A busy weekend of street festivals and TTC subway closures may affect travel times around the city.

The TTC says service will be shut down from St. George Station to Sheppard West Station on the Yonge-University subway line in order for crews to perform essential train testing ahead of this fall's launch of the first phase of the TTC's new Automatic Train Control signal system.

Shuttle buses will run between Sheppard West and Lawrence West stations and there will be additional service on nine east-west bus routes in the closure area to facilitate people who want to travel to the University-Spadina Line.

Because of on-street construction around Eglinton West, St. Clair West and Dupont Station, there will be no shuttle service to and from those stations.

"It might add 10 to 15 minutes to a traditional subway ride, but that is much less time that it would take if we had used traditional shuttle service," said Stuart Green, the spokesperson for TTC.

This is the seventh of 11 closures on this portion of the Yonge-University Line this year.

"Most weekends in the summer you will see subway closures," Green added, stressing that it is important for them to use weekends to do repair work as overnight periods are not long enough to get work done.

Street closures

Street festivals, including Taste of Little Italy and Much Music Video Awards will also be contributing to travel disruptions this weekend.

College Street will be closed in both directions between Bathurst and Shaw streets for the Taste of Little Italy from 6 p.m. Friday through to 3 a.m. Monday.

Palmerston Boulevard, Clinton Street and Montrose Avenue north of College Street will also be closed for the same period.

The Much Music Video Awards will cause street closures in the area bound by Richmond Street in the south, Queen Street in the north, Simcoe Street in the east and Peter Street in the west.

The TTC will divert bus routes on these roads in order to accommodate transit users affected by the street closures.

The TTC urges people looking for more detail to check www.ttc.ca.

