Bloor streetcar line

Bloor streetcar in front of the old University Theatre, near Avenue Road.

The Toronto Transit Commission operated Bloor streetcar lines from its creation from earlier private systems, in 1921, until the line was replaced by the Bloor-Danforth subway line in the mid-1960s.^[1][2][3] The TTC built its first subway to replace its busiest route, the north-south Yonge streetcar line, in the early 1950s. The Bloor-Danforth replacing the TTC's second most popular streetcar line was built during the 1960s. In 1966 the stations from Keele to Woodbine were opened, leaving stubs of the old streetcar line running. Finally the remainder of the line was retired in 1968, when the subway was extended to Islington in the west and Warden (TTC) in the east.

In 1923 the line was extended as far as Jane Street, near the edge of city boundary.^[1][2] Prior to the city amalgamating all the routes operated by private streetcar companies into the city owned and operated TTC, different companies had operated shorter routes on their own sections of Bloor and Danforth.^[4] At one time there were four separate services running on different sections of Bloor. Up until the completion of the Prince Edward viaduct, in 1918, there was a gap between Sherbourne and Broadview Avenue. When service was built connecting Sherbourne and Broadview it was built in a dedicated right of way beside the road, and only moved to the middle of the road when Bloor was widened.^[5]

At its Jane and Luttrell Avenue termini the TTC operated the Jane Loop, and the Luttrell Loop, stops shared with bus and trolleybus routes, allowing passengers to transfer to the other vehicles.^[1][2]

After the Yonge subway line was built stairs were built allowing travelers to walk up to a pair of platforms in the middle of Bloor, where they could board eastbound or westbound streetcars.^[5]

References

1. Mike Filey (1996). "From Horse Power to Horsepower: Toronto: 1890-1930". Dundurn Press. p. 74. ISBN 9781554881734. Retrieved 2014-02-17. Over the years this route was extended westerly, first to Runnymede Road, then, two years after the TTC was formed, the new JANE loop that opened on the last day of 1923.
2. James Bow (2013-07-07). "The Bloor Streetcar (Deceased)". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-12-09. Retrieved 2014-02-17. Starting out at Luttrell Loop at the eastern city limits of Toronto's Danforth Avenue, the Bloor Streetcar picked up passengers deposited by suburban buses stopping at the terminal. There, the car trundled west along Danforth Avenue, across the Prince Edward Viaduct and along Bloor Street to the western city limits at Jane Street. There, cars turned at Jane Loop, another terminal where passengers from west suburban buses disembarked to transfer for the journey east.
3. Mike Filey (2008). Toronto: The Way We Were. Dundurn Press. p. 168. ISBN 9781550028423. Retrieved 2014-02-17. Many long-time Torontonians will remember when streetcars--often in the form of so-called M-Us (multiple-units consisting of a pair of coupled PCC streamliners)--would shuttle between the two legendary streetcar loops, Jane on the west and Luttrell on the east. They were usually jammed to the doors. The Jane-Luttrell (or if you were headed in the other direction, Luttrell-Jane) service was introduced in the mid-1920s and remained in its entirety until the Bloor-Danforth subway opened in 1966.
4. Mike Filey (1997). The TTC Story: The First Seventy-five Years. Dundurn Press. p. 92. ISBN 9781770700796. Retrieved 2014-02-17. To serve communities at the extremities of both Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue, the city constructed and operated two lines as part of its Civic Railways system. Bloor West operated between Dundas Street West and, ultimately, Runnymede Road; Danforth between Broadview and Luttrell avenues. With the creation of the Toronto Transportation Commission these two "stub" lines were eventually merged into the cross-city route that followed Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue.
5. Bill Hood. "The Bloor-Danforth line, from streetcar to subway". GPS Video. Retrieved 2014-02-18. In 1938 PCC service began and ran until the E-W subway was opened in 1966.