509 Harbourfront

509 Harbourfront is a streetcar route in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission.

History

The Harbourfront LRT, originally designated 604 Harbourfront, began service in 1990. It was the first new Toronto streetcar route in many years, and the first ever to employ a dedicated tunnel, running approximately 600 metres from Queen's Quay north to Union Station and including one intermediate underground station, Queens Quay. At the time of its opening, the terminus was located at Spadina Loop at the foot of Spadina Avenue; beyond this point non-revenue trackage ran on Spadina from Queen's Quay West to King, as otherwise the new line would have been disconnected from the rest of the network.

The 600-series numbers were used briefly to represent rapid transit, i.e., subways, Scarborough RT and Harbourfront LRT. This practice was dropped because it was found to be misleading, as the Harbourfront LRT is not grade-separated. Now, subways and RT are referred to internally as routes 1-4, but have no route numbers on official maps.

In 1997, the completion of a dedicated right of way on Spadina Avenue resulted in the Harbourfront route being relaunched as the 510 Spadina. No route carried the name "Harbourfront" until 2000, when the Queen's Quay streetcar tracks were extended west to Bathurst and Fleet Streets. At that point, a new route, the 509 Harbourfront, was added, running from Union along the original 604's route concurrently with the 510 as far as Spadina, and then carrying on west to Exhibition Place. The Fleet Street portion of Route 509 has since been converted to a parallel private right-of-way, meaning the entire route operates entirely separate from vehicle traffic.

The TTC’s Waterfront West project, which is currently undergoing an environmental assessment, would extend the Harbourfront line from its current western terminus at Exhibition Loop to Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue, where it would join the existing right-of-way along the Queensway already used by 501 Queen and 508 Lake Shore streetcars headed to Long Branch Loop.

Operation

Despite its political image as a ‘modern, rapid transit’ streetcar line, the 604 Harbourfront route was originally operated using rebuilt PCC streetcars, which were referred to as "Red Rockets" in a branding effort. These were soon replaced by Toronto's CLRV streetcars, which form the majority of the city's current fleet. There are calls for the TTC to operate ALRV (articulated, or double-length) streetcars on the line, but that is seen as being highly unlikely due to a shortage of such vehicles, as well as technical issues involving the tunnel along Bay Street in the event of a streetcar becoming disabled (space limitations inside the tunnel restrict the brakes from being manually released, and the grade exiting the tunnel makes moving a disabled ALRV very difficult, especially in poor weather conditions).

Because of the amount of shared track, the Toronto Transit Commission has grouped the 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina routes together for accounting and measurement purposes.

The TTC announced that between May and the Labour Day weekend in 2010 that they will operate one of their two remaining PCC-type streetcars (nos. 4500 and 4549) on Sundays when possible.

Route

Most stops along the 509 route are surface stops with islands separating the regular traffic from the streetcar tracks. Streetcars begin underground at Union Station and pass through a dedicated underground streetcar station at Queens Quay before climbing to the surface.

Points of interest

^[2]

See also

• Toronto streetcar system

References

1. ^ ^{a b} http://www3.ttc.ca/PDF/Transit_Planning/Service_Summary_2009_10_18.pdf
2. ^ "509 Harbourfront: Route Description". Toronto Transit Commission. http://www3.ttc.ca/Routes/509/Eastbound.jsp. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 

• Trains and Streetcars
• Route 510 - Spadina Streetcar (Transit Toronto)
• Light Rail Now! Newslog