It only takes a few minutes for the TTC stops at Dufferin and Bloor to become jammed with people waiting in line for a bus — so what’s going to happen when thousands of new residents move into the area?On any given weekday travellers pour up the stairs from the subway stop below. Teenagers from nearby Bloor Collegiate stream to the bus. The students share jokes and listen to music on each other’s headphones, standing at the bus stop alongside people who’ve just wrapped up an afternoon of shopping at the popular Dufferin Mall.You’ll find local residents in the line, like Kerry McArthur, a business owner who sometimes uses the Dufferin bus to get around. “The bus can get pretty packed. I’m not looking forward to getting on,” McArthur says, as she stays warm inside Dufferin station on a frigid afternoon, looking through the glass for the southbound Dufferin 29 bus. It’s the fourth busiest bus route in Toronto with a daily ridership of 39,720 boardings, according to the latest TTC figures.McArthur and others in her community are anxious because in the coming years the already crowded Dufferin-Bloor area will become home to a major development that will see about 2,100 units of housing, a mix of apartment units and condos that is still being ironed out by the development partnership of Capital Developments and Metropia.And recently, residents learned that another corporation, Primaris, is interested in developing the north parking lot of the Dufferin Mall, just south of Bloor, and turning it into as many as four apartment towers. A community meeting between residents and the developer is planned for Monday night, although the project is just an idea with no formal drawings.Read more:Opinion | Shawn Micallef: Politicians who decide on public transit need to know the system. That starts with riding itThe TTC needs $33.5 billion to keep the system functional — roughly two-thirds of which are unfunded, report sa ...
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