A TTC bus stop has quietly disappeared, but you wouldn’t know it by riding the 54A Lawrence East bus.

For the most part, it’s easy to find a TTC bus stop; just look for the red-and-white sign on a pole. But when the sign goes missing, determining the exact location of the stop is guess work for people not familiar with the area.

That sums up Ellery Luague’s situation. He recently moved to Port Union Village, at the far end of Lawrence Avenue East, regularly rides the 54A bus and wants to get on and off at a stop across the street from 5450 Lawrence.

“A search on Google Maps shows where this stop is supposedly located although I have never seen the actual bus stop pole since moving to the area,” said Luague in an email.

“Although this stop is announced on the 54A Lawrence East bus (and I actually call for it), the buses never stop here and proceed to the next. I’ve chatted with a couple of friendly bus operators who’ve said that they actually don’t know where the stop is due to the absence of the stop pole, but were gracious enough to let me off when I requested for a stop.”

But not everyone is as accommodating. He went on to say that a “sarcastic and rude” bus driver gave him flak for requesting the stop at 3.05 a.m. one night.

“I pressed the stop button as soon as the 5450 Lawrence Ave. E. stop was announced and walked towards the driver to let him know I wanted to get off at this particular stop.

“This was how our conversation went, more or less:

“Me: Right before the houses, please.

“Driver (while not slowing down): You know you have to tell me clearly where you want to stop. I can’t read your mind.

“Me: I said, ‘right before the houses, please.’

“Driver: I told you to be clear, not polite.

“Me: I pressed the stop button when my stop was announced. What else should that mean?

“Driver: Well, I’ll try to do better next time (annoyed tone and look).”

I looked it up on Google Street View and found a 2018 image showing a TTC sign across the street from 5450 Lawrence, the location of a library and community centre, and a large concrete pad that also marked the spot.

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But when I went there Thursday, the TTC sign and pole was gone, as was the concrete pad, which had been replaced with sod. Except for the recorded announcement on the bus, it’s as if it never existed.

STATUS: TTC spokesperson Hayley Waldman emailed to say “the stop in question was permanently removed to improve stop spacing on this section of Lawrence Ave. East. The stop announcement discrepancy was an oversight and we apologize to Ellery and any other customers who were inconvenienced by the confusion. The stop announcements will be removed as soon as possible.”