Long Branch Loop

Long Branch Loop is the westernmost stop on the longest Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) streetcar route, the 501 Queen line.[1][2] It is located in the Long Branch neighbourhood in southwestern Toronto, close to the boundary with Mississauga.

Long Branch Loop
LocationLake Shore Boulevard West,
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
Coordinates43°35′30″N 79°32′40″W
Owned byToronto Transit Commission
Line(s)  501   508 
Connections TTC buses
MiWay buses
Long Branch GO Station
History
OpenedDecember 28, 1928
Rebuilt1950s

Westbound streetcars enter the turning loop from Lake Shore Boulevard and turn counter clockwise to face east on the north side of the platform. Bus bays are on the opposite south side of the platform with a shelter building in the centre, which once provided washrooms and a waiting room for the public.

History
The loop in 1935, showing the last radial car to go west to Port Credit

The Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company operated radial railway service along Lake Shore Boulevard originally as a single track line, with sidings to allow vehicles going in opposite directions to pass each other.[3] The TTC double-tracked the route, and first operated a loop at Long Branch on December 28, 1928.[4]

The TTC has used the loop as an interchange point with buses since at least 1935, when the widening of Lakeshore Road west of Etobicoke Creek required the removal of the single-track service to Port Credit. The TTC replaced the streetcar route with the 74 Port Credit bus route, which ran until 1976, when the service was taken over by the newly created Mississauga Transit.[5] Other historic TTC bus routes that terminated at the Long Branch loop included 69 Queensway[6] and 87 West Mall.

In 1967, Long Branch GO Station was opened on the adjacent Lakeshore West railway line; service is available as far west as Hamilton or east to the downtown Union Station hub.

The TTC operated a separate Long Branch line between the Long Branch and Humber Loops up until 1994, and when that line was merged with the Beach route to form the 501 Queen line, the Long Branch Loop became the terminus of the longest streetcar line in North America.[1]

In 2011 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a 14-minute semi-autobiographical short film entitled Long Branch.[7] The film shows two strangers, who were about to share a one-night stand have their plans fall apart, as the distance to the Long Branch loop was too far, and they had too much time to talk to each other first. The film-makers were a couple, and one member of the film-making couple lived at the Long Branch loop and said his partner routinely declined to come home with him because of the distance.

Bus service

The loop is the terminus for TTC bus routes 110 Islington South[8] to Islington subway station and 123 Sherway[9] to Kipling subway station, and MiWay bus routes 5 Dixie north to Mississauga's Northeast Employment District[10] and 23 Lakeshore west to Clarkson GO Station.[11]

Route 110A operates[8] via Browns Line, Horner and Islington Avenue, with 110B being a weekday rush hour only service that operates via 30th Street, which is through the local industrial area just east of Browns Line. Route 123 operates[9] via Browns Line, The East Mall and Shorncliffe, while 123C provides service via Sherway Gardens shopping centre rather than along The East Mall. Route 5 terminates at Cardiff Boulevard, just north of Derry Road, while 5B is a weekday rush hour only service terminating at Courtneypark Drive.[11]

References
  1. Vanessa Farquharson (2012-03-24). "Riding the 501: The longest streetcar route in North America". National Post. Archived from the original on 2013-02-24. The loop here is slightly more interesting than its Neville and Humber counterparts — there’s a colourful streetcar mural on a wall, a proper TTC sign that says Long Branch, washrooms and a Legion Hall nearby.
  2. James Bow (2006-11-10). "Westerly Long Branch Loop". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14. Retrieved 2013-07-14. It is only important to note that tracks reached Etobicoke Creek and the present site of today’s Long Branch Loop in 1895. It would be another thirty-three years before the loop would come into being. Long Branch Loop came into being in on December 8, 1928, when the TTC extended ‘city’ tracks from the Humber River along Lake Shore Boulevard to this site.
  3. Mike Filey (2008). "Toronto: The Way We Were". Dundurn Press. p. 194. ISBN 9781770703506. Retrieved 2013-07-14. In 1920 Toronto purchased this and other privately owned electric radial lines operating outside the city and turned their operations over to Ontario Hydro. Eventually, these lines became part of the recently organized Toronto Transportation Commission. The Commission's streetcar route along Lakeshore Road was soon double-tracked all the way west to the site of the present Long Branch loop, while the roadway itself was widened considerably.
  4. "Wheels of Progress: A Story of the Development of Toronto and Its Public Transportation Services". Toronto Transit Commission. 1942. p. 115. Retrieved 2013-07-14.
  5. Pete Coulman (2011-05-16). "74 Port Credit (1935–1976)". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14. Retrieved 2013-07-14. Due to highway widening, the PORT CREDIT radial car line was discontinued after the last trip on February 9. New PORT CREDIT bus route starts operating between Long Branch Loop via Lakeshore Road to Mississauga Road, wyeing and returning.
  6. Peter Coulman; Alan Gryfe; Jeffrey Kay (2011-05-16). "69 Queensway (1947–1963)". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14. Service extended west on the Queensway and then south on Brown’s Line to Long Branch loop.
  7. Steve Kupferman (2012-11-13). "Filmmakers Turn TTC Inconvenience into Fodder for Romance: A short film explores the bright side of a long, cold commute". The Torontoist. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14. Retrieved 2013-07-14. It’s the story of Lynn, a young woman who tries to go home with a guy for a one-night stand, only to find out, after she’s already hopped transit with him, that he lives in Long Branch, where subways fear to tread. The pair have no choice but to talk to each other during the agonizingly long ride. And talking, as Lynn points out repeatedly, is not what one-night stands are about.
  8. TTC pages for Route 110 Islington South
  9. TTC pages for Route 123 Sherway
  10. "Employment Areas in Mississauga" (PDF). Mississauga. Retrieved July 17, 2014.
  11. Robert Mackenzie (2013-01-27). "MiWay revises services, January 28". Transit Toronto. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14.

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