As of this moment this has now officially become the worst streetcar in the city. This review is solely an update about the current clusterf**k of a situation that is the detour in the east end between York and Broadview. Heretofore referred to as The Great Detour Of 2009.
What was once just a long straight ride across the city has become an awful, gut-wrenching series of turns and delays, not to mention confusion across the board. It's brutal.
Bank on adding between 30 and 45 minutes to your trip for the detour. It hasn't been standard on any of my trips and is different going east or west on Queen. Today the streetcar turned so many freaking times in a span of 10 minutes that when I looked up I actually had no clue where I was or which orientation we were facing. On certain trips there is a dude (like, an actual person) standing in the intersection waiting for the streetcar to pass because it comes off the rails so often due to the turn - around York/Richmond this happens. That's the guy's job - to reattach the streetcar cable.
I should point out that the most disappointing part of this all is the radio silence from the driver. There should be regular updates (even if they're recorded) reminding people that the streetcar is detouring and what the names of the new stops are. What was once Queen & Church is now Richmond and Church and at one point we were on King Street and then later Dundas. No one on the streetcar knew where we were going and people kept getting up to ask where we were. Talk about directional mayhem!