TTC delays amid cold weather blamed on aging infrastructure
Rosemary WestwoodMetro News Feb. 23, 2015

Metro News Feb. 23, 2015
Frustrated transit riders blamed the TTC after flooding shut down one of the busiest subway stretches in the city during rush hour on Monday morning — a day of record-breaking cold.
For Svetlana Obukhova, Monday was one more example of winter of transit woes, with station shutdowns, streetcar breakdowns and a general sense that on any given day, it’s a good bet to expect delays on the TTC.
A TTC spokesman and the chair of the city’s transit commission are united on what’s behind the troubles: a 60-year-old and still-aging system. And some say the only solution is money.
“We have to perform better in bad weather than we have,” said councillor and TTC chair Josh Colle. “I don’t think people should come to expect it, I don’t think we should as a organization use that as an excuse.”But streetcar failures in the cold and flooding at subway stations are part of the cost of underfunding the TTC in the past, he said: “What it does speak to is certainly the age of our system and it underscores how fragile a system can get when it’s not properly maintained and not properly funded.”“This is infrastructure that should have been changed 20 years ago, and it wasn’t, for various reasons,” said TTC spokesman Brad Ross. “We are where we are today, we recognize that things need to be improved and that’s what we’re doing.”
Mayor John Tory announced a $95 million plan to fund TTC infrastructure improvements last month. The TTC is also spending $1.5 billion this year for infrastructure projects and new vehicle purchases, out of a $9.27 billion 10-year capital budget.
While it’s not yet clear what caused TTC equipment to fail Monday and shut down the Yonge line between Union and Bloor, Ross said it wasn’t weather-related.
Last week, however, flooding caused two subway stations to shut down at St. Patrick and Bathurst.
“Infrastructure is aging, and if there are things we can do to prevent burst pipes in our system and to prevent flooding, we absolutely take all of those actions,” Ross said. “But extreme temperatures are going to cause extreme problems that you can’t always anticipate.”
The TTC’s streetcar fleet — which is 30-years-old — is susceptible to break and door problems in extreme cold, which can’t be detected until the failures pop up, he added.
That’s part of the reason for the new fleet of Bombardier streetcars, which have seen heavy delays.
Three are running in the city (and performing well in the extreme cold), 40 were supposed to have been delivered by now, and 30 should be out on Toronto tracks by the end of the year, Colle announced Monday.
Advocacy group TTCriders spokesperson Jessica Bell said that the bottom line comes down to money: Toronto remains the lowest-funded transit system in North America, and it’s showing, she said.
“It’s government’s responsibility to provide a decent and reliable level of service and that means putting more funding into something that we all benefit from,” Bell said.
But Obukhova said funding arguments don’t do enough to explain the repeated delays she says she experiences.
“(The subway is) literally two lines, why can’t they figure it out?” she asked. “It cannot be more primitive and they consistently do not get us to our work, to our appointments, to our clients on time. There’s no excuse there,” Obukhova said.
“It’s not my problem that they can’t get up with the 21st Century,” she added.
Both Colle and Ross said they understand Obukhova’s frustrations. Ross said riders need to understand that the TTC’s “modernization” plan will take time. A new signalling system, for example, won’t be fully functional until 2020.
But Obukhova has her own solution to bring transit improvements: “The whole TTC committee should take the TTC to work. They must be obligated. I’m telling you, they’re going to start doing something.”
February 7, 2025 (Toronto, ON) – TTCriders, a membership-based transit advocacy group, released the following statement in response to Premier Ford’s promise that the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will open in 2025.
(Toronto, ON) – Transit advocacy organization TTCriders will hold a rally on February 19, 2025 to call for answers about the Eglinton Crosstown and Finch West LRT projects and ask all provincial parties to commit to solutions for more reliable transit.
Toronto’s transit and public spaces are torn. When City Hall can’t mend the fabric, tactical urbanists step up and stitch it back together