The TTC has saved seven of 48 routes that were to have their weekend and evening hours cut due to low ridership. 

On 19 more, part of the proposed reduction in service has been restored, including the 98 Willowdale-Senlac bus, which serves the Rotary Cheshire Home and the Canadian Helen Keller Centre. 

The Star’s Joe Fiorito, in a Monday column, pointed out vital the bus route is to the 16 residents of the home and 80 clients of the Helen Keller Centre, the only such facilities in Canada for people who are both deaf and blind. 

That bus will continue to run weekdays until 1 a.m. and weekends until 10 p.m.

In all, 67 of 212 threatened boarding periods will be saved and only about half of the original service cuts will go ahead. 

“We heard a lot of compassionate feedback from the public that caused us to go back and look at our policy to see if it was achieving the goals that we were trying to achieve around ridership and serving communities,” explained TTC chair Karen Stintz. 

“What we did is we came up with a new (set of) policy criteria that made more sense, that will allow us to still realize some savings and will allow us to reinvest in other areas of the system, but will also see some of the original routes remain unchanged.” 

Instead of averaging ridership on the routes, the TTC changed the minimum requirement to 15 boardings per hour.  In cases where the nearest alternate stop is more than 600 metres away, the minimum is now 10 riders per hour. 

TTC officials found the previous standard didn’t allow for fluctuations in ridership, said Stintz. 

“When we went back to look at the stats, we realized that on the weekend there was high ridership.  So the Downsview 101, as an example, will be reinstated on the weekend.  But for Monday to Friday the original recommendation (to cancel the route) will be presented to the commission.” 

Much of the service still being cut was only introduced in November 2008, as part of an expansion aimed at matching bus hours to subway hours.  The reprieves for some lucky riders followed a week of public consultations and meetings between transit staff and councillors on the TTC board. 

Also saved, in part, was the 120 Calvington bus, which will now run Sundays and holidays until 10 p.m. The 101 Downsview Park bus, which served members of a roller derby, has been reinstated to run Saturday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

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Cutting the 48 routes was supposed to save the TTC $7 million, which was supposed to be reallocated to overcrowded routes this fall.  The less-dramatic cuts will probably reduce the savings to about $4 million, but it’s not clear what that will mean for riders on jam-packed buses. 

TTC chief general manager Gary Webster had earlier suggested a delay in finding savings would mean a longer wait for relief on busier routes.