The TTC Board met on April 16 with many items on its agenda including a report on Extreme Precipitation Planning.

Anyone living in Toronto will remember the heavy rains of July 2024 and the snows of February 2025. July 15-16 brought 115mm of rain within 24 hours, higher than the 100-year design for storms. From February 8-17, Toronto saw over 60cm of snow accumulation with no melts between storms. This was the highest snow pack in 25 years.

Both of these events revealed shortfalls in both TTC’s and City’s response to extreme weather. They also undermined the credibility of management claims of the transit system’s physical state, and the City’s false claims about snow clearing. The split jurisdiction between TTC and City forces did not help the situation either.

Among the issues raised in the report are:

• The (in)adequacy of drainage on City streets to prevent ponding and flooding of underground structures.
• The (in)adequacy of TTC drains for streetcar tracks, subway tunnels and stations.
• The condition of drainage and pumping systems from inadequate maintenance and deferred replacement of aged equipment.
• The integrity of TTC buildings, tunnels and other infrastructure to prevent or limit water penetration.
• The actual condition of roads that were supposedly plowed versus reported conditions.
• The absence of snow clearing at transit stops.
• The creation of windrows both along curbs and between streetcar and adjacent lanes where the curb lane is not used by autos.
• The failure to remove accumulated snow on transit routes causing repeated cases of parked cars blocking streetcars, and in some cases, buses.
• The TTC’s ability to keep subway open cut areas operational when there is a large accumulation of snow on the tracks and power rails.
• The adequacy and timeliness of public information provided to riders about transit operations during emergency conditions.

Many of these are interrelated. For example, if snow were actually cleared to the curb on four-lane roads with streetcars or buses, then autos would park normally rather than obstructing the only other lane available for transit vehicles. If maintenance of drainage and pumping systems (both day-to-day and life-cycle) kept them in working order, then less water would accumulate and potentially block service or render stations unsafe. If passengers could board and alight from transit vehicles with their usual ease, buses and streetcars would not be delayed attempting to serve snowed-in stops.

Among the TTC’s observations is the challenge of operating streetcars and articulated buses in bad weather, particularly snow. How much of this an inherent shortcoming of the vehicles, and how much is the effect of inadequate infrastructure maintenance and snow clearing?

Both from the delay logs and from personal experience, transit vehicles continued to be blocked by parked cars, and stops were blocked by snow, well after the snowfall ended. Some of the snowbanks did not dissipate until they melted. One particularly ironic location was at the southbound stop on Bay at Albert Street, the City Hall stop.

These are not just issues for the once-in-a-blue-moon weather events, but for the general condition and robustness of transit and related city infrastructure.

The report actually contemplates the purchase of spare buses, and possibly a new garage to hold them, to deal with periods when streetcars and articulated buses have operating difficulties. This would present a substantial premium in fleet size, garaging and staffing for these vehicles. One cannot help asking if the same money invested in better service generally would be more productive, combined with more aggressive storm responses when needed.The TTC is silent on the subway (for which bus replacements are completely inadequate even in good weather), and on the extra staff who would have to be available on the off chance of a bad storm.

This ludicrous approach avoids responsibility for making the streets and the transit system as robust as possible in their own right. Elsewhere I have written about the TTC’s bad habit of maintaining a spare ratio for their fleets well above industry targets, and “just buying more buses” would make the problem even worse. It is the kind of response I would expect from a system whose CEO considers crowded buses a mark of success, and months-long slow orders on deteriorated subway track as perfectly normal.

The TTC routinely trots out its list of unfunded capital projects. Critical maintenance such as replacement of pumps for subway tunnels is on that list. This is not a “nice to have”, but essential for safety. However, the problem is not just in capital funding, but under-resourcing of routine maintenance, an operating budget issue. We know the effects this brought to subway and SRT track. What other aspects of the system are waiting to fail?

The capital budget lines related to extreme weather effects total $1.4 billion of which only $360 million is funded in 2025-2034, mainly in the early years. (See TTC Major Projects Update and Funding Shortfalls for details.)

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