$4 million Eglinton bus lanes are knocking six minutes off travel times

Jul 28 2021, 3:27 pm

After eight months of operation, data on the new Eglinton East priority bus lanes are in, and they’re reducing travel times by several minutes.

The city’s first-ever RapidTO bus lanes were installed between September and November of last year along 8.5 km of Eglinton Avenue East, Kingston Road, and Morningside Avenue — some of the TTC’s most heavily used routes.

eglinton bus lanes

TTC

Since their installation, the City has monitored travel times along these streets and found that not only has reliability increased by an average of 12%, but travel times decreased by up to six minutes compared to 2019 data. During afternoon peak periods, travel times decreased by up to five minutes.

“The data shows that RapidTO bus lanes are working,” said Mayor John Tory. “It is encouraging to see increased reliability and faster transit travel times on the routes that benefit from our RapidTO bus lanes. I look forward to seeing the results of future dashboards as the reopening continues and transit ridership increases along with traffic volumes.”

According to the City, the new bus lanes have not affected vehicles travelling on the roads, and there is “no indication that traffic has moved to other streets such as Lawrence Avenue East and St. Clair Avenue East.” During the pandemic, however, traffic volumes and public transit ridership have decreased.

The City says it will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the RapidTO bus lanes and will release more data in the future.

Laura HanrahanLaura Hanrahan

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+ Urbanized
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