenue are extended north to Hallan Street were it would turn west toward Dufferin Street. At Dufferin Street the tracks would travel north to Lappin Avenue and then west on it to a Wye at Lansdowne Avenue. It would service the Dovercourt Village. The alternate Bloore-McCaul cars would travel over these new tracks.

• 1916
  • The Wychwood Carhouse would see 3 more inspection bays added to the existing complete.
  • The City of Toronto would start free transit service for children to Sunnyside beaches along the lower waterfront area and it is not clear where the tracks ran to since Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway was still operating their own line at the time there also. Based on photo's and maps, it is possible both Toronto & Mimico Electric Railway and TRC interchange at Parkside drive as the railways built an underpass for the road.
  • June 4, the Summerhill Station opens for service, but it would not be officially open until June 14. It would cease operation on September 27, 1930. It would be used by the Brewers' Retail starting in 1931 in the northern section of the station. 1940 would see Liquor Control Board of Ontario take over the southern section of the station in 1940's which is still there today. Plans surface in 1966, 1980's and 2000's to turn the station back to a station with the opening of the Crosstown GO Line, but as 2010, there are only visions as to what can happen to this station as well the Crosstown Line since this is CPR Mainline from Montreal to the state of Michigan.
  • August 25, Toronto Railways Company started to used a new eastern loop that ran south on the Bathurst Street Bridge that was on westerly angle, south of Front Street to an Right-of-Way through the Fort York grounds to a loop at Strachan Avenue. A spur near Strachan Avenue was built to dump the ashes from Toronto Railways Company power plants. That spur was removed in 1930. This new loop was to try to encourage riders to use the east entrance to the CNE. The bridge that was used to get over the railway corridor was one that used to be at the Humber River in 1903 and it was dismantle and reassemble in the new location. There was great opposition from the Fort York Ontario Historical Society and the Old Fort Protective Association. The plan to do this was first proposed back in 1905.
  • TRC King East Division carhouse would see a fire in December when one of the last cars that had return for the night caught on fire caused by papers been left unnoticed behind the coal stove heater setting it on fire as well burning other cars in the carhouse. It is assumed that this carhouse was located at King Street east at St Lawrence Street.

• 1917
  • Toronto Civil Railway extends the Bloore Line westerly on temporary tracks to Runnymede Road where it would meet the Toronto Suburban Railway Company Lampton Line that ran further west as well along St Clair Avenue West to Weston Road.
  • After the fire at the TRC King East Division carhouse in December, TRC would purchased residential building close to it so it could build more office space. It is not clear where this residential building was.
  • January 30, Toronto Suburban Railway Company track system was re-gauge to standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 inches with the construction of the Guelph Radial Line which was opposed by Toronto Street Railways and the City of Toronto fearing the railway would be able to used these tracks to move freight cars on them. In the end, Toronto Suburban Railway Company own the day and no freight car used those track.
  • Toronto Railways Company starts service on Lansdowne Avenue Line that ran from St Clair Avenue to the CPR track that were located south of Dovercourt Road.
  • October 19, Toronto Suburban Railway Company started to run service to Pine Street in Woodbridge by the Woodbridge Radial Line on Weston Road from Keele Street just South of Dundas Street West. Some more conflicting information as to date since it is stated elsewhere it started in 1914.
  • With the opening of the Prince Edward Viaduct that span from the east side of the Don Valley to the west side of the Valley known as Rosedale Ravine, this created a gap between the Toronto Civil Railway Danforth Line and their Bloore Street line up to Sherbourne Street. Toronto Civil Railway would place tracks along this section that year as well seeing Toronto Railways Company modify its Bloore Street line service at Lansdowne Avenue, Toronto Railways Company would run service along its existing line as well the new section from Lansdowne Avenue to Broadview Avenue. It would also the Bloore-McCaul route that ran by Spadina Avenue and McCaul Street to disappear, bring an end to the double name routes under Toronto Railways Company control. Riders using either Toronto Railways Company or Toronto Civil Railway lines would still have to pay an extra fare to use the other line they were transferring too.

• 1918
  • This would be the last year that TRC would build cars for the system since it franchises was going to expired in 1921 and it was unwilling to invest anymore money into the system.
  • Toronto Suburban Railway Company is sold by Mackenzie to Canadian Northern Railway after Mackenzie lost the company due financial issue related to the attempt to make Canadian Northern Railway a transcontinental railway.
  • On September 6th, The Canadian Northern Railway is taken over by the Federal Government since the Government fear the lost of a key transportation system since the company was near bankrupt. It would become Canadian National Railway in 1918. All the Radial tracks within the City of Toronto limits was sold to TTC on (), 1923.
  • November the 11th at 11:00 am, World War I officially came to an end, but it will be short lived as it would start all over again in 1939.
  • November 15 would see the Government of Canada sell all the Radial Lines in Toronto to TTC and some conflicting information as to date as there is other information saying it would be in the 1920's.

• 1919
  • TRC would build a new carhouse near the entrance of the Scarboro Park that would house 16 to 20 cars depending on size as well relocated the Office car across from the team track that was located at the King East Division that was damage in 1916. It is assumed the King East Division was located at St Lawrence Street and King Street.

Back  1910 to 1919 Page

• 1920
  • On January 1st, the citizens of Toronto voted on an referendums that asked them if the City of Toronto should merge the existing various streetcars companies into an one municipally owned system and it was approved by the voters. At that time, Riders could have to pay 9 fares to get across the City of Toronto.
  • On June 4th, by the Act of the Province of Ontario, Toronto Transportation Commission known as the TTC came into existent to look after the merger of 9 transit system into one system in 1921. It would order 250 new streetcars before the expiree of the existing franchises in 1921 to allow a smooth transition that would not interfere with the operation of the system for the riders.
  • On August 23, saw Toronto Railways Company build an inter and outer loop for its CNE loop that was odd for operation and would remain in service until 1931.
  • TTC and the City of Toronto would place an order for 250 new streetcars to allow a smooth transition in 1921 when they take control of TRC, TRC and TCR on September 1st. Car would be built in Montreal under a $50 dollar licence fee to Peter Witt who held the rights to the cars in the first place.

• 1921
  • Over the course of the last 20 years, the residents of the City of Toronto saw the population more than double in size, when it reach 521,893 this year. This would put pressure on both TTC and the City of Toronto to provide a better transit system to allow this population to get around a lot easier than it has been the last numbers of years under TRC control.
  • Six more inspection bays were added to the Wychwood Carhouse.
  • On September 1, the franchises for Toronto Street Railways and Toronto Railways Company expired allowing the TTC to merged them into its own system Toronto Civil Railway. Upon taking control of Toronto Street Railways, TTC started the task of rebuilt the track system that had deteriorated badly caused by the lack of maintenance by Toronto Street Railways in the dying days of it franchise. TTC would spend close to $30 million dollars on track work and carhouse, as well starting to replace the duel and single end cars. The cars would including the Birney or Birney Safety Car that Toronto Civil Railway own with the Peter Witt streetcars been manufacture in Montreal, Quebec by Canadian Car and Foundry. This would require TTC building loops at various places, but most of all, at the end of the lines. Lawton Loop located east of Yonge Street at St Clair Avenue East was one of the first loops to be built that year including one at Caledonia Road for the St Clair Line.
  • Over the 4 months that TTC was in existent, it would carry 61,870,213 riders trips.
  • October 3, after TTC taking control of Toronto Street Railways, and Toronto Civil Railway, it starts a new service from a new loop at Luttrell Avenue that ran westward along the Danforth Avenue to Broadview Avenue, south on Broadview Avenue to Queen Street East and then to McCaul Street Loop.
  • October 30, TTC buys the Davenport Line from that are on Bathurst Street that saw the existing Davenport route being terminated at Davenport and Bathurst Street where it would connect to the Bathurst Street Line.
  • 1921 also see the end of the Lansdowne Line, but it is unclear who ended the service as well when.
  • Once TTC took over the operations of all franchises within the City of Toronto, it started to consolidate various lines as well close a number of Carhouse since it a number of news one built under Toronto Civil Railway. It would close the Gerrard Street Yard and Carhouse and moved the equipment to the Danforth Carhouse. Lack information as to what other carhouse were close since I have very little information where the others were under the other franchises other than Toronto Civil Railway.
  • The City of Toronto would appoint 3 Commissioners who would be councillors to oversee the new TTC for a term of 3 years until 1954 when it was expanded to 5, then to 7 in 1988 and to the current 9 in 2000.
  • Saw TTC taking over the Toronto & York Railway Carhouse and yard at Yonge Street and St Clair Avenue known as 25 St Clair West that would be home for the St Clair Division including the Yonge Line. TTC would sell this Carhouse in the coming years.
  • TTC would build a motor crane car at the Hillcrest Yard and they would only produced maintenance equipment at this complex.
  • TTC replace Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company line between Queen Street and Victoria Park with their new Peter Witt's cars.
  • With TTC taking over TRC, it found that it had a number of business not related to transit and TTC was not sure what to do with them. This included the Scarboro Beach Amusement Park and it not clear what TTC did with it, other than it closing in 1925 and been sold for development. It is possibly that TTC started to sell off various equipment as well forced a decline in attendance to the park starting after they took control.
  • When TTC took control of the Wychwood Carhouse in 1921, it would do some major upgrades on it as well expansion. The Carhouse and yards would play a big part in the coming years for servicing various lines. It would also see a short live servicing of the Yonge Street line until a new Eglinton Carhouse is built. It would rank as one the 4 largest yards under TTC.
  • One thing TTC did this year where TRC and Mackenzie try and fail to do, was connect the 2 sections of the Yonge Street Line together at Summerhill and building a double track using the underpass that was built around 1912 for the CPR tracks grade separation.
  • December 21st would finally see service on Bathurst Street running north of Dupont Street to St Clair Avenue where the northbound cars would turn west on St Clair Avenue and travel one Block to Vaughan Road where it would turn south on it and re-join the Bathurst Line to the south where Vaughan road branch off it. That loop stills exist today to service the St Clair 512 route. It should be noted that the graded from the CPR underpass to top of the embankment for Bathurst Street is 8% and this did effect the quality of the service for the line in this area.

• 1922
  • February 22, TTC extends the tracks at Lappin Street and Lansdowne Avenue north on Lansdowne Avenue to the new Royce Loop. At this time Dupont Street did not exist and was known as Royce Avenue. It is assumed that the Royce loop was located and assumed it was on the north side of Royce Avenue (Dupont Street), next to CPR line since the tracks were at grade level.
  • November 28, the tracks south of Dundas to Evelyn was removed from service due to poor ridership.
  • On December 2nd, TTC opens the new Bingham Loop that saw a passing track open to provided service on Kingston Road east of Queen Street East. Until this time, Kingston Road was been serviced by the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company line that ran to West Hill.
  • December saw TTC close the old TSR rundown carhouse on Yorkville avenue when it open a new state of the art carhouse at Eglinton Avenue West, just west of Yonge street behind homes and business to Duplex Ctr and south to Brewink Avenue that was mostly farm land.
  • TTC would build five wing plows at the Hillcrest Yards.
  • TTC would build 12 small electric shunters for various carhouse so they could switch the trailers there.
  • Saw the various Radial Lines being bought up by Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario as it wanted the Radial Hydro System that they owned and operated at a profit. It was at this time that the wide gauge was change to standard gauge. Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario operated these Radial lines as the Hydro Electric Railways: Toronto and York Division. Another area of conflicting information.
  • TTC would carry 187,145,261 riders trips for the year and that was due to the single system that was in place compared to the 9 systems before TTC took over. There were still route outside of Toronto that were feeding TTC routes and it would be a few more years before TTC had control of them.

• 1923
  • On 26 September the Toronto Suburban Railway Company amalgamated with the Toronto Eastern Railway Company to form Canadian National Electric Railways.
  • November 15, TTC purchased the rest of the Davenport Line as well the Lampton Line that ran from Keele street westerly on Dundas Street West to Runnymede Road and the Weston Road Line from Keele Street and Dundas Street West north on Keele Street and Weston Road to Northland Avenue which was the City limits of Toronto at that time.
  • November 23, the Federal Government sells TTC the assets of Toronto Suburban Railway Company that was in the limits of the City of Toronto as it had no interested or requirement for them since it was only interested in Railways. The remainder of the lines were sold to other parties. Again some conflicting information as to time line.
  • July 1st saw the end to the TRC "Belt Line" that was started in 1891 when TTC introduce a Spadina Line only using duel end cars that would run from Bloore Street south to Front Street with crossover tracks at each end. The line would be extended south in 1927. The fall of the tree line ROW would happen in 1948. TTC would also replaced part of the "Belt Line" with service running in both direction on King, Spadina, Bloore and Sherbourne. King Street and Spadina Avenue tracks still remain in 2010 in service.
  • TTC would build 3 sweepers at Hillcrest yards.

• 1924
  • November 18, the York Township purchased the Lampton Line that ran from Runnymede Avenue to Lampton Park, Keele Street westerly along Dundas Street West to Runnymede Avenue of the Guelph Line that ran from Keele Street.
  • November 24, 1924, the York Township Railways comes into existent after the Township of York buys the Toronto Suburban line Woodbridge Radial on Weston Road within its boundaries with TTC under contract to the Township taking over operating of the line. It would be known as York Township Railways. The remaining tracks within the City of Toronto was sold to TTC.
  • November 24-25 the Lampton tracks purchased by York Township are re-gauge from standard gauge to the TTC gauge of 4 ft 10 7/8 inches and turn over to TTC to operate on November 25. It is unknown if an extra fare was required to ride this section of the line. The fare to ride this section was $.03
  • December 1924, TTC builds the Dundas Street West Loop at Runnymede on the land once owned by Dundas Metals.
  • TTC would build 3 sweepers at Hillcrest Yards.
  • 1924 and 1925 would see the tracks on Weston Road between St Clair Avenue West and the Town of Weston being rebuilt to TTC gauge as well seeing the tracks encase in concrete.

• 1925
  • TTC would obtain an franchises from the International Grey Line to operated service as part of diversification of its transit system.
  • Sees TTC building the St Clair line eastward from Yonge Street to Mount Pleastent where a loop would be built on the north east corner call Moore Park Loop. It would then continue north to Eglinton Avenue and the Eglinton loop in the north east corner of the intersection. The Extension of the St Clair line to the east replaced the trolley bus route 74 that went into service December 24, 1921 from the Merton Avenue loop at Yonge Street.
  • September 12 saw the closing of the Scarboro' Beach Amusement Park that was open on June 1st, 1907, that was influence by the Toronto Railways Company and TTC had no interested in running an Amusement Park. It was sold off for development with only Munro Street and the Beaches Park remaining today with residential on rest of the site.
  • October 1, the Township of York buys the section of Toronto Suburban line for the Woodbridge Railway Line that was under the control that was still under the control of Canadian National Railway on Weston Road from Northland Loop to the Town of Weston within its boundaries.
  • November 28, 1925, TTC officially starts services on Weston Road for the York Township that would see service run from Keele-Dundas (photo) Street to the Town of Weston. Rider would have to pay an extra fare traveling on either side of Toronto City Limits at Northlands Avenue. Those who were traveling north of the City limits and were transferring to either the Roger Road or the Oakwood Line were allowed to transfer freely using a transfer. The fare was $.05, 11 tickets for $.50 during the day and a cash fare of $.10 at night for service in the York Township. Service was every 10 to 15 minutes depending on the time of the day as well the day of the week. TTC would operate Class H-1 Niles double ended cars 2128-2158 over this line.
  • November 28, 1925, the Town of Weston purchased the section of Toronto Suburban line, Woodbridge Radial Line from Canadian National Railway who control it on Weston Road between it and the boundaries of the Township of York. The remainder of the Woodbridge Radial 7.53 mile long line to Woodbridge would stay in the hands of Canadian National Railways. The Township of York and Town of Weston would operated the line jointly under the name of

• 1926
  • TTC builds a rolling stock department supply car at Hillcrest Yards.
  • January 11, Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario turn over the Radial lines to the Toronto Transportation Commission known as the TTC to operate and keeping the hydro power system for themselves. Upon the completion of the turning the Radial Lines over to TTC, TTC started work to re-gauge the track back to the 4 ft 10 7/8 inches from the standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 inches to match the rest of the system. TTC also started to replace the existing fleet of duel end cars with single end Peter Witt cars. Another area of conflicting information.
  • May 10, saw Canadian National Railways ending the 3 car service on the last section of the Woodbridge Radial line north of the Town of Weston as it was loosing money to due to the competition of local bus service. The line was replace by the Roseland Bus Lines that operated between Woodbridge and the Town of Weston.

• 1927
  • Would see TTC build tracks on Runnymede Street between Dundas Street West and St Clair Avenue to a plan Britannia Division carhouse that would be located north of St Clair Avenue on the east side of Runnymede. The carhouse was never built and the tracks would remain unused until 1982 when the underpass was rebuilt.
  • May 23rd, 1927 saw the Spadina Line going south of Front Street over a new 1,426 foot bridge that went over the railways yards. It would continue south to the Fleet Street (Lake Shore Boulevard West) that ran parallel with a new bypass line for the railroad. The line would connect to the Front Street Line that ran between Bathurst street to the west and Church Street to the east. It would be a mistake over time when the Front Street tracks would be removed today. TTC ran double end cars on the Spadina Line until 1945.
  • June 28 would see TTC creating a wholly own subsidiary call the Grey Coach Line that would look after its sight-seeing tours as well intercity bus lines.

• 1928
  • Saw the opening of the existing loop at Long Branch with a switch located at the east side of the shelter that allowed the Radial Line to continue operating to Port Credit.
  • August 18, saw the Lampton Streetcar that was part of the The Town of York system running from the Humber River by a single track to the Runnymede Loop located at the north-west corner of Dundas Street West and Runnymede Rd that disappeared and be replaced by a bus.
  • This year would see the start of the removal of the Right-of-Way on St Clair Avenue by TTC and the City since the City felt there was enough development on the street now as well there was a need for more room for traffic. This removal would not be completed until 1935 and this removal would come back to haunt both the City and TTC starting in late 1970, but moreso in 2000's.
  • TTC removes Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company line from Victoria Park easterly to a new loop at Birchmount Avenue.

• 1929
  • TTC would see ridership reach 206,822,838 (250.8 million from another source) trips this year which would then fall after the depression hit as well World War II and then climb back to this level around 1942.
  • A committee of public transport operators Presidents including TTC was formed to look at building a state of the Art new streetcar that could be used by all transit systems in North America. The committee was call Presidents Conference Committee and that how the name PCC of the new streetcar came about.
  • Spring of 1929 saw TTC making the decision to terminate the Yonge Street Radial Line and it was meet with opposition by York Country, but service would stop in 1930 for about 3 months.

Back  1930 to 1939 Page

• 1930
  • TTC removes the spur to its old power plant on its Bathurst line at Strachan Avenue since it gets the power from the hydro grid then.
  • It was just after 1:15 am on March 16, 1930 that the last car #74 for Metropolitan Street Railway on the Yonge Radial Line return to its terminus at Hogg's Hollow after passing through Richmond Hill.
  • March 30th, The section of the Yonge Radial Line between Richmond Hill and Sutton was removed from service and torn up.
  • The section of the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company line running from Eglinton Avenue to West Hill is removed from service and replace by TTC buses.
  • July 17th, 1930, saw the Yonge Radial line car running from Richmond Hill to Glen Grove Avenue return to it would be owned by 4 area municipalities Richmond Hill village council and the townships of Markham, Vaughan, and North York, with TTC operating the line under contract. TTC would charge full cost as well making a profit to run this line. It would be known as North Yonge Railways. It would run every hour and would see 30 minutes service at peak time. A single Fare was $.30 with around trip being $.55. TTC would invest moneys to upgrade the track and signal system to the point they even bought land on the north side of Richmond Hill for a future loop.
  • During the 1930's depression, the government of Canada was looking for ways to employee the unemployment populations, that an idea was floated that would see the Yonge Streets streetcar subway built using the unemployed men. Nothing every came of this idea.
  • TTC ridership fell to 199,522,863 trips due to the recession.

• 1931
  • With the development south of the tracks and east of Strachan Avenue, the Bathurst Street bridge was reline to a north-south direction allowing the Bathurst Streetcar to travel south to Fleet Street and then west to the CNE loop.
  • Would see TTC extending the Bay Street line north of Bloore Street West that it would connect with Davenport Road and travel westward to Avenue and connect with the Avenue Road Line. At the same time, tracks on Avenue Road between Dupont Street and Davenport Road were taken out of service.
  • April 1st, would see the end to the College Streetcar line when it was taken over by the Carlton Streetcar line that continue to operate today along both lines today and is known as 506 Carlton.
  • June 1st, 1931, saw the Yonge, college and Carlton intersection rebuilt where it would see Carlton Street running on an north-westerly angle starting about a 1,000 feet east of Yonge Street and connect with College Street at Yonge Street. Up to this time both streets meet Yonge Street, but were a block away from each other with College been the northern one as well longer. It also was done to allow better access to the new Maple Leaf Gardens been built at the time to the east of Yonge Street. Today, the garden is being converted to a Loblaws Store as well a sport complex for Ryerson University since The Maple Leaf hockey team plays out of the Air Canada Centre.
  • June 2nd saw service on the new section of the Bathurst Line south of front being called Fleet at first and then change to FORT a month later that would operated from a new Wolseley loop that was located a block north of Queen Street on the east side at Wolseley Street to a new Fleet loop where the light house was located that was haft way between Bathurst Street and Strachan. The light house was moved there in 1929 after been save from destruction and still stands there today as well the loop. This new routing would allow a shorter walking distance to the Maple Leaf Stadium for the Maple leaf Baseball team to the south near the harbour shipping channel. This realignment would see a new bridge built south of the existing bridge to go over the railway tracks that would slop to the south. That bridge was scheduled to be replaced in 2008 with a new design to meet the new Fort York extension to the east that is 4 feet lower than the current road, but still on hold to the point that TTC rebuilt the tracks in 2009 as it could not wait any longer in replacing them.
  • It should be noted that the Bathurst line ran very limited service to the CNE at this time with a number of different trippers using this line to get to the city core.
  • August 15, the Toronto to Guelph Radial Line would cease operation. There is next to nothing existing today to say this line existed at all except for a section at Rockwood.
  • TTC Ridership would fall to its lowest numbers when 147,582,487 where made because of the recession.

• 1933
  • July 31st, TTC reopened the CNE loop after rebuilding to allow better handling of the crowds as well storage equipment for the CNE.
  • TTC would change the operation of the Harbord Line that had used the Adelaide Street track since 1911 to a new routing ().
  • With the removable of the Harbord line off Adelaide Street, TTC decided to run a Bathurst Streetcar along this street now and removed a need to transfer from that line to another line to get to the city core. The Bathurst car would used this route until 1966 when the Bloor-Danforth Subway open and the City moving toward one way streets. The car would loop ().

• 1935
  • February 9, 1935, the Radial Line from Long Branch to Port Credit was removed from service and replace by buses Route 74 operated by TTC. The grand vision to take this line to Hamilton dies. It is stated one reason for the removable of the line was Port Credit wanting to widen the Lake Shore Road to 4 lanes.
  • The last section of St Clair Right-of-Way for the St Clair line is removed and would haunt TTC and the City of Toronto until 2010 when the last section of the New Right-of-Way was finish.

• 1936
  • June 26th saw the removable of the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company line in Township of Scarborough running from Birchmount Avenue to Eglinton Avenue and were replaced with TTC buses that still run there today.

• 1937
  • Over the years ideas would be talked about building a subway with no real plans until this year where it was said that if the subway was built on Victoria Street, it would save close to $1.5 million as there were less underground utilities to be moved. Given the fact that Victoria Street stop at Gerrard Street, it would be less costly to continue north of Gerrard Street than Yonge Street. Today Victoria Street stops at Gould Street due to the fact Ryerson University occupies that area now.

• 1938
  • TTC started to take delivery of new PCC streetcars to replace the various designs of the Peter Witt Cars. These cars were manufacture by St. Louis Car Company (SLCCo) who held the license to manufacturer them. The cars for Canada were assembled in Montreal, Quebec by Canadian Car and Foundry who received the body shell and trucks from St Louis.
  • These PCC cars would seat 52 riders and given them a more comfortable ride since the seats were cushion padded as well having up to date support system. The cars were 46 ft (14.0 m) long. TTC took delivery of 540 of these PCC by 1951 and would obtain another 225 second hand by 1957 giving it a total of 765 and having the largest fleet in North America then.
  • St Louis Car Company went on to produce 4,978 by the 1950's and seeing thousands more been built in Europe under license from them.
  • In the late 1930's, Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC) revisited the subway again as the service on Yonge Street was poor with streetcars that had trailer would be found bunching up one after another with the car traffic interfering with the service. Simple put, the City was choking on traffic. It is still today.

• 1939
  • September 1st would see the start of World War II
  • September 10, saw the Canadian Government declare war on Germany that was support by the citizens of Canada even though it had no obligation to do so with Great Britain. This would lead to more demand on TTC to get workers to their jobs at all hours of the day.
  • Ridership would climb to 154,089,720 riders trips due to World War II starting and coming out of the recession.

• 1940
  • May 9, another jog on College Street was removed at Lansdowne Avenue when College Street that stop at Lansdowne was extended west to allow it to connect to Dundas Street West at St Hellso's Street. There was an loop at Lansdowne Avenue (Need more info).
  • Ridership would climb to 168,147,272 riders trips this year due to World War II and the manufacturing of material for it.

• 1941
  • See TTC purchasing a building on the east side of Keele Street, north of Dundas to move the double end cars for the Weston Road line off the road and allow the car to deadhead on the property and have a waiting area for the riders. Photo of TTC 2132 Peter Witt Car arriving at the station from the Toronto Archives.
  • October, TTC came up with a plan for building 2 new underground streetcar routes. One would be based on 1910, 1912 subway plan as well the Bion J. Arnold Yonge Street Streetcar plan. The plan put forth by TTC at this time would see streetcars traveling underground from a loop at Wellington, York and Front Street, up Bay Street to Bloore where it north-easterly to Yonge Street and then north to St Clair Avenue. It would pass under Ramsdem Park also. Once the Streetcars surface at St Clair Avenue, it would continue north to the Belt Railway Line Right-of-Way and then travel westerly along it through Forest Hill to the Township of York. The 2nd line would be an east-west line running under Adelaide, Richmond and Queen Streets from Logan Avenue in the east to Trinity Bellwoods Park in the west allowing suburban streetcars to used these tunnel and offer riders a fast single seat ride.
  • December 7, would see the United States enter into the War after it was attacked by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour and TTC would its ridership increase to 193,608,478 trips.

• 1942
  • January 22, the plans for building subways was submitted to council for approval and was turn down. TTC was requested to come up with another plan. The plan that came up with call for a subway running underground from Union Station on Front Street and then north on Yonge Street to the City limits at Eglinton Avenue. It would also see streetcars running underground along Queen Street from McCaul Street in the west to Mutual Street where both ends would run along the north side of Queen Street in an open cut.
  • The plan to build the subway was put on hold again, cause by World War II.
  • Saw an extension being built from the Long Branch loop was built that ran westerly to the small arms factory located just over the Etobicoke River on the south side of Lakeshore Road to another loop for riders working at the small arms factory during War II. There is no real information or photos of this loop today and for very good reason. The loop was removed after the war.
  • April 23rd saw TTC opening a new loop for the Bathurst Street Line, that abutted the buildings on St Clair Avenue and Vaughan Road to cut down on the traffic congestion at both intersection that was taking place due to the looping of the Bathurst Cars.

• 1943
  • The City of Toronto adopted the Master Plan for Toronto that saw the vastly vacant lands outside the current limits playing a large roll for the future of Toronto. Future planning would have to take in the metropolitan area. This would have effect on transit in the coming years.
  • Plans were drawn up this year that call for a 10 mile elevated expressway by the City of Toronto Planning Board, that would become known as the Gardiner Expressway running from highway 27 in the west to Scarborough along the Toronto Waterfront that would have repercussion still today over the building of it. It would go on to destroy many places as well relocating them and create a blight along the waterfront. Sunnyside Amusement Park would fall because of this expressway as well box in or hide away Fort York, the removable of TTC from the Lake Shore Blvd just to name a few things to come after this year.

• 1944
  • TTC would formed the Rapid Transit Department this year as it was serious on building a subway as it knew that once the war was over, Yonge Street would be mayhem with the return of men that were overseas. W.H.Paterson would assumed control of the department and plans for an north-south and east-west subway got underway.
  • Saw TTC produce a report "Rapid Transit for Toronto" that calls for a full fledge subway on Yonge Street running from Union station on Front Street to Eglinton Avenue up Yonge Street. The report also calls for a streetcar subway line that would travel underground from University Avenue in the west to Church Street in the east with the remainder of the line in an open cut. The Queen Subway Line was also the intently plan put forth in 1911. The plan went to the Board of Controllers who approved the plan with the Yonge Line having first priority that would see the Queen line to follow after it.

• 1945
  • World War II with Germany ends on May 8th after being surrounded by the various Allied forces.
  • World War II ends when Japan surrender to the United States on September 2nd. With the end to the war, things would change very quickly for both the City of Toronto and TTC when men and women who fought in the war return home.
  • TTC builds a work flat car at the Hillcrest Yards.
  • Due to the brown out effect caused by lack of power to the City by Ontario Hydro caused by demands for good, TTC agreed to cut Streetcar service to help to reduce the load on the system and saw the Spadina line to fall and be replace by buses only to see streetcar surface in 1997 again on the line. At the same time, the Yonge Line was converted to duel end cars to help with the drain of power on the system.
  • TTC ridership would reached 303,350,348 trips operating over 59,362,601 Kilometres of track.

• 1946
  • January 1st, 1946, the voters would once again vote on a subway referendum plan for Yonge Street. The voters were asked: "Are you in favour of the Toronto Transportation Commission proceeding with the proposed rapid transit system provided the Dominion government assumes one-fifth of the cost and provided that the cost to the ratepayer's is limited to such amounts as the City Council may agree are necessary for the replacement and improvement of city services.".
  • The Federal Government was prepared to pickup 20% of the total cost to build this subway with TTC picking up the remaining cost. Considering the voters of Toronto would not be responsible for the cost to built the subway and only have to pay for the relocation of pipes including new ones and rebuild the roads, the voted over welling 69,935 to 8,630 in favour of this subway. Again conflicting vote count with another source saying 79,935 to 8,630.
  • It should be noted that the Federal Government never put a cent into this subway as promises. The cost to build the 2 subways was now $42 million dollars, the Yonge line would cost $19 Million while the Queen Line was going to cost $23 Million.
  • On April 26, Toronto Council approved the building of the Subway from Front Street to Eglinton Avenue that was the City Limits at that time. The line was schedule to open in 1953 and replace the streetcars on Yonge Street at that time. At this time, the $19 million for the Yonge Line had climb to $28.9 million plus another $3.5 million for rolling stock and this held back the Queen Line been built at the time.
  • On September 15, 1948, Trolley Buses replace the Weston Road Radial Line. Buses would run up to the northern end of the Town of Weston at Wilson Ave where the buses loop. There was also a loop at Church Street as well Rogers Road that were used for short turning. Roger Road was also the boundary between Zone 1 and the City core service.

• 1947
  • June 19 saw TTC removed the streetcars off Lansdowne Avenue and replace them with trolley buses.
  • October 6th saw the Ossington Trolley Bus took over operation on part of the Dovercourt-Harbord Streetcar Line.
  • December 8th saw the fall of the Weston Road Streetcar when it was replace with trolley buses. They would run from the Keele Loop at the north-east corner of St Clair Avenue and Weston Road.

• 1948
  • October 10, the remaining section of the Radial between Richmond Hill and Glen Grove Avenue in Toronto cease to exist, bring an end to the Radial lines in Ontario. Buses were used to replace the Radial service.
  • Would see TTC extending the Parliament Car south of Queen Street to connect to King Street east as well the loop just south of King Street on the lands that were the old Parliament Building of Ontario.

• 1949
  • September 8, 1949, after waiting over 3 1/2 years for construction to start on building the Yonge Subway, due to material shortage caused by the War II, construction got under way. There was a grand event that took place that day with the first pile to be driven into the ground. Steel beams were pile driven next to the foundation of the existing business on Yonge street from Front Street to Wellesley Ave. Steel beams were attach to these piles to support a temporary wood deck for TTC streetcars and traffic while excavation took place underneath it. Building of the tunnels and station took place without interfering of traffic and pedestrian.
  • During the construction of the subway, sections of the Yonge Streetcar route were taken out of service until a temporary wooden deck road over the construction was built. At various times, service on the Yonge Streetcar Line would come to a halted for the section between Front Street and Wellesley Street when basting using dynamite took place at 1:30 and 4:30 pm to help to break-up the shell rock ground. This cut and cover was to only go north as far as College/Carlton Street and then run in an open cut. It was decided to continue doing a cut and cover to Davenport to cut down on the backlash and the number of homes that would be next to the open cut. The land from the cut and cover was used for land fill at the east end of Toronto Bay.

• 1950
  • August would see TTC doing away with free rides for children who were wearing bathing suites and carry a towel going to and from Sunnyside Beaches due to declining ridership.

• 1951
  • 1950's to the opening of the Bloor-Danforth Subway line on February 26, 1966, it was not uncommon to see streetcars MU (multiple unit) together on the Bloor-Danforth Streetcar line by adding extra service to the line and still maintain a good headway. It was common to see the driver of the 2nd car in a relaxed position as they only had to collect the fare and handout transfers as the driving was left up to the first driver. With the Bloor-Danforth streetcar line been further north of Queen Street and putting it closure the suburbs, it offer a faster route for riders to get to the centre core of Toronto. Also, more density development was taking place along the line as well else where that it started to siphon riders off the Queen Street Streetcar line that was carrying the most ridership at the time. It has been said that ridership was close to 9,000 per hour at peak time for the Bloor-Danforth Line compare to the 7,000 for the Queen Street Line. In one case it has been said that the Queen Street line was carrying close to 100,000 riders daily when all the routes that used Queen Street were combine.
  • 1950's would see TTC overruling the wishes of Metropolitan Toronto to build the Queen Street Subway and opted to build the Bloor-Danforth Subway. Considering TTC was paying the full cost of the subway from the farebox in the first place, TTC got their way and help to drive a nail into the quality and service levels for the Queen Street Line in the 2000's.
  • September the 5th, 1951, TTC opens a new yard located at south of Harbour Street, between York Street and Bay Street known as the Harbour Yard. The yard was built to replace the Yonge-Eglinton Yard that would close when the Yonge Subway was to open in 1953. The yard was built to handle the Peter Witt cars that were used on the Yonge Streetcar Line that included the trailers. The yard was to house up to 36 Peter Witt's trains.

• 1953
  • TTC opens a new streetcar yard between York Street and Bay Street and south of Harbour Street that would hold 38 Peter Witt's trains which was made up of Peter Witt cars and trailers. The yard was built to replace the yard and carhouse at Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue West that would be closed in 1954 with the opening of the new Yonge Street Subway.
  • Saw introduction of tokens as fare for adults that will be used for the new turnstiles in the new subway station schedule to open in 1954.
  • Would see a 19 day strike by TTC employees that would be the 2nd longest one in its history.
  • April 2, saw the Ontario Provincial Government create the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto that included the City of Toronto, the towns of New Toronto, Mimico, Weston, and Leaside; the villages of Long Branch, Swansea, and Forest Hill; and the townships of Etobicoke, York, North York, East York, and Scarborough. The Metropolitan Toronto Act, 1953 went into effect April 15, 1953 with legislative powers and taxation taking place January 1st, 1954.
  • TTC would be a department of its own and see its name change in 1954.
  • June saw the Danforth Tripper running west of the Luttrell Loop to a new loop at Bedford Avenue, just north of Bloor Street West that would become the St George Loop in 1963 after the University Subway was open in 1963. This loop would service various Streetcar Trippers along the Bloor-Danforth line including Church and Sherbourne routes. It was also a great place to watch the various types of streetcars that operated on TTC considering Yonge Street only saw Peter Witt's and trailers.
  • June 3, saw a report call "Study of Future Surface Car Requirements and Recommendation to Purchase Additional Used P.C.C. Cars" written by W.E.P. Duncan, Operations Manager for TTC recommending the purchased of 75 PCC cars from Cleveland Transit System that were only 5-6 years old at a cost of $20,000 each FOB and 48 PCC from Birmingham Transit Company that were offer to TTC in 1951 at a cost of $18,500 each FOB. This purchased would cost TTC $3,665,250.00 less the scrap value of 123 large Peter Witt cars. TTC was planning on scraping 105 trailer and 50 Brills (2 man Peter Witt) cars when the Yonge Subway open. 50 of the 75 cars from Cleveland were equipped for multiple unit (MU) operation (2 car train acting as one car) and were to be used on the Bloor line since it already had 100 PCC the could be MU since it was carrying 9,000 riders at peak time while Queen-Kingston line was carrying 7,900 riders at peak time.
  • The ridership on the City and Suburban systems were expected to grown to 330,000,000 by 1960 and then decline in the 1970's, but still remain about the current ridership at that time.
  • TTC had a fleet of 1,044 at the time of the report that saw 591, PCC, 105 trailers, 100 small Peter Witt's, 75 large Peter Witt's and 175 2 man Peter Witt's.
  • The ridership for the lines that would not be removed at this time for peak time and (cars) were: Bathurst 6,100 (70); Bloor-9,000 (174); Carlton 4,200 (101); Dundas 4,200 (53); Harbord (east end) 3,900 (25); King 5,400 (88); Queen's-Kingston Rd. 7,900 (152); St. Clair 6,200 (70). This would require TTC to have a fleet of 733 plus 6% spare ratio of 45 cars for a total of 773 required after 1963. This would leave TTC 187 cars short for a full PCC fleet.
  • The ridership and car for the lines been looked at been removed by 1963: Church 1,000 (5); Coxwell 1,600 (5); Dupont 2,000 (20); Harbord (west end) 2,700 (37); Lake Shore 1,700 (21); Parliament 2,200 (6); Queen (east of Woodbine) 1,900 (15); St. Clair (east of Yonge) 1,300 (9) York Township Lines 2,000 (11).
  • When on reads this report, it was saying streetcars would still be needed after the plan to retire them that was adopted in the 1940's. Even the ridership numbers show that buses could not handle the loads then, let alone today.

• 1954
  • January 1st, Metropolitan Toronto officially takes control of the City of Toronto as well the surrounding areas that were amalgamated into it in 1953 by the Province of Ontario. TTC would see its name change from Toronto Transportation Commission to Toronto Transit Commission allowing it to kept the abbreviated name of TTC.
  • This year would see major changes for TTC as well a number of problems related to the opening of the Yonge Subway and operating under Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto.
  • With the Metropolitan Toronto assuming control of transportation planning for the area, the planning of The Don Valley Parkway way gets underway to bring more traffic into the core of the city as well removed transit riders by putting them into cars. It would run highway 401 south along the east side of the Don River and enter the city south of Queen Street using one-way streets on Richmond Street and Adelaide Street as well connect to the Gardiner Expressway that will run along the waterfront for a distance of 15 km (9.3 miles) and to carry 60,000. Today, this road sees over 100,000 vehicles and is over capacity and cannot be widen.
  • With TTC been place under the jurisdiction of the new Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto at this time, TTC requires the assets and liabilities of 4 bus companies that were operating independently and servicing the suburbs that were now part of Metropolitan Toronto. The bus company's were Danforth Bus Lines, Hollinger Bus Lines, Roseland Bus Lines, and West York Coach Lines.
  • With the amalgamation, TTC operation service area went from 35 square miles to 240 square miles.
  • TTC who was over seen by a 3 man board up to 1953 saw a new commission formed that was appointed by the new council from time to time.
  • February TTC removes the Yonge Street Streetcars north of Eglinton Avenue that ran to the Glen Echo Loop and replace them with Route 97 trolley buses in advance of the opening of the Yonge Subway south of Eglinton Avenue. TTC did look at the option of maintaining this streetcar line and used it as a suburb line that could be expanded over time, but ended up rejecting that option.
  • March 30, 1954 after a year delay due to the material shortage caused by the Koran War and great fanfare, the Yonge Subway was open.
  • Premier Leslie Frost, Mayor Allan A. Lamport in control, along with a number of other important people, took the first train north from Davisville Station to Eglinton Avenue Station just one station north. They then took the train down to Union Station located on Front Street.
  • With the long awaited subway for Toronto opening March 30, 1954 on Yonge Street, it would put an end to the Yonge Streetcar Line that first saw streetcar service back in 1861. It also brought the end on a number of Downtown Trippers that operated on it off the Danforth line. These trippers would now be turn at Bedford Loop. At the same time, the Bloor-Danforth cars would discharge riders at one end of the platform that was built in the centre of Bloor Street just east of Yonge so the riders could easy transfer to the new subway. The Streetcars would then proceed to the other haft of the platform to pickup riders. Riders off the street had to used stairwells on the 4 corners of Yonge and Bloor Street to gain access to/from the streetcars.
  • At 2:30 pm on the same day of the opening of the subway, the last Yonge Street streetcar Peter Witt #2574 and trailer #2897 roll off the line into the sunset for the last time when these car enter the Harbour Yard on the Waterfront. The next stop for these cars was the scrap yard as that was stated in the 1953 report regarding trailers on the Yonge Line. The Eglinton Avenue streetcar carhouse would close their doors for them and reopen as a bus garage that would service the various routes that ran both in and outside the city limits.
  • During the construction of the subway, the underground Queen Street station for streetcars was built, but that is a far it got for the Queen Street subway. That station still exist today an closed to the public eyes.
  • Riders who would used this new subway Line would see their travel time was almost cut in haft traveling from Eglinton Avenue to the City Core. The trip that normal took about 30 minutes by streetcar was now down to 15 minutes by subway.
  • With the opening of the Subway and seeing more subways being built, TTC started to look at removing the Streetcar system. It also looked at retiring a fair number of them.
  • After the subway open, 1954 would become the year of the brown out that was caused by the newly open subway as it was using more power than the City Hydro System could produce as well from the outside. There would be rolling brown out for various areas of Toronto until more power from outside the city could be supply to it. This would require more transmission lines as well power plants to be built. Transit riders would see disruption of service cased by these rolling brown outs. Because of the Brown out, TTC removed a number of routes to cut down on the use of Hydro and those lines would not return to service after the Brown out was over. 400,8563 Kilometres of track service was lost due to the cutting of service to deal with the brown out issue.
  • Over the coming years, various options were looked as if TTC would remain a separate department or not would lead to some opposition between it and the Metropolitan Planning Board as to where subway would since the Municipality Act did not state who had final decision making powers would see council making the final decision. One reason we have a University Line today as TTC rejected the plan in the first place. Another decision that took place over the object of TTC was the elimination of Zone fare in 1974 as TTC saw this having an financial bearing on the short distance travelers who would have to pay more at the farebox to support the cost of building and maintaining service for the long distance traveler.
  • I have created my own History Page for the Yonge Subway.
  • October saw Toronto been hit by Hurricane Hazel that caused major damage throughout the city, but mostly to low land along the rivers that saw roads and bridges washed away and killing a number of people. The lands in the floodplain's of these valleys and river area would be ban from development, allowing the building of the Parkway that does gets flooded from times to times.
  • December saw the City of Toronto planning to grade separate the CN Barrie railway tracks on Davenport that was one the few grade crossing still in service for TTC. TTC was still running their Davenport line across those tracks. TTC would go on to build an new loop at Lansdowne Avenue to service the Davenport Line while the building of the grade separation bridges were been built. The loop would one block east of Lansdowne Avenue on Hydro land at St. Clarens Avenue.
  • The final cost to build the Yonge Line came in at $58 Million up from the original $29 million at the start and $8 million under TTC final estimates.
  • Only a few months after the Yonge Line open, an article appeared in the press about building a Bloor-Danforth subway along with a superhighway running from between Victoria Park Avenue in the east to the Kingsway in the west. The expressway would continue further at each end than the subway.
  • With the opening of the Yonge Line, the Bathurst Line was removed from service along Front Street when the tracks were paved over between Yonge Street and Scott Street.
  • Ridership would reach 320,249,800 trips this year for TTC and it would fall off until 1968 when it would carry 323,481,655 trips.

• 1955
  • May 25th, TTC opens a new streetcar loop north of Danforth Avenue at Main Street to help to relieved some of the congestion off the Luttrell Loop to the west of it. It would see the College line using it.
  • TTC would open its first real Right-of-Way and LRT line that ran west of Parkside Drive to the Humber Loop. The eastern section connected to the Queen Street Line. This section was more line a railway line as there was no concrete or other material between the rails or around them other that ties and ballast. Streetcar would be able to travel at a high rate of speed as there was noting along this stretch that would make it slow down other than street crossing. Over the years this once industrial area has been transform into a residential community on both sides of the tracks between South Kingsway and Ellis Avenue. Streetcars at time can be found traveling at a high rate of speed as of 2010, but it is rare.
  • Toronto Harbour Commission order the destruction of Sunnyside Amusement Park after a number of fires there as well it was hindering the development of Toronto by getting in the way of the Gardiner express ways as well causing traffic jams.

• 1957
  • January 21st, the construction of CN Barrie grade separation on Davenport starts. At the same time, TTC cut back the Harbord Streetcar Line that was using the Davenport line at the time saw it service cut back to the new St. Clarens Loop until the building of the bridges that would separate the railway tracks from the road.
  • During the construction of this Davenport grade separation, tracks were no reinstalled that would spill the end of service to Townsley loop located north of St Clair Avenue on Old Weston Road.
  • July 27th saw the Queen Street Car Line been relocated off the bridge at Roncesvalles that travel to the Lake Shore Boulevard to the new Queensway that was built west of Roncesvalles Avenue to the new Humber Loop where it would turn around. Riders going west of the loop to Long Branch would change to the Long Branch car that had its own separated loop just west of the Queen Loop. The Queen Street Line would travel in its own right-of-way between the 2 lanes of traffic in each direction. The right-of-way was built for high speed on a railway design and still exist today, but crossing the intersection is now reduce to 10 km/hr. The right-of-way really starts just west of Glendale Avenue with the remaining section to the east in mix traffic. The existing bridge was removed to allow the building of the Gardiner Expressway and leave the waterfront public domain under service today.
  • November saw a new bus loop been built at the St. Clarens Loop that reinforced the end of the Harbord Line going west again.
  • In the late 1950's, TTC looked at where the next subway line would be built and again the Queen Street subway was at the top of the list. At this point, the ridership on Queen Street was not as great as the Bloor-Danforth streetcars since that route offer a faster way to connect to the Yonge subway to get to the City Core. It was decided that the Yonge Subway would be extended north from Union Station under University Avenue to the new Bloor-Danforth (BD) line that was to be built in phases. The idea was to run every other train south on the new University line by the way of a WYE at St George Station in the west and Lower Bay Station in the east. Once again, the Queen Street Subway fails to make it to the construction stage.
  • Like other cities world wide, Toronto was looking at replacing the streetcar system and replace them with buses.
  • TTC build's their new headquarter on top of the existing Davisville station entrance and bus loop and moved from the north-east corner of Front Street and Yonge Street that would be torn down for an office tower.

• 1958
  • May 5th, The City of Toronto started to make Richmond Street and Adelaide Street into one way street to the point that TTC started to change the Adelaide Bathurst Car by running it east to Church, west on Richmond Street to York Street and then west from York Street. This would last until 1960.
  • September 5th would see the Ontario Municipal Board giving permission to build the University-Bloor-Danforth subway with University being the first section to be built. TTC objects to the University section is over rule by Council.

• 1959
  • The Wychwood Carhouse would see the decrease of a number of lines due to them been removed from service to the point that only the Bathurst, Oakwood, Rogers Road, St Clair, Dupont and Earlscourt remain.
  • Construction got underway on the University Subway that saw the line going north from Union Station that open in 1954, up the centre of University Avenue which was originally known as College Avenue and stopping at Queen Street. With the razing of the building south of Queen Street, University Avenue was extended south to meet York Street at Front Street and that is why the road looks like it does south of Queen Street today. Station would be built at King Street at would be called St Andrew after the ward name, Queen Street call , after the court house, Dundas Street name St Patrick after the ward, College Street call Queens Park after the Provincial Building, Museum Station name after the Royal Museum as this is where the so call WYE take place that would be only used for 6 months in 1966 where the line would interchange with the new Bloor-Danforth Subway and Finally St George Station named after the ward. The tracks would be above the Bloor-Danforth line with tracks at the west end going down to meet the Bloor-Danforth line just before the Spadina Station to the west. The eastbound tracks from Museum Station would go under the Bloor-Danforth line to a 2nd level station at Bay Street to the east and would be known as lower Bay. Lower Bay would cease operation after 6 months of trying to interline the Bloor-Danforth Line with the University-Yonge Subway. After TTC abolish the practices of interlining, the public never saw that station until 2006 when it was open for the . The public would line up for hours to get a chance to see this station in person. The public would get a chance in 2008 and 2010 to see this station when the Bloor-Danforth line was close between Yonge Street and St George for tunnel and track repair. Lower Bay up to this time was used as a movie set as well for commercial as well training TTC personnel.

• 1960
  • January 1st, 1960, TTC removes the streetcars off Oakwood and the line cease to exist anymore. The line ran from St Clair Oakwood Loop a block north of St Clair Avenue, north on Oakwood to Rogers Road and then west of Keele Street to the Bicknell Loop. It was a short walk over the railway bridge to connect to the Weston Road bus.
  • January would see a report prepared by the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board as a draft copy call "Draft Official Plan of the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Area" that a subway on Queen Street be looked again. The line would run the Humber to Greenwood and then go north on Greenwood to O'Connor Drive and would connect with the Bloor-Danforth Subway line that was under construction at the time either at Donlands or Greenwood station. This would be close to the call for the Downtown Relief Line that is being call for these days.
  • June 13th saw the end of the Bathurst Line using the Church-Richmond-York looping when the City extended the One-way system to Simcoe Street that preventing the Bathurst Car to run west of York to the point that the Bathurst Cars were now using King Street to return westbound to Bathurst Street.

• 1961
  • The first section of the Don Valley Expressway is open that runs from to .

• 1963
  • Would see the last Peter Witt removed from service.
  • February 28, with the opening of the University Subway spell the end of the line for the Bay line since it was in between 2 subway lines as well continuing the policy of TTC for removing streetcars lines off the street of Toronto. At this time, the Bay line was running from Dupont and Christie loop to the Queens Quay York Street Loop (formerly Ferry Loop). TTC would replace the Dupont line with a trolley bus line that ran from the St George loop to Jane Street and be known as the Annette Line. Some variation of streetcar service would operate over a small section of Bay Street servicing the ferry docks until August 1965 and to the City Hall loop until January 6th, 1975 when it was removed for the building of the Eaton's Centre. The removable of the Bay Line would come back to haunt them years later as well today with the building of the office and condo towers along it. TTC has said that between the diesel buses trapping the fumes of the buses and not having streetcars on Bay Street to help to deal with the overcrowding at peak time was one of their great mistakes for removing streetcars off Bay Street. Today, the Bay 6 Bus travels a large section of the original Bay Streetcar Line. One can find either the Dundas or the Carlton Cars using the last remaining operatively tracks on Bay Street between College Street West and Dundas Street West. TTC has had consider reinstating service on Bay Street to the point it was seriously looked at in the 1980's during the planning of the Harbourfront Line were the tracks would be partly underground as well on the surface, but nothing has happen to date.

• 1964
  • Saw the plan to finally build the Queen Street Streetcar Subway surface that would run from the Humber Loop in the west where it would travel easterly to Greenwood Avenue and then turn north to meet the Bloor-Danforth Subway. It was recommend by the Vice-Chair of TTC that Queen line be place underground between McCaul Street to the west and Sherbourne Street in the east. The plan for the Queen Line never made it to the construction stage as it was recommended to build the Yonge Line extension. Again one can only think what transit would look like to day as well the City of Toronto.
  • The City Commissioner for Public Works made the suggestion that a combined infrastructures be looked at that would allowed streetcars and traffic to used it and it raised the question which should have priority, the Queen Street plan or the extension to the north for the Yonge Line. In the end, the Yonge extension got first choice.
  • By year end, another report prepared by the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board surface called "Metropolitan Toronto Transportation Plan" raised question or findings of the 1959 "Draft Official Plan for Metropolitan Toronto" that 45% of the existing riders on the Danforth line would fall west of Donlands station using the Queen Street line (DRL) to the point that as much as 20,000 plus per peak hours for both direction. With this increase of ridership on the Queen Street Line, surfaces transit would be slow, congestion and would required more service. It was suggested that the Queen Line have its own Right-of-Way underground between Jarvis Street and Spadina Avenue to improved the quality and reliability of service along this section with the remaining section on the surface.
  • The Metropolitan Toronto and Region Transportation Study (MTARTS) report stated that it was unclear at the time if such need was required for this Queen Subway and it should be reviewed at a later date on the need of such line.
  • Same condition then as there is today along the route of the 501 Queen Street Line.

• 1966
  • 1966 would see a major change for TTC system when the Bloor-Danforth Subway open. A fair numbers of lines would cease to exist as well be modify. Some of these changes would be for the well over times some would not.
  • February 26, the Bloor-Danforth Subway opens it first of 3 phases for it that it saw the line running from the Woodbine Station in the east to the Keele Station in the west.
  • Lines that were removed from service on February 26 with the opening of the Bloor-Danforth Line:
    • Dupont Line that ran from Christie Street Loop to Queens Quay West York Street Loop was removed replace by bus. Tracks would be removed for most of the line except for a section between Dundas Street and College Street been used for short turning today..
    • Spadina Line that ran from the Bloor Street West Loop to Queens Quay West. It would return in 1997 with great debate that stills exist today about it. Bus Route 77 would service the Spadina Avenue.
    • Bathurst Line is cut back from St Clair Avenue West to Bloor Street West Loop with rest of the line been service by the Wychwood Car House. Tracks still in place to the point they were rebuilt in 2008 to allow cars to get to Hillcrest yard as well up to St Clair Avenue 512 route. Also, at the same time, TTC removed the Bathurst car off Adelaide Street and King Street as they were causing congestion for the King Line that was operating 1 minute service and the Kingston Road Tripper that was operating every 1.5 minute. With these cuts to the Bathurst line, it saw its service cut in haft and the removable of the Fort line to help in off setting the lost to the Bathurst Line.
    • The first section of the Bloor-Danforth subway line open, bring an end to most of the Bloor-Danforth Streetcar lines. The western section of the line would operate from the Jane Street Loop to a temporary Loop at the Keele Street Subway Station. This loop was a block east of Keele Street, north of Bloor Street at Indian Grove / Indian Road. Riders would used a moving ramp to get to one of the platform. The Keele Station would be a stub end terminal as well a yard until the line was extended to Islington Avenue on May 11, 1968. A retirement home occupies the land that house the Keele Loop.
    • Harbord Line that ran from to was removed and replace with a bus route and the tracks removed over time.
    • Parliament that ran from Broadview Loop to King Street Loop was removed and would see the tracks north of Carlton Street to Bloor Street removed over time.
    • Coxwell Line is removed that saw the route running from McCaul Street eastward along Queen Street, north on Coxwell to Danforth Avenue Loop.
  • With the opening of the Bloor-Danforth Line, TTC transferred the operation of the Danforth carhouse to the Russell carhouse and the Danforth yard would store the excess cars until they were disposed of. The carhouse would be converted to buses and it would open on April 23rd, 1967 and would be officially closed on March 31, 2002 when the new Eglinton Bus Garage open.
  • Once the Bloor-Danforth Subway line open, TTC still ran streetcar service from Jane loop to Luttrell Loop as night time service until May 11, 1968.
  • Mean well in the east, Streetcars ran easterly from the Luttrell Loop to the Woodbine Subway Station until the phase between it and McCowan Station open on May 11, 1968.
  • With the closure of a large section of the Bloor-Danforth Streetcar line, TTC had more than enough streetcar than it needed and with no expansion horizon for the existing streetcar system, TTC had to do something with the excess cars. This would mean retiring cars and trying to find a buyer for them before they would go to the scrap yard.
  • April 25th, 1966, the Main Street loop is removed from service to allowing the building of the new Main Street Subway Station. On June 13 1966, the Main Street loop return to service for both the Danforth Line and the Carlton Line. That loop stills exist today for the 506 Carlton Line
  • With the opening of the Bloor-Danforth Subway, it saw TTC continue its streetcar abandonment to see all streetcars route gone by 1980.
  • Between 1966 and 1968, TTC sold their older PCC's to Alexandria, Egypt that were loaded on to ships in Toronto Harbour. Those cars would continue in service in Alexandria until 1984.
  • The Dundas Line is split that would see the northern section operating from the new Dundas Subway Station to the Runnymede Loop. Rest of the line would follow the original route to the new Broadview Subway Loop in the east. (?)
  • TTC Commissioners approved the undertaking of a $30,000 study on the "Transit Facility in the Downtown 1 section of Queen Street" that would be released in 1968.

• 1967
  • Saw another merger of 7 small municipalities into 6 major municipalities call Toronto, Etobicoke, East York, North York, Scarborough and York.
  • May 23, saw the creation of "Government of Ontario Transit" known as GO Transit System start on the CN rail corridor along the waterfront known as the Lakeshore line. The line would run from The Town Oakville in the west to the Town of Pickering in the east as a 3 year pilot project. Only Long Branch Station would have connection to TTC streetcar system.
  • TTC would see an operation ratio of 104% and it would be the last year it would retain 100% recovery from the farebox. In the coming years, the ratio would fall for a number of reason like: elimination of the zone fare, not raising fare to meet the rising inflation rate as well operating cost, recession and funding from the Provincial Government as an easy source of revenue for subsidies.

• 1968
  • Saw the last ship to depart the Toronto Harbour carrying the last load of PCC's bound for Alexandria, Egypt.
  • The March, the Metropolitan Toronto Planning Board issued the report call "Report on Rapid Transit Priorities in Metropolitan Toronto." that contain several option to the Queen Subway:
    • 1. A Queen Street subway following Queen Street from the Humber River to Victoria Park Avenue.
    • 2. From an eastern terminal at Greenwood and O'Connor south to Queen Street, west on Queen to Dufferin, then north-west along the Weston Road railway corridor to a western terminal at about Islington Avenue.
    • 3. As 2, but at Weston Road and Eglinton turning due west along the Richview Side Road to Martin Grove Road.
    • 4. A shorten version of 2, from Greenwood and Danforth to Weston Road and Eglinton.
    • Based on the numbers for this report, it was shown in 1980 that the numbers were under inflated to the point that the Bloor-Danforth Line was to see 29,000 for peak period, yet by 1973, the ridership was over 30,000. If the Queen line was built, The Yonge-University-Spadina Line would had lost 25% to 32% of its ridership well the Bloor Danforth Line would has saw 8% to 20% reduction also. In the end, the report did say there was a need for a subway along Queen Street and the footnote in the 1966 report be removed.
  • May 11, brought the end to the long trouble Bloor-Danforth with the opening of the last 2 phases of the Bloor-Danforth Subway line at either end of the line that were still in operation at the time.
  • May 11, saw TTC doing away with the night-time streetcar service between Jane and Luttrell loops and replace them with buses. Based on 2010 ridership and service level, one could say streetcar should be used on the line in place of buses.
  • June 4th saw the report "Transit Facility in the Downtown 1 section of Queen Street" that was prepared by TTC's Subway Construction Branch released that call for a subway running from Sherbourne Street in the east to Spadina Avenue in the west at a cost of $37 million dollars. During discussion with the general manager of TTC and the Commission surround this report that the Streetcar subway be upgraded to a full blown system to meet the further needs.
    • The study then looked at 4 options with the main option running from Roncesvalles area in the west and Donlands Station on the Danforth section of the Bloor-Danforth Line. An option was looked of a route south of Queen Street required a major underpinning and disruption and was unfeasible.
    • A second option was under Queen Street where the soil was not good for tunneling and a cut and cover would be very disruption to both traffic, but most of all streetcar services.
    • The third option would see Queen Street widen that would adopted option 2, but would require a mass undertaking of acquisition and demolition the various buildings and land to build this tunnel as well trying to redeveloped that area after construction was completed.
    • The forth options was building the line north of Queen Street similar as was done for the Bloor-Danforth subway line that would required acquisition and demolition of the various building and lands to do this cut and cover tunnel.
    • The cost was peg between $150 to $200 million dollars to build this 31 km (8 mi) line at the time.
    • The report did said that land would have to be obtain in Etobicoke somewhere around the Islington Station to build a new yard to handle the equipment to be used for this Queen Subway.

• 1969
  • February 1969, TTC produce a report call "A Concept for Integrated Rapid Transit and Commuter Rail Systems in Metropolitan Toronto". The report call for a numbers of transit expansions, using various types of technology. The Subway expansion would see the University line been expanded northward from the St George Station to a Wilson station located just east of Dufferin Street and servicing the new Yorkdale Mall, extend the Bloor-Danforth line to Islington Avenue in the west end and Warden Avenue in the east; the Yonge Line would be extended northward from Eglinton Avenue to the Finch Hydro Corridor that was a block north of Finch Avenue; build the Queen Street Streetcar Subway from Humber Bay to Greenwood Avenue where it would turn north where it would travel to the Don Mills Centre. An LRT system would be built along the Finch Hydro Corridor from Malvern in the east end to the airport in the west with branch lines going to the Warden subway station from Malvern, a line to the Islington subway station using the north-south Etobicoke Hydro Corridor and a line that would connect to the Wilson subway station. A Go Transit line would run from Malvern into in the east using the Canadian Pacific Railway Crosstown Line to the Town of Milton in the west end; a line from Union station using the Canadian National Railway line to the Town of Richmond Hill as well another line using North Toronto Corridor to the airport.
  • TTC would change the King-Exhibition car from Woodbine Station to a new routing using Adelaide Street as part of the new looping at Church Street. King cars would turn north on Church to Richmond, then west to Victoria, south on Victoria to Adelaide and then back to Church Street to return westbound on King Street. 1973 would see this looping removed.

• 1970
  • 1970 would see a number of things take place for TTC. TTC would see a 12 day strike with all service cancel, it would introduce the Senior citizen fare and be the last time the fare revenue would meet operation cost. TTC would contract out its Grey Coach Line to provide service for the new GO Transit bus routes.
  • The 1970's would start to see an renaissance take place along the Toronto Waterfront as main industries close down or relocated to other areas either in Toronto or elsewhere, where land was cheap to build new facilities so the could competed on the open market. It would see some of the existing industries building been converted to residential building as well entertainment. As time goes by, the north side of Queens Quay becomes an condo city with building varying in various height's up to 40 story tall as well a few on the south side. There has been this belief that the Gardiner Expressway was blocking the view of the waterfront when in fact these condo's are the barrier. In the coming years, you will read more on this transformation along the waterfront that plays a major role for streetcars in the coming years.

• 1971
  • June 3rd, Premier Bill Davis who over for the retired Premier John Robarts on March 1st, 1971, stood up in the Provincial Legislature and made the following statement, "Cities were built for people and not cars. If we are building a transportation system to serve the automobile, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to start. But if we are building a transportation system to serve people, the Spadina Expressway is a good place to stop." Upon this statement, the focuses of building expressways for cars turn toward building a transit system for the people. Premier Bill Davis and this party would go onto to be very strong supporter of transit for the Province of Ontario where it would fund 75% of transit operation cost as well capital cost.
  • TTC would change the routing of the King-Exhibition that was using Adelaide Street to a looping of going north on Church Street to Richmond Street, west to Victoria Street, east on Queen Street to Church Street and then to King Street.

• 1972
  • The Ontario Government interduce the Go-Urban Plan that would be operated by GO Transit. An extentison to the Bloor Subway Line would see the line go west to the Kipling Hydro Corridor and then north to the airport; A 2nd line would run west from Victoria Park along the Finch Hydro Corridor and part of the Kipling Hydro Corridor where it would connect to the Bloor line to the airport; The 3rd one would see the Spadina line going north up Dufferin Street and connecting to the Finch Hydro Corridor Line; A 4th line would run from Warden along the Hydro Corridor to Eglinton Avenue and Kennedy Road, north on the east side of Kennedy Road to just north of Lawrence Aveune where it would swing to the west side and follow the Hydro Corridor north that would connect to the future Finch Line around the Warden Avenue Area; A 5th line to be built at a later date would see the Finch Hydro Line going east along the hydro corridor to Port Union Road, south to the hydro Corridor and then south-westerly where it would connect to the now SRT just south of Lawrence Aveune; a
  • At a TTC commissioners meeting and convinced by the group called "Street Cars For Toronto Committee", it was decided to reversed the direction of removing streetcar and lines off the streets of Toronto by not only keeping what still exist, but to look at where they could expand too. By making TTC make this decision, Toronto became one of 5 cities in North America to retain streetcars system and help to forge a new direction for transit.
  • With the saving of the existing system, it meant that something had to be done to replace the existing PCC fleet (President's Conference Car) and that was ordering a new fleet.
  • TTC along with Hawker Siddeley Canada stated to look at replacing the existing PCC's with a new car and came up with a concept of one call Municipal Service Car, but only concept drawings were done on it that looked like a lowfloor vehicle with a bus-like chassis.
  • According to a 1997 report call "Track Ahead", a politically decision was made that would become an unofficial policy that Ontario Unions and industries would have preferential treatment when it came to purchasing material, equipment and items that were required to run TTC. It is noted that Hawker Siddeley Canada was not the low bidder on the new streetcar but a Quebec manufacturer (Bombardier) was. This procurement of these vehicles and new technology dictated by the Provincial Government would show up only a few years later to see TTC still trying to deal with these decisions in 2010. These decisions went against TTC ability to maintain and service its system financially.
  • The design was purchased by the Swiss company Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (SIG), to build the first 10 cars before the remaining order been built by Hawker Siddeley's factory in Thunder Bay. That order was reduce to 6 allowing the remaining 4 to be converted to an articulated design known as the Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (ALRV).
  • Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) 4006 to 4009 were never built as their frames would be used to build the Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (ALRV). The decision to do this was done by UTDC as they saw there could be market for these longer cars similar to the ones in Europe for North America. SIG was to produce 2 ALRV prototype, but UTDC ended up producing only one.

• 1973
  • This year would see TTC removing the WYE switches on Bathurst Street where it connected to the Adelaide Street line that cease to exist in 1966 as well pave over between Bathurst Street and Spadina Avenue. The switches and crossover at Spadina would be removed in 1980's when TTC rebuilt the Spadina Line into an Right-of-Way.
  • April 2nd saw TTC making changes to the Kingston Road Tripper by renaming it to the Downtowner that would run west of the McCaul Loop to Bathurst Street and then north on Bathurst Street to the Bathurst Station Loop, but it would be short live. During the 1970's, TTC looked at reusing the tracks north of the Bathurst Station, but rule it out due to the fact that it would create more traffic congestion as well delay for service as well making it inconveniences to riders using the Bathurst Bus Route 7 who wanted to transfer to the Bloor Subway.
  • August saw TTC placing an order with OTDC (Ontario Transit Development Corporation) that would become Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) for 200 cars known as Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV).
  • 1973 and 1974 would see TTC introducing the Belt Line Tour Tram summer only route using Peter Witt cars that ran King Street, Queen Street by Spadina Avenue in the west and Church Street in the east every 45 minutes between 10:00 AM and 9:00 PM seven days a week. It ran from May to September only. Regular fare and transfers were allowed to use this line. TTC would promote this line as a sightseeing trip giving various histories and other information by a tour guide.

• 1974
  • Saw the elimination of the zone fare after TTC lost their appeal to council as it would cost them financial issue as to cost recover as well been supported from the farebox. It would also be the last time TTC made a profit that had help it to build the subways in the first place.
  • TTC abandoned the Roger Road line to help free cars for the rest of the system and replace it with buses.
  • September 4th saw TTC reducing the Downtowner running from the Bathurst Station to Bingham Loop by Bathurst-Queen-Kingston Road to rush hour only service as it fail to attract new ridership and would run this way until 1984 when the Bathurst section is cut back to McCaul Loop.
  • Saw the decision not to look at the Queen Street Subway anymore as their focuses was to be on servicing the suburb and building new lines there and that decision still has a major impact on transit not only in the centre core of the city, but also along the various other lines, especially Queen Street itself today. At this point, TTC was 100% responsibly for transit in the Metropolitan Toronto known as Metro.

• 1975
  • Would see a different version of the Belt Line Tour Tram that would only operate weekends and holidays as well weekdays during the CNE. Cars would travel east on Queen Street to Church Street, south on Church to Wellington Street, west to York Street where it turn north to Queen Street, west on Queen Street to McCaul Street where it would turn north to Dundas Street and then turn east on Dundas. It would travel to Church Street again and then go south on it to Queen Street. It would turn west on Queen Street and finish at Bay St. It is assumed that once empty, the cars would travel west to the McCaul Street loop to turn around and wait for the next trip to start.
  • March 30, the St Clair Line east of Yonge Street is cut back to the St Clair Subway Station with limited service going to the Mount Pleasant Eglinton Loop. This would be the last year for the line due to declining ridership that started off at 284 in 1973 to 174 on an average day along with TTC budget deficits. In the coming years, TTC would supply the cars and manpower at full cost to the public sector who would set their own price to ride the Peter Witt's.
  • TTC starts a pilot project called Wheel-trans to get people with accessibly needs to and from where they were going as TTC like most transit system was not built for them in the first. TTC still operates this system today.

• 1976
  • March, the St Clair Streetcar service to Mount Pleasant Eglinton loop is cut with the rebuilding of the bridge over the old Belt Line Railway on Mount Pleasant. At this time, TTC was trying to decide what to do about the tracks on Mount Pleasant that had not seen any real maintenance on them since they first built in 1925. Based on the fact that the travel pattern of riders had change over the years as well having a subway on Yonge Street, TTC had enough Streetcars to maintain the existing fleet to rebuild the tracks even though it would be cheaper to used diesel buses. TTC would need 5 buses to carry the same number of riders as 4 streetcars.
  • The decision to removed the streetcars was meet with strong opposition by the local Taxpayer Groups, Residents Associations and Community actives put more pressure on TTC about keeping the streetcars on the line. The TTC commissioners decided () to bow to the wishes of the of the community to keep the streetcars and rebuild the exist tracks and loops.
  • Metro Toronto Roads and Transportation Department who were responsible for the major roads for the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto would forced TTC to back track on keeping the streetcars track on Mount Pleasant. They stated due to the complaints from car drivers using this road regarding streetcars obstruction their travels to and from the core wanted the streetcars removed. This show that people living outside this area had more say than the local residents to the point local residents were not given the opportune to respond to Metro Roads Department claim. Another case where cars that carry less people than transit are more important.
  • October 2nd, the St Clair Streetcar service east of the St Clair Subway Station is officially removed from service. This becomes the last streetcar line to be removed from TTC system leaving TTC with 11 route operating on 75 Kilometres (47 mi) system. The Mount Pleasant Loop would become Moore Parkette later on. The Eglinton Loop stills exist today under a development that was built over in the coming years.
  • TTC sell 30 PCC's cars to Philadelphia SEPTA at a cost of $12,500 each after a fire at one of SEPTA Carhouse that required SEPTA to obtain replacement cars for the ones lost in the fire. TTC would re-gauge the truck on these car from TTC standard to SEPTA standard of 5 ft 2 1/2 inches at a cost of $4,000 per car. These cars would not have the wheels on the pole, but the slider-shoes which was new for SEPTA. SEPTA would experiment these PCC's and sliders-shoes on their system to the point SEPTA converts their system to the TTC sliders-shoes for power pickup. TTC would sent SEPTA the 11 ex-Kansas City cars they obtain in 1953 as well the 19 ex-Birmingham cars that were obtain in 1953 also. The first batch of cars, ex-Birmingham 4731, and ex-Kansas City 4750 and 4762 left Hillcrest yards on March 15 and arrived by rail on March 23 in Philadelphia. Considering what TTC paid for these cars in 1953 and what they sold them for, TTC made money on these cars that saw close to 23 years of service traveling TTC network.

• 1977
  • The first 6 prototype CLRV's cars were sent to Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) Millhaven plant, outside of Kingston, Ontario for testing. They came with pantograph in place of poles and were replace with poles after testing as TTC was not sure the existing overhead system could handle the pantograph.

• 1978
  • On April 15th, all the operation for the Wychwood Carhouse were transfer to the Lansdowne since TTC saw little use for it considering only 2 routes operated out of it that year. Only the St Clair West line as well the Earlscourt Tripper used the carhouse and the Earlscourt tripper would be merge with the St Clair line that year also. This is another decision that has come back to haunt TTC today. The current cars for St Clair can spend up to an hour going to and from the Roncesvalles Carhouse were the cars are store now after Lansdowne carhouse was close. That a fair bit of dead heading and waste or resources.
  • Would bring a closure of unrest labour problems with another 8 day strike. TTC would suspend all service during the strike.
  • saw the arrival of the first batch of CLRV's from Thunder Bay. The remainder would follow over the coming years.
  • With the arrival of the new CLRV's and the lack of need for the Earlscourt car that ran from the Eglinton Mount Pleasant loop to the Earlscourt Loop located at Lansdowne Avenue and St Clair West at peak time only, TTC merge the route into the 512 with some PCC's having 512L for short turns. The Earlscourt Transfers also disappeared.

• 1980
  • Saw TTC leasing CLRV 4027, 4029 and 4031 to Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) for testing where they were mu since they still had couplers on them. During the testing stage, MBTA came upon problems and came up with a fix that was pasted onto TTC who would end up modifying its fleet of CLRV's to correct the problems MBTA found. Some of those problems were found on high speed tracks of MBTA since TTC did not have any high speed lines at the time, nor today.
  • TTC introduce the 500 numbers for its streetcar routes as the names of the routes up to this time where to large for the new CLRV's display board.

• 1981
  • Saw the final order of 196 CLRV's cars to arrived from Thunder Bay.
  • July 15, TTC modify the CNE loop that saw a switch being installed to allow access to the holding tracks after dropping riders off.

• 1982
  • ALRV demo car 4900 was built with pantograph by MAN of Germany who built the bogie's and articulation with Urban Transportation Development Corporation doing the finally assembling and other parts. It was then sent to TTC for testing.
  • The CLRV as well ALRV were design more for Urban use than city use to the point they weight more than the PCC and are very rough on the existing trackage to the point that the system had to be rebuilt sooner than later.

• 1983
  • Would see the underpass on Runnymede Street rebuilt along with straightening out the road north of the underpass. At the same time, the streetcar tracks on Runnymede were removed since they were never used since they were installed in 1923 as well TTC had no plans at that time to run service along St Clair Avenue to the east. TTC has looked at putting those tracks back as well the tracks on Dundas Street that would connect to the plan St Clair line extension from the new Gunns Road Loop to either a loop at Runnymede, Jane Street or at Scarlett road, but no EA has started for any of this as of 2010. TTC see this as shorter route to get streetcars to the 512 line and not deal with the 8% grade on Bathurst Street likes it does today.
  • TTC place an order with UTDC subject to design changes for 52 ALRV's with an option for 11 more at a cost of $1.369 million each. These cars would be number 4200 to 4251.
  • Wheel-trans officially becomes part of TTC as the pilot project was started up in 1975 and remains a part of TTC today. As TTC moves toward more accessibility routes and station, TTC will cut back on the need of this system and only used it for people who cannot travel on transit in the first place due to their condition as well the size of mobile transportation.
  • The 30 cars that were sent to SEPTA in 1976 are only a piece of memory as they met their faith with the scrap yard.

• 1984
  • March 9th would see the U Downtowner Running from the Bathurst Subway Station to Bingham Loop by Bathurst Street, Queen Street and Kingston Road that only ran at Rush Hour being scale back from the Bathurst Station to McCaul Loop. This would put an end of Bathurst cars servicing the center of the core for Toronto that dated back to 1911.
  • Conservatives Government is defeated by the Liberals Party and it would start the decline of support from the Government to fund transit for the whole Province.

• 1985
  • 1985, TTC unveil Network 2011 of various lines that were to be built by 2011. A number of these lines were talked about before the release of this report, but there was very little of streetcar expansion in the report as well no mention of the Queen Street Line. The only streetcar line been talked about was the Eglinton LRT that would run westerly from Black Creek Drive where the Eglinton Avenue would stop to Mississauga where it would connect with that city Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line. At the same time, the Conservatives Government who had been in power for 42 years as well a pro transit party, lost the election that year to the Liberals. The Liberals had concerns related to the $5 Billion price tag to build this 2011 Network that they did not take a close look at until near end of their 1987-90 terms. The Highway 407 received provincial funding at this time.
  • Conservatives Government is defeated by the Liberals Party and it would start the decline of support from the Government to fund transit for the whole Province.

• 1987
  • March 7, saw TTC send ALRV 4900 back UTDC plant in Kingston for testing and towing of the new ALRV's been built under contract for TTC.
  • Saw TTC introducing the Blue Night Network service for both buses and streetcars on various routes.
  • March 24, 4211 suffer a brake failure during testing at the Kingston plant and smashes into 4900, putting an end to that car which would be sold for scrap in 1997.

• 1988
  • Would see TTC obtaining the highest ridership in it history up to this time when it carry 464 million riders. It would until 2008 before TTC would see that many riders again due to the coming recession. Again conflicting time line as it is stated elsewhere it would be 1990 when ridership would reach 459,200,000 trips.

• 1989
  • February 27, at a TTC meeting and to the delight of the public, the existing fleet of PCC's would be rebuilt. They would be repainted in their original colours. These cars would be given the A-15 classification for the modernization of the fleet.
  • Saw the start of the recession that would have a major impact for transit both for the City of Toronto and the areas outside of it over the coming years.
  • Would see the longest strike in TTC history when their employees were out for 41 day.
  • On June 22, TTC officially open the first new streetcar line in 60 year for the route 609 Harbourfront line that ran from a underground loop next to Union Station on Bay Street, down the Bay Street tunnel and would surface just west of Bay Street onto Queens Quay West. It would run in its own Right-of-Way (ROW) westerly to Spadina Avenue that would connect to the Route 510 Spadina Line. Newly rebuilt PCC 4500 A15's had the honour of being the first call to used this new line. For the first 3 days, rides were free for riders. The so call LRT would see noting but troubles in the coming years to the point that the 609 number disappear on February 18, 1896 when it came a streetcar line 510 Spadina. It would not be until July 21, 2000 that it became a true Harbourfront Line in the west when the line was open between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street that would allow service to be run from the Union Station Loop to the Exhibition Loop along Fleet Street.

• 1990
  • By the 1990's, there was a growing concise that there was no need for Metropolitan Toronto since it comprised less than 50% of the Greater Toronto Area.
  • TTC introduce the day pass that only can be used after 9:30 am for Monday to Saturday for one person and the Family of 4 or group for Sunday and Holidays.
  • The liberal Party lost the election to the NDP who only looked at the Network 2011 near the end of it terms and offer $2 Billion dollars for its "Lets Move" projects. This plan called for the Bloor subway being built westerly from Kiping to Sherway Mall that was in an industrial area and next to no land denisty at all; building the Spadina Line north on Dufferin Street to the Finch Hydro Corridor and then go east to connect to the Yonge Line to form a loop; Would see a Bus Rapid Transit Line (BRT) running westerly on Eglinton Aveune from Yonge Street to Mississauga where it would connect with Mississauga BRT line going to Square One Mall; Would see the Spadina LRT running from the Queens Quay West north to Bloor Street that saw streetcars removed off this route in 1966 when the Bloor Subway Open; An LRT line running along the Queens Quay from the CNE to Greenwood Raceway at Queen Street and the Lake Shore Blvd in the east; An LRT line running from Scarborough Town Centre that was in barren land area and very low density to Sheppard and Markhan Road.
  • This would be the last year TTC would carry 459,200,000 ridership until 2008 due to the recession, higher transit fare, cut in service and relocation of more business out of the city core and the city itself to the surrounding areas or off shore.
  • TTC would sell the Grey Coach Lines Limited that had been subsidiary since 1927 that was used as an intercity line as well sightseeing. TTC still has shares in this company today.

• 1991
  • Would see TTC dealing with another 8 days of service disruption when their employees go on strike.
  • August 19, TTC halts the rebuilding of the PCC's after 19 cars.
  • October 31 would see the Wychwood Carhouse officially cut off from rest of the system on would server as a disposal site for the remaining PCC's that were still on site as well various Trolley buses until 1998 when the land and complex is turn over to the City of Toronto for their use.

• 1992
  • The Western Waterfront EA that would see the Fleet Street Line turn into an ROW with the line following the Lakeshore west of Strachan Avenue to service the Ontario Place and then continue westerly along the Lake Shore Blvd where it would meet the Long Branch Line at Humber Bay. This would allow better access to Ontario Place as well offer better access to the west end of the City to the City core. Due to lack of funding due to the recession, the plan like most other plans was put on hold. It would become another great mistake to haunt TTC and transit riders today.

• 1993
  • Would see the report call "Eglinton West Rapid Transit Environmental Assessment".
  • Bob Rare NDP party would produced the "Rapid Transit" plan that calling for the building of the Spadina Line north from Downsview Station to York University; The Sheppard subway from the Spadina Line Downsview Station to Scarborough Town Centre in phases with the first phase been between Yonge Street and Victoria Park; The Eglinton subway line from the Spadina Subway to the York Centre in the west as phase one with bus rapid transit to the airport as one branch and another branch to Renforth at a later date; The extension to the existing SRT from McCowan north to Sheppard Avenue East and Markham Road; The Bloor subway extension from Kipling westerly to Sherway Mall; The Yonge Subway been extended westerly along the Finch Hydro Corridor and connecting to the Spadina Line at Yourk University to form a loop for both lines. The first phase would be in a 10 year time frame with the other phases being 10 to 25 year time frame. It should be noted at this time, both shopping malls were in very low density area with next to no residental around them. Since this time frame, both have become big box stores area. Sherway has only seen 2 residental towers built next to it while STC has seen a vast numbers as well a few office towers.

• 1994
  • March saw Metropolitan Toronto Council athurizing the construction of the Eglinton Avenue West and Sheppard Avenue East subways. Metropolitan Toronto Council agreed subject to Provincial funding to extend the Spadina Subway to York University, the Bloor subway to Sherway Mall and the Scarborough SRT to Malvern Town Centre. The Sheppard subway was to run east from the Yonge Line to Scarborough Town Centre while the Eglinton Line would run west from the Spadina Line to the airport.
  • March 24 would see the Minister of the Environment approving the Sheppard Subway from Yonge St to Scarborough Town Centre to the east and to the Spadina Subway at Downsview Station in the west.
  • April 27 would see the Minister of the Environment approving the Eglinton Subway running west from the Spadina Line to
  • The A15's PCC's were removed from Harbourfront 609 Route due the noise of the squealing wheels at the Spadina Loop. The squealing of the wheels were a constantly complaint from local residents due to the sharp curves. The CLRV's would operate 100% on this route as TTC had fears about the ALRV's will get stuck in the Union Station Loop that was service by the 510 also. The CLRV's would operate with no signboard as it never had a 609 route on them at the time. February 18, 1996, the CLRV's would display the Spadina 510 Route number and put the end of the short live 609 LRT line.

• 1995
  • 1995 sees the building of the World Trade Centre where the CNE loop exist as well a number of building on the north. The option of proceeding with the original Lake Shore plan was revisited that saw opposition from Ontario place because it would loose parking space as well not having the funds to do it. Another option look at was building a loop under the Trade Centre and it was met withy opposition from CNE as it would see lost of plan parking as well the cost to do it. It was decided to run the Fleet Street line north and east of Strachan Avenue in an ROW and travel westward under the Gardiner Expressway next to the rail corridor to () where it would loop back. It would have double tracks for both directions to allow storage on the north side and act as a passing track on the south side. The loop would cease to exist on June 17.
  • August, TTC received EA approval for the Western Waterfront expansion.
  • 1995 saw the NDP Government replaced by Mike Harris Ontario Progressive Conservative Party who campaign on a platform of Common sense, reducing the level of government and looking at Metropolitan Toronto. With the election of Mike Harris, transit was in for a rough ride along with a number of things.
  • November 23, at a TTC Commissioner meeting, it was decided to retire the remaining PCC's due the cost to rebuild them, the arrival of the new fleet, but moreso with the declining of ridership for the system as a whole. Cars 4500 and 4549 would be retain for charter runs as well tours. W30 and W31 rail grinders would also be retain.
  • TTC merge the Long Branch Route 507 that ran from Long Branch to Humber Bay Loop with the Queen Street Route 501 that ran from Humber Bay Loop to Neville Park Loop in the east. By doing so, it became the longest streetcar line in the world until the late 2000's. This merger would go on to create all kinds of problems for riders, TTC, quality of service as well a declined in ridership.
  • Sees the last PCC in operation removed from service.

• 1996
  • TTC sells Kenosha, Wisconsin 6 of its A15 cars built in 1951 for their new Transit line that were remanufacture and rebodied from the windows down in 1991 except 4629 that would be used for parts. They were 4610, original 4541, 4606, 4609, 4615 and 4616. Kenosha would repaint them after various historic North American transit systems. The last streetcar for Kenosha ran in 1932. Kenosha started service on their new system June 19, 2000.
  • Would see various numbers of A15 cars going to various North American museums and heritage trolley operations. 4600 and 4601 donated to Halton County Radial Railway, Ontario.
  • June 11th, the new CNE Loop opens to services the Bathurst Street Route 511 and the Harbourfront Route 509. There were talks that the line could continue westward and connect to Dufferin Street was well going west from there. The new tracks leading to the new loop would travel west along Manitoba Road off Strachan Avenue and then north to run parallel with the railway tracks to the New GO station. This track plan was first proposed some 60 years early and one reason the Coliseum's building have fine detail work today when it was first built.
  • Would see TTC and other transit system in Ontario getting their capital subsidy reduced to 50% from the 1972 level of 75% as well the elimination of various overhead charges for capital projects.
  • October 1st, TTC produce a report call "Opportunities For New Streetcar Routes" that calls for a number of places where streetcars lines could be put on the streets of Toronto. This report would appeared at the January 21, 1997 meeting.

• 1997
  • January 21 saw TTC table a report call Opportunities for New Streetcar Routes. This report called for a new Belt Line that would run King St to Spadina Avenue, north to College/Carlton Street, south on Parliament Street. This provided better for riders for waiting time as well less transferring as long there is no reduction of service on the existing lines. Another option that had the lowest cost to operate as well as benefits like the Belt Line was a route that ran in both directions by King Street, Spadina Avenue, Queen Street, Victoria Street, as well Church/Richmond Street. 160 existing riders would benefit from this route if service was every 10 minutes using 4 streetcars midday on a daily base. The cost to operate this route would be over the threshold of $1.25 of 1996 allowances at $10.29 it does not meet economic sense and not recommended. Another Belt Line that maybe interested to tourist and not capture by the 1970's Belt Lines would be similar liar to the one found in Calgary and Winnipeg among other using PCC's is to travel between the Entertainment District and shopping attraction in a circular route. Giving the out come of the 1970, this route would not attract enough riders in the first place. It is possible that a such line could be done by the private sector. A direct route between Spadina and Dundas Belt Line operating as a south-east, west-north could see up to 3,400 daily riders using this line. It was recommended to look at this Spadina Avenue and Dundas west routing in the 1998 Service plan in detail.
  • Service report prepared by TTC staff call for the St Clair West Streetcar Route 512 to be extended to a new loop either at Runnymede Avenue or Jane Street, west of the current Gunns Road Loop. The report also stated that the existing tracks on the St Clair 512 line be converted to a Right-of-Way (ROW) like it first built in 1914 when the track were rebuilt schedule for 2005. It also stated that since there was no real ridership west of the Gunns Loop to justify building the extension, maybe the developers who were redeveloping the old slaughterhouse lands on the south side of St Clair Avenue west of Keele Street could pay for this extension.
  • March () a referendum took place for all the Municipalities that comprised Metropolitan Toronto and by a 3 to 1 vote, the idea of amalgamated all the Municipalities proposed by Mike Harris and his Government was rejected.
  • March 6, the Council of Metropolitan Toronto unanimously endorsed the continuation of the TTC as a special purpose body with the powers, rights and authorities that currently exist under Part VII of the Metropolitan Toronto Act.
  • April, against the opposition of the NDP and the Liberals parties as well the voters, Mike Harris passed the Common Sense Revolution #Bill 103 known as City of Toronto Act at would caused more problems for transit in the coming years. Under Bill 103, the Greater Toronto Area Services Board was to be created to deal with transit outside of the New City of Toronto as well the disappearance of TTC itself starting in 1998 that would go under various changes itself in the coming year to the point it became the current Metrolinx that is responsible for transit in the Greater Toronto Area as of 2010.
  • June 26, would see the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing amend Bill 103 call "Bill Would Ensure Uninterrupted Services in New City of Toronto". This amendment would allow TTC to exist after January 1st, 1998 "important services like the TTC ..... continues to operate as usual .... under the same authority which Metro Council has under the Metro Toronto Act" rather than be part of the Greater Toronto Service Board.
  • September saw a report by Richard M. Soberman, Professor of Civil Engineering for the University of Toronto call "Track Ahead" Organization of the TTC under the new amalgamated City of Toronto been presented to TTC commissioners meeting.
  • It should be noted that the report "Track Ahead" noted that buses carry the largest percentage of transit riders, they carry only 15 Passengers per Vehicle mile while streetcars car 17 Passengers per Vehicle mile. It was also shown that the SRT carry more Passengers per Vehicle mile all day long with the exception between 9 am to 3 pm.
  • Sees the reopening of the Spadina Line that last saw service in 1966 when the Bloor-Danforth Line open. It would run in its own Right-of-Way from the Spadina-Queens Quay Loop to an new underground Loop at the Spadina Bloor-Danforth Subway that would allow riders to transfer freely between both lines. The Right-of-Way (ROW)would also see major issue as it was not a true ROW like the Harbourfront line. Over the coming years, a curb will be built to prevent traffic gaining access to this ROW to drive in it or to make cross track turns from the various side streets. Traffic would only be allowed to make U-Turns at major traffic lights intersection only. With the building of the ROW, angle parking was removed with great debate and replace with parallel parking. Since the Line was going through China Town, there was no centre poles like the Harbourfront line the overhead was strung from decorated large support pole for the Chinatown merchants. A new Spadina bridge was built also to allow for more lanes on it as well providing a wider clearance for GO Transit who had a yard next to Front Street to store the AM peak trains that arrived at Union Station from the west end and would return as PM peak train radar that hauling them back and forth to the Willowbrook yard in Mimico. There is still debate today if this line should have been made as a streetcar line than a bus route based on the ridership. From my personal point of view, yes streetcar should have been place there, but there needs for more service south of King Street.
  • TTC operates 3 types of service on the Spadina line known as 510. TTC short turn the cars at Adelaide Street going east to Charlotte Street, south on Charlotte Street to King Street West, west back to Spadina and this is call the Charlotte loop. Every 2nd or 3rd is sent south of the Charlotte loop to the Spadina-Queens Quay Loop that is off the Harbourfront Line and on the east side of Spadina Avenue. The last route sees usually the every 3rd car going east along the Harbourfront 509 route to Union Station. Up to the late 1990's there was not much south of the rail corridor that saw a few Condos streaking along the Queens Quay along with some business as well the Skydome that was a block east of Spadina Avenue as well the CN Tower and the old CPR Roundhouse.
  • TTC carry's only 381 million riders, down from 486 in 1988. TTC would employ a feet of 2,082 various types of vehicles in service including only 162 of the 248 streetcars in the fleet. TTC had 144 routes in service at this time that saw the 507 Long Branch Line merge into the 501 Queen Street line. TTC operating cost recovery had fallen to 79% from 85% that it had before the recession.

• 1998
  • January 1st sees the New City of Toronto taking over the operation of all of Metropolitan Toronto.
  • January 1st sees TTC being an department of the new City of Toronto with 9 City Councillors over seeing it as a Commissioners. These councillors would pick the Chair persons, though the Mayor would really have a said who they would be.

• 1999
  • 1999 saw the last year of the King Street CNE route 522 that ran the to Dufferin Street, then south to the Dufferin Loop for the western end of the CNE. This had to due with the opening of the missing 800 meters on Queens Quay West for the Harbourfront Route 509. It would bring an end to the various streetcars that ran direct service to the Dufferin CNE Loop.
  • Saw a 2 day strike against TTC once again.

• 2000
  • July 23rd, TTC open the missing section on Queens Quay West between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street to allow the 509 Route to be a true Harbourfront LRT line that would connect to the Bathurst Street 511 Route as well run all the way west to the Exhibition Ground Loop. It cost $13.25 Million to build this extension.
  • December 8, the missing section of the Harbourfront Right-of-Way between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street is open, allowing the 509 car for the line to travel westward from the Union Station, along Queens Quay, north on Bathurst Street to Fleet Street on the north side of the Lake Shore Blvd and then west to the CNE loop. It would be 2008 the Fleet Street Right-of-Way is built.

• 2001
  • August would see TTC present a report call "Rapid Transit expansion Study".

• 2003
  • March 19th see TTC Commissioners approving the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS) that would see the load factor for various types of vehicles to be at a lower level than they were at this time to help encouage more people to used the system there would be more room for them on the various types of vehicles. It would also would provide more service with better headways to move new riders to the system as well existing ones.
  • April 9th would see TTC staff present a report and recommendation for subway expansion to TTC commissioners call Subway Expansion Plan. One subway extension was the Sheppard Line running east from Don Mills to Scarborough Town Centre (STC) that would be open in phases over the course of 6-10 years at a cost of $1.750 Billon dollars for the 8km extension and 7 stations. The 2nd extension would be to the Spadina Line running from Downsview Station to York Univeristy for a distance of 6.2km with 4 station at a cost of $1.23 Billon dollars that would open in phases of 7-9 years.
  • May 8th sees a report call "EGLINTON AVENUE AND QUEEN STREET TRANSPORTATION CORRIDORS" written by L.D. Danny Harvey and Katharine Myrans of Department of Geography University of Toronto

• 2005
  • April 12th saw a very larger anger crowd at the J.J.Piccinini Community Center on St Clair West voicing their concerns at an EA meeting for the St Clair ROW. TTC and the City had all kinds of display boards up showing what was to take place along St Clair. There were close to 200 people there either supporting the plan, but most opposing the plan. The idea of loosing a lane of traffic as well close to 100 parking spots did not set well for the community.
  • May 10th saw another meeting on the St Clair ROW at J.J.Piccinini Community Center that brought out more vocal opposition to the plan, but moreso, the cutting of the sidewalk to make more room for traffic at intersection. Even thought I supported the ROW, I did not support the cutting and lost of sidewalk space, but most of all at major intersections in the name of "TRAFFIC". The Dufferin intersection would come the most butcher intersection because of traffic rights.
  • June 3rd saw the Ministry of the Environment approving the EA for the St Clair ROW.
  • TTC would produce a report call "Building a Transit City" that would see Lines on Finch, Lawrence, Danforth, Danforth Road, Bloor, Jane, Don Mills Eglinton, Kingston Rd.
  • Sees Day Pass been allow to be used by families and groups on Saturday as well Sunday and Holidays. Transferable Monthly and Weekly Pass are introduced as well not requiring adult riders to have a photo on them.
  • September saw the construction starts on converting the St Clair 512 Line from mix traffic to a Right-of-Way and would replace the Right-of-Way that was removed between 1928-1935 with great conversational and would see work done in 4 phases. I have created a website for the construction of this ROW that contains over 4,000 photos, videos and write up that I have done over the following years on it.
  • October sees a group calling itself SOS or Save Our St Clair obtain a court injunction against the City and TTC to stop construction of this Right-of-Way.
  • One of the judges that granted the court injunction that stop construction on the St Clair ROW, removes himself from the 3 man panel due to conflict of interested and this would not be in the favour of the SOS.

• 2006
  • On January 26th, the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) rules that even thought the "Official Plan" for the city of Toronto was still not approved at this time, it was valid in urban planning theory. That ruling would removed the ground of argument that was being used by SOS to stop the construction of the St Clair ROW.
  • The City of Toronto would approved the plan that would see the Wychwood Carhouse been converted to an Artist residential use as well a park. The exterior would be modify, but would retain the original look while the inside was gutted keeping the existing floors and walls in place for most part. It would open to the public in November 20th, 2008 and been call the Artscape Wychwood Barns housing 60,000 square feet and 127,000 of park area.
  • February 21st see the courts removing the court injunction against TTC and the City for the building of the St Clair Right-of-Way and allows them to proceed with construction.
  • May 29, sees a one day wildcat strike by TTC employees and the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruling it was illegal. TTC general Manger Rick Ducharme tenders his officially resignation a week later due to the interfering of Chair of TTC to deal with the labour issue at the time.
  • Day Pass been allowed to be used during weekday AM peak time.
  • September would see construction resumed on the St Clair Right-of-Way for Phase I
  • November saw TTC introducing new tokens to deal with the counterfeiting of them that had been taking place and the last day to exchange the existing ones was January 27th, 2007.
  • November 3rd and 4th would see Transit Form take place at the Metro Hall where various transit agency's
  • TTC ridership had increase to 444,544,000 trips this year and it was going against the grain of less service, higher fares and poor public relationship. TTC has less equipment been used to moved these riders than in 1990 at this time.

• 2007
  • February 1st and March 8 saw Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA) holding public meetings surrounding the plan for "Rapid Transit for Toronto's Inner Suburbs" that saw more lines being added.
  • January 31st, was the last day to exchange existing tokens for the new design to off set the counterfeiting that was taking place for the old ones.
  • March 16th, Mayor David Miller unveil plans for Transit City that would see the building of 7 new routes on 120 km (74.6 mi) at a cost of . You can read what I wrote on Transit City here.
  • March 21st would see the first public open house for the new Cherry Street LRT that would run south on Sumach Street that connect with Cherry Street off King Street East and it would loop on the north side of the rail underpass on the east side. Once a new underpass is built, the line would continue south to the shipping channel to a new loop. This line would connect to the new Queens Quay East line that would run westerly to Bay Street and connect to the existing line. TTC would used a new king St Car call 514 to service this line. This 514 would be every 3rd or 4th car until the area is developed. Service was schedule to start in 2011 or 2012 with construction getting underway in 2010.
  • June 15th would see Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announce a major transit plan for the Greater Toronto Area called MoveOntario2020 that would support Toronto Transit City Plan as well LRT lines in Mississauga and Hamilton. It would also see subway expansion, BRT routes in York Region and upgrading various GO Transit lines. The Ontario Government was pickup up the 2/3 of the cost and asking the Federal Government for the other 1/3, leaving the cities and region free of cost to build this plan. It would start to fall apart in 2010.
  • Construction starts on Phase III that is from Dufferin Street to east of Caledonia Road for the St Clair ROW with work nearing completion on Phase I up to Vaughan Road. Phase II is delay a year due to waterlines to be replace on St Clair, west of Vaughan Road to Dufferin Street.

• 2008
  • February 14, Mayor David Miller along TTC Chair TTC Chair, Adam Giambrone announced the The Better Way Gets Better-TTC Announces New Service Improvements that would see major increase of service across the system.
  • February 15 sees the final EA for Cherry Street LRT release for final public input before going to the City of Toronto for their approval and then sent off to the Ministry for final approval.
  • April 30th, sees TTC dealing with a haft day walkout by the employees and having the Province pass back-to-work legislation forcing them back to work.
  • July 18th, 2008, TTC cancel the RFP for new Streetcars.
  • September 28, is the last day for Adults tickets as they were to be eliminated that day, but would return for a short period in 2009.
  • December 15, TTC launches next vehicle arrival notification pilot project that will allow riders to find out in real time when their vehicle would show up at their stop.
  • TTC service levels are increase right across the board for types of services, as well for every day of the week.

• 2009
  • January 2nd, 2009, TTC raise their fares and would go on to experience a shortage of tokens that force TTC to reintroduce Adults tickets. Cash fare went from $2.75 to $3.
  • Saturday May 9th would see the first open house for the Keating Channel and Lower Don that would show the plans for rest of the Cherry Street LRT south of the Railway Underpass to the Shipping Channel as well lines on Viller to Commissioner Street as well connection to the Eastbay Queens Quay East LRT line. These new LRT would run along one side of the street and would be away from traffic running in its own Right-of-Way.
  • June 10th, TTC signs a contract with Bombardier for $1.2 Billion Dollars for 204 Low Floor Streetcars call Flexity Outlook that will be built in Thunder Bay, Ontario with delivery starting 2013. They will be single ended with poles until TTC upgrades their overhead system to support pantograph's. The first 3 prototypes are supposed to arrived in 2011 for testing on the legacy system to make sure they can handle the existing system.
  • June 17 saw the business case released for the Finch and Sheppard Avenue supporting an LRT along both Avenue. There were a number of options looked at from converting the existing subway that only ran from Don Mills Road in the east to Yonge Street. This option would see the LRT line running from Meadowvale Avenue in the east through the existing subway to Downsview station where it would turn north on Dufferin Street to Finch Avenue west; west on Finch and end up at Humber College. Another option was looked at the Finch Line would run west from Humber College to Yonge Street where rider would transfer to the Yonge Subway and then transfer to the Sheppard subway before catching the Sheppard LRT at Don Mills to continue east. Another other option looked at was continuing the Finch Line east to Don Mills and then east on Sheppard with the section of the Don Mills Road and Sheppard Avenue underground that would be a construction nightmare to do this to the point the line on Don Mills would have to go south of Sheppard Avenue before making a curve to go east. You can read the Business Case prepared by Metrolinx here in more detail.
  • August sees TTC Commissioners approving The Transit City Bus Plan that calls for express buses on the heavily travel route that have none then as well improve service. Also better connection between Streetcar and Subways.
  • November 18th, 2009 sees TTC commissioner approved a fare hike that would see cash fare go from $2.75 to $3, Metro pass goes to $109 from $109, Weekly passes go to $36 from $32.50, tokens go to $2.50 from $2.25, Day Passes go to $10 from $9. TTC is supposed to generate an extra $62 Million Dollars for revenue.
  • November 22nd, find TTC announcing the return of Adults Tickets on November 4th, 2009 and the removable of tokens from service until January 3rd, 2010 to deal with the so call token shortage after the announcement of the fares hike on November 14th, 2009 TTC meeting and schedule to be raised on January 3, 2010.
  • Due to the poor condition of the tracks and concrete on Bathurst Street south of Front Street, TTC was forced to replace them as it could not wait for the city to make up its mind as how and when the existing bridge work that was built in 1927, south of the main bridge considering this was to be done in 2007. The road south of the main bridge was to be lower by 4 feet so it would connect to the new section of Fort York Blvd on the east side as well tie into the exist section on the west side. This section was to service the new condo's been built on the old CNR lands with this development being known as Concord City. TTC was also looking at putting a new line on this extension with the line going east of Spadina Avenue, pass the CN Tower and go underground in front of the Air Canada Centre and would tie into the Bat Street Tunnel for the Harbourfront Line. The Bathurst 519 would offer service along this new section. This is one of TTC poor decision as the current Union Station is under built in the first place as well the plan expansion will only meet today service needs let alone 20 years from now when rest of the waterfront id developed that will have new lines servicing Union Station also.

• 2010
  • When one looks at 2010 ridership for TTC night-time service as well looking into the future, there is a strong case that streetcars should be put back on Yonge Street. That same argument can be made for daytime service as it would help with the overcrowding on the line that takes place daily, but you would get strong opposition from the car drivers who used this road to get to/from the City Core.
  • January 20th saw TTC staff present a report to TTC commissioners called "TRANSIT CITY IMPLEMENTATION THE ST. CLAIR PROJECT EXPERIENCE" dealing with the out come to the mess that took place for building the ROW on St Clair. Read the report for more detail information.
  • January 27th, it was announced at TTC monthly meeting that a committee would be form to draft customer charter or "bill of rights" with a report on it to be presented in June this year.
  • March saw the creation of the TTC The Customer Service Advisory Panel (CSAP)
  • May 6th saw the commissioners for TTC approved the recommendation to purchase another 31 TR subway trains for the Young-University-Spadina line from Bombardier Thunder Bay plant at a cost of $400 million dollars and be delivery by 2014.
  • May 19th would see the Board of Directors for Metrolinx approved the scale back plan for Transit City due the lack of funding from the Provincial Government caused by the recession. Various lines would be push back between 5 to 10 years to allow a better use of exiting funding to build various approved lines.
  • May 20th, sees TTC gets approval from the Minister of the Environment's for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT and to proceed with construction of it.
  • May 27st, 2010, sees TTC gets approval from the Minister of the Environment's for the Finch West LRT and to proceed with construction of it.
  • June 14th, 2010, Metrolinx sign a contract with Bombardier in Thunder Bay to supply 186 Flexity Outlook for the Transit City plan at a cost of $770 million. Delivery is to start in 2013 to meet the opening of the Sheppard Ave LRT line that will be standard gauge. They will be duel end cars using pantograph. The Sheppard line is schedule to open in 2014.
  • June 30th saw the return of the 512 St Clair Line to Gunns Road Loop after 5 years absents due the reconstruction of the line to a new Row-of-Way and law suits. It would be a few more months before the final landscaping of the loop is completed.
  • On August 11, 2010, announcement is made telling riders using the Bloor-Danforth subway Line that the trains will be operating on the old 1966 wye route for the weekend of August 14-15 to do track work at St George Station Riders would haft to transfer from one side of the platform to the other side to catch a that will carry them pass this point that is further down the line at the Museum Station. Every other train or 3rd will go in the direction you want to go. Riders going to or from the east got to travel through the lower Bay Station that has not seen any real train travel through it since 1966 when TTC abandon the practices of running every other train to the city core by the University line that wye the Bloor-Danforth line, north of the Museum Station. This was the 2nd time in the past few years. Rest of the time, Lower Bay is closed to the public excepted at a couple open doors event. Rest of the time, this station is used to train drivers but most of all is rented out to movie studios and add company's that will pay for the use of it.
  • August 23rd saw the report from The Customer Service Advisory Panel with recommendation being presented to the TTC commissioners.
  • September 10th, TTC Commissioners approved the plan that would see station managers being responsible for all aspects from keeping it clean, repairs, talk to riders about any concerns, hold meeting with land owner on how the station can fit into the community better than it does, produce report as to what where and why things that need to done to bring it up to an 80% rating. The report would go to the commissioner with cost to do these items for approval.
  • December 1st would see newly elected mayor Rob Ford announce that Transit City is dead and all rapid transit lines are to be built underground. The provincial government said not so fast as we are not going to pickup an extra cost in building these subway over what is already allocated and that was $4 Billion out of the $8 billion in total for all of the lines. He want transit off the road so he can put more single drivers cars on the road and forcing transit riders to be insects traveling underground and not seeing the day light like the single driver since riders out number cars in the first place.
  • December 1st would see Mayor Rob Ford announced who was going to be chair of TTC as well the other 8 commissioner. These 9 members support Rob Ford plan for killing Transit City as well building subways.
  • December 3rd saw Mayor Rob Ford spending only 25 minutes out of the hour that was set aside for him in meeting with Premier Dalton McGuinty, and this can be interrupted that the mayor was read the riot act regarding transit in the City of Toronto since the province was paying for it in the first place and the Mayor saw it was a waste of his time listening to it.

2010, the area south of the Rail Corridor have gone under a major redevelopment that is seeing the vast empty lands between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Streets been transformed into a condo city call Place where buildings range in heights between 12 to 49 floors tall. Some of these tall buildings were built on the east side of Spadina Avenue. People living in these building are crying for better streetcar service as well the folks along the Queen Quay along with the various businesses trying to attract visitors to the Waterfront. Waterfront Toronto who is responsible for the transformation of the Waterfront from Bathurst Street in the west to Cherry Street in the east has a plan for it were streetcars are to play a major roll in building this vision and plan. It so happens I spent close to 4 years working on various community liaison committees that worked with all levels of the City of Toronto, TTC and the government to forge the concept that Streetcars are the choice of travel mode to and from the Waterfront and making that area less traffic ordinate like it is today. There are to be one side only ROW where traffic lanes that are 4 lanes will be reduce to a single lane in each direction for the existing ROW east of Spadina Avenue that will travel east of Bay Street were it stops today to a new Cherry Street ROW that will run from King Street to the north to the shipping channel to the south. The Cherry Street in future years be extended south of the Shipping Channel to Unwin Avenue and then go east to a new line on Leslie Street that will run north to Queen Street. A new line will be built on Villers Street to Don Parkway where it will turn into a new relocated Commissioner Street that will see streetcar service on it to Leslie Street also. The existing Commissioner Street west of this point will disappear with the building of the Lower Don.

The area west of Bathurst Street, south of Fort York and Fleet Street has been transform from empty land and brewing company to a condo city that house 1,000's of people now and over the next 10 years. Even Front Street itself is seeing major redevelopment from Simcoe Street to the east to Bathurst Street to the west to house condos of various heights that will support transit now and into the future.

• 2011

Reference:Grade separations for the Lakeshore line in 1917 at Roncesvalles St Clair Grade separations.

  

  

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