The City of Toronto is sharing plans to install rapid bus lanes on sections of Dufferin Street, and commuters say the project is well overdue.
The city launched a webpage inviting community members to share their input for the bus lanes which would cover a seven-kilometre stretch on Dufferin.
According to the site, the lanes will run from Eglinton Avenue West in the north, and stretch down to King Street West in the busy area of Liberty Village.
The city says that on weekdays the 29 and 929 buses that run along the street serve around 40,000 people and take around 65 per cent longer than the average vehicle, and only 55 per cent of buses arrive on time.
“Priority bus lanes would improve the speed and reliability of transit service and help meet the city’s evolving transportation needs,” the city said.
It wouldn’t be the first time the city has prioritized buses on major streets and busy roads; the lanes have already been installed on Eglinton East in Scarborough and are also considering installing the lanes on Bathurst Street.
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If the project is approved by council the lanes will be installed in late 2025, ahead of FIFA 2026 at BMO field, a venue which is not located too far from where the rapid TO lanes end.
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Transit riders have taken to social media to share their excitement about the potential project.
“This can’t happen soon enough,” a Reddit user said.
“No more suffering please,” another user said.
One Reddit user jokingly renamed the Dufferin bus to the ‘Sufferin’ bus.’
However, some users were concerned about the potential impact the lanes would have on vehicle traffic.
“There are massive towers going up all along Dufferin. We need more roads for all those people, not less. If you make Bloor, Dufferin and St Clair one lane then what happens?,” one user said.
Lanes are needed despite potential impact on vehicles, expert says
Executive Director of transit advocacy group CodeRedTO Cameron MacLeod says he’s a frequent rider of the Dufferin busses, and therefore notices the crucial need for bus-only lanes on the corridor, despite several express buses already operating on the route.
“The Express buses are not able to ever pass the non Express buses because there’s just no space on the road,” MacLeod told Now Toronto. “It’s really important just for the lifeblood of the city, that people are able to move to work, to school, to daycare, to all the other things they need to get to.”
MacLeod said the potential lanes will impact vehicles once a lane of traffic is removed, resulting in delays for those vehicles, but says the current situation along the corridor for commuters is much worse.
“There are hundreds of people in the buses that are already being delayed so it’s about balancing and thinking about goals,” he said.
MacLeod said reasons for some of the existing traffic can be attributed to drivers choosing to take their own cars because the bus is currently unreliable, and says rapid bus lanes could result in people driving less and using the buses more, thus improving vehicle traffic.
Along with Dufferin, the city has also chosen sections of Jane Street, Steeles Avenue West, Finch Avenue East and Lawrence Avenue East for transit priority studies.
