Trolley buses in Toronto
The Toronto trolley bus system formed part of the public transport network of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Trolley buses originally served the city on a short route that lasted only from 1922 to 1925. Later, a much larger system operated from 1947 to 1993. Owned by the Toronto Transportation Commission, the original line operated in the northern part of the city, using short trolley buses with solid rubber tires and wooden seats. It was seen as a cost-saving alternative to construction of an extension of the the city's streetcar system. Ridership was relatively strong, and the route was replaced by a streetcar extension in 1925.
The second trolley bus system opened in 1947 and within 15 months had grown to four routes. Additional new routes and extensions were constructed in subsequent decades, often in conjunction with the opening of new sections of the Toronto subway system. By 1954, the network had six routes, served by a fleet of around 150 trolley buses. In 1967, the Toronto Transit Commission, employed a cost-saving approach to renew its ageing trolley bus fleet: transferring the electrical equipment from its 1947–1953 vehicles into new bodyshells, with 151 such vehicles built by Flyer Industries and the TTC between 1970 and 1972. The TTC program had the effect of reviving the dormant North American trolley-bus manufacturing industry, with Flyer going on to build trolley buses for several other Canadian and American transit systems.
By 1977, the Toronto trolley bus system had added three more routes and closed one route. In the early 1980s, plans were tentatively approved for a major expansion of the system, but ultimately they did not come to fruition. In 1983, the TTC instead began to consider phasing-out trolley bus service, but differences of opinion among the commissioners and between the commission and the TTC staff repeatedly delayed firm action on either expansion or elimination. While that discussion continued, in 1989 the transit agency leased 40 younger trolley buses from Edmonton to allow its current service to be maintained despite a need to retire some of its worn-out older vehicles.
In late 1991, a major budget crisis at the provincial government and the TTC, exacerbated by the early 1990s recession, led to a decision by the TTC to close the entire trolley bus system, and this took place in January 1992. However, in the face of strong opposition to the move among the public and several of the commissioners, in June 1992 the commission decided to reopen the system, on at least two routes, and trolley bus operation returned to routes 4 and 6 that September. The long-term future of the system remained under debate in 1993, but the lease of the 40 Edmonton trolley buses was due to expire in July 1993, and ultimately the commission voted 4-to-3 not to renew it. Trolley bus service ended for a second time in mid-July 1993. Studies in 1994 looked into the feasibility of reviving the service, but no decision to do so was ever made.
First system
Toronto's first trolley bus system opened on June 19, 1922, and comprised a route from Merton Street near Yonge Street along Merton Street and Mount Pleasant Road to Eglinton Avenue. The Toronto Transportation Commission had become responsible for public transportation in the Mount Pleasant area upon the commission's formation in 1921, and was asked by residents to extend streetcar service to the area. The TTC considered the area's population to be too small to justify the expense of constructing and operating a streetcar line but promised to introduce a less costly type of electric transit, choosing the trolley bus. Four newly built trolley buses were purchased to provide the service, which used three vehicles during rush hour. Numbered 20 to 23, the 29-seat trolley buses were built by the J. G. Brill Company on frames made by the Packard Motor Car Company and fitted with Westinghouse motors. They were long and had solid rubber tires and wooden seats. As delivered, they each had a single trolley pole that forked at the top to connect with the two trolley wires, but by the time of the line's opening they had been retrofitted with the more conventional double trolley poles.Most of the route ran along unpaved streets. At both ends of the line, the overhead wires ended in a wye, a triangular configuration requiring a streetcar or trolley bus to back up for a short ways when turning around, but in June 1923, a loop was constructed at the route's south end, running via Yonge Street and Balliol Street, and was brought into use on June 17. The same month, an extension of the route at its other end was opened. From the original wye terminus at Mount Pleasant Road, this ran west along Eglinton Avenue and Yonge Street to the TTC's Eglinton Carhouse. The service was heavily used. Using just three 29-seat vehicles during peak hours, it carried an average of 1,700 riders a day, which by 1925 was sufficient to convince the TTC that extension of its streetcar system to the area was warranted. Trolley bus service operated for the last time on August 31, 1925, as construction of the streetcar extension progressed, and the new section of the St. Clair streetcar line along Mt. Pleasant Road to Eglinton Avenue opened for service on November 3, 1925. The overhead wires of the trolley bus line were removed. The four vehicles were stored, and in 1928 were sold for scrap, but one was found on a farm in the 1970s and was acquired by the Halton County Radial Railway museum, to be preserved and restored.
Second system
Routes
Almost 22 years after closure of the first system, the first route of Toronto's second trolley bus system opened, on June 19, 1947, serving Lansdowne Avenue. The system would eventually grow to ten routes, although no more than nine were in operation concurrently. Routes were unnumbered until 1956.| Route number and name | First day as trolley bus | Itinerary at maximum | Last day as trolley bus | Notes |
| 4 – Annette | Jane station – St. George station | |||
| 6 – Bay | Dupont St. and Bedford Rd. – Jarvis St. & Queens Quay | "Last day" date refers to the service day. Last trolley bus in service arrived back at garage at 1:29 a.m. on July 17. | ||
| 40 – Junction | Runnymede Loop – Dundas West station | Trolley bus operation had been temporarily suspended because of road construction at the time of TTC's decision to close the entire system. | ||
| 47 – Lansdowne | Earlscourt Loop – Queen St. | |||
| 61 – Nortown | Roe Loop – Eglinton station – Doncliffe Loop | The route's eastern half was split into a separate route, 103 Nortown East, in April 1985 and the western half was renamed 61 Nortown West. | ||
| 63 – Ossington | King St. & Crawford St. – Eglinton West station | Branch along Rogers Road to Bicknell Loop opened July 22, 1974. | ||
| 74 – Mt. Pleasant | St. Clair station – Mt. Pleasant Loop | |||
| 89 – Weston Road | Keele station – Albion Rd. | |||
| 97 – Yonge | Eglinton station – Glen Echo Loop | |||
| 103 – Nortown East | Eglinton station – Doncliffe Loop | Name and number established April 21, 1985, as a renumbering of the eastern half of route 61 Nortown. |
Formation and early expansion
During the period when the original route closed, the TTC was focused on reorganizing and re-equipping its large streetcar system. Not until the close of World War II did the TTC decide to again invest in trolley bus technology, with plans announced in 1946 to construct three trolley bus lines. The Lansdowne route was a conversion of a streetcar line, the Annette route was newly formed from portions of multiple streetcar and bus routes, and the Ossington route replaced parts of two streetcar lines and one bus line. Until 1956, TTC routes were unnumbered, designated only by names.The first trolley bus route of the new system, Lansdowne, opened on June 19, 1947. The Annette and Ossington routes opened on October 6, 1947, and December 8, 1947, respectively. All were busy routes. The Ossington route, in particular, carried around 3,400 riders per hour in the afternoon rush hour and was believed to be the most heavily used trolley bus route in North America. Less than a year later, in September 1948, the Weston Road route became the fourth trolley bus route to open, replacing a streetcar line.
To serve the new routes, the TTC purchased 85 trolley buses from the Canadian Car & Foundry company, which built them using designs licensed by the U.S.-based ACF-Brill company. They were model T-44. The first vehicle was delivered in February 1947, and the full series was numbered 9000–9084 in TTC's fleet.
The Weston Road route was extended in 1949 and again in 1959. A fifth route, Nortown, was opened on March 7, 1954, replacing a motor bus route—the first trolley bus line of the second system that did not replace any part of a streetcar line. Later the same month, on March 27, 1954, the portion of the Yonge Street streetcar line north of Eglinton Avenue was converted to trolley buses, as the Yonge route. These two new routes were physically isolated from the system's other trolley bus routes, with no wires connecting the two. Their vehicles were based at the TTC's Eglinton Garage, whereas the other routes were all operated out of Lansdowne Garage.
To serve the expanded system, the TTC purchase another 40 CCF–Brill trolley buses, this time of a slightly large model, the T-48A, along with 15 Marmon-Herrington units acquired used from the Cincinnati trolley bus system. The now six-route system had route miles and a fleet of 149 vehicles.
In 1956, the TTC adopted a route-numbering scheme and the six trolley bus routes were numbered 4, 40, 47, 61, 63, and 97. For planned route extensions, a few additional used trolley buses were acquired over the next few years, with five CCF–Brills from Ottawa in 1959 and eight Marmon-Herringtons from Cleveland in 1963.