Toronto to accelerate bus-only lanes on 5 corridors across the city

The City of Toronto is accelerating a proposed plan to implement priority bus-only lanes across the city, with their first project the EglintonEast corridor slated to be finished by this fall,Mayor John Tory announced Wednesday morning.

Four other corridors have been chosen, including Jane Street, Steeles Avenue West, Dufferin Street and Finch Avenue East.

The plan piggybacks off of a service plan released by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in December of 2019, that identified the five corridors as areas that would benefit from priority bus-only lanes, saying they are the busiest in the city.

"This was a good idea then and it's an even better idea now," Tory told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday.

The city says that the bus-only lanes will improve speed, reliability and capacity, and in result, will increase access to employment, healthcare and community services.

The Eglinton East corridor will be the first to undergo the plan.

The 8.5-kilometre stretchruns along Eglinton Avenue East, Kingston Road and Morningside Avenue from Brimley, through to the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus.

The city plans to go aheadwith evaluation, design and data collection starting this month.

"Our plan is to get started right away on the design, with the plan for the EglintonEast priority bus lane to be in place by this fall, September of 2020," Tory said.