On December 9, 2024, the TTC issued Requests for Proposals for two major contracts affecting the future of Line 2 Bloor-Danforth: one for new trains, and the other for a new signalling system.
Although the documents for these RFPs total over 2,700 pages with detailed specifications for cars and signals, round one of the process is intended to establish the basic capabilities of would-be suppliers to actually handle the contract without getting into the nitty-gritty. Following rounds will get into the technical details and negotiations.
The RFP process for round one closes on January 28, 2025 (trains) and on January 27 (signals). Contract awards will occur in 2026.
Major points:
The two projects/contracts are linked because implementation of Automatic Train Control on Line 2 requires a new fleet. ATC installation can run concurrently with new train deliveries, but the benefits of ATC operation are not possible until the existing Line 2 fleet of T-1 trains is replaced.
As a separate project, the T-1s will be overhauled to keep them running into the 2030s, although they will be retired as new trains are delivered.
The new trains RFP includes provision for additional equipment including trains needed for extensions of Lines 1 and 2, and for improved service on Line 1. The timing of train deliveries for Line 2 could bump into requirements for Line 1 trains thereby delaying the Line 2 cutover to ATC. Additional trains for Line 1 also trigger the need for a new carhouse which is not yet a funded project.
Growth in capacity of Lines 1 and 2 beyond 2019 levels could be constrained by the availability of fleet and infrastructure. This has already shown up in the planned completion of the ATC cutover on Line 2 in 2035. This date conflicts with TTC projections of demand growth.
Although the RFP for new trains is theoretically open to all bidders, both the provincial and federal governments have made statements about how this will guarantee work for Thunder Bay. Bidders might well ask if any firm but Alstom actually should bother participating. Options within the RFP include future replacement of the Line 1 TR fleet which, based on a 30-year lifespan, would stretch from 2039 to 2047.
The Line 2 ATC RFP is also an open bid, and it explicitly states that if a different vendor from Line 1 (Alstom) is chosen there will be Line 1 and 2 trains with different vendors’ ATC gear. The trains will not be able to interoperate between the lines except in manual (“emergency”) mode at restricted speed.
Work cars need dual capability and the TTC intends to equip them with gear that can work with either the Line 1 or 2 system. What this might entail both for physical space on the cars, operating procedures and complexity is not discussed.
If train frequencies are improved beyond 2019 levels (less than 140 seconds), there will be capacity issues at terminals and turnbacks. The ATC RFP includes a performance requirement for faster turnarounds (as low as a 100 second headway) but it is not clear whether this is possible with existing track geometry.
The Scarborough Subway will be built with conventional block signals, and will be retrofitted with ATC in a later, as yet unfunded, project. It is not yet clear whether full service will operate during peak periods on the SSE during peak periods, and the ATC RFP provides for turnback operations in a tail track east of Kennedy Station.
Funding for future stages beyond 70 cars (55 for Line 2, plus 15 for the Scarborough and Yonge North extensions) is not guaranteed.
In a report to City Council’s meeting on December 17, we learn that the cost of the five remaining “SmartTrack” GO stations has risen above previous estimates. See:
Here is a map showing the five stations that remain in Toronto’s SmartTrack program.
The cost and funding shares are shown below.
Date
Toronto
Ontario
Canada
Total
Original
$0.878B
$0.585B
$1.463B
June 2023
$0.878B
$0.226B
$0.585B
$1.689B
The Province has now discovered that the five stations cannot be built within the available funding, and the City Manager recommends that that three of the five be retained as City priorities: East Harbour, Bloor-Lansdowne and St. Clair-Old Weston. The rational behind the choice is:
East Harbour will be a major hub linking GO Transit, the Ontario Line and future surface transit including the proposed Broadview-Commissioners link to the Port Lands.
St. Clair-Old Weston will be serve an important node in the City’s planned revitalization and urbanization of that area.
Bloor-Lansdowne does not have such a strategic significance, but it is already under construction and is likely a less-expensive station compared to others like East Harbour and Liberty Village.
For the remaining two stations at Liberty Village and Finch East, the report recommends that Council:
[…] request that the Province identify a funding solution, including exploring funding opportunities with the Government of Canada, to deliver the Finch-Kennedy and King-Liberty stations at no further cost to the City. [City report at p. 4]
We do not know cost estimates for individual stations as these are in a confidential appendix thanks to Metrolinx’ desire for secrecy. As of June 2023, the cost for five stations averaged $338 million, and is obviously higher now. Taking available funding and dividing by three, instead of five, yields a cost of $563 million. These are surface stations, not underground, although some of them involve work beyond the station structures proper. For details, refer to the technical backgrounder.
The report gives no indication of Metrolinx’ position on this scheme and whether they would simply drop the two stations, or proceed on their own with stations that originally were expected to be “free” contributions to GO’s capital program by the City.
A related problem is that from the Federal point of view, it does not matter whether their money pays for a new GO station, subway trains, or any other project. It all counts against Toronto’s “share”. This has bedeviled transit schemes in the past. Council always has its “priorities” and assumes that everything that comes along will get at least a 1/3 share from the Feds. This is not necessarily a valid assumption given competing Federal priorities, not to mention a possible change of government. If the Feds won’t come to the table, the Province may also hold back on funding as they did with the new subway car purchase making their contribution contingent on a Federal commitment.
If the Feds do kick in whatever extra is needed, what other Toronto projects will go unfunded because our share was burned up on SmartTrack?
Back in 2017, there was a proposed renewal program for Line 2 that covered many aspects including fleet planning, extensions, future demand growth, signalling and maintenance yard requirements.
Most regular transit followers in Toronto will scratch their heads and ask “what renewal program”. The problem was that it was too rich for political blood at the time and most of it was ditched after CEO Andy Byford was replaced by Rick Leary.
A fundamental premise of the plan was that all of its components would be handled through one master schedule and common overall project management. The TTC had learned from experience on Line 1 that a piecemeal approach was fraught with conflicting timetables and specifications, not to mention the danger that each piece had to be funded separately with little appreciation for the big picture.
A Rail Amalgamation Study was conducted for the TTC by HDR and Gannett Fleming starting in 2015, and it was expected to finish in 2017. The intent was to review the line’s needs based on various future scenarios. For maintenance and storage facilities, it would consider:
The use of 2-car sets rather than the 6-car TR train configuration.
Possible line extensions
Expansion of the work car fleet to support expanding infrastructure
Implementation of ATC (Automatic Train Control) signalling
A preliminary report from the study showed that capacity would be a major problem. Note that in the context of this study, the Ontario Line did not yet exist, and the intent was that Greenwood Yard would host the Downtown Relief Line trains. Even without the DRL, Greenwood would not be able to handle expected growth in demand on Line 2.
The remainder of this article shows the details of the resulting plan, notably proposals for a new Line 2 fleet and expansion of the work car fleet that might have been set in motion had this scheme not been sidelined.
The TTC had a consolidated plan for Line 2 (and for the DRL), but this fell victim to budget cuts, the idea that we could “make do” rebuilding old trains and signal systems, and then the Provincial intervention with Metrolinx showing how they “knew better” how to plan and build rapid transit lines. We all know how that worked out.
The primary report among these is from Hatch, a consulting engineering firm with rail industry expertise. Their task, as they state clearly, was to determine the underlying technical reasons for each incident, but not to delve into TTC operational practices.
There are many cases cited of inadequate vehicle inspection and maintenance, lack of procedures and standards, undertrained staff, and poor record-keeping to document the history of affected vehicles. These are not isolated incidents, but ongoing problems.
The Management Action Plan consolidates all of the recommendations from Hatch and APTA together with their current status. Many are “complete” and others are “in progress”. What is clear from the extent of the list is that many problems, some quite serious, required action by the TTC. How did the system get into that state in the first place?
The TTC management report looks only at the hydraulic fluid spills, but does not consider the wider context of two previous reviews of maintenance and record keeping: the Streetcar Overhead Section, and the post-mortem report on the SRT derailment. There is a sense that “we have fixed this” through the substantial implementation of consultant recommendations, but without the broader context.
On a more general level, there are two obvious questions:
How many more sections or processes within the TTC suffer from similar issues, and are problems just waiting to surface?
Is the lower maintenance standard really confined only to work vehicles, or have staffing and funding limitations affected support for revenue vehicles and infrastructure too?
The management report states:
Both reports [Hatch and APTA] identified common root causes, and while they found that the TTC’s practices are typical of the industry, they recommend implementing a more robust preventative maintenance program of procedures, training, and quality control modeled after what the TTC has in place for revenue service vehicles. [Management report at p. 1]
The comment about TTC practices being “typical of the industry” is telling. If the situation described in the reports really is typical, the transit industry is in perilous condition. Saying “everybody else does it this way” does not explain how work car maintenance is nowhere near what one would expect from a once pre-eminent transit system in North America.
The Hatch report described the situation differently:
The lack of detailed documentation for the design and maintenance of the work car fleets is highlighted as a major issue in this report, especially for the repair of hydraulic hoses. However, Hatch’s experience with other major transit agencies in North America like TTC, suggest that design and maintenance documentation supplied by work car OEMs does not usually contain detailed information on the installation of the hydraulic hoses except when mandated by a procurement specification or used for very specific applications (e.g. rigid hoses, specialty hoses and fittings, and components that are hard to procure and/or have long lead times). [Hatch at p. 39]
That remark refers to the availability of documentation, not to day-to-day maintenance practices.
The APTA report is silent on practices at TTC compared to other systems.
This is a significant discrepancy between the management report and the documents from Hatch and APTA, and one cannot help seeing this as “spin” to put TTC practices in the best possible light.
Summary of Incidents
The table below gives an overview of the incidents reviewed by Hatch.
Date
Description
Sun Jan 14
Car RT56 spilled 10L of fluid between Sherbourne and Donlands Stations. Cause: Hydrostatic hose failure
Wed Jan 17
Car RT17 spilled 120L of fluid between Eglinton West and Dupont Stations. Cause: Filter O-ring failure
Sat Feb 10
Car RT7 spilled 5L of fluid in Greenwood Yard during a pre-departure inspection. Cause: A faulty hydraulic filter O-ring
Mon Apr 22
Car RT41 spilled 50L of fluid while shunting into Greenwood wye north of the yard. Cause: O-ring failure
Mon May 13
Car RT56 spilled 100L to 140L of fluid at Spadina Station (Line 1) and other locations while it was being towed back to Greenwood Yard. Cause: Abraded hose Service effect: Line 2 was shut down for over 12 hours as the affected area was greatly expanded by moving a leaking car through the system rather than isolating it for inspection and repair.
Wed May 15
Car RT84 spilled 200L of fluid on the trackbed north of Eglinton Station. Cause: Excessively worn driveshaft clutch plates seized and disintegrated leading to further damage including a severed hose.
Thu May 16
Car RT41 leaked 0.25L of fluid on the trackbed at Keele Station. Cause: O-ring failure under a pressure sensor
Sun May 26
Car RT18 leaked 30L of fluid onto open track between Victoria Park and Kennedy Stations. Cause: Incorrect hose and fitting used in a previous repair cause a hose failure.
Some of these incidents were cleaned up before affecting revenue service, or occurred in yards where there would be no effect. This does not minimize the severity of so many failures in such a short time span. Some of the cleanup efforts required multiple passes to complete satisfactorily.
One outcome of this review is the recognition that clean-up of spills requires better handling than in the past, but the basic issue is that the spills should occur less frequently, if at all, in the first place.
Readers who want to see complete details and photographs of these incidents should peruse the Hatch report.
One key point should be knocked on its head: back in May, there were questions about possible sabotage given the spate of events in a two-week interval. The investigation showed that all incidents were due to component failure from lack of maintenance, or of incorrect maintenance. The May 13 incident was a direct result of the routing of a hose through a floor grate where it would chafe and eventually fail. “Sabotage” was a red herring at the time, and remains so today. [There is an extensive review of the metallurgical condition of the hose and the floor grate in the Acuren Group report.]
TTC plans to up its spending on work cars. It is worth noting that a plan to refresh and expand the work car fleet under former CEO Andy Byford was sidelined when Rick Leary took over as, initially, was the plan to renew the Line 2 fleet.
The TTC’s 2024-2033 Capital Budget and Plan includes $34.0 million of approved funding for work car overhauls and $63.4 million toward work car procurements.
TTC staff will include a funding request in its 2025 Operating Budget submission to establish a more robust work car preventative maintenance program.
This statement is a clear admission that the program now in place is inadequate. A related issue is that the backlog of necessary work is directly related to work car availability, and in turn that drives the longevity of slowdown orders on the subway.
At its meeting of September 24, 2024, the TTC Board received a presentation from Fort Monaco, Chief Operations and Infrastructure Officer, on subway restricted speed zones (aka “RSZs”).
From the sheer number and duration of these, it has been clear to riders that the TTC fell behind both in the quality of its track maintenance, and in its ability to work through the backlog. It is one thing to say that RSZs are implemented for safety, but when they are so numerous, “safety” had become a matter of necessity beyond routine levels.
The current RSZ map, together with expected dates when these zones will be repaired, is from the appendix of the presentation deck. Monaco noted that with each RSZ adding about two minutes of travel time, the trip from Wilson to Union Station is extended by about 15 minutes.
The locations where these occur are overwhelmingly in “open cut” locations where rail is laid on ties and ballast. In tunnels, rail is either mounted directly on the concrete tunnel floor, or on structures which themself are fixed to the tunnel. Such track cannot shift around as much from forces of passing trains. Other track issues include several types of wear that can induce noise and rough train operation, but also fractures from metal fatigue.
Since January 2023 the accumulated count of RSZs is almost 300. Of these, only 30 were planned, typically for track renewal projects where a slow order is required over an extended period while work is in progress.
The TTC seeks feedback on its Innovation and Sustainability Strategy. As I write this, the announcement has been posted on X/Twitter, but not on the main TTC page. Instead, it is well hidden, like so much on the TTC site, among many items on the “Riding the TTC” page under “Green Initiatives”. There is a link from the survey’s introductory page, but this is only available when launching the survey, not afterward. Within the Green Initiatives page is a link to the TTC’s 2024-2028 Draft Innovation and Sustainability Strategy, a 50-page document that puts the survey in a wider context, but which most readers are unlikely to access, let alone read.
The survey contains three sections addressing various aspects of a TTC strategy:
An “innovation pipeline”
Prioritizing climate actions
A culture of innovation and sustainability
Reading through the Draft Strategy, the overwhelming impression is of the creation of a bureaucracy within the TTC, not to mention a pervasive presence of an Innovation and Sustainability czar. Much of their work would focus on internal changes, only some of which actually address climate effects. This is not to say that innovation per se is a bad thing, but it is not defined. Moreover, it has been bundled with schemes to green the TTC that are really a separate project.
The July 17 Board meeting was extraordinarily long thanks to three in camera items, plus extended discussions of the CEO’s Report and of use of buses as homeless shelters during the winter.
The confidential session dealt with:
A collective bargaining update for two small groups of customer service and operations supervisor employees.
An update on advice from External Counsel. On a recorded vote, this was adopted with all Board members except Councillor Saxe in favour. As of the publication of this article (July 28), there have been no leaks about the subject of this report.
An update on the fare modernization program including the status of the Presto contract. The report was also discussed briefly in the public session later in the meeting.
The public meeting included:
The July 16 storm, flooding and hardening of infrastructure against climate change.
New subway trains and federal funding announced earlier the same day (July 17).
Prioritization of State of Good Repair projects. This item received scant attention although the report contains much interesting background on capital plans.
Safety on the TTC.
Use of shelter buses.
Transit network expansion update.
Fare Compliance Action Plan: See the updated version of my previous article on this report which includes the debate at the Board meeting.
Not discussed was the issue of hydraulic fluid leaks from subway work cars of which one quarter are still out of service. A report is supposed to be coming to the Board soon. It is not clear how much this situation is affecting the TTC’s ability to stay on top of track maintenance issues and the growing list of slow orders for track that cannot be safely operated at full speed.
The section on 2016 budgets has been corrected to show the then almost completed TR train delivery and the proposed T1 replacement project. These were conflated erroneously in the original text.
In the evolution of pricing for T1 replacement trains, I erroneously omitted a major change in cost estimates from a report in November 2023 which saw a roughly 50% jump in the cost of new trains. The text of the article has been modified accordingly with changes noted by text strikeouts and italics. My apologies for the error.
TTC’s need for a replacement Line 2 fleet has been known for many years. The “T1” cars were delivered between 1995 and 2001, and they will hit their 30-year design life through the latter 2020s. These cars are often talked of as if they will all be over the hill in 2026, but there actual range runs out to 2031. The important issue is to start deliveries of new cars so that the oldest and least reliable can be retired before they affect service.
Some of the T1s were originally used on Line 4 Sheppard, but they were displaced with the shift to Automatic Train Control on Line 1 Yonge-University-Spadina. Sheppard trains run on ATC to reach Davisville Carhouse even though Line 4 itself is manually operated. This change added to the surplus T1 fleet.
When the Scarborough Subway Extension was expected to open in 2026, the extra cars would have provided initial service there, but this is no longer possible because they will age out of use before the line opens.
In the 2018 Capital Budget, presented in the last months of Andy Byford’s tenure as CEO, there are three related items:
Purchase of 372 new subway cars (2018 to post 2026)
New Subway Maintenance Facility (Property acquisition)
Line 2 resignalling (ATC)
The new subway MSF would be on property southwest of Kipling Station, the former CPR Obico Yard, and this has been purchased by the City. At the time, the Relief Line trains were expected to use Greenwood Yard and displace part of the Line 2 fleet, hence the need for a second yard. Moreover, if the new trains were in six-car units like the TRs on Line 1, Greenwood Shops would not be suitable as it was designed for two-car sets.
The clear intent was complete replacement of the T1 fleet starting with design and prototypes, then production deliveries roughly in line with the projected T1 retirement dates.
An “Ooops” In Funding Advocacy?
Updated July 1 at 11:00am: This section has been revised in light of the November 2023 report which used a much higher unit cost/train for the T1 replacements than all previous estimates. If there is an “ooops”, it lies in the use of a lower cost estimate for new trains for an extended period with a very recent jump that increased the unfunded portion of the project. The original estimate would now only cover the cost of replacement trains for Line 2 at its pre-pandemic level of service, but not any expansion/extension trains.
For many years, the plan for new trains required 62 trains (372 cars), a one-for-one replacement of the T1s, to re-equip Line 2 Bloor-Danforth and 18 trains to provide extra trains for service improvements on Line 1. Of the 62 trains on Line 2, 55 would provide the existing Kennedy-Kipling service, and 7 were headed for the Scarborough extension. In the most recent iteration, there are 55 trains for Line 2. The 7 SSE trains are combined with the 18 Line 1 trains to give 25 trains for unspecified future needs.
The full history is tracked later in the article.
Between the 2023 and 2024 budgets the project went from 80 trains for $2.487 billion in 2023 to 55 trains for $2.4-2.5 billion in 2024. Materials produced in support of the purchase and of lobbying efforts to gain federal funding are quite clear that only 55 trains are involved, not 80. This effectively raises the price per train by 50 per cent.
The following text is no longer appropriate, but has been left as a matter of record. Apologies for the error.
Conversely, if the real intent is to buy 80 trains, then pitching the needed subsidy as being only for the Line 2 trains misrepresents what is really happening. This would be an order both for the Bloor-Danforth line’s state of good repair and for accommodation of future extensions and growth.
The TTC has yet to produce updated demand projections for its subway system in a post-covid environment, and it is unclear how many trains will be required to address demand growth and expansion.
Meanwhile, a call for one third federal funding for a 55 train project at $758 million misrepresents the scope and purpose of the new trains. The scope of the planned TTC order is shown below, but with all of the cost allocated against Line 2.
However, elsewhere the plan describes the purpose of this investment as:
Purchase of new subway trains to replace the aging T1 trains, meet ATC requirements and align the fleet with ridership growth forecasts [p. 44 of the 2024 15-Year Capital Plan].
There is a fundamental discrepancy between the claimed need for and funding of new trains between 2023 and 2024 budgets. If the pricing for an 80-train order in years 2023 and before is correct, then the available City and Provincial funding would pay for the 55 Line 2 trains.
The Capital Plan and Shifting Priorities
The 15-Year Capital Plan landed with a thud when it was introduced as part of the 2019 budget. Unlike previous versions of capital plans, it included everything the TTC thought was necessary whether money was available to fund it or not. The price tag was a big shock, over three times the size of the conventional capital plan. This has since grown to four times as the appetite for capital projects goes up, but funding does not.
Transit priority decisions were a very expensive shell game involving the timing and cost of transit projects. Until Premier Ford uploaded four major expansion schemes (Ontario Line, formerly the Relief Line, Eglinton Crosstown, Scarborough and Yonge North) in 2020, there simply was not enough money on the table to pay the City’s share for everything. Also competing for funding were SmartTrack stations, Eglinton East LRT and Waterfront East LRT, not to mention additional streetcars for service expansion, and bus replacements and migration to an all-electric fleet.
The 2019 plan shifted the purchase of new subway cars to post-2028. In its place was a 10-year life extension program for the T1 fleet stretching it out into the 2030s. The scope of the Line 2 ATC project was also adjusted because the T1 fleet cannot be modified to run with ATC signalling.
This achieved a reduction in capital requirements in the short term, but gambled on the viability of the T1s and the old block signal system on Line 2 surviving reliably into the late 2030s. This scheme was short-lived, but it served a purpose of reducing the TTC’s apparent capital requirements to make room for other projects, notably John Tory’s SmartTrack.
Both the provincial and federal government made commitments to some projects based on political considerations and the then-stated priorities of Toronto Council. One casualty of the proposal to defer new trains for ten years was funding for that project. For a time, it went from a “must have” to a future need.
By 2020, the plan included a proposal to buy replacement trains in the 2026-2030 time frame depending on funding, and deleted the life extension program for the T1s.
Ontario signed on for its share of a new fleet. Add-on orders will furnish trains for the Scarborough and Yonge North extensions that will cost less than they would as small, free-standing buys.
Replacement of the Line 2 fleet cannot proceed as a single project. The signal system dates from the 1960s and uses old technology. This presents both a maintenance and reliability challenge for the TTC and limits the frequency of service to what is possible with conventional block signals. That design holds trains further apart than an automatic train control system using “moving” blocks that can allow trains to pull closer together based on their speed and fine-grained location of their positions. Although new trains can be manually operated with old signals (as occurred on Line 1 during its transition to ATC), new signals require new trains.
By 2021, the new yard at Kipling had been pushed beyond the capital plan’s 10-year horizon. The Relief Line would have used TTC subway cars, but was replaced by the Ontario Line. Metrolinx claimed, falsely, that the OL would use newer up-to-date technology than the TTC would have provided. (This was a case of contrasting a brand new line with the oldest of TTC subway vehicles, signalling and operations.)
Originally the pressure for the Kipling yard came from using part of Greenwood Yard for the Downtown Relief Line, but the Ontario Line has its own Maintenance and Storage Facility at Thorncliffe Park. Trains for the Scarborough extension can be fitted within existing yards and spare tracks, but any service increase beyond pre-covid levels will trigger the need for a western yard. (A separate northern yard is under study as part of the Line 1 extension to Richmond Hill.)
Greenwood Shops, like the B-D line, is 60 years old and in need of overhaul and upgrades. Part of the original plan for a Kipling facility was to free up space for this work at Greenwood by reducing demand on the yard and shop space. However, with the deferral of Kipling, the Greenwood upgrades will occur while the yard is stuffed with the existing fleet and working through the transition to new trains. This saves money on a new yard at the expense of operational complexity and probably a longer period for upgrades than would otherwise be needed.
Federal Funding for T1 Replacements
The federal government has not yet committed funds to the T1 replacement project. Their current proposal involves a permanent transit fund available country-wide beginning in 2026. Whether the Trudeau government will still be in office to make any payments from such a fund is in some doubt.
Transit systems, not just Toronto’s, would like to pre-book payments from this fund so that they will be sure of the case flow in a few years and can launch major projects such as the T1 replacement now. The feds have been silent on that request although the TTC claims that discussions are underway.
The Federal Permanent Transit Fund (PTF) is set to provide new funding in 2026. Early commitments of funding under the Permanent Transit Fund (PTF) are needed this year, by opening up the intake process for critical in flight projects such as new subway trains. This is a request being made by all major transit agencies1 (STM, TransLink), and the Canadian Urban Transit Association2. Even if federal funding does not flow before 2026, having a firm approval of funding to be allocated from the PTF program will allow the TTC to launch the procurement. [Backgrounder, p. 2]
Even assuming that the fund will exist when it is needed, booking projects against it has a downside in that money earmarked for the subway cars will not be available for other projects. There is also a basic problem that the fund is thought to be too small, but that is a separate matter depending on government priorities well beyond the next election.
Local priorities can have their own effect in misdirecting spending. The SmartTrack Stations program will build five additional GO stations (East Harbour, Liberty Village, Bloor-Lansdowne, St. Clair-Old Weston and Finch-Kennedy) at a total cost of $1.689 billion of which $585 million comes from the Federal government and $878 million from the City. This arrangement came into effect in April 2018, the period when the TTC downplayed the importance of new trains thereby making room for John Tory’s signature project. A few years later, priorities changed again, but the federal money was already committed to SmartTrack.
Toronto is using scarce transit funds, regardless of their source, paying over $300 million per station for what should be a GO Transit project.
Shifting priorities have delayed other projects and/or changed their scope, and federal money that might have been scooped if projects actually were underway sat on the table. Some of this is now rolled into the overall transit fund, and it will be up to Toronto to actually launch projects to use whatever has been allocated. Toronto will have to actually decide what it can afford within available funding rather than assuming other governments will always shell out, and that they will keep funding “commitments” alive while Council dithers about whose ward gets the next transit project.
Evolution of the Proposed Purchase
The replacement of the T1 fleet is a high priority for the City and TTC. Two documents in the Board’s June 2024 agenda covered this in some detail:
There is a major change between past year budget presentations on the subject of new trains and information in these reports.
Updated July 1 at 11:00am: This change was first reported in November 2023 when the estimated cost of new trains was substantially higher than in all previous reports:
Updated July 1 at 11:00am: Estimated cost of 62 T1 replacement trains in 2016 added. Updated pricing from November 2023 added.
($ billion)
T1 Replacement Trains
Line 1 Growth Trains
T1 Life Extension
New Trains (Total)
2016
$1.737 (62)
2019
$0.068 (*)
$0.430
$0.720
2020
$2.270 (62) (**)
$0.500 (18)
$0.710
2021
$1.742 (62)
$0.501 (18)
$2.243B (80)
2022
$1.600 (62)
$0.720 (18)
$2.320 (80)
2023
$1.718 (62)
$0.769 (18)
$2.487 (80)
2023 (Nov)
$2.222 (55)
$1.010 (25)
$3.232 (80)
2024
$2.4-2.5B (55)
Notes:
(*) T1 payment in shown in the 2019 budget is a downpayment that would be made at the start of the procurement contract.
(**) The value of the T1 replacement shown in 2020 is high because this assumes the contract would not start until much later in the decade, and includes inflation.
Two things have happened:
7 of the 62 Line 2 T1 replacement trains have become Line 1 growth trains. These were originally trains for Scarborough, but responsibility for them has shifted to Metrolinx. However, the TTC has not reduced the total order size to compensate for this.
The background information on the replacement trains talks only of the 55 Line 2 trains, but uses the full $2.4-$2.5 billion cost reflecting the revised unit cost from the November 2023 report.
In fact about one third of the train order would be used for Line 1 growth, but the total dollar value is erroneously claimed to be only for the Line 2 trains. This is a deeply misleading presentation.
The remainder of this article looks at the history of the T1 fleet and the shifting plans for its replacement including the budget and fleet plans for Lines 1 and 2. For an extensive discussion of subway fleet history, see Transit Toronto’s site.
Subway service on the central portion of Line 2 Bloor-Danforth was suspended for over 12 hours on Monday, May 13 due to a spill of hydraulic fluid on the tracks. The replacement bus service was swamped by the combination of subway demand and congestion on Danforth Avenue and Bloor Street. The situation was compounded by changing and incomplete information about the extent and potential duration of the problem.
This was initially described as a spill somewhere between Sherbourne and Castle Frank Stations with the impression that the directly affected area was small. In fact, the volume was large, 200L of hydraulic fluid, and the area ran from Spadina to Greenwood Yard (east of Donlands Station). Trains could not operate safely until the rails were cleaned and operators could brake with confidence that trains would actually stop correctly.
This was not the first such incident. At a TTC Board Meeting earlier in 2024, ATU Local 113 had raised the issue of operational safety after a similar, albeit smaller problem in January at Eglinton West Station. Following the May 13 spill, the ATU wrote to the TTC Board raising basic questions about the incident, and by implication how well-informed the Board actually was about ongoing issues with subway safety.
At the May 16 Board meeting, management gave an extensive presentation about hydraulic fluid leaks and the recent increase in the frequency of these events. It is not clear whether such a detailed presentation would have occurred without the ATU going directly to Board members. Management’s credibility and transparency have been open to question following a near-miss incident at Osgoode Station that went unreported to the Board for almost a year, as well as track and infrastructure problems including the SRT derailment, and the need for ongoing slow orders due to problems with subway track.
CEO Rick Leary has retained external consultants, Hatch LTK, to review these incidents, and there will be a peer review by APTA (American Public Transit Association).
A much broader concern is subway delays of various types and how they are handled. Some have external causes (passengers wandering at track level, for example), but some are “own goals” in the sense that they arise from operational or infrastructure issues that could have been prevented. Whatever the reason, all of them strain the subway’s ability to provide reliable service. This works directly against the drive to restore transit’s credibility and attract new and returning riders.
Far more is needed than free Wi-Fi here and a new kiosk there. Creature comforts are nice, but the service must be trustworthy. The TTC’s fundamental job is to move people. The lion’s share of delays might be due to external factors beyond the TTC’s control, but how they react to delays is key.
Growth of transit ridership is a subject often discussed in the abstract, but rarely with specifics and particularly with no thought to the financial implications for Toronto and supporting “partners” in other governments. Transit is one of those “good things” we will support at least with fantasy maps of future networks and even billions here and there for construction. Actual transit service is quite another matter.
This issue surfaces again with two 5-year plans at the TTC Board meeting of May 16, 2024:
Both plans talk about many things other than ridership, and I will leave a wider review for another day. The Corporate Plan includes one of those great time-wasters of management navel-gazing, new vision and mission statements.
The new vision statement: Moving Toronto towards a more equitable, sustainable and prosperous future.
The new mission statement: To serve the needs of transit riders by providing a safe, reliable, efficient, and accessible mass public transit service through a seamless integrated network to create access to opportunity for everyone.
The concept of actual growth is buried in five “strategic directions” rather than being the one overarching goal.
Build a Future-Ready Workforce.
Attract New Riders, Retain Customer Loyalty.
Place Transit at the Centre of Toronto’s Future Mobility.
Transform and Modernize for a Changing Environment.
Address the Structural Fiscal Imbalance.
In simpler days, this was expressed by the motto still found on the TTC coat of arms:
“Service Courtesy Safety”
The Service and Customer Experience Plan, true to its name, actually focuses on service although one might hope it would aim higher if only to inform debate on possible futures for Toronto. It does include a number of options including costs projected out five years. This is a welcome reminder of the 2003 Ridership Growth Strategy that started from the premise “here is what we could achieve” rather than “we cannot afford to even talk about improvements”.
Not mentioned in either of these is the TransformTO scheme for massive increase in transit service and ridership. TTC staff included this in a December 2023 update on their Electric Bus Plan. There has been some confusion about whether this is actually an approved Council policy, and I understand that it is not. In any event, it is another vision of the future, and it would incur very high costs for additional fleet, infrastructure and service.
A vital point about service plans is that rapid transit construction alone will not achieve high growth both because trains must run in those tunnels to carry riders, but also because those riders do not all live and work at stations. The service to and between the rapid transit lines is as important as the shiny new stations and tunnels.
Steve Munro 