The TTC continues to issue notices of Restricted Speed Zones (RSZ) for the subway system. Some appear and disappear in short order, while others are extremely long-lived. I have been tracking the status of these since early 2024, and the charts below show where and when the zones were in place.
Some areas have had RSZs in place continuously for over a year. The TTC has not given any indication of when these will be repaired, although the list has thinned out over the past year.
The departing interim CEO has claimed that 12 RSZs will be a normal situation. This might be credible if problem areas appeared and disappeared quickly, but this is only the case for some of the zones listed here.
A related problem is that some of these areas have been in bad shape for an extended period thanks to deferred maintenance and the complexity of repairs. TTC management has mused about extended shutdowns to attack these problems, but without any specifics, and especially regarding replacement services.
Where the symbols “>” or “<” are used, the RSZ is only in one direction. Where “<>” is used, the zone applies both ways. The charts are broken by year with 2024 on the top, 2025 below. The dates correspond to my visits to the website.
Steve Munro 
What’s up with the Coxwell to Woodbine section on B-D? 2 years running.
Steve: Something at Woodbine crossover, but I don’t know the details.
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I recall Andy Byford musing aloud about shutting down Line 1 between Eglinton and St Clair for ~2 months to rehabilitate the aging outdoor roadbed. I also remember councillor Josh Matlow unsympathetically dissing Byford’s idea in public on Twitter. No wonder TTC staff is sometimes gun shy to propose hard things.
When I walked over the Imperial Street bridge yesterday the southbound Line 1 track had a 15 km/h max speed sign placed in the middle of the tracks. 15 km/h! I rarely go that slowly on my bike! Rapid transit indeed.
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The section between Yorkdale and Glencairn has been in bad shape for a long time. There are areas where the ballast is very low forcing trains to literally crawl over the section. I hope this will be dealt with when the section closes for maintenance in July.
Not holding my breath, though.
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In my browser the charts load as 2024 first, then 2025, so I have to view the BD chart when trying to get a sense of which RSZs span 2024 and 2025 on a single line. It would be great if they were organized by line, or merged into a single file per line, assuming this is an issue for all browsers.
Steve: It may have to do with your screen dimensions / aspect ratio. It was formatted as a two-up gallery so that Line 1 is on the left and Line 2 on the right. However, because it’s a gallery, when you open it to full size, you will get the two 2024 pages followed by the two 2025 pages. I will change it to one-up with the two Line 1s, followed by the the Line 2s.
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At least they opened up the escalator for King Street northbound. Closed in October 2023. Signs said a year. Opened up June 11 2025. For a single escalator.
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I have guarded optimism that the new CEO, with his background in rail operations, will be able to get the slow zones dealt with (though unfortunately it probably will involve extended closures of parts of the subway which he would have overseen at the MTA when it was dealing with it’s maintenance backlogs).
An as an aside, has anyone at the TTC looked into why the slow zone situation is worse on the Yonge line? Could the heavier Toronto Rocket trains, or how the ATC operates the trains vs. human operators (or a combination of the two?) be wearing out the track faster.
Steve: The long-running problems are mainly on open track where the track goes out of alignment and the ties degrade much more than on concrete tunnel floors. There have been issues with the section south of Eglinton going back to Byford’s time, and the long section on Spadina has badly needed repairs too. A shutdown will not be easy to implement, and I expect the political flak will be enormous. At least on Line 1, they could run more frequent service on the remaining leg during a shutdown, but even that brings problems depending on how the trains would be stored and serviced. For example, if Wilson Yard is not available, Davisville could not possibly handle the load. But we don’t even have the discussion because we are supposed to accept the RSZs as a normal fact of life.
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Do you have the ridership for each TTC routes for 2024?
Steve: No. When the TTC publishes the 2024 stats, they will appear on their Planning page.
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Hi Steve, I know this is off topic sad I apologize for drifting but I saw in a posting on a site called Railway Supply that the Finch West LRT will be put into operation before the Crosstown. It’s a small piece but apparently it’s just about ready for operation. Hope you can find the info. Have a great day and thanks for all you do.
Steve: You’re welcome. It doesn’t surprise me as Finch is the easier line to open, but there have been so many rumours that until I hear something definitive, I won’t get too excited. Also, that site is a bit dubious.
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What annoys me the most is the apparent randomness and dishonesty of the onboard announcements about slowdowns. I travel from Davisville to Bloor, and they come and go – some weeks there are none, and sometimes I’ve heard four separate ones on a single short NB trip between Bloor and Rosedale. And the wording “due to track word ahead” doesn’t fool even the most unobservant passenger – particularly on the outdoor sections it’s entirely evident that there is no actual work going on. On that stretch there isn’t even any equipment off to the side awaiting use during the night shutdown. At best there’s the odd pile of ties and a big stack of rusty gauging rods.
Maybe they should say “due to unsafe track ahead”!
I guess I’m just venting, but it adds to the general feeling of TTC dishonesty about almost everything…
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Which Reduced speed zones have been in place for more than a year.
Steve: Look at the charts in the article.
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The reduced speed zone from Yorkdale to Lawrence been there since April 2024 so more then a year are they going to ever fix it or is it permanent?
Steve: That is a question for the TTC to answer. Although there have been some weekend shutdowns for work on the Spadina branch of the subway, we have seen little change in the slow orders.
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