The Liberty Village Express Makes Inaugural Run
It’s no secret that Liberty Village has some transportation challenges. After hearing about the neighbourhood’s transit woes Brett Chang and Taylor Scollon thought up the “Liberty Village Express”, a privately-run bus service (complete with wifi and a TV screen) which set off on its first run of the morning at 7:45 a.m., with a total of four trips scheduled from the corner of Pirandello and East Liberty Streets to Union Station.
Liberty Village has experienced rapid growth over the past few years and the transit system can no longer cater to the growing population and the area is significantly underserved by public transport.
According to today’s Toronto Star article, Chang and Scollon created the company Line Six Transit to provide the community with “an alternative, faster, more comfortable and more human way to ride”.
Commuters donate $25 per week for five rides — which is $2 more per ride than the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) $3 token.
So far, Line Six Transit has signed on 64 backers and raised $2,775.
City Councillor Mike Layton has been pushing the city, TTC and Metrolinx for more transit options for Liberty Village, says he’s not sure if the 
business model will work. It may be a more comfortable ride, but with traffic and no signal or lane priority, it’s not clear the bus will be any faster.
Metrolinx is also looking at ways of serving more Liberty Village residents on the GO train from Exhibition. That would offer commuters a seven-minute trip to Union Station every 30 minutes, said Layton.
“We’ve estimated there are 2,000 people travelling from the subway to Liberty Village every day at the three streetcar stops that serve (the area). If we can get the 2,000 people off the King streetcar, that will be an enormous relief of pressure to folks travelling on that car who don’t live in Liberty Village and maybe don’t have the luxury of just walking over to a GO train station, “ he said.
We wish the project the very best of luck and will keep you posted on it’s outcome. The Liberty Village Express pilot service is running from Oct. 6 to 10. If successful, it will continue to operate and the pair hopes to roll the service out into other areas underserved by the TTC, Chang said.
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