At its November 3, 2025 meeting, the TTC Board will consider management’s proposed 2026 Network Plan. This is a very long set of documents, and this article will only cover the major points. Readers wishing more detail should refer to the reports.

• Report and Attachment 1 from the Chief Strategy and Customer Experience Officer on 2026 Annual Network Plan (a small introductory report)
• 2026 Annual Network Plan, and Appendices 1-5 (the details and analysis)

The recommendations are quite simple:

• Approve the 2026 plan and associated network changes, and
• Forward the plan to City Councillors, sundry senior City officials, and the General Managers of various regional transit agencies.

The “key themes” of the plan are cited as enhancing connections to meet customer needs, reviewing the express bus network and planning for construction. The “enhanced connections” are very small scale, the express review will be in next year’s plan, and construction plans are not unlike what we saw for major projects in 2025.

Running in parallel with the Network Plan is work on a Ridership Growth Strategy “which is a cost-benefit analysis of service, fare, infrastructure, and customer experience initiatives aimed at increasing ridership, pending funding.” [Main report, p. 2] This exercise, like the Network Plan, too often is budget constrained, and that mindset, including the concept that if only TTC were more businesslike, financial problems would dwindle if not vanish completely.

The Ridership Growth Strategy has yet to appear even as a consultative proposal. There is no sense of the TTC’s ambitions and whether the “strategy” will consist of the lowest possible cost changes under the guise of making the system more attractive. In an election year when keeping taxes down is a political priority, bold schemes for transit spending are hard to find.

The concept of “cost-benefit” too often ignores the general economic worth of having a transit system in the first place. There is a deep gorge between capital megaprojects where a very high multiplier effect is claimed for investment in infrastructure, and operating expenses which are treated as a burden on the City and its funding partners. Calls for fare supports and better service are treated as irresponsible demands on the public purse, but billions spent so commuters can travel hither and yon across the region are not seen as a waste. Nobody ever asks subway advocates how we are supposed to pay for their dreams.

One part of the 2026 plan reviews “poor performing routes”, but past experience shows that this generally nibbles around the edges of financial problems while giving the impression of a hard-nosed review. It does not address questions of service capacity, latent demand and quality which, after all, should be primary concerns of any transit system.

At the same time, the plan claims to have a focus on social goods:

The 2026 ANP builds on the 5YSP [5 Year Service Plan], which continues to highlight the importance of equitable, reliable, safe, and timely access to transit for the three key priority groups: women, shift workers, and lower-income customers.

Many initiatives proposed in the 2026 ANP address travel patterns of the key priority groups who continue to depend on the transit network for getting around the city. [Main Report, p. 2]

The TTC cannot be both a penny-pinching, “efficient” business while also serving goals that may not, at least on the TTC’s books, be cost-effective. Arguments that efficiencies will help pay for better service miss a key point: there are already major problems with transit service affecting all riders, and they will not be fixed by cuts to a handful of minor routes.

The TTC serves everyone, not just “key priority groups”. Indeed it is strong demand from a wide range of riders that justifies good service, provides revenue to help fund it and generates political support for further improvements.

The reference to “many initiatives” is misleading. Few changes are proposed, and they are small scale.

Consultations with a wide variety of groups including politicians, community groups, day-to-day riders, special needs riders, transit advocates and transit operators revealed consistent complaints across the city about crowding, service reliability and the accuracy of public information. These are not issues just for a few squeaky wheels, advocates who are dismissed as having too much time on their hands to criticize transit, but for ordinary riders everywhere.

A favourite buzzword, “innovation” makes its appearance in an attempt to justify ongoing work:

A more efficient and customer-friendly TTC network encourages more people to choose transit, helping reduce car dependency, lower emissions in support of the City’s ransformTO Net Zero Strategy, and making better use of existing fleet and infrastructure.

The 2026 ANP will support ongoing and future planning processes that leverage innovation, particularly in enhancing ridership data analysis as well as monitoring and reporting KPIs. A key focus will be continued improvements in how route and system productivity is measured through data-driven decision-making.

Additionally, this plan supports the TTC’s transition to a zero-emissions network by making scheduling adjustments to accommodate the deployment of eBuses across the network. [Main Report, pp 3-4]

Customer friendliness and better data analysis are not “innovations” except for an organization that has forgotten its primary mission. As for scheduling adjustments for eBus deployment, this is actually a new cost because of the lower range of battery buses, a cost, not a benefit, of “innovation”.

The plan argues that it prepares “the network for long-term growth … by aligning with the TTC’s commitment to building a resilient, competitive, and sustainable transit system.” [Main Rport, p. 4] That will not happen with small scale route changes, budget-constrained service improvements, and an attitude to reliability that sees the primary obstacles as outside of the TTC, notably traffic congestion. Yes, that is a problem, but it is too conveniently cited while ignoring basics of scheduling and line management.

The plan cites 2026 budget costs of only $0.6 million for implementation of proposed changes. This is very small change. A further $13.2 million (net) is proposed to roll out service changes approved in the 2023 and 2024 plans, but not yet implemented. There is no sense of when these would occur and how much new service would actually operate in calendar 2026.

A further problem is that there is no reference to the cost of restoring service to levels set by the board-approved Service Standards for crowding. Although the TTC has trip level crowding data, system performance is reported on an aggregate, all-day basis giving a far-too rosy picture of actual conditions riders encounter. Honest, granular reporting of service quality is an “innovation” long overdue.

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