[Darkstar416]

(does anyone know why it doesn't just go along Lawrence the whole way?).

I think it's because there's a Lawrence jog around York U's Glendon campus. They could potentially run the route from Lawrence Station and around York U (via the Bridal Path), but I'm sure the locals wouldn't go for it.

It is quite annoying though that the 54 must take Eglinton instead (which is often very congested). I'm wondering if they ever thought of running the route out of York Mills?

 

[Observer Walt]

Has anyone been along the Bridle Path recently? It used to be one of the bumpiest and pothole-iest streets in the city, designed to shake apart cars and buses. The "locals" liked it that way as it discouraged through drivers.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ The potholes and crappy roads seem to have relocated to Hogg's Hollow.

If memory serves me correctly, there is no road, public or private, that runs from the Lawrence/Bridle Path area to Bayview & Lawrence through Glendon, and Google Maps agrees with me (and I can't spot anything on the satellite). The majority of the 54's riders are not on the stretch that travels along Eglinton/Leslie. Is running the Lawrence bus straight to Lawrence station reason enough to justify the expense of a bridge? The locals probably would go apeshit since what are the odds they'd make it a bus-only roadway.

"Anyways, Eglinton has so many routes because it has buses that go all over the place."

If Eglinton had a subway, there would be no quintuplication or sextuplication of bus routes. I don't know how highly, if at all, the TTC places a priority on taking buses off the street/permitting them to be run elsewhere when planning subway routes, but I bet Eglinton (East) might be #1 in that department.

 

[Ed007Toronto]

If memory serves me correctly, there is no road, public or private, that runs from the Lawrence/Bridle Path area to Bayview & Lawrence through Glendon

You can drive from Bayview & Lawrence to Lawrence/Bridal Path through Glendon College. You can't drive the other way as part of it is one way. At least you could the last time I tried 10 years or so ago.

One cool fact is the first house, to your left (north side) as you come up from the valley floor where a Glendon parking lot sits, belongs to Conrad Black.

 

[Ed007Toronto]

I checked the google hybrid map. You'll see a road heading north from a traffic circle at the entrance to Glendon. It seems to stop after curving east. I think this is it. It doesn't actually stop but is obscured by trees as it descends into the valley. You see it again later in the valley where it crosses the Don River by bridge.

 

[samsonyuen]

An interesting article about the Bloor extension, 10km of extension!

From: torontosun.com/News/Toron...8-sun.html
________________________
Thu, May 11, 2006
The way we were column

By MIKE FILEY
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp
It was on this day in 1968 that the east and west extensions of the Bloor-Danforth subway from Woodbine to Warden and from Keele to Islington were officially opened.

The original subway line was 13 km long and had opened two years earlier. The two additions that opened on this day in 1968 added almost 10 km to the line.

Two more extensions, from Islington to Kipling and Warden to Kennedy, opened on Nov. 22, 1980, resulting in the line that exists today.

Approval to proceed with construction of the subway was given by Metropolitan Toronto council in early 1958. In doing so, Metro delayed starting any work on the proposed Queen St. subway, which had been recommended in the mid-1940s at the same time approval was given for the Yonge line.

The idea of a Queen St. subway resurfaced every few years but as construction of more and more of the Bloor-Danforth line was approved, it was soon off the books.