A TTC Red Rocket trundles westbound on the Harbourfront Line (Route 509) via Queens Quay West, its destination roll sign reads EXHIBITION. That being the CNE fair grounds: known to most Torontonians as "The X" during mid to late August. Harbourfront starts from an underground loop at Union subway station (on the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line) and travels south beneath Bay Street until curving west to reach the surface on Queens Quay. On the street, the trams pass the tourist attractions of the city's waterfront as well as the steel and glass condominiums of the very rich (well, maybe not so rich now). Route 509 shares the same trackage with the Spadina streetcar line (Route 510) from Union until Spadina Avenue after which the Harbourfront streetcars carry on west while the Spadina cars curve north to Bloor Street and the Bloor-Danforth subway line. Route 509 was created by extending the tracks of the old "Harbourfront LRT" (now the Union to Queens Quay leg of the Spadina Line) west by about 500m from Spadina Avenue to Bathurst Street and then north about 200m to Fleet street where they can switch with the CNE bound tracks of the Bathurst Line (Route 511). At the same time, the Fleet Street portion of the Bathurst Line was placed in its own right-of-way from Bathurst to the Exhibition Terminal as part of regular track maintenance and repair. This added link now provides a direct and quick connection from Union Station and the Yonge subway to the heavily visited CNE. It's still hard to believe how much effort the TTC and the city had to put into obtaining the measly 10 million dollars from the then provincial Tory government of Mike Harris for construction. Full service began in the summer of 2000. Harbourfront is the second TTC surface route to travel completely apart from other traffic. The Spadina Line being the first. Most TTC streetcar lines travel in mixed traffic as Toronto's classical streetcar network (unlike many other North American cities) largely survived without interruption into modern times. Though, the TTC has enacted a policy of creating rights-of-ways for streetcar services wherever practical to do so. The St. Clair Line (Route 512) is one such service that is currently undergoing conversion to right-of-way as the tracks undergo reconstruction. Back in 1990, the Harbourfront streetcar started out life as more of a tourist attraction. Indeed, during the summer season, the TTC simply let people ride the "stub line" for free along its then 2km length using the city's still functioning 1930's vintage PCC streetcars. But as time passed the route continued to grow in length and importance. Indeed, should the City of Toronto's "Transit City" plan come into full existence, then the Harbourfront Line will become the downtown stretch of a much longer Waterfront West LRT service which will connect the western (Mississauga) border of the modern city directly to Union Station via the lakefront. Notes: TTC - Toronto Transit Commission CLRV - Canadian Light Rail Vehicle CNE - Canadian National Exhibition PCC - Presidents' Conference Car