Traffic nightmare coming to St. Clair West this summer

Remember all that complaining about the traffic nightmare that St. Clair West would be when the streetcar right of way (ROW) was installed? That hasn't happened. With the exception of the bottleneck that happens under the Georgetown rail corridor near Old Weston Rd., the ROW has only improved overall traffic flow along the street.

That will come to a grinding halt this summer, though. The TTC is set to modify the passenger platforms to accommodate the eventual arrival of the new streetcar fleet in 2018, which means that streetcar service will be replaced by buses between St. Clair West Station and Gunn's Loop (just past Keele St.).

The retrofitting process of the platforms is scheduled to take place between June and September, after which time the installation of a new streetcar platform at St. Clair Station will commence. During this construction period (September to December), buses will run betwen St. Clair and St. Clair West.

With a huge influx of buses to the west of of Bathurst over the summer months, you can expect congestion to spike throughout much of this portion of the route, which already has more traffic than eastern portion of the ROW.

Streetcars will still run between St. Clair and St. Clair West until the first phase wraps, at which time replacement buses will then run over this section of the ROW. During both phases of construction, passengers will transfer from buses to streetcars at St. Clair West Station, which is going to be a mighty busy place for the duration of 2016.

The nightmare on St. Clair is real, but fortunately it's temporary.

Photo by Jeremy Gilbert in the blogTO Flickr pool.

by Derek Flack via blogTO