I sometimes find myself heading to the eastern part of downtown and have wondered why I am schlepping it west to get to the subway, only to go east again to get to, say, Jarvis or Sherbourne.
You described a common travel pattern of mine very well there.
I personally would use such a bus line to get to the Yonge/Dundas area, as well as to a few friends that have recently moved into St Lawrence and Regent Park areas. I think on many days, it would even be quicker or at least time competitive to the subway.
A route downtown along Mt. Pleasant/Jarvis would be lovely, but I fear it might be a victim of its own success. There might be too many people getting off at Eglinton to transfer southbound on Mt. Pleasant.
It is possible scenario, one only needs to look at the 6 Bay bus, which clocks in at a fairly decent 10,300 daily riders. If this route had even 1/3 of the 6 Bay ridership, it would be a success in my opinion as taking any number of people off the Yonge line at rush hour would be needed. I mean, we have spent the past couple years praising how wonderful it is that the Spadina Subway Extension is projected to take 1,300 pphd off the Yonge line, which this route could theoretically probably accomplish as well.
I even think that as the Yonge Line gets prohibitively more crowded, more people will shift to taking such a Mt. Pleasant route as an alternative.
Unless your fears are that the future Mt. Pleasant Station on Eglinton is not planned as a significant bus terminal, which is also probably true.
The TTC does provide a premium route and it is very useful but expensive. I knew someone that lived around Davisville/Mt. Pleasant and worked near Jarvis/Bloor and it just made too much sense to get the special sticker on her Metropass but it was bloody expensive for such a short ride.
If I lived right at Mt. Pleasant, I would consider that express route service too. The issue is that anyone who has to walk >5 minutes to the bus stop is playing the odds considering the express route only makes three trips a morning. Not to mention that it does not run on the weekends, the time of the week such a service would be most useful considering the weekly subway closures on weekends. Plus, during the winter time any significant amount of waiting for an incredibly infrequent service is frustrating.
Long story short, we have a direct corridor to downtown via Mt. Pleasant and Jarvis, and the current service(s) on that corridor has been designed to be as prohibitive as possible for anyone to use. Goes to the wrong place, is split into two routes, very infrequent, and the express service is one of the few TTC routes in the whole city that has an
additional premium price.
Currently, the 74 Mt Pleasant and 103 Mt Pleasant North have 1,200 and 1,600 daily riders respectively, and the 141 Mt Pleasant Express has a mere 160 daily riders. I think there is significant latent demand on the corridor (and more people switching from car to transit with the opening of the Eglinton Crosstown) and the present low ridership of these three bus lines are because these bus routes were never really an option for getting anywhere in the first place.
