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TTC Rapid Transit Delays 2014-2026

Recently, the CBC published an article about the changing nature of subway delays flagging the increase in “disruptive patron” incidents since pre-pandemic 2018 and today.

The TTC’s delay logs from 2014 onward are available on the City of Toronto’s Open Data site. The logs for almost 13 years hold a vast amount of detail (over 268,000 individual entries just for rapid transit lines), and one can easily get lost in the mass of data trying to sort out the useful info. The available data for each delay includes:

  • Date and time
  • Station or location
  • Delay code
  • Minutes of delay
  • Minutes of resulting gap
  • Direction
  • Line
  • Vehicle, if applicable

This article looks at the data at increasing levels of detail to examine the evolution of types of delay over the years. An important point here is that delays due to slow orders are not included as these are not single events such as a train held for a jammed door or an ill passenger.

There is also no estimate of the scope of a delay’s effect on riders in the sense of how many trains are held up, for how long and how many passengers were on board or waiting. In the worst cases, the effect extends beyond the immediate area thanks to service suspensions and the tedious process of running shuttle buses.

Delay codes are quite detailed and are broken into major groups such as equipment issues, infrastructure, security, transportation (operating staff) and passenger-related issues. In the charts presented here, these codes are translated to their “plain language” text.

At the most simplistic level, there has been an evolution in the number and length of delays. The chart below shows the monthly count of all delay logs (blue) and the associated average service delay (green). An important point here is that many logs show incidents where there is no delay (orange), and so the average in the chart below is only for cases where service was held.

The number of incidents fell in the early period of the pandemic, but recovered to historic levels in 2022 and has climbed since. Conversely, the length of an average delay has only risen slightly in the 2020s.

There might be more delays, but what is causing them, and how has this changed over time? Although passenger-related issues have grown and crowd out other problems by their number, there is a pattern of growth in delays related to equipment (trains), signals and infrastructure in recent years. This has implications for overall TTC maintenance practices and budgets.

The chart below shows the proportion of the most common events that did not actually cause a delay. The high-roller over the period is Speed Control issues which show up under two separate codes. However, as we will see later, that problem disappeared in the early 2020s, but was replaced by “Disorderly Patron” and “Injured/Ill Customer in Station”. Note that the first of these entailed many delays, while the second did not because the events were not on board trains.

The remainder of this article takes a deeper dive into the delay logs with breakdowns by general class of delay and a review of individual lines where differences in equipment and signalling show up in contrasting delay stats.

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A Marathon of Transit Disruptions (Updated)

Updated Oct. 16/26 at 4:00pm:

Diversion info for the 501/301 Queen service has been added.

On the weekend of October 16-18, the Toronto Waterfront Marathon will cause extensive disruption to transit service downtown. This is on a scale we have not seen for previous events, and begs the question of just how serious Toronto is about maintaining transit service even when promoting the TTC as the best way to get to the event.

Marathon closures will also affect motorists. See the Race Weekend Schedule and scroll down to the detailed list of road closures.

There are two races: a 5k run on Saturday, October 17 and a full/half marathon on Sunday, October 18.

Transit service will be suspended on many routes including the creation of some “transit deserts” through the combined effect of overlapping changes. This article consolidates information in many TTC service notices. Some of these have changed while I built this article. Readers are advised to check for further updates on their day of travel on the TTC’s site.

Maps and a table showing the service changes are in the next section following the “more” break.

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Is Transit Better or Worse in Scarborough?

In the recent Mayoral debates, a topic surfaced regularly that boils down to “who is doing more for Scarborough”. That’s a rather crass way of putting things, especially for those who don’t live in that part of Toronto.

This post looks at some of the broad-brush claims as well as the level of bus service in Scarborough in detail. If I have one conclusion from the exercise, it is that candidates’ support teams should do better work to avoid faux-pas in claims from the podium.

The problem of overstating the quality of transit service applies across the city, not just in Scarborough. Both major candidates are trolling for votes there, and so that’s the part of the system we hear about.

When politicians carp about congestion, they inevitably talk about downtown, the streetcars and the unending list of construction projects (many of which are triggered by reconstruction of ancient water and sewer mains, not by the TTC).

However, an insidious effect on suburban bus service is rising congestion outside of downtown. The common TTC reaction is to stretch travel and recovery times running buses less often to compensate without spending more money. Many of the service reductions in past years come from this type of adjustment. On the statistical side, such a change does not affect vehicle hours, the commonly cited metric for overall service. From a rider’s point of view, buses come less often and their trips are longer.

This article looks at a few high-level topics that come up in stump speeches – ridership and subway service – and then reviews Scarborough bus services line-by-line from 2016 to 2026.

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Why I Voted For Olivia

Earlier today I dropped my Toronto election ballot in the local mailbox.

I voted for Olivia Chow to return as Mayor of Toronto because I think that she is, by far, the better of the two remaining serious candidates.

Am I head-over-heels impressed with her transit policies? Not entirely, but she believes in transit, more and better transit.

So far, the programs coming down the road, so to speak, are Chow’s proposed fare reduction through a weekly cap at 10, on top of the already planned monthly cap of 40 likely going into effect in September 2027. But, as I wrote recently, there is much more to making transit attractive than twiddling with the fare structure.

We hear a lot about capital investment for the future with the help of federal and provincial subsidies: the Waterfront East and Eglinton East lines, new subway cars for Line 2 Bloor-Danforth. But the needs are even greater with no sense of how we will pay for everything both for state of good repair and on the wish list of additions and enhancements.

Operating costs and subsidies see no discussion, and indeed fare cuts will trim revenue. It’s good politics and good policy to make transit easier to use by everyone, but “easy” includes not just the fare but also the service.

A dispiriting part of any transit mega-project is the “benefits case” where a major offset to capital spending is the alleged travel time saving of new lines. The hours saved are translated to notional dollars, but what really happens is that public investment turns into time that riders can use for other things. It also translates to massive stimulus for the engineering and construction industry.

Oddly enough, the same equation is not applied to day-to-day service in the hands of fiscal hawks who see transit as a drain, not as an investment. This is an argument the Mayor must champion: transit provides a public benefit to the city’s economy.

I have no illusion that Mayor Chow will shower the TTC with new money, in part because she (or any other Mayor) faces the imminent expiry of the Ontario “New Deal” funding that pays for operation of Lines 5 Eglinton and 6 Finch. There is talk of a “New Deal 2.0”, but nothing definite yet.

But transit service – quantity and quality – must improve, and that is a challenge for the Mayor and Council. The next TTC Board must demand that management provide clear information on system performance and real improvement riders can see in their daily travel.

Chow will not find this easy, and her priorities for housing and social services may well trump new transit spending. However, Bradford’s priority for transit does not lie in service, but in massive spending on security. Yes, there is an issue with unsocial behaviour on the TTC, but it must be addressed by more than a large police presence. It is also, I believe, over-hyped for political reasons, a common problem not just in Toronto’s transit debates.

There is no point in having a heavy police presence if people still cannot get on the Dufferin bus.

The choice of TTC Board members is key, and we need aggressively pro-transit Commissioners who will hold management to account for system performance and advocate for real improvements, even if this cannot be achieved in one year. I believe that Chow will drive for such a Board, while Bradford would focus on penny-pinchers whose relationship to transit lies mainly in complaining about being stuck behind a bus or streetcar.

Toronto’s election and its future turn on two contrasting views of our city. One assumes that tax cuts will solve everything and public services should be farmed out to private ownership and management. The other believe in public service and the good local government can provide to a wide range of its citizens.

My vote’s with Olivia Chow.

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How Can We Increase TTC Service?

Much discussion in the current election campaign targets TTC fares and proposed changes in 2027. Depending on which candidate you trust, they might go up, selectively, be frozen, or even go down with the effect of future changes to fare capping rules.

Many surveys, including a recent one from Liaison Strategies, show that the key factor in retaining and attracting riders to transit is not fares, but service reliability, frequency, and comfort. This includes many factors, and the “fixes” do not lend themselves to simple campaign slogans.

Drawing lines on maps is a favourite pass-time for politicians and the consultants who feed off their desire for a credible plan. We went through that with John Tory’s ever-vanishing SmartTrack scheme, then later with Doug Ford’s subway plan. They share one thing: nothing needs to be done today, and come tomorrow the plan might shrink thanks to technical challenges and limited financing. The Ford plan survives because of spending (and borrowing) at a level that would never occur without a generous infusion of political ego. Planned spending on the provincial subway plan is on a par with the TTC’s entire state of good repair backlog.

Fare schemes, be they new concession rates, discounts or regional amalgamations, can be quickly implemented at comparatively modest cost, but they do little beyond, possibly, generating added ridership which might, or might not, be translated to added service and capacity. With fare revenue covering only 40% of the operating budget and none of the capital, it is impossible for fare cuts to generate enough new riding and income to pay for service increases.

Toronto has a long-term plan, TransformTO, that seeks “net zero” transportation emissions through complete electrification of transit by 2040. That is comparatively easy to achieve because it is the path the TTC is on already. However, a more ambitious plan originally aimed at a major shift away from autos to transit by 2050, but now has a 2040 target. There is no sense of how Toronto will achieve this.

A technical backgrounder to the 2050 plan proposed, among other things, that Toronto:

  • Convert one lane of traffic to exclusive bus lanes on all arterials.
  • Increase service frequency on all transit routes:
    • bus by 70%, streetcar by 50%, subway off-peak service increased to every 3 mins.
  • Tolls of $0.66/km on all arterial roads.
  • Free transit. No transit fares.

In the current political climate, it is easy to guess the fate of exclusive bus lanes and road tolls. Free transit would cost over $1-billion annually before accounting for the cost of the additional service.

The TTC Capital Plan includes a long-range, unfunded provision for TransformTO:

  • Vehicles (added buses and streetcars): $3.51-billion
  • Infrastructure (2 additional garages, upgrades to existing garages and carhouses, expanded terminals to handle higher service levels): $3.82-billion

There is no mention of operating costs for the larger fleets and all of the added service nor is there even an outline of a plan to get from the transit system of 2026 to the hoped-for 2040.

Somewhere in between the aggressive goals of TransformTO and current service levels is likely what riders will actually see. The TTC has not published a detailed analysis of options, and the Board, in spite of having a “Strategic Planning Committee”, has not asked for one.

Any plan to improve transit service must look at the network as a whole, at how routes in many parts of the city can provide better service. This will require decisions about the size of the transit system, growth of the surface bus and streetcar services, and tradeoffs needed in the use of road space.

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TTC Service Standards Consultation Round One

The TTC is reviewing its Service Standards with consultations of interested groups and the general public. The first public survey is now online until Sunday, October 11, 2026.

The goals, as stated in the introduction to the online questionnaire, are:

  • bring more transparency to how we plan, deliver, monitor, and evaluate service
  • support better service planning and delivery
  • make sure our standards better reflect the perspectives and experiences of customers and front-line staff

Full disclosure: I have participated in earlier reviews of the Standards through the TTC’s Planning Advisory Committee.

This round does not cover all aspects of the Standards, but seeks to gain feedback on some key issues and options:

  • Streetcar stop spacing
  • Service reliability
  • Vehicle crowding

A second round in the Winter (date TBA) will present findings and recommendations, and may address other topics. This process will not reach the point of new standards going to the TTC Board for approval before the 2027 Network Plan or the 2027 Budget, but could affect in-year service changes either as a goal or a constraint.

Although the TTC hopes to develop new or refined metrics by which service could be analyzed, there is little of this in the survey. A challenge with metrics is the need to understand how they work, and in particular what opportunities they provide to “game the standards”. In effect, are gold stars rewarded for indifferent work because the questions and marking scheme are skewed?

Even with its shortcomings, I urge readers who care about TTC service to fill out the survey.

The main part of this article reviews the questionnaire and some of the assumptions behind the options offered.

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TTC Announces More Streetcar Diversions

In addition to the Queen West diversion I wrote about yesterday, the TTC has announced other changes affecting streetcar routes. These are hidden on the “Construction Notices” page which does not automatically link articles to the route schedule pages. Riders used to looking under “Service Changes” would not find these.

501 Queen Update

While the Queen cars are diverted to King for Hydro work in Parkdale, track repairs will occur on Queen at Brock and at Sorauren during the week of September 21 to 28.

Effective November 1, 501/301 Queen cars will divert both ways via Coxwell, Gerrard and Broadview for rail and water main reconstruction on Queen between Leslie and Vancouver (west end of Russell Carhouse, east of Greenwood).

512 St. Clair Update

The Metrolinx work on the rail bridge at Keele Street is complete, streetcar overhead restoration is in progress.

Track repairs on St. Clair between Bathurst and Vaughan will require a complete replacement of streetcar service for the period from September 28 to October 3.

From September 28, buses will operate on 512/312 St. Clair from Gunn’s Loop to St. Clair Station streetcar platform.

Streetcar service over the full route will resume on October 3.

The 512B shuttle from Gunn’s Loop to Lansdowne Station, and the extension of 340 Junction to Oakwood Loop will continue to October 31.

506 Carlton Update

Track repairs on the Gerrard Street bridge at the Don Valley will run from 11pm on Thursday, October 8 for about 10 days (to the weekend of October 17/18).

506/306 Carlton shuttle buses will continue to run on Gerrard.

This effectively extends the Carlton diversion around work between Yonge and Church east from Parliament to Broadview via Dundas.

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TTC 501/301 Queen Diversion Sept. 21 to Oct. 15

The TTC has announced a diversion of 501/301 Queen streetcar service between Shaw and Roncesvalles for work by Toronto Hydro. This will begin at 9pm on September 21 and run until 4am on October 15.

I checked with TTC Media Relations that this is an all-day diversion for over three weeks, not the more common overnight diversion for smaller scale repairs.

Streetcars will run both ways via Shaw and King to the Queen/Roncesvalles intersection and then via their normal route west to Humber Loop. Buses will run on Queen between Bathurst (Wolseley Loop) and Roncesvalles (Sunnyside Loop).

This announcement appears only on the TTC’s Service Changes page, and is not linked from the schedule pages for routes 501 or 301 as of 3:15pm on September 21.

It is not yet clear how the eastbound transfer connection at Roncesvalles will work as the streetcar stop is farside and there is no stop on the west side of the intersection, only a small curb between the streetcar tracks and three eastbound traffic lanes.

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The Plague of Subway Reduced Speed Zones

Riders of the western branch of TTC’s Line 1 Yonge-University-Spadina have suffered through long-standing areas of restricted speed opertion for years. However, the problem has crept onto the eastern branch is recent months making for very slow trips over the most heavily used part of the line.

On the past weekend (September 19-20, 2026), Line 1 was closed between St. Clair and College for track repairs, but this is only one in a seemingly unending series of works.

Subway service becomes less and less credible through many types of delay, but also the sense that nothing is done. Much debate recently in social media and now in election campaigns focuses on Platform Edge Doors (PEDs) whose supposed purpose is to keep riders off of the tracks (regardless of their motive) and resulting delays. An installation-in-progress at TMU (formerly Dundas) Station is laughably inadequate to this task.

Any goal of increasing transit use is doomed if the service offered is slow and unreliable. Without downplaying the potential value of PEDs, a far more pervasive problem is part of the daily subway experience – slow zones.

Here is the map of slow zones taken from the TTC’s site on Saturday, September 19. The “downtown” part of Line 1 is particularly bad, but the “Spadina” leg of the subway is close behind.

These are detailed in tables taken from the same TTC page (click to expand).

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Fares, Ridership and Service

The condition of transit service, its cost and quality, feature in the current municipal election debates. Some of the info quoted by candidates and their supporters is accurate, some is not. One could shrug one’s shoulders and say “t’was ever thus”. In an attempt to get clear information out on the table, this article collects financial and ridership info for past two decades to give a longer view.

Some of this is quite detailed. There is no way to avoid this in looking at service because too often the stats are presented in aggregate with averages that hide what individual riders on individual routes see.

Data Sources:

Comparing Today With Pre-Pandemic Service

Trips and Fare Level

The annual count of trips grew through the early 2000s, and this was a source of pride to the TTC and its Board. However, that growth stalled in the mid-2010s and showed a slight downturn. The Board was still patting itself on the back as the growth curve flattened out and the rate of growth dropped.

At the time, the sense was that more of the growth came in the off-peak where there was surplus capacity rather than in the peak where crowding was severe. Eventually even the off-peak service filled up and new riders stopped appearing. During the same period there had been small fare increases, but at a level where service rather than fare was the dominant factor affecting growth.

2020 brought the covid pandemic and a steep drop in ridership. Note that the full year effect is not seen until 2021 because the first two months of 2020 were “normal”.

Riding started to build in 2022, but remains below the pre-pandemic level for various reasons, notably a shift to work-from-home. Demand into downtown on the subway and streetcar networks is building again in 2026 thanks to increased work-from-office mandates, offset partly by a decline in student travel thanks to cutbacks in foreign student visas. Weather conditions, particularly the winter, also play a role in discouraging travel.

The TTC CEO’s reports shows modal riding changes occasionally, but does not give a month-by-month breakdown. 2026 will be an “odd” year thanks to extra World Cup traffic, offset by those who stayed away from downtown to avoid transit and traffic congestion, and the bitter winter months.

Fares grew slowly through the period up to 2020, but there was only a single 10-cent increase in 2023. This was a policy decision by the then-Mayor and Council, supported by special covid-era subsidies from the Provincial and Federal governments. These allowed service to be maintained at close to pre-pandemic levels through the dip in riding and fare revenue.

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