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Twenty

January 31, 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of this blog. Over the years, we have covered a lot of territory in transit discussions. I say “we” not as the royal plural, but to recognize the contributions of reader comments, and the many conversations I have had via social media or in person that collectively expanded my views.

The stats for the past year:

  • About 120 articles pushing the total to 3,118
  • About 1,300 comments pushing the total to 62,279

Yes, I’ve slowed down a bit, but as regular readers will know, some of the articles have grown longer and take more background work to prepare.

Those 1,300 comments do not include the bilge from various trolls who I suspect to be only a handful of people with their hobby horses, a very recognizable style, albeit many pseudonyms. I have an archive of their words but do not burden readers, most of the time, with what passes for “comment”.

Frankly, it is the wide range of comments, favourable or not, but civilized in tone that makes editing and publishing them worthwhile.

The community of “transit advocates” has certainly grown. We don’t all agree all of the time, and that’s natural, but we share a desire to see Toronto better served by transit.

Twenty years saw many changes, arrivals and departures, sadly more of the latter. Within the transit “fan” community we lost some of the original Streetcars for Toronto Committee members, and others whose photos and movies still grace various sites.

I don’t seek or collect accolades, but was pleased to receive an “Excellence Award” from the Canadian Urban Transit Association in late 2024 recognizing decades of advocacy including this blog. A real treat was the Jane Jacobs Prize back in 2005, the last year she was alive to bestow it in person. That actually happened before the blog started, but was part of the inspiration to write for an online audience. Kind words have come from others for which many thanks. You know who you are.

I went back to my first anniversary article to see what might have changed, and found this concluding paragraph.

The next years will be vital for transit in our city and region. Either we stop pretending that we can be transit oriented without serious investment in operations, vehicles and facilities, a real network of services, not a few baubles to get politicians re-elected, or we will slide into the car-oriented city that “Stop Spadina” and its era were supposed to prevent.

TTC was hard hit by the early 1990s recession losing 20% of its ridership, and by 2006, they were just starting to recover from the “common sense” era of Mike Harris at Queen’s Park. Transit operating subsidies never returned to the Bill Davis level at a one sixth provincial share of the budget. 2008 brought a financial crash, but the TTC build up to record ridership only to be walloped by the 2020s’ pandemic.

The TTC enjoyed almost six years of enlightened leadership under CEO Andy Byford. He built a strong management team and trust among the people who actually made the wheels turn, but this was undone by his successor Rick Leary. Byford left the TTC too soon for a senior job in New York, and we can only guess at how differently the TTC would have evolved had he stayed.

On the capital side, the chasm grows between the available/announced subsidies and the projected spending needed just to keep TTC afloat, let alone pay for expansion.

Over two decades, the travel patterns in the Greater Toronto Area evolved with more trips between Toronto suburbs and beyond, trips that transit does not serve as well as trips to and within the central area. That split became critical with the Covid era when the remote work shift disproportionately affected riders commuting to downtown. This challenge is faced both by TTC and GO Transit whose business models for years depended on the revenue from high commuter volumes.

A commonly cited statistic shows that the TTC is not yet at pre-pandemic riding levels across the system, and worse does not expect to reach that until the 2030s. Why then do we run so much service, and why do riders complain? What is often forgotten was that those record years in the late 20-teens were marked by badly overcrowded service and demand that was not addressed across the network. Toronto should not aspire to return to 2019 conditions.

In late 2004, I was asked to review a major new TTC plan that was a follow-up to the 2003 Ridership Growth Strategy. It began by citing Toronto’s Official Plan objectives:

Link land use and transportation planning policies to create an effective strategy for accommodating the City’s future trip growth in a way that reduces auto-dependency by making transit, cycling and walking more attractive alternatives.

“No one should be disadvantaged getting around Toronto if they don’t own a car”

TTC cast about for a name, and I suggested “Building a Transit City”. The name stuck, and was reused in 2006 as the title of a new rapid transit plan based on LRT (Light Rail Transit, or “Rapid” depending on your preference). The Transit City scheme had a difficult history that I will not repeat here beyond saying the hopes for that plan were vastly better than what has been built.

Transit City originated as a City of Toronto response to work on the Metrolinx Big Move that consolidated wish lists from GTA municipalities. As a City project it had issues including an attempt to fit some LRT lane reservations into streets without enough space to hold them, and some bizarre ways of handling left turns at intersections. It was not perfect. Then Ontario got involved and the plan fell into the maw of Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario with their focus on P3 project delivery. The history has not been good as we have seen on Finch and Eglinton.

That car-free objective is still out of reach, and I sense we are losing ground. If anything, transit service continues to discourage riders through unreliable service, and the TTC has only a vague sense of how to fix this. A major problem lies deep in TTC culture which looks primarily to external causes, notably traffic congestion, as an uncontrollable force.

This outlook absolves management of responsibility to look inward. The headway management pilot now underway has only limited success, but this has shown TTC that the problem is not as easy to remedy as they thought.

A key issue is service frequency and the perceived capacity of service on unevenly spaced vehicles. Uneven spacing leads to uneven loading, and most riders are on full buses no matter the stats that show acceptable, average loads.

Where are we now?

Toronto Council is muddling through its 2026 budget with a low tax increase in an election year. The increase in the City Building Fund levy (for housing and transit capital projects) is actually more than the proposed increase in the basic property tax (1.5% vs 0.7%). However, there is little sense of what will happen in 2027 and beyond. Much depends on the municipal election and on the degree to which Premier Ford further meddles in transit planning and operations in Toronto.

The TTC needs metrics that truly show what is happening — riding patterns, service and fleet reliability, potential for improvement — and a Ridership Growth Strategy that is aspirational, not merely cut to fit a preconceived budget level.

Capital funding remains a big problem because new projects are added and existing ones grow in cost faster than new funding is available. Toronto is always playing catch-up and never really discussing priorities. That is particularly hard when much of the wish list is for “state of good repair”.

In the short term, there will be no new rapid transit lines beyond the soon-to-open Eglinton-Crosstown. The Ontario Line, Scarborough Subway Extension, and North Yonge Subway Extension are all targeted to early 2030s. Waterfront East and Eglinton East LRTs are even later. Meanwhile, GO expansion seems to be continually in construction, but without dates and service levels for the completed network, let along the benefits that electrification might bring.

A hard truth for Toronto is that we must make do with what’s there today. That is not sexy. Costs on the Operating Budget cannot be hidden or deferred through financing and P3 schemes as is commonly done for Capital. Running the TTC and improving service will largely be a City cost, and moreso thanks to a policy of reducing fares as a proportion of total revenue.

Today’s debating context is more about spending billions with little to show for it, and service that too often leaves riders peering down the street for signs of an approaching bus or streetcar. Transit has to succeed for Toronto to achieve its mobility goals, and that success cannot just depend on projects that are years from completion.

What will I do for the coming years? Beat the drum mercilessly for better service, for better strategic planning and awareness of what must be done. This is not a one-year-fix leading to a siesta when we can all sit back and admire our o-so-perfect transit network. There is plenty of work for the community of transit advocates. Retirement is not an option.

Pensive swan in Stratford (with attendant duck)

28 thoughts on “Twenty”

  1. I wouldn’t be concerned with slowing down Steve.

    You’re vintage and slowing becoming an Octogenarian. It’s understandable.

    Congrats on 20 years Steve!

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  2. Congratulations Steve for 20 wonderful and informative years. Your in-depth analysis and meticulous research has kept us informed, respected and appreciated as transit riders over the last two decades. Keep up the excellent work. All accolades are well deserved. Cheers!

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  4. Thank you Steve for the years of devoted service to our city. Our transit ‘blood system’ flows better for your efforts, although the capillaries need to watch their cholesterol a bit more to avoid congestion and worse!

    I have learned so much from your posts over the years, filling in gaps and explaining counterintuitive aspects of how this ecosystem operates and why the TTC chooses A over B. I look forward to many more years of blogging!

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  7. Congrats Steve on this notable milestone! Your blog has been “must read” for me for years, and I look forward to many more. Cheers!

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  11. Congratulations Steve on your 20th anniversary of your Transit Blogging! For two decades, you’ve been a guiding light, educating so many of us about the ins and outs of the TTC. Your insightful explorations of everything from day-to-day operations to long-term planning and financial challenges have been invaluable. We’re all incredibly grateful for your commitment to keeping the conversation real and informed!

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  13. The *most* annoying thing about this blog is that, as a native of Montréal and a recent returnee after ~40 years in the formerly United States (albeit in the Ontario county closest to that city), there is no blog — dans n’importe quel langue — that covers their transit as well as you cover Toronto’s.

    Not sure, really, any city in North America has coverage like this.

    Congrats on 20 years!!

    Peter
    quality bilge at irregular intervals

    Désolé, mais merci!

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  14. Many, many thanks to you Steve, and commenters, for the diligences of deep info and pointed perspectives on the transit/transick of Caronto, and it is distressing that it is often frayed on many counts, and sometimes feels on the broken side, and as Fordwards is backwards, and ‘carservatives’ have misruled us for much longer than the 20 years, it smells deliberate. I’ve got an edge in part because of another excellent resource – and hope Mr. Ed Levy is somehow able to appreciate the deep respect for his thorough tome of Transit in Toronto – but it’s clear from that book of maybe a decade ago, and may be at spacing store, that we’ve totally had plans to have made a really big difference, for transit. Now, as we seem to squander billions in a few less-wise BIG transit projects (and at least Liberals seem a bit more atop the issue), will we be at a point where a few of these likely boon-dougles will be cut out for other capital needs?

    And as cars are subsidized, (though costly to own and operate and very helpful to some sometimes), will the City have the gumption to enact a Vehicle Registration Tax, (perhaps instead of a property tax hike?), if it was clearly directed towards transit and some road repairs?

    Star had a larger story today on Eglinton, and yes, it seems imminently in service as subway now has a new transit line map showing it, and at least it was in the 1957 plan.

    Thanks again!!

    Steve: To give blame where it is due, the whole business with Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx P3s was the product of a Liberal government. The Tories embraced it when they took over.

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  16. Thanks Steve, I rarely comment, but always appreciate your articles – I can’t believe it’s been 20 years already.

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  17. I’d love to know how Mike Colle’s son, Josh, is the chief experience officer of the ttc, the previous chair of it before while his father is a member of council. Also when his father was mpp and helped usher in MLX. Way too much conflicts of interest there.

    Steve: FWIW Josh Colle is doing rather well in his current position where he appears to be acting more like a deputy CEO and being the face and voice of the TTC at many meetings on subjects well beyond “customer experience”. He is often taking the lead on presenting issues that really should be handled by the CEO. His full title is Chief Strategy and Customer Experience Officer although that does not seem to cover all he is actually doing.

    Mike Colle loathes Metrolinx. When it was created, there was political input from the City of Toronto, but McGuinty axed that and Metrolinx turned into the arrogant, secretive black box we know today.

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  18. Steve, thank you for all you do. You make our city better. Truly appreciative of your mission and work. Here’s to many more years.

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  19. Thank you Steve for pushing your agenda despite evidence to the contrary and giving us lines 5 and 6!

    I hope in the next 20 you can push for an underground streetcar to Rochester.

    All the best.

    Steve: Swan boats are better!

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  20. Thanks Steve; am glad to be corrected on the initial history of the P3, as at times/levels, don’t think there’s too much difference between Liberals and the Consaurvatives. Or is that Con-self-servatives? And Lieberals/Fiberals? Not that the NDP and Greens are the fixes either it can feel like – fossil fuels are a help on such winter days, but too bad we haven’t built our buildings like thermoses, and I don’t see the snowplows being battery operated.

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  21. Congratulations, Steve!

    Transit & Politics has inspired an entire generation of advocates because of your thoughtful, consistent, and compelling analyses.

    Many of the topics you have covered are big, and some have been even bigger. But the clear takeaway after all of these years is there is an opportunity, for everyone who wants it, to speak up to improve public transit on their street, in their neighbourhood, and in their city.

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  25. Congratulations on 20 years Steve. I thoroughly enjoy and wait for all your blogs.

    As someone who was born in the mid 50s, I see a lot of change over the years in the TTC that many may not remember or know about…..
    -the old zone 1/2 boundary in Metro Toronto. Most don’t know that Humber, Dundas/Runnymede, Northland, Roe and Bingham loops were leftover from that time period.

    Drivers selling tickets!

    Scholars tickets,that were only sold at subway stations, garages and streetcar barns, were only good from 6:30AM to 4:30PM!

    One subway line for many years from Eglinton to Union.

    All the trolley coaches gone.

    There have been a lot of changes with more to come. And please continue as you are the information watchdog that we need!! Thank you!

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  26. I’m so thankful for this blog. I’ve heard TTC employees getting information from you before they get it for TTC themselves. Which is shameful. You’re way more transparent than the people we actually vote in.

    I’m very thankful for your blog Steve! Keep up the great work! Looking forward to the next 20 years!

    I hope one day you join the TTC board. I recall you saying you won’t because you’ll be more muzzled as a result. But with all the work your already doing for free, I can only imagine the scrutiny TTC would get if you were on the board.

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  27. Steve you’ve done more to move the improve the TTC towards them all past CEOs combined.

    You totally should be and deserve to be on the TTC board as member emeritus.

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  28. Steve, thank you for all your efforts. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years already. I must have started reading your site just after you started it. I wonder when you first mentioned the Eglinton LRT plan… I have had less time to read your analyses recently due to life events, but I am looking forward to learning about thoughts on the line 5 performance.

    Steve: For who knows what reason, the TTC does not have tracking data for Finch or Eglinton even though the location of the vehicles is known to their control centre and you can see irregular spacing by looking up next vehicle arrivals on their site. This will make retrospective reviews of performance very difficult.

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