Transit advocates call for more transparency and a stop to service cuts
Wait times for Toronto's busiest subway line will increase as the TTC implement service cuts to 17 routes including Line 1. The TTC's struggles with their decreasing ridership has resulted in financial struggles, leading to their solution to slash service by 91 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Reduced service will ultimately lead to a death spiral according to Shoshanna Saxe, engineering professor at the University of Toronto and Canada research chair in sustainable infrastructure. Less service will drive more riders away, leading to more service cuts due to the lagging ridership.
TTCriders calls for funding and design work to continue on SRT busway.
May 2, 2023 (Toronto, ON) – Scarborough residents are urging City Councillors to keep a promise to replace the Scarborough RT with a busway that would save commuters up to 10 minutes in each direction. More than a dozen Scarborough transit users have registered to speak to the Executive Committee on Tuesday about a report that Scarborough RT line will be replaced by bus service on November 19, 2023 until the Scarborough Subway Extension opens.
In Scarborough, the TTC is allegedly getting ready to disappoint residents once more, as it retires the obsolescent SRT with the promised subway no closer to being opened; a busway originally billed as an economical stopgap has been quietly removed from the city’s plans, according to advocates at TTCRiders
Mayoral candidate Josh Matlow states he will spend tens of millions of dollars annually to restore the TTC to pre-pandemic levels if elected mayor. Matlow said "These cuts disproportionately affect some of Toronto's most underserved communities. It affects North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke,” and called the cuts "reckless and irresponsible".
April 26, 2023 (Toronto, ON) – TTCriders, a membership-based transit advocacy organization, released the following statement in response to the latest pledge from a mayoral candidate to reverse service cuts:
A new report from Transportation Services going to the May 2nd Executive Committee says the Scarborough RT will close forever on November 19, 2023. We will need to take replacement buses for at least 7 years between Kennedy Station and Scarborough Centre Station.
The Scarborough Subway Extension is supposed to be completed in 2030... if we are lucky. But what if subway construction takes much longer?
(Toronto, ON) – Scarborough residents are sounding the alarm that a plan to replace the Scarborough RT with an off-street busway in 2025 has disappeared from City of Toronto plans. The Scarborough RT will be replaced with bus service on November 19, 2023, according to a new staff report.
Derek Song writes a column in the Scarborough Mirror about the closure of the Scarborough RT.
The TTC will receive $349-million from Ottawa for new electric buses, yet no additional funding to operate them. TTCriders members and environmental advocates have pointed out that this investment comes as the TTC faces a $360-million shortfall in their operating budget, yet despite pleas from the city, nor the provincial or federal government has pledged to cover it.
Toronto Metropolitan University School of Urban and Regional Planning students conducted online and in-person surveys to learn about the concerns of Scarborough RT (SRT) users and Scarborough residents, in advance of the Fall 2023 SRT closure.