509 Harbourfront

509 Harbourfront
CLRV 4152 and PCC 4500 rest at Exhibition Loop. Both are operating on the 509 Harbourfront Line.
Overview
Type	Streetcar Route
Locale	Toronto, Ontario
Termini	Union Station (East) Exhibition Loop (West)
Stations	■ Union, ■ Queens Quay
Operation
Operator(s)	Toronto Transit Commission
Depot(s)	Roncesvalles[1]
Rolling stock	CLRV, PCC - 1 car Summer Service only
Technical
Line length	4.65 km (2.89 mi) [1]
Track gauge	4 ft 10 7⁄8 in (1,495 mm) - TTC Gauge
Electrification	600 VDC Overhead
Route map Legend GO Transit & VIA Rail Yonge–University–Spadina line Union Station  1  Queens Quay Station ↓ Queen's Quay ¦ Bay Street ↑ York Street Lower Simcoe Street Rees Street Lower Spadina Avenue 510 to Spadina Station Dan Leckie Way ↓ Bathurst Street ¦ Queen's Quay ↑ Bathurst & Queen's Quay Bathurst & Fleet ↓ Fleet Street ¦ Bathurst Street ↑ Bastion Road(Lake Shore Boulevard) Fleet Loop Fort York Boulevard Strachan Avenue ↓ PRW ¦ Fleet Street ↑ Exhibition Loop

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, approximately 600 metres long. This starts with an underground loop at Union Station, runs south along Bay Street to the underground Queens Quay station, then turns west and emerges onto Queens Quay. The line's original terminus was Queens Quay and Spadina Loop, at the foot of Spadina Avenue; beyond this point non-revenue trackage ran north on Spadina to King, as otherwise the new line would have been disconnected from the rest of the network.

Numbers in the 600-series were used at that time within the TTC for rapid transit routes (i.e., subways and the Scarborough RT) rather than low numbers as is the case today, and the Harbourfront LRT was given a number in this series to indicate that it was different from other streetcar routes; it was also shown like a subway line on the TTC map. Since the route is not grade-separated, this was later felt to be misleading and it was treated like other streetcar lines, taking the number 510.

In 1997, the completion of a dedicated right of way on Spadina Avenue resulted in the Harbourfront route being relaunched as the 510 Spadina. The "Harbourfront" route name disappeared until 2000, when the Queens Quay streetcar tracks were extended west to Bathurst and Fleet Streets. The Harbourfront was then reinstated with the new number 509, and extended to Exhibition Loop at Exhibition Place, sharing its route with the 510 from Union to Spadina and with the 511 Bathurst from Bathurst onwards. The Fleet Street portion of Route 509 has since been converted to a parallel private right-of-way, so that the entire route operates entirely separate from road traffic.

The TTC’s Waterfront West project, which is currently undergoing an environmental assessment, would extend the Harbourfront line farther west 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

A 509 Harbourfront streetcar approaches the Exhibition Loop.

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.

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

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 509 Harbourfront.

• Route 509 - Harbourfront Streetcar (Transit Toronto)

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