The Yonge line was closed between Bloor and Union for over 12 hours Tuesday, after staff discovered an oily substance leaking through the tunnel at College Station. Cranky commuters were forced on to shuttle buses or shunted west to the University line.
“There are immediate, visible costs to this kind of delay,” said Benjamin Dachis, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto. “People were late for work. They either have to make that time up, in which case they’ll be late for their kids’ soccer practice, or they’ll just have to make less money.”
Dachis has authored reports on the cost of congestion in major Canadian cities. He estimates congestion and gridlock cost Toronto between $7 billion and $11 billion in lost productivity every year.
The TTC’s portion of that cost is impossible to estimate, Dachis said, but a 2006 report from Transport Canada suggests every lost man-hour of work saps $30.86 from Toronto’s economy.
There are an average of 500 hours of delays across the TTC subway network annually.
“Delays like we had this morning are becoming the new normal for TTC passengers,” said Aaron Manton, a member of the TTCriders advocacy group.
Manton said Tuesday’s delay shows the TTC badly needs to repair aging infrastructure and build more lines.
“If the Downtown Relief Line had been built, there would have been an alternative route for people to get downtown today,” he said.
Dachis believes building additional capacity is expensive, and would prefer the TTC adopt time-of-use pricing to discourage people from travelling during rush hour if they don’t have to. Such a system would be possible once the Presto card has been fully implemented, he noted.
“The only way to reduce traffic congestion – and it’s the same for transit – is through congestion pricing,” Dachis said.
While they differed on how to address the problem, Manton and Dachis agreed the TTC risks losing customers if they can’t reduce delays.
“Experiencing delays like this week after week undermines people’s confidence in public transit,” Manton said. “It’s scaring them away.”