504 King and 508 Lake Shore (TTC)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

504 King car as it approaches Queen St. East bridge

The 504 King and 508 Lake Shore are streetcar routes operated by the Toronto Transit Commission in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The two are grouped together for accounting purposes because they share a significant portion of their route; the 508 Lake Shore also shares much of its track with the 501 Queen.

Both lines interchange mid-route with the Yonge-University-Spadina line at St. Andrew and King stations. The 504 King interchanges with the Bloor-Danforth line at its termini, Dundas West and Broadview stations along with 505 Dundas .

At its western terminus near Long Branch GO Station, the 508 Lake Shore interchanges with GO Transit’s Lakeshore West railway line and with Mississauga Transit.

The lines are usually operated with Toronto’s single-length CLRV streetcars. The TTC are now considering adding couplers to their streetcars in order to run the King route with trains of two or three units, as was common on busy routes until the opening of the Bloor-Danforth subway; the hope is that this would keep them from bunching and becoming stuck in traffic.

The TTC tested the prototype version of the Articulated Light Rail Vehicle (ALRV) along the 508 route in the 1990s.

During the rush hour periods 504 King uses the ALRVs.

1 Proposed right-of-way
2 Sites along the line (from east to west)
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Proposed right-of-way

On March 22, 2007, the Toronto Transit Commission proposed a pilot project for Right of Way dedicated lanes along the 504 King Streetcar route similar to the 510 Spadina and 512 St. Clair routes. The TTC proposed that the pilot project take place in the summer of 2007. If it goes forward there would only be a single lane available to cabs, cars and deliveries in that designated area in each direction.