TTC Ghosts in Port Credit

Text by James Bow and Chad King; Photos by Glenn Kapasky

With Mississauga so built up and suburban, and Mississauga Transit now more than 30 years old, it’s hard to imagine Toronto transit vehicles operating deep into the city, with the exception of 58 Malton. But that’s precisely what happened up to 1976, and thanks to Glenn Kapasky, we have the photographs to prove it.

The Town of Port Credit was an old port established late in the 19th century, some distance from the City of Toronto. By the turn of the century, rails from the Toronto & Mimico railway arrived, connecting the town to the villages of Long Branch, New Toronto and Mimico.

When the Toronto Transportation Commission bought out the line in the mid 20s and converted the section east of Long Branch to city standards, the radial service between Long Branch and Port Credit remained, shuttling passengers back and forth until February 10th, 1935, when the tracks were abandoned due to the widening of Lake Shore Road. The line was replaced by the Port Credit bus service operating between Long Branch Loop and Mississauga Road. In 1948, service was extended to Pine Street. In 1956, the service was assigned the route number 74.

Passengers travelling from Pine to the downtown in 1954 paid four suburban fares plus the city fare to complete their trip. Pine Street was in zone 4, with the zone 3 boundary at Beechwood and the zone 2 boundary at Long Branch loop. Even when the two suburban zone fares within Metropolitan Toronto were converted to one, the two fare system outside of Metro continued until 1972, when only one extra fare was required to transfer from the Long Branch streetcar to the Port Credit bus.

In 1974, the province of Ontario merged Toronto township with the towns and villages of Streetsville, Cooksville, Malton, Meadowvale and Port Credit into the City of Mississauga. Soon thereafter, the city started to set up its own transit agency. On February 8, 1976, TTC route 74 became MT route 23, Lakeshore.

Evidence of the TTC’s incursion deep into Mississauga can be found on Ann Street, just north of High Street, near the Port Credit GO station. There, one of the old wooden poles bears the remnants of “TTC Stop” paint.

	This photo of Ann Street, just north of High Street, looking south towards Lakeshore Road, has the pole in question circled.
	A close-up of the pole, showing the distinctive TTC colours that can still be found throughout the City of Toronto.

The pole on Ann Street is on the wrong side of the street as all MT buses currently serve only the other side, but MT driver Chad King explains:

Way back in the 1967 when GO Trains first arrived on the scene and the current Port Credit Go Station opened, the Port Credit TTC bus serviced it. Queen Street that runs beside the current PC GO bus area was a two way street back then instead of today�s one way street. The eastbound TTC service once used the lay by on the south side in front of the apartment building by the Elizabeth Street corner as the GO station stop. That is why the lay by on Queen and the TTC bus stop on Ann Street are on the opposite side of the street.

One other painted TTC sign can be found on Lakeshore Road as well:

As well just east of Dixie Road there is a painted TTC stop on the wooden pole there as well for that very same TTC service in the 60�s. Only a few years ago did the city replace some of those wooden poles but you may be able to see a few others along Lakeshore between Ogden and the Long Branch Loop.

The square hole in the ground at the loop by the newspaper boxes where our buses stop was once a wooden TTC post painted green at the base like other older TTC stops that read “Port Credit Bus Stop”. It was removed about 10 years ago. The original TTC service ran from Long Branch Loop thru Port Credit and ended at Pine Loop. It was located at the corner of Pine Avenue and Lakeshore on the south side where the current Briarwood dealership has their trucks for sale.

This TTC Ghost Stop is located on the south side of Lakeshore just east of Dixie between Cherriebell and Deta before the Mississauga/Toronto border across from the Canadian Tire Gas Bar. Other than the other TTC Ghost Stop on Ann St. in Port Credit this is the only remaining Route 74 TTC stop on Lakeshore. Ten years ago there were others but those hydro poles have since been replaced.

References

Kay, Jeffrey and Alan Gryfe, Route 74 Port Credit Route History
Bromley, John F., TTC ‘28, The Upper Canada Railway Society, Toronto (Ontario), 1979.
Bromley, John F., and Jack May Fifty Years of Progressive Transit, Electric Railroaders’ Association, New York (New York), 1978.
Stamp, Robert M., Riding the Radials: Toronto’s Suburban Electric Streetcar Lines, The Boston Mills Press, Erin (Ontario), 1989.

Last Updated: Fri, November 10, 2006