Transit riders exiting an eastbound King streetcar at the Yonge St. stop in downtown Toronto on Sept 13 2013.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
A measure of relief is in sight for passengers on the TTC's busiest surface route, as the transit agency moves to allow faster boarding on the King streetcar.
Letting passengers enter through the back doors on King – as it currently allowed on Spadina and Queen, the second and third busiest streetcar routes – would mean less dwell time at stops. According to TTC figures from earlier this year, this could save as much as five to six minutes on the entire length of the King route.
Mayor John Tory will be joined by new TTC chair Josh Colle and transit CEO Andy Byford Monday morning for what is being billed as an "important announcement" for riders of the King car. Although a TTC spokesman would not offer further detail on the event, sources said it would reveal a shift to all-door boarding for the notoriously crowded King streetcar.
Although all-door boarding raises the prospect of more fare-jumpers, the TTC does not expect that to happen. The shift would be accompanied by an increase in fare enforcement officers. The cost of hiring those personnel would be expected to be offset by higher ridership and lower rates of fare evasion.
The King streetcar is a workhorse of the TTC network, one that has become increasingly crowded as the Liberty Village area filled in. It carries more than 57,000 passengers each weekday, according to 2012 figures from the transit agency, more than the Sheppard subway.
Allowing passengers to board through the rear doors on all surface routes was one of the service improvements proposed by the TTC in August.
"Since this passenger service time currently accounts for around 20 per cent of total customer journey time the improvements to overall efficiency and speed of all door boarding (and its connected proof of payment) are considerable," the report read.
"Passenger service time is a fundamental part of any transit network. Speeding up this process would result in considerable benefits for customers across a given route."
The report pegged the cost of hiring enough fare enforcement officers to police all-door boarding across the entire streetcar network at $6-million.