The TTC recently updated its delay records for subway, bus, streetcar and LRT on the City’s Open Data Site. These files are raw data, and some slicing and dicing are required to put them in an approachable format.
I have consolidated the data from January 2025 to April 2026 with the full set linked and explained at the end of this post. Extracts of interest are in the main article.
Caveats:
The accuracy of this information depends on what the TTC chose to log. I have no reason to believe that they omitted any incidents.
When a delay period is cited, this is the length of the event, but there is no indication of the pervasiveness on general operations and riders through multi-train delays or service suspensions. This information is not included in the logs.
There are many separate codes for events that are reported publicly as “operational” or “mechanical” problems. Getting a handle on these requires a second level of analysis to group related items. I have not done this here in the interest of getting the basic data into an article for discussion.
Much debate about subway delays and safety has focused on two areas:
Track level incursions and the benefits of Platform Edge Doors (PEDs)
Security of riders
Unauthorized access to track level is far more common than cases where a train strikes a passenger (733 incidents vs 26 over 16 months). Prevention of track level access requires a physical barrier that will dissuade all but the most determined from getting off of the platform. Other related delays involve debris which could be a source of fires. This requires a true barrier.
Security incidents take many forms, but they are quite numerous. Not all of them represent a threat to riders. There has been much hype thanks to Provincial regulations regarding open use of drugs, but other types of security and safety events are far more numerous. New arrest powers will only make a small dent. This is security theatre, not a real response to the broader range of public disturbances, aggressive behaviour, mental and other health problems. The TTC and City recognize this in the recently announced increase in various types of services to be provided on the system.
That said, I do recognize that there are problem areas on surface routes, but security in that part of the network is much less present, and current attention focuses on the subway.
What is very striking about the list is the prevalence of events related to equipment and infrastructure. These are “internal” to the TTC in that any reduction will require improvements in TTC practices. The TTC needs to address areas they can fix on their own rather than, as happens too often, they focus on issues external and beyond their control. This will not eliminate all delays, but should produce real benefits in reliability and quality of service.
The TTC Board will meet on June 3 with several items on the agenda.
The morning portion of the meeting will deal with various confidential items, and the meeting will move into public session in the afternoon, time to be announced.
Some items are forwarded from the Audit, Finance and Risk Management Committee meeting of May 26 How much debate they will get in the full Board’s public session remains to be seen.
Items of interest include:
CEO’s Report
Advancing Safety on the TTC: 2026 Focus Areas
Bloor-Yonge Capacity Improvements Project – Platform Edge Doors and Net Zero
Financial and Major Projects Update for the Period Ended April 26, 2026
Toronto Transit Commission – 2026 Follow-up – Status of Previous Auditor General’s Recommendations
Draft Consolidated Financial Statements of Toronto Transit Commission for the Year Ended December 31, 2025
Four items are administrative inquiries, or member motions including one forwarded from the recent Council meeting:
An inquiry about the usage and cost of Community Bus Routes from Chair Jamaal Myers
[From Council]: Safer Subways: Making Public Safety a Priority and Restoring Confidence to Toronto Transit Commission Riders Across Toronto
Review of Subway Capacity Constraints and Infrastructure Readiness for Protected/Major Transit Station Areas Compliance and Provincial Densification Mandates – by Commissioner Liane Kim, seconded by Commissioner Josh Matlow
Requesting a 7 Bathurst Express Bus – by Commissioner Josh Matlow, seconded by Commissioner Dianne Saxe
In this article I have grouped related items together.
The past six months brought a seemingly endless string of construction projects and streetcar diversions, and with them an ever lengthening page documenting them. The Fall-Winter 25/26 page is now retired, and a new one for mid-2026 is up.
You can access it through the sidebar on desktop displays, or from a link at the bottom of any page in the mobile version.
The TTC will make many changes to its schedules and services on Sunday, May 3. Many of these are seasonal adjustments for reduced traffic to school locations, as well as summer-only routes. Some routes will see service changes, and some construction projects will, at long last, finish. Toronto gets a reprieve for the World Cup period from major road disruptions, but this will not last long.
Other changes include some streetcar stop removals to attempt to speed up service. We will see just how effective these are after a month’s operation.
Updated May 2, 2026: Route description for 329 Night Bus corrected. Note about additional early morning trips added.
Updated May 3, 2026 at 6:30pm: The spreadsheet showing details of changes to service plans is now available.
Updated May 3, 2026 at 11:30pm: There are few destination sign changes, but a list of them has been added.
According to a bulletin from the TTC’s Safety and Environment Department, effective May 24, 2026 some speed restrictions that hobble streetcar operations will be dropped.
At crosswalks and signalized intersections, streetcars are now restricted to entering at 25 km/h. This will change so that cars can operate at up to the posted speed limit.
The 10 km/h speed restriction at intersections on The Queensway will be removed, and cars can operate up to the posted speed limit.
Intersections with special work, or with other explicit restrictions, continue to be subject to slow orders.
Notwithstanding these changes, Operators are expected to drive defensively and adapt to road and weather conditions.
This is a first step in attempting to speed up streetcar routes, but the limits at special work (switches, crossings) remain in place. This will not change, if at all, without a thorough review of factors contributing to that long-standing policy including:
Reliability of electric switch controllers,
Benefits of double-blade switches for Flexity streetcar movement through turns, and
Signaling to provide a positive indication for operators that switches are set and locked to the desired route.
That study is underway, but we are unlikely to see major changes quickly especially if replacement of existing track and controllers is needed. Related issues include:
The number of manually operated switches at locations where streetcars regularly turn for diversions and short turns, and
The degree, if any, of aggressive transit signal priority provided at existing and future switch locations.
Removal of speed restrictions related to trolley pole operation notably at low underpasses.
It is not clear why there is a delay of over three weeks for this change to take effect, but it will be in place before the World Cup games.
TTC Plans for service to the six World Cup games to be played in Toronto, as well as to the nearby Fan Fest area, were covered in a presentation deck in a recent TTC Board agenda. Because the Board had been rather chatty on previous items, this one was not presented although there was a media scrum afterward.
The plan for transportation to the venues depends on a combination of routes. However, the description of the service varies between the presentation deck and info on the TTC’s World Cup web page.
On the left, the presentation clearly shows the 63 Ossington bus as a World Cup route, but it is missing on the web page.
According to the web page, there will be “expanded service” on subway lines 1 and 2, and “enhanced sevice” on 29/929 Dufferin. Service on 504 King, 509 Harbourfront and 511 Bathurst will run every 5 minutes all day on game days.
Because the 509 and 511 streetcars merge at Bathurst and Fleet, this will mean a 2’30” combined service to Exhibition Loop. That is substantial by current TTC streetcar standards, but it will only provide 24 cars per hour with a capacity of 3,600 riders, generously allowing for 150 per car. The stress on service will be stronger after games when many fans want to leave in a short period. Whether the combined streetcar, bus and GO train service will be able to handle this remains to be seen.
Note the planned access routes to the queuing area on Fleet Street includes fare payment points. This will allow the loading to occur from a fare paid zone without the delay of on board taps, and without the need for fare enforcement in a congested area. This is also shown for access to a contingency bus area at Fort York and Lake Shore, and it is reasonable to assume the same approach will be used at Dufferin Loop.
Aggressive transit priority measures will be needed to keep streets clear. Toronto does not have a good history in restricting motorists to leave the streets for transit service, and the affected areas are not just the downtown business district but residential streets.
Both Bathurst and Dufferin Streets will, by the time of the matches, have RapidTO red lanes south from Bloor. Early plans for Bathurst called for express streetcars and local bus service, but that scheme has been dropped.
I asked Josh Colle, TTC’s Chief Strategy and Customer Experience Officer, about this, and here is his reply:
Earlier iterations of our conceptual service plan envisioned removing intermediate stops along 511 Bathurst to increase the speed of travel along the corridor during the World Cup. Bus service would be provided to serve all existing stops.
With the expected travel time improvements from RapidTO, the implementation of 6-minute or better service, and further service increases during the World Cup period, the express streetcar concept was abandoned. There were also concerns about buses operating in the dedicated lanes and needing to merge in and out of potentially congested curb lanes to serve curbside stops.
This was originally seen as an opportunity to pilot a stop removal program for streetcar while operating a local bus service. However, given the recent priority to improving streetcar operations through other initiatives, our focus remains providing the best service for all customers during the World Cup period.
The TTC intends to provide Blue Night service as shown on the map below beyond the usual level.
Things do go wrong, inevitably, and here are the TTC’s preparations:
Service delivery and performance:
Supplementary supervisors in stations, on-street, and at key locations
Additional standby and change-off vehicles on all modes
Enhanced station staff, customer service and ambassadors
Real-time system oversight and coordinated decision making
Infrastructure readiness:
Streetcar switch duty operators at critical points
Extra janitorial and vehicle cleaning crews
Additional line mechanics, elevator, overhead, subway, signal, and track crews
Standby streetcar support and service trucks
Emergency safety:
Added security personnel on match days
Toronto Police paid duty officers EMS at key locations
Coordinated approach with Station staff, Transit Control and Special Constables
Continued access to social supports and resources through partnerships
This is substantially more than we see for day-to-day operations, and there may be some lessons to be learned about the level of supervisory and support services needed to handle major events and their demand.
(The reference to switch duty operators is a tad embarrassing considering that the planned streetcar routes do not involve any manual switches, and this does not show great confidence in their existing technology.)
There will be “testing exercises” although the exact scale of these is not yet known.
Finally there are plans for enhanced and visible safety and security with the use of Special Constables, Fare Inspectors (Provincial Offenses Officers) and contract security staff. Ideally, as many riders as possible will pass through fare controls at some point in their journey and extensive fare checks on board will not be needed. More important will be visibility of staff who can intervene, if only to report issues and act as a visible deterrent.
Management will bring an updated plan to the June 3 Board meeting.
In response to the “Toronto has the world’s slowest streetcars” meme floating around on line and among some transit advocates, various proposals were floated to speed up our system.
One of these is the idea that there are too many streetcar stops, and if only cars didn’t pause so often for passengers, we could have faster streetcar service. The TTC’s euphemism for this is “stop balancing”.
A chart accompanying the TTC report shows the speed and stop spacing values for several transit systems. Toronto is down in the left bottom corner with the closes stops and the slowest speed. However, Melbourne’s trams are in the same range as Toronto for stop spacing, but they operate faster. Nowhere does the TTC examine what differences might apply to Melbourne lines, nor for the other systems that are both faster and with wider stop spacing.
Although there are some outliers, the bulk of the data points are in the 400-500m range, but this does not examine route characteristics. The original study of slow Melbourne streetcars by Dr. Jan Scheurer commented about Toronto that “CBD-typical speeds seem to extend across the entire city” [p. 8]. Riders who sit in traffic jams on King or Queen Street West, or on Queen Street in the Beach are quite familiar with this problem. Toronto streetcars do not emerge from the core to fly into nearby suburbs.
There is also the issue that Toronto streetcars used to move faster both with the CLRV fleet and the PCCs that preceded them. Something beyond stop spacing is at work even on routes with dedicates rights-of-way. It is easy to go after stops as a source of delay because this would not require an examination of TTC operating practices and the City’s lack of aggressive transit signal priority. Indeed, during the last round of major works on St. Clair, it was discovered that TSP was not actually working in many locations.
Source: TTC
For the sake of argument, assume that the delays to TTC streetcars come from closely spaced stops. Any rider knows that there are other factors including slow operation through junctions, traffic signals that do not give streetcars priority and congestion both in the core and the outer parts of many routes.
The premise is that fewer stops will speed service benefiting those already on streetcars at the expense of those who have to walk further to a stop. This is a bogus argument regardless of stop spacing. There will almost always be more riders passing any individual stop who would “benefit” from its elimination than riders who use the stop. The same argument could be made for some subway stations.
Here are the TTC’s Board-approved stop spacing standards. The target range of 300-400m for local surface routes implies an average stop spacing of 350m giving some leeway to adjust to conditions.
(To give readers a sense of distance, a subway station platform is about 150m long, and so a 300m walk is from one end of a station platform to the other and return.)
Streetcar route averages lie roughly in the 250m-325m range below the standard’s midpoint of 350m. Some stop trimming has already occurred to eliminate very closely spaced stops.
Note that 508 Lake Shore shows the same average as 507 Long Branch even though the 508 travels into the core. The reason is that the stop spacing between Humber Loop and Roncesvalles is quite wide, and this offsets the closer spacing on King Street in the average.
Route
Termini
Stop Spacing (m)
501 Queen
Neville-Roncesvalles (*)
241
Roncesvalles-Humber
448
503 Kingston Road
Victoria Park-York
284
504 King
Dundas West Stn-Distillery (*)
283
Dufferin Loop-Broadview Stn (*)
280
505 Dundas
Dundas West Stn-Broadview Stn (*)
278
506 Carlton
High Park-Main Station (*)
260
507 Long Branch
Long Branch Loop-Humber Loop
312
508 Lake Shore
Long Branch Loop-Distillery
306
509 Harbourfront
Exhibition-Union Station
373
510 Spadina
Spadina Station-Queens Quay
293
511 Bathurst
Bathurst Station-Exhibition Loop
328
512 St. Clair
Gunns Loop-St. Clair Station
270
Source: Calculated from TTC GTFS Schedule Data
Notes:
501 Queen stop data are taken from the pre-Ontario Line construction with service running directly across Queen from Church to York.
Stops near Dundas West and Broadview Stations that are used primarily by overnight services have not been included in the stop counts for 504 King and 505 Dundas.
506 Carlton stop data are taken from the through route before construction diversion around Bay & College.
Some Basic Math
If one wants to achieve a major saving from stop time, many stops have to be cut on a route. One or two will annoy their regular users, but the change in travel time, if any, will be quite small and disappear into the background noise of other variations.
The basic calculation is simple: if a route now has an average spacing of 300m, and you want to raise this to 400m, then one quarter of the stops must vanish. The bigger the change in stop spacing, the more stops must be eliminated.
The numbers of stops for various spacings per 1km are shown below:
250m: 4.0
300m: 3.3
350m: 2.9
400m: 2.5
450m: 2.2
500m: 2.0
With the TTC standard of 300-400m, 350m falls half way along, or 2.9 stops/km. Just to bring routes now at a 250m spacing (4.0/km) to that level would require a reduction of about 1.1 stop/km, or about 12 stops each way on a route the length of 505 Dundas (11km).
If the goal is to move to a 400-500m standard, this means the new target average would be 450m. A route whose average is now 250m would lose almost half its stops. This would be extremely difficult as routes do not have that many “unimportant” closely-space stops to begin with.
The effect would not be on a few riders at a few minor stops, but on many riders all along the routes. They would face extra walking distance lengthening overall travel times, not to mention accessibility issues for those with mobility challenges.
A simple, but important, number is not the space between adjacent stops, but the space that would result if any stop were removed. (In other words, the space between stop N and stop N±2.) In some cases, the existing TTC standard would still be met, but in many the gap between stops would be well outside the standard. For example, if three stops are each 300m apart, getting rid of the middle one creates a 600m gap, well above the standard.
Stops cannot simply be re-spaced to maintain uniformity or iron out problems with stop elimination. For pedestrian safety, stops are almost always at signaled intersections or at least at pedestrian crosswalks so that riders can cross safely to/from stops on the opposite side of the street. The existing street layout, signal patterns and major destinations such as transfer points determine where stops might go. Toronto, unlike Manhattan, does not have a repeating grid as a base for designing standards.
In the sections that follow, I will turn to a few sample routes. There are occasional closely-spaced stops, some with good reason, but not many are ripe for plucking without adopting a considerable increase in the standard and substantial cut to the number of stops. This should be a conscious policy debate, not a change buried in a wider review of Service Standards without a clear indication of the effects on routes across the city.
The TTC Board agenda for its April 16 meeting includes a pair of reports giving the year-end status for the Operating and Capital budgets, as well as a detailed update on major capital projects.
In this article, I will review the status of major projects to summarize info for readers. In a separate article, I will turn to the 2025 operating results. Those wishing more detail should refer to the full reports.
An important factor with many projects is that they are multi-year efforts, and some of them are not fully funded. This has different implications for various types of projects such as:
A project might still not have full funding, but a portion can proceed with the hope of additional moneys appearing along the way.
A project might have stages, but only be funded for some of them. A new vehicle purchases might have money for part of an order, but not for a sustained rollout.
Projects could be interrelated in that full exploitation of benefits cannot be achieved without completion of both. For example, a new Automatic Train Control cannot work without a fleet that can “talk” to the new signal system. Larger fleets cannot be accommodated without new storage and maintenance facilities.
Although these are large and in some cases quite expensive projects, this is not an exhaustive list. Some parts of TTC State Of Good Repair budget involve areas with many smaller projects (for example, building and structures maintenance) that are quite large in the aggregate. Vehicle overhaul is an ongoing cost, but it is not listed as a “major project” because it is routine work. These items do not appear in the Major Projects report although they comprise a large portion of the capital budget.
The projects discussed here are:
Subway Work Car Fleet and Maintenance
Station Easier Access, Second Exits and Fire Ventilation
New Subway Cars for Lines 1 and 2
ATC Signals for Line 2
Rogers 5G Rollout
Capacity Enhancements for Lines 1 and 2
Bloor-Yonge Capacity
Scarborough Busway Project
New Buses for Conventional and Wheel-Trans Service
Updated April 13 at 10pm: Comments added about line management practices.
Various tactics are proposed including priority measures and a review of operating practices that can hobble streetcar service. A problem with some of the analysis is a poor or forgotten history of how current arrangements evolved. In some cases, there is a confusion of cause and effect, of equating co-incidence with causality. Some potential solutions have extremely long lead times that will doom riders to slow operation for years if not decades.
A thread running through some issues is slow operation at junctions where streetcar tracks diverge and cross. TTC has a lot of these thanks to its network descending from a dense grid of streetcar lines over a century old. Recently, operating practices from this “legacy” system were exported to the new LRT lines 5 Eglinton and 6 Finch giving these routes, and the technology generally, a black eye. The bad reputation is so severe that new “LRT” proposals face stiff criticism and outright “we told you so” hostility.
The blame for this rests squarely with TTC, Toronto Transportation Services, and Metrolinx who collectively accepted a much-diluted version of “priority” compared to what was promised during project development. This has been partly remedied, but should never have been allowed in the first place. Imagine if a new subway line opened with permanent slow orders. This would have been laughable and unacceptable, but for a “streetcar line”, it’s just fine.
Six areas are proposed for review on the timelines shown below. The troubling part of the chart is the section labelled “2027+” which reaches into the indefinite future.
On April 7 and 10 two major outages on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth were caused by hydraulic fluid spills from work cars. The TTC has sidelined its entire fleet of work cars pending inspection and repair. This has placed much subway infrastructure work on hold at a time when there is already a backlog.
A previous leak incident in 2024 led to TTC Board reports, and the findings were not impressive. Some work cars were beyond their useful lives, and there were ongoing issues with inspection and maintenance of equipment.
A common thread in these delays has been a car leaking fluid onto the rails over an extended distance before this problem is discovered. That leads to extensive, manual cleanup work to ensure that revenue service trains can accelerate and brake without slipping.
Problems with these cars are not the only source of major disruptions, and failing signal systems requiring service suspensions are common.
The TTC has not published a list of signal failure incidents to give a sense of their frequency and severity, let alone any plan to improve reliability over the decade before a new ATC system can take over.
It is rather comical that TTC Board meetings can include extensive discussion of a new enterprise asset management system, but little info on actual condition, maintenance and plans for what we have. We should not have to wait for a large IT project to know what the issues are today.
Behind both the fleet and signals problems lie bad capital budget planning by TTC management in response to political pressure to trim spending. In past years, key interrelated projects were downplayed or sidelined including:
The need to refresh and expand the subway work car fleet
The need to convert Line 2 to Automatic Train Control
The need for a new Line 2 fleet
Under former CEO Rick Leary, in his early days, there was a sense that existing infrastructure and fleet could be stretched out to about 2040, fully ten years longer than the then-current target of 2030. In time, the ATC and new trains projects were restarted, but with much later delivery dates. According to the December 31, 2025 Major Projects Update Report, the delivery of 55 new trains will not complete until 2035, and the final cutover of ATC will not occur until 2037. Existing systems will have to last another decade.
Another factor is the timing of the Scarborough and North Yonge subway extensions which are planned to open in the early 2030s and will need new trains before the existing Line 2 fleet is retired. This is further complicated by demand projections showing the need for growth trains in the mid 2030s. Trains for new lines and extra service require production capacity that would otherwise go to a replacement fleet.
With ATC for Line 2 a decade away, the Scarborough extension will have to be built with conventional signals to tide it over until an ATC-capable fleet is running.
The TTC has not published a fleet plan showing how the various proposed deliveries of new trains will be staged. There is also the small matter of storage and maintenance space for the expanded fleets, and projects for new yards are not yet funded. The Province is happy to announce new subway lines, but conveniently omits the very large cost of the maintenance facilities.
This ties back to the work car reliability and fleet size issues because the volume of subway work will not decline, but will actually increase both thanks to aging infrastructure and system expansion. There are already severe scheduling problems for the work plans due to conflicting requirements for this fleet.
The focus at an upcoming TTC Board meeting will no doubt be on recent failures, but there are much larger issues affecting subway reliability for the coming decade and more. 2027 might seem a long time (and an election) away, but planning for that budget is already underway. The Board should demand a detailed review and plan to address the situation, and this should not be another “we’ll get back to you next year” report.
Steve Munro 