A recent Council debate considered a report on Prioritization of Planned Higher-Order Transit Projects. Its first recommendation:
City Council reaffirm the policy that maintaining the existing system in a state of good repair is the first priority for investment in transportation.
Despite the State of Good Repair (SOGR) ranking first, some Councillors pursued their subway dreams. Amending motions included the Finch West LRT extension to Pearson Airport, the Bloor subway extension to Sherway, and the Sheppard subway western and eastern extensions. All of these are long-term projects that will have no effect on the transit system for a decade at least.
(Two lines, the Eglinton East and Waterfront East LRTs, were not under discussion as they are already City “priority” projects, although what benefit this status confers remains to be seen.)
The TTC’s Capital Plan includes a very long list of projects for which there is only partial committed funding, or none at all. Meanwhile, the backlog in SOGR work will climb to about $8 billion over the coming decade in spite of $13 billion in spending. In other words, the 10-year budget should be $21 billion, but is actually only 60% of that figure.
Even this pales by comparison with the 15-year total which now stands at almost $48 billion of which only 25% is funded. This number does not include many proposals including the rapid transit projects favoured by Council.
My review of the TTC’s 2024 Capital Budget and Plan includes more details on the December 2023 Unfunded Projects report and I will not repeat that here.
SOGR is seen by some as getting in the way of their preferred system expansion projects, and that a way forward might be paved (so to speak) with a focus on a short list of the most important SOGR items. This is absolute folly, but typical of the priorities that created the problem in the first place.
This misses the key question about our transit system: what do we want it to be? This includes choices not just for capital repairs and/or expansion, but for the overall scope and quality of service transit will provide.
Will the TTC always be a second class service except in a handful of rapid transit corridors, will transit play a much larger role in moving people around the entire city, or will it decline for want of resources to an unattractive last choice for travel? Only after we decide on the goal can we address the question of where to spend, and how much we need.
The 15-year Capital Plan grew substantially from 2023 to 2024 with the principal additions in the bus fleet and a provision for added capacity under the TransformTO Net Zero program. The big jump in bus costs reflects the higher unit cost of battery buses now assumed to be the standard. (Facility Maintenance and Network Wide Assets are new categories in 2024, but they simply replace the “Other” group from previous years with a comparatively small increase.)
| Portfolio | 2022-2036 ($m) | 2023-2037 ($m) | 2024-2038 ($m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subways | $25,400.0 | $25,343.0 | $27,613.0 |
| Buses | $6,300.0 | $6,948.0 | $8,705.2 |
| TransformTO | $5,339.8 | ||
| Streetcars | $2,230.0 | $2,277.0 | $2,307.4 |
| Facility Maintenance | $2,415.1 | ||
| Network Wide Assets | $1,474.8 | ||
| Other Infrastructure | $3,300.0 | $3,478.0 | |
| Grand Total | $37,230.0 | $38,046.0 | $47,855.3 |
Even the $5.3 billion TransformTO line is an understatement because it accounts only for bus fleet expansion, not for the other modes, and there is no discussion of the related operating cost and competing funding needs.
A quick-and-dirty way to approach the budget is to pick a “top five” project list as if, by implication, all of the rest can wait their turn behind Councillors’ aims for their “deserving” wards. A top five list is a simplistic approach that does not recognize the complexity of TTC’s maintenance needs. Even worse, it implies that if the worst of the backlog is addressed, we can sleep soundly.
I challenge anyone to pick only five lines from the tables below as the subset we could pay for while downplaying the rest.
Another challenge lies in project linkages (you cannot buy more buses without some place to store and maintain them), and in deciding which items should be stripped of priority, in effect relegated to a “bottom five” group. That will be a hard fight.
The Importance of Day-to-Day Maintenance
State of Good Repair is not just a bunch of capital projects, but also much day-to-day work scattered through lines in the Operating Budget. For example, routine inspections and repairs of track underlie the SRT derailment, the broken switch at Museum, and the decline in streetcar track. All of these depend on the Operating Budget. Buses that are not maintained stay in the garage, or do not travel far when they venture into service. Where there is something big, it slips over to capital, but without the day to day work, problems are missed, or generic “fixes” like slow orders become a way of dealing with a lack of inspection and maintenance.
Over the past five years, the Operating Budget has been stretched to preserve service, and more generally to give the impression that the TTC has weathered the pandemic storm. We do not know what budget lines were trimmed to achieve this, nor how much should be restored to return to pre-pandemic quality.
Politically, the difficulty has always been that the Operating Budget is largely funded by fares and City subsidies. There is an incentive for lumping as much as possible under Capital to use other governments’ dollars. Squeezing the Operating Budget also directly links to property taxes by keeping the TTC’s share of City spending down.
Were I choosing a “top five”, the SOGR in day-to-day operations would be my top pick before any of the capital projects.
The Subway Portfolio
Within the $27.6 billion of subway capital, the big ticket items fall under the heading of “Modernizing the Subway & Expanding Capacity” although this includes items that are at least partly SOGR to replace aging equipment and infrastructure.
| Project (2024-2038) | ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| New subway cars (replacements + growth) | $3.224 |
| Line 2 ATC (replacement, enables growth) | $0.867 |
| Line 2 Capacity Enhancements (stations, power supply, Greenwood Yard) | $2.671 |
| Line 1 Capacity Enhancements (new maintenance facility plus other enhancements) | $6.194 |
| Line 2 Maintenance & Storage Facility (Obico Yard west of Kipling) | $3.618 |
| Platform Edge Doors | $4.100 |
| Bloor-Yonge Capacity Improvements | $1.453 |
| Sub-Total | $22.109 |
| Other SOGR | $5.504 |
| Grand Total | $27.613 |
The named items get the most attention, but the “Other SOGR” line above includes a long list of equipment and infrastructure overhaul, replacements and upgrades, not to mention accessibility. They are not glamourous, but they are essential to keeping the system running. Of that $27 billion, only about $8 billion is funded.
On Line 1, there are plans for a new northern yard, but this is not officially part of the Richmond Hill extension, and the province has made no move to fund it. However, if we believe projections for future Line 1 demand and fleet requirements, a new yard is needed on the Yonge side of the Line 1 U. This should be part of the Yonge North project and should not slip into Toronto’s general funding requirements.
On Line 2, the original plan for Greenwood Yard was for it to be the Relief Line yard, but that function has shifted to a new Ontario Line facility in Thorncliffe Park. A new Line 2 yard would be built on the property the City bought west of Kipling Station (Obico Yard was its name in CPR days). This yard will be needed eventually, but will likely not come into operation until Line 2 is extended west and the extension funds the track connection west from Kipling Station under the Milton GO/CPR corridor.
Platform Edge Doors come up regularly, but this is a big ticket item. There is supposed to be a PED study that will report later this year, and we need to get a credible number for the cost. I am not convinced that at the current estimate it is worthwhile compared to other possible spending, but we need a solid estimate and project plan.
There is an issue with subway cars for demand growth. Council hopes for a federal contribution for the replacement of the new Line 2 fleet, but this does not include expansions like Scarborough or North Yonge. Cars for these should be provisioned from those project budgets as add-ons, but their status is not yet certain. Cars to provide extra service enabled by Automatic Train Control are also separate.
Scope creep affected the proposed car order. Originally, the scheme was to replace the existing T1 fleet on a 1:1 basis even though the TTC had surplus trains. Some of the T1s used on Line 2 were intended to stay on Lines 1 and 4, but ATC conversion of Line 1 killed that idea. This meant that the original new train project was bigger than it needed to be, but that actually covered off the Scarborough extension trains. Now the replacement order is back down to trains needed for Line 2 itself. This was a bit of a shell game.
A related project is the conversion of Line 2 to ATC. This is a must have. This project was delayed by TTC management after Andy Byford and his team left with the claim that we could just keep the existing signals and overhaul the T1s for an extra 10 years. Now they have changed their mind thanks to the potential benefit of a new Line 2 signal system and the fact that ATC cannot be retrofitted to the existing fleet. Meanwhile, Metrolinx designed the Scarborough extension with conventional signals because the TTC would not make up its mind and commit to having an ATC-capable fleet available by opening day.
Capital plans affect accessibility not just for new elevator installs, but also ongoing maintenance and replacement of existing equipment. The TTC cannot very well expect people to use the subway if the vertical access (elevators and escalators) is out of service. A related problem is the length of time it takes to rebuild an existing machine and the effect on station capacity and accessibility.
Some infrastructure such as power distribution needs refreshing both for its age and for its capacity. More trains require more power.
The Bus Portfolio
The table below shows the major areas of spending on buses with “Other” being a small portion of the total primarily because there is so little infrastructure associated with the bus network.
| Project (2024-2038) | ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| Purchase of Buses | $4.701 |
| Purchase of Wheel-Trans Buses | $0.379 |
| Charging Infrastructure | $1.051 |
| Transit Priority Measures | $0.352 |
| 10th Bus Garage (Kipling) | $0.468 |
| Bus Overhaul | $1.204 |
| Bus Hoists and Cleaning Infrastructure | $0.217 |
| Sub-Total | $8.372 |
| Other SOGR | $0.333 |
| Grand Total | $8.705 |
TransformTO brings added requirements, and this amount only covers added buses, not subway trains or streetcars, let alone the cost of operating and maintaining a much larger fleet.
| Project (2024-2038) | ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| Purchase of Buses | $2.014 |
| Two New Garages Plus Mods to Existing Facilities | $3.326 |
| Total | $5.340 |
A hard question must be asked: is the premium for eBuses (and the resulting capital needs of about 200 new buses annually) worth the operational savings and emission reductions? How does this compare to a fleet of hybrids?
The TTC routinely compares eBus emissions to old, conventional diesel buses even though we no longer operate any, but not to “clean diesels” (a bit of a misnomer) nor hybrids. Transit represents a small part of total city emissions, and its main benefit is to get people out of cars. Should Toronto spend available dollars on better service (a larger fleet) or on “greener” buses carrying fewer passengers? Is this money well-spent?
For me, running more service takes priority over running purely electric service.
A related issue here is the underutilization of the bus fleet. TTC’s spare factor is much worse than industry standards. The TTC’s performance pre-pandemic had a ratio of spares to service was about 1:5 (one spare for every 5 scheduled buses). It is now 1:3, but the Operating Budget has no money to actually run more service. There is little point in buying a fleet of new buses, let alone expensive eBuses, if they are going to just sit in the garage.
The Streetcar Portfolio
| Project (2024-2038) | ($ billion) |
|---|---|
| 60 New Streetcars | $0.325 |
| Hillcrest and Russell Upgrades | $0.299 |
| Streetcar Overhaul | $0.534 |
| Track | $0.679 |
| Traction Power and Overhead | $0.285 |
| Sub-Total | $2.161 |
| Other SOGR | $0.146 |
| Grand Total | $2.307 |
On the streetcar network, the first two items are already underway with the delivery of additional cars and facilities expansions and renewal for storage and maintenance. This work is already funded: new cars are coming into service, design is underway for the Harvey Shops modifications, and much work at Russell is already complete.
A related issue, but off in the future, is opening the Waterfront East line which will require more cars, but nowhere near all of the additions. As with the bus network, the spare factor for streetcars is very high and more service could operate with the existing fleet if only the TTC had budget headroom. It is ironic that the 2024 budget had money for more mechanics to maintain a larger streetcar fleet, but not for operators to drive them.
Facility Maintenance
This portfolio totals $2.415 and covers building and property renewals, mainly garages. Almost 75%, $1.768 billion, comprises facility renewal, roofing and paving.
The only other major project line is $0.477 billion for a new Transit Control Centre.
Network-Wide Assets
This portfolio totals only $1.475 billion of which the major parts are $0.560 billion for IT, $0.357 billion for equipment such as energy storage and safety, and $0.302 for purchase of non-revenue vehicles.
What We’re Selling is Service
The TTC’s most important function, indeed, its only function, is to move people around the city. This has economic and social benefits not just of avoided auto trips and costs, but of workforce mobility and access to the wide range of services and activities Toronto offers.
Somehow, this basic purpose is lost in the shuffle of project debates and budget crises where working the policy levers and political horsetrading become ends in themselves.
The TTC Board and Council need to concentrate on how to improve and expand service so that more people can travel easily today, not in a decade’s time when some of the subway projects might finally open. Keeping the existing system well-maintained and building on that for a stronger TTC is the top priority.
Steve Munro 
Why is the lead time for procuring the new subway cars a whole 6 years? The lead time for TR procurement ended up being 4 years (contract awarded in 2006, first set arrived 2010), and even that was considered behind schedule. The new fleet is supposed to be somewhat similar to the TR, which should ease the design & building phase?
Steve: Since the TTC has already been right up to the tendering stage, and then had to cancel for lack of funding, restarting the process does not mean going back to square one. However, it’s not a case of when the first train gets here, but the last one if the SSE is built with ATC because the old trains would not be able to run there. Metrolinx has plans for an interim bloc signal system.
Another aspect is whether the contract is just handed to Alstom as work for Thunder Bay, or if there is serious competition including the likelihood of a lower bid from the Chinese firm CRRC.
The TTC has been caught out before on new trains, and wants an acceptance period for a few test sets before large scale production starts. This is not just a matter of starting a production line.
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I followed the link above to the Toronto City Council agenda Item – 2024.EX12.5, which states:
“The Executive Committee recommends that:
1. City Council reaffirm the policy that maintaining the existing system in a state of good repair is the first priority for investment in transportation.
2. City Council request the
to report back to City Council in third quarter of 2025 on a comprehensive review of Map 4 Higher Order Transit Corridors of the Official Plan to:
[Bullets above are mine for clarity.]
While I have not seen Map 4 of the OP, Steve previously supplied a map “Figure 18 – Evaluated Higher Order Transit Corridors; Prepared by City of Toronto Planning Division, August 2023”. The map shows transit corridors both on and not on “Map 4”, but the corridors are not (yet) ranked. Some corridors are obviously capital-intensive projects, and cannot be construed as being as SOGR (example: Ontario Line extension). I note the council motion refers ONLY to Map 4 and not the additional transit corridors identified in Figure 18. Has Map 4 been updated since August 2023? An example of what could have been included is Dufferin Street from the Exhibition grounds to the Eglinton LRT. But, Figure 18 omits Dufferin further northward to Wilson Avenue, which in turn is identified as a transit corridor (not on Map 4). It should be noted that Dufferin has been identified as a problem spot for buses due to auto congestion in the Yorkdale Mall vicinity. I can [tell] you from personal experience driving in this area that Highway 401, Allan Road, and Wilson are terribly congested by private vehicles, and the overflow plus mall traffic causes Dufferin’s problems.
All of the above is background to my opinions following.
First, I agree with Steve that SOGR ought to be both the City’s and the TTC’s #1 priority. And, it appears that there some degree of project creep as to what SOGR entails, judging by the Executive Committee’s recommended motion. However, capital projects are more likely to receive funding from Queens Park and Ottawa, whereas SOGR is funded in the operating budget from fare collection and the City. Problem – the operating budget is tight.
Therefore, the available operating money needs to be spent as prudently as possible, that is, to get the biggest bang for the buck.
SOGR is required for safe and reliable operation of vehicles and infrastructure. At some point, repair of surplus vehicles can be deferred. Without allowing project creep, as observed above, the reliability, comfort, and expansion of service ought to be next priority in operations spending. By expansion, I would mean more vehicles on routes at any one time, extending or modifying bus routes, transit priority, even installing elevators. Good management and good common sense is necessary to allocate SOGR and routes within operations.
I was reading Transit Toronto, about the 507 Long Branch streetcar here that local residents along Lakeshore in south Etobicoke were petitioning the TTC to improve service but to no avail, until at last more supervisors were put on the route which somewhat mitigated the problem of bad service to the area.
Steve: The events you speak of occurred over a decade ago when the Long Branch service was not a separate route from 501 Queen.
Just this past Wednesday at around noon I waited 30 minutes for a westbound streetcar at Yonge & College. While the crowd waited, there were only two streetcars eastbound, and when the westbound car arrived, not everyone was able to board. The Carlton car used to be very reliable in the past, until there was major construction on the route and buses replaced streetcars. Carlton has a terrible reputation as many will tell you. So, if there is a surplus of streetcars, why does the TTC not put more vehicles on this route and restore previous service? It seems that they are loathe to hiring more operators.
Steve: Are you sure it was Wednesday? The situation you describe shows up in the tracking data on Tuesday. There was a delay and bunched service coming out of the AM peak, and a group of cars ran back and forth together until early afternoon before short turns started to occur to sort this out. Either nobody was minding the store, or this was a left over effect of Rick Leary’s “no short turn” edict which is responsible for a lot of service screw-ups. Yes they do seem to be loathe to hire more operators, and this is part of the cost containment within the so-called recovery to pre-pandemic service I have written about elsewhere.
I see 75 Sherbourne buses are regularly bunched up in twos and threes, but this is a short route with light traffic all day. Obviously, there is no route management here. It also means that the TTC is paying for operators that provide little value for the money. Could have spent it on Carlton instead.
Steve: Sherbourne is always a mess and the TTC does not appear to do anything about it. This is common to various short routes. One of my planned, but not yet written, articles is a review of service quality on routes like this where it should not be a problem.
I don’t think the politicians, TTC board members and TTC/City managers ever take public transit, or else they would have done something to fix the poor service.
One would think that common sense would prevail over political priorities and bad management.
Steve: The stock excuse is traffic congestion, and the TTC Board eats it up every time.
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The 75 Sherbourne bus has never been well managed (have any routes been?) but it is particularly bad at the moment due to huge traffic problems on or near the south end of its route as huge traffic jams occur on Lower Sherbourne south of Front almost every day – caused by back-ups on both Lake Shore and Queen’s Quay due to many construction projects (Lower Sherbourne, Yonge, Jarvis and Parliament). The City has put more Traffic agents onto most Jarvis intersections (from Lake Shore up to King) which has helped a bit in getting the 75 back up north again by stopping vehicles from ‘blocking the boxes’ but the 75s are caught for ages crossing Lake Shore going south and while on QQE west towards Jarvis.
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If the lifecycle cost of electric buses is higher than conventional then the marginal cost should be covered by the province and feds for the simple reason that the benefits flow to them. Most of the quantifiable benefits of electrification are from the cleaner air, which reduces deaths and illnesses, which in turn raises productivity. Productivity gains result primarily in increased income and sales taxes, which benefit the provincial and federal governments.
The city bears all of the pains for the others to reap the gains.
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In light of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal all urging the feds to launch the permanent transit fund (PTF) this year (to fund the NSTs, among other things), has anything been heard back from the feds yet?
Steve: No announcement is expected until the budget is released later in April.
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Hi Steve
I am amazed that any thought would still be given to extensions of the Sheppard subway. Why doesn’t the fact that it is underused, and considered a suitable LRT route, not have any effect on members of council? The fact that the construction costs alone would be better spent elsewhere should be enough to show that this is a non-starter.
Steve: It is entirely political on both ends. Structurally there is an argument for extending the subway to Victoria Park and building a suitable terminal there, but with the SSE going to McCowan, that’s going to pull any line 4 extension eastward. The irony of course is that they may get nothing unless the Tooth Fairy brings them a lot of money.
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