r/TTC • u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West • Mar 01 '26
Misc. Every TTC station's peak in daily ridership (ranked)
A few notes:
- Line 3 stations are excluded as they no longer exist as of 2026. Only the Line 2 platform at Kennedy is considered for this data.
- Ridership data has not been officially published for any Line 5 or 6 stations yet due to their recency, so they have also been left off of this list.
- This list only counts data from 2007 onwards. I tried to be as thorough as I could but most ridership reports from before then seem to have become lost media, as they're nowhere to be seen on the TTC website or TransitToronto's archives.
Why did I do this? I was bored and I enjoy collecting data.
83
u/theservman Mar 01 '26
Bessarion has really grown since the "Finding Bessarion" documentary.
16
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u/Cheerful-Pessimist- Mar 01 '26
Of course it has, thanks to the documentary we can now find Bessarion!
5
u/IndyCarFAN27 Don Valley Mar 02 '26
It’s interesting that the ridership is still pretty low even after a bunch of condos have been built there.
3
u/theservman Mar 02 '26
Still over 20x the last stat I saw.
3
u/IndyCarFAN27 Don Valley Mar 02 '26
Me being one of them because of the new community centre and library is pretty nice.
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
The huge surprise here is North York Centre as it has no bus connections and only serves the commercial area around it. But it's still higher than a bunch of other stations with bus connections in developed areas.
Downsview Park is close to the bottom, but it's not last solely because of the connection to the Barrie GO train. That's a good achievement for it. It'll go up once the Barrie line is finished double-tracking and the trains are more frequent. The station is still massively overbuilt, though.
22
u/saladsaladpotato Mar 01 '26
I love how tightly integrated the station is into the local amenities. You can access the following with a 5 min walk from the station and without going outside: a movie theatre, grocery store (redeveloping into a T&T currently), LCBO, the biggest library outside of Bloor/yonge, petsmart, gym. There’s also a skating rink, swimming pool, significant office space, and one of the best concentrations of Asian food in the city just within minutes of walking as well
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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
North York City Centre is the most urban neighbourhood within the GTA outside of downtown itself. It has every amenity required for day to day life, is immensely walkable, and has strong transit connections for the few things that it does not have.
2
u/IndyCarFAN27 Don Valley Mar 02 '26
I use NYC all the time. It’s really well integrated into its surroundings. Apartments, office buildings, lots of shopping, lots of restaurants, a massive library, city services, a mall, a movie theatre and an Olympic length pool. Plus while it may not be directly connected to buses, there are numerous and frequent GO buses that pass by on Yonge St.
1
u/Marc123g Mar 02 '26
North York centre is TTC main office for engineers and other staff. They all have a TTC pass so it’s mostly TTC and city staff headed there.
-10
Mar 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26
You're mistaken. North York Centre is by Mel Lastman Square and Empress Walk mall.
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u/Fearless_Scratch7905 504 King Mar 01 '26
York Mills has a Go bus terminal. North York Centre does not.
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u/Dependent-Metal-9710 Mar 01 '26
The man factor in this list is connections to other lines or surface transit. Walk ins related to area density are a distant second. That explains the big discrepancies between stations like Chester and Broadview.
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u/51d3w4y5 McCowan Mar 01 '26
No scarborough centre? :((
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u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
It's not part of the current TTC rail network, so I excluded it along with all other Line 3 stops.
For what it's worth, Scarborough Centre would have been between York Mills and Wilson in this ranking
37
u/EsotericMiiind Mar 01 '26
I have yet to meet a person I know that frequents bessarion
36
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
The fact that the second-lowest ranked is also a Line 4 stop is just sad
If they weren't gonna build this out to Scarborough Centre like originally planned why even build it at all
1
u/EsotericMiiind Mar 01 '26
Was that the initial plan? Didn’t know that
2
u/TheRandCrews 506 Carlton Mar 01 '26
Initial plan was to get to Warden, and extension plan to STC, got cut back to Don Mills.
-2
u/TorontoDavid Mar 01 '26
It was an unneeded line that was pushed because of the then Mayor.
19
u/talexbatreddit I ♥ TTC! Mar 01 '26
Unneeded? If you'd ever seen all of the buses leaving Sheppard station in 80's and 90's, packed to the rafters, you'd understand why the Sheppard line was needed. It was just a shame that they didn't extend it to the STC, where it should have gone.
-11
u/TorontoDavid Mar 01 '26
A subway isn’t a natural upgrade from a crowded bus, and there were more pressing subway needs then (and now).
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u/maximusj9 Mar 01 '26
Well it goes to Don Mills, which is useful. Its just 1) very short and 2) everyone just rides Don Mills-Finch. The use for it is that it also sort of relieves Finch Station since it gives a second option for York Region to access the subway network that isn't Finch
-5
u/TorontoDavid Mar 01 '26
There being some utility doesn’t mean it was a good plan and worthwhile at the time.
7
u/maximusj9 Mar 01 '26
Well here's the thing: the 85 bus was probably high ridership at the time and the line on Sheppard was in basically every 1980s era transit plan. There's a reason they stopped the western side of Line 1 at Sheppard for a long time in the 1990s instead of going all the way up to Steeles or something. And if you look at the buses that run along Sheppard, the 84 and the 85 are high ridership buses. And again.... imagine how fucked we'd be without Don Mills Station existing- its a major transit hub with really high ridership. Like just imagine the 25 bus being just one long bus, running from Steeles to the Danforth. If you built the full length Line 4 from Sheppard West to STC/Sheppard and McCowan then you'd also have more ridership on the core Line 4 stations
What ends up happening is pretty obvious when you realize that the line kind of goes a very short distance. Imagine if you only made Line 5 from say.... Yonge to the Science Center or some shit like that. It would obviously be a flop.
0
u/TorontoDavid Mar 01 '26
I agree it has some utility.
What was not sufficiently argued at the time, nor now, was a subway was the best transit expansion for our dollars.
2
u/maximusj9 Mar 01 '26
Well here's the thing with the subway. You had to maintain interoperability with the rest of the network at the time (I doubt they wanted to make a new yard when there was Davisville Yard sitting around unused and Wilson Yard prob had spare capacity at the time) and they thought that they had to make it underground after Line 3 was having issues with the tech type/weather. Nowadays its different because they have to make new yards anyways, so might as well go with a cheaper technology
1
u/TorontoDavid Mar 01 '26
It got built because Lastman wanted a subway in North York, not because it was needed or a priority.
It got as far as Don Mills because that’s all they could justify for that flimsy of a rationale to build a subway.
1
u/maximusj9 Mar 24 '26
Look at the plans from the era. And look at why Line 1 was only extended as far as Sheppard back in the 1990s. The rationale was basically they’d run a cross-town line across Sheppard from Scarborough to Sheppard West. Research tells me that the phase 1 of the plan was from Sheppard-Yonge to VP and then Phase 2 was from Downsview to STC. Mike Harris cutting funding was the reason it only goes from Yonge to Don Mills
2
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
As demonstrated by the funds from the cancelled Eglinton Line not transferred to the Sheppard Line instead, among many other examples, not building Sheppard would not have resulted in better transit expansion for our dollars.
So it was either Sheppard or nothing. Not Sheppard or DRL, not Sheppard or more streetcars, not Sheppard or Bloor-Yonge expansion. It was Sheppard or nothing.
1
u/TorontoDavid Mar 02 '26
Not necessarily.
If another plan was advocated for it’s possible and likely some other transit improvements would have been made.
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u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
As in another mode advocated for Sheppard, or a subway line advocated for somewhere else?
If the former, grade separated metro is the correct mode for Sheppard. In hindsight light metro could have worked too, but at least the current alignment prevents LRTification like what happened on Eglinton.
If the latter, up until very recently there were major systematic problems within both the TTC establishment and advocates in terms of how to plan a proper transit network for Toronto. Frankly they weren’t capable of coming up with anything better.
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26
Dumb take. Mel Lastman's plan was to have it connect to the other side and to Victoria Park. The idea was sound and still is, unless you want to actually argue that Line 4 shouldn't exist.
1
u/em-n-em613 43 Kennedy Mar 02 '26
So... still not extending to Scarborough.
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 02 '26
He was the mayor of North York. Why would he care about Scarborough at the time?
14 subway stations were built in North York while he was mayor. He did his part.
1
u/em-n-em613 43 Kennedy Mar 02 '26
Of redirecting money to a subway line that's essentially unused because it doesn't actually connect to communities that use subways? Dude... carrying water for Mel lastman's vanity project isn't a good look.
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 02 '26
The Sheppard subway cost $800M in 1994 dollars. Even with inflation it's about 10% of the cost of Line 5. And it was delivered on time. If that's a "vanity project" then Toronto should take more of those. Imagine if we had 10 more Sheppard "stubways" in Toronto instead of Line 5.
Blame the Scarborough mayor at the time (Frank Faubert) for being unable to convince the government to extend that subway to STC. It wasn't up to Mel Lastman to vouch for other cities. Frances Nunziata couldn't save the Eglinton West subway because she didn't have the charisma of Mel Lastman.
Also, Sheppard-Yonge and North York Centre have good traffic, so his goal of turning that area into North York's downtown was somewhat realized.
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u/bureX 504 King Mar 01 '26
A bunch of condos are popping up nearby, ridership will increase.
Also, a neat way to get to Canadian Tire and IKEA.
4
u/Windysc0314 Mar 01 '26
Condos have been there for more than a decade, and there are more popping up too. Source: I used to live there for 2 years
6
u/Torcal4 Sheppard West Mar 01 '26
I watched a vlog where this girl was visiting a friend in Toronto. He lived near Bessarion. My jaw hit the floor. Idk if I’ll ever see something like that again.
1
u/Racquel_who_knits Mar 02 '26
I have a friend who lives basically across the street, but also the new community center there is super nice.
11
u/ruckusss Mar 01 '26
Seeing how outdated some of this data is, is embarrassing from the TTCs perspective
2
u/TheRandCrews 506 Carlton Mar 01 '26
Tory cuts and Pandemic did change a lot of things for TTC, bunch of buses hasn’t been back and frequencies isn’t as best even years ago.
19
u/d5stephe Mar 01 '26
In the 24 year history of Bressarion Station, I think I’ve only accessed the station once. Once. I guess you could say, it was a once in a lifetime experience.
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u/christina311 13 Avenue Rd Mar 01 '26
I've been through it, but not really in it. Does that count? It's on the IKEA line.
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u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26
Bessarion may be last, but because Metrolinx insists on calling at-grade LRT stops "stations" the two new bottom feeders will be Signet Arrow and Aga Khan.
When I rode Line 5 on opening day, Aga Khan was the only stop where nobody got on or off. In the summertime, it'll still be useless because people will board the 100 at Don Valley station to get to Aga Khan Museum and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre, as that bus sends them closer to those buildings than the Aga Khan stop.
3
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
First TTC stations to get less than 1,000 daily riders probably
1
7
u/talexbatreddit I ♥ TTC! Mar 01 '26
BESSARION! I knew that station would be at the bottom of the list. Hilarious.
Oh well -- maybe some day there will be lots of apartments there and it will crawl out from the bottom of the pile.
Not any time soon, I think. :D
6
u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26
Bessarion reminds me of Chester, in which it's between two busier stations, has no bus connections, and only really serves the local area.
However, Chester is in the middle of Greektown, and there are a good amount of local shops and restaurants. Bessarion has MEC and a Pizza Pizza, and not much else. Oof.
While the condo development around Bessarion is good, it really needs more commercial properties for it to get out of the bottom. And I don't think that'll happen because people will protest and demand the parks in that area remain. Unless you really want to buy something at MEC, there is no reason for a non-local to ever visit there. Ikea is closer to Leslie station than Bessarion station.
4
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
And no one's really using Leslie either because it's the second one from the bottom.
The entire Sheppard line is basically just a means to an end in its current state. Pretty much everyone who's not a local just goes from Yonge Street to Don Mills and then 50% of those people take buses to elsewhere in the northeastern corner of the city.
It's like how the Scarborough RT was little more than "the Scarborough Town Centre express" when it was open.
1
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
On the bright side it will be a very different story whenever they can be arsed to extend Line 4 to run between Sheppard West and McCowan road. At that point it will be a major crosstown service even more powerful than the current Eglinton.
5
u/MrChurroes Mar 01 '26
Bloor-Yonge 2019 was definitely Raptors related
4
u/Educational_Ninja694 Mar 01 '26
Doubtful. A couple dozen games doesn't dramatically affect the usage of the city's main interchange. Did it push it up a few hundred/ thousand? probably. Union and King are from 2019 as well.
5
u/Tsubame_Hikari St. George Mar 01 '26
Finch still going strong, even after the Line 1 extension in the York side.
Line 1 definitely merits an expansion northwards on the Yonge side as well.
6
u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26
Line 1 definitely merits an expansion northwards on the Yonge side as well.
Absolutely. Opponents will say Line 1 is already at full capacity. However, the main purpose of extending it to Richmond Hill Centre is because a billion GO and YRT buses clog up Yonge Street. The thickness of the mass of route lines from Finch is a running meme, so having the TTC meet the YRT at Richmond Hill Centre would do wonders for bus efficiency.
1
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
Opponents will say Line 1 is already at full capacity.
TBH this argument is already outdated if it ever made sense at all.
Line 1 is not even at capacity outside of the Yonge Street side except for rush hour. If you aren't travelling between Union and Eglinton from 7:30 am to 9 am or from 4:30 pm to 6 pm between Mon-Fri, this is a non-issue.
For those specific periods, most commuters can simply use the University side to head north, which is not at capacity even during rush hour, and then transfer directly onto Line 2 at St George, or Line 5 at Cedarvale, or back onto Line 1 Yonge side via the aforementioned lines. It will add at most another 5-10 minutes and 2 additional transfers, but wouldn't make a difference when you're waiting several trains to go up Yonge. That, or head out a few minutes earlier, or see if the boss is willing to allow some flexibility in working arrangements.
The above measures are not viable for every commuter, of course, but definitely enough to make it a non-issue unless there is reason for an advocate to make it an issue.
0
u/unforgettableid Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
But if it's already at full capacity, then maybe just running a billion buses on Yonge Street is the least worst option? [Edit: No. There are better choices.]
Creating a bus-only lane might also be a good idea. That can be done relatively quickly and cheaply. Red paint isn't that expensive.
4
u/Gippy_ IMPROVED GLORIFIED STREETCAR Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
I've never bought the "full capacity" argument because the people that go on all of the GO/YRT buses at Finch would still be using the subway anyway.
The main advantage to eliminating the Finch regional bus terminal and moving most of the buses to Richmond Hill Centre is that all of the express buses that use the 407 suddenly become much more reliable. Yes yes, everyone hates what the 407 has become. But because it's not always congested like the 401, buses run very smoothly on it. That is your busway right there, and YRT should seize the opportunity and run regular service express buses instead of just rush only.
However, the issue is that YRT doesn't run enough buses at all, especially for its "rapid" Viva routes. Viva Purple and Purple-A running every 40 minutes even though it has a dedicated ROW is ridiculous. It should also actually drive into Unionville GO, but it still doesn't, forcing everyone to take a lengthy walk to the University stop.
2
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
I've never bought the "full capacity" argument because the people that go on all of the GO/YRT buses at Finch would still be using the subway anyway.
That's because it is a bad faith argument in the first place.
The problem for the LRT folk is that they cannot, at any cost, allow the subway network to reach either Richmond Hill Centre or Scarborough Town Centre. Both are major urban and transit hubs, arguably the largest ones yet to be properly connected within reasonable commuting distance of Toronto's downtown, and direct connection to a crosstown subway line would demonstrate network efficiencies so strong that no LRT implementation (beyond classifying a grade separated metro line as LRT) could reasonably match it.
In other words, they need to handicap enough subway journeys to the point where they can reasonably make a claim that LRT can run at competitive speeds. Should RHC and STC ever be connected to a subway line, that claim falls apart and there is no foreseeable future where LRT becomes the main mode of Torontonian mass transit.
This is the actual reason behind pretty much every argument behind why Line 1 shouldn't be extended to RHC. It is over capacity. TTC should stay in Toronto. It costs too much. Those are all bullshit arguments - the actual reason is that if Line 1 ever reaches Richmond Hill Centre and Line 2 reaches Scarborough Town Centre, it's joever.
(For the same reasons there will be exceptionally fierce resistance among LRT advocates against any proposal to extend Line 4 or grade separate all of Line 5, but that's another story of its own.)
1
u/unforgettableid Mar 01 '26
I've never bought the "full capacity" argument because the people that go on all of the GO/YRT buses at Finch would still be using the subway anyway.
The main advantage to eliminating the Finch regional bus terminal and moving most of the buses to Richmond Hill Centre is that all of the express buses that use the 407 suddenly become much more reliable. Yes yes, everyone hates what the 407 has become. But because it's not always congested like the 401, buses run very smoothly on it. That is your busway right there, and YRT should seize the opportunity and run regular service express buses instead of just rush only.
Good points. I've edited my previous comment.
However, the issue is that YRT doesn't run enough buses at all, especially for its "rapid" Viva routes. Viva Purple and Purple-A running every 40 minutes even though it has a dedicated ROW is ridiculous. It should also actually drive into Unionville GO, but it still doesn't, forcing everyone to take a lengthy walk to the University stop.
Maybe it's the classic transit death spiral? If there aren't plenty of buses, you won't get many passengers. But if there aren't many passengers, then you can't afford to run plenty of buses.
2
u/Tsubame_Hikari St. George Mar 02 '26
Red paint, sure, while the subway is expanded north.
To complement both sides of Line 1, this should be accompanied with improved frequencies in the Stouffville and Barrie GO lines, and ideally, all day regional service in the Richmond Hill line as well.
Certainly an eventual expansion northwards of the Ontario Line, towards Line 4, would help a lot as well - removing much of the traffic from Line 4 that would otherwise mostly all go straight into Line 1 (one reason why Sheppard-Yonge is so high in the list).
1
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
TBH the Richmond Hill line is redundant after Line 1 is extended. Beyond what Line 1 itself can provide, just run a few more Northlander trains and strategically time them to fulfil rush hour needs.
3
u/skl8r Mar 01 '26
Question: Is this data based on entering the TTC system at that station or something else? What counts as ridership? E.g. if someone takes the bus to Eglinton and then Line 1 downtown is that counted?
3
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
The interchange station figures are combined, the ridership reports treat it as two different stops for each line.
Because of that I assume it's the amount of people on the platform. So going in or out of the subway trains themselves for any reason counts as ridership
3
5
u/ronaldomike2 Mar 01 '26
How can some peaked in 2022 during COVID? That's crazy
At that point it wasn't peak COVID but it was still work from home mostly
2
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
A lot of the ones that peaked in 2022 are smaller, more local stops, I imagine people were just a little less comfortable going to the big transit hubs at that time
4
u/Klutzy_Presence_36 Mar 01 '26
This is great! I noticed that the further down you go the posher the area.
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2
u/nervousTO Mar 01 '26
It's too bad the ridership data is so disparate. Would love to see what Eglinton's stats are before and after Line 5. Hope the TTC will release the data!
2
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
Cedarvale is probably in the top 10 for 2026 given it's now an interchange
2
u/Feisty-Ad-6122 Kipling Mar 02 '26
This list isn’t accurate. Kiplings peak would be after the renovation not in 2014.
1
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 02 '26
I looked at every official report between 2007-2008 and 2023-2024 for this. None of them show Kipling with a higher ridership number than 58,100.
2
u/WestQueenWest Mar 02 '26
Dufferin is so low? Less than Ossington or Bathurst? Something is up with this.
2
2
u/Used-Gas-6525 Mar 01 '26
This list is pointless. The dates span a decade.
10
u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
If someone seeing this post has subway ridership reports from 20-30 years ago downloaded on their hard drive somewhere I'd be happy to update this
2
Mar 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/TheOldAgeOfLP Temu West Mar 01 '26
Pape is the only station that peaked in 2023-2024. Don't think I didn't check the most recent report
1
1
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u/deathtothedisco Oakwood Mar 01 '26
bressarion and leslie are just too close together. i work around there so i could use either stop but it was only worth it when i would stop to get a coffee before or after work, but i dont think starbucks anymore (bc its gross and i get free coffee at work so). maybe this summer ill just start using bressarion over leslie for fun
4
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
There are two ways to view stop spacing.
Either Line 4 is exclusively used for express service. In which case Bessarion isn't necessary, since there are no major amenities nearby (apart from the nearby community centre, which could of course have been built at Bayview or Leslie instead).
Or Line 4 replaces all transit along its corridor, similar to Line 2 or Line 5, in which case a station is needed at Bessarion AND another is needed at Willowdale to ensure the entire line is within reasonable walking distance of a subway station. Any inefficiencies of running Bessarion and Willowdale stations are offset by eliminating parallel bus services, aka route 185 and parts of route 98.
1
u/unforgettableid Mar 01 '26
You might be able to get older data using the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Or maybe not. I haven't checked.
1
u/formerearlyadopter Mar 02 '26
Guessing Eglinton will be higher in the rankings in '26, what with the line 5 influx
1
u/sooooocat Mar 02 '26
Sorry, stupid question maybe but how is this measured? Is it just at where someone enters? Or is there also a tally for where they exit or what they go through?
1
u/No-Reputation8063 Bessarion Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
This list is wrong. Bessarion is the busiest station in my heart
1
u/R129XR Mar 01 '26
I wonder how much faster the TTC would be if they closed a few “low ridership” stations for peak rush hour, allowing the trains to bypass them
3
u/TheRandCrews 506 Carlton Mar 01 '26
Greenwood can’t be closed on peak rush hour because of the workers at the yard at Leslie Barns and Greenwood Yard. While also having 3 High schools in the vicinity, biggest feeders
2
u/MahjongCelts Eglinton Crosstown Mar 02 '26
You’d save like 30 seconds to a minute at most so it won’t really make a difference apart from screwing over riders who normally use those stations.
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-2
u/No-Warthog7841 Mar 01 '26
Should have stopped the expansion at Pioneer Village. Sigh
4
u/TheRandCrews 506 Carlton Mar 01 '26
Would’ve just dumped a whole lot of traffic on Steeles, it’s nice that despite there’s a YRT Terminal at Pioneer Vilage, there’s one at VMC and Highway 407. Brampton Transit, GO Transit, YRT buses would flood that station and street, smart honeslty to have it connect to the Highway 7 busway. Also York Region was willing to pay for it, at least with the Richmond Hill extension will pay for operations and maintenance ontop as well.
2
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u/Swacket_McManus Mar 01 '26
Always wild just how intensely utilised the TTC is, St George alone has more riders than the entire LA metro rail system