Service Cost and Quality

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How Can We Increase TTC Service?

Much discussion in the current election campaign targets TTC fares and proposed changes in 2027. Depending on which candidate you trust, they might go up, selectively, be frozen, or even go down with the effect of future changes to fare capping rules.

Many surveys, including a recent one from Liaison Strategies, show that the key factor in retaining and attracting riders to transit is not fares, but service reliability, frequency, and comfort. This includes many factors, and the “fixes” do not lend themselves to simple campaign slogans.

Drawing lines on maps is a favourite pass-time for politicians and the consultants who feed off their desire for a credible plan. We went through that with John Tory’s ever-vanishing SmartTrack scheme, then later with Doug Ford’s subway plan. They share one thing: nothing needs to be done today, and come tomorrow the plan might shrink thanks to technical challenges and limited financing. The Ford plan survives because of spending (and borrowing) at a level that would never occur without a generous infusion of political ego. Planned spending on the provincial subway plan is on a par with the TTC’s entire state of good repair backlog.

Fare schemes, be they new concession rates, discounts or regional amalgamations, can be quickly implemented at comparatively modest cost, but they do little beyond, possibly, generating added ridership which might, or might not, be translated to added service and capacity. With fare revenue covering only 40% of the operating budget and none of the capital, it is impossible for fare cuts to generate enough new riding and income to pay for service increases.

Toronto has a long-term plan, TransformTO, that seeks “net zero” transportation emissions through complete electrification of transit by 2040. That is comparatively easy to achieve because it is the path the TTC is on already. However, a more ambitious plan originally aimed at a major shift away from autos to transit by 2050, but now has a 2040 target. There is no sense of how Toronto will achieve this.

A technical backgrounder to the 2050 plan proposed, among other things, that Toronto:

  • Convert one lane of traffic to exclusive bus lanes on all arterials.
  • Increase service frequency on all transit routes:
    • bus by 70%, streetcar by 50%, subway off-peak service increased to every 3 mins.
  • Tolls of $0.66/km on all arterial roads.
  • Free transit. No transit fares.

In the current political climate, it is easy to guess the fate of exclusive bus lanes and road tolls. Free transit would cost over $1-billion annually before accounting for the cost of the additional service.

The TTC Capital Plan includes a long-range, unfunded provision for TransformTO:

  • Vehicles (added buses and streetcars): $3.51-billion
  • Infrastructure (2 additional garages, upgrades to existing garages and carhouses, expanded terminals to handle higher service levels): $3.82-billion

There is no mention of operating costs for the larger fleets and all of the added service nor is there even an outline of a plan to get from the transit system of 2026 to the hoped-for 2040.

Somewhere in between the aggressive goals of TransformTO and current service levels is likely what riders will actually see. The TTC has not published a detailed analysis of options, and the Board, in spite of having a “Strategic Planning Committee”, has not asked for one.

Any plan to improve transit service must look at the network as a whole, at how routes in many parts of the city can provide better service. This will require decisions about the size of the transit system, growth of the surface bus and streetcar services, and tradeoffs needed in the use of road space.

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TTC Service Standards Consultation Round One

The TTC is reviewing its Service Standards with consultations of interested groups and the general public. The first public survey is now online until Sunday, October 11, 2026.

The goals, as stated in the introduction to the online questionnaire, are:

  • bring more transparency to how we plan, deliver, monitor, and evaluate service
  • support better service planning and delivery
  • make sure our standards better reflect the perspectives and experiences of customers and front-line staff

Full disclosure: I have participated in earlier reviews of the Standards through the TTC’s Planning Advisory Committee.

This round does not cover all aspects of the Standards, but seeks to gain feedback on some key issues and options:

  • Streetcar stop spacing
  • Service reliability
  • Vehicle crowding

A second round in the Winter (date TBA) will present findings and recommendations, and may address other topics. This process will not reach the point of new standards going to the TTC Board for approval before the 2027 Network Plan or the 2027 Budget, but could affect in-year service changes either as a goal or a constraint.

Although the TTC hopes to develop new or refined metrics by which service could be analyzed, there is little of this in the survey. A challenge with metrics is the need to understand how they work, and in particular what opportunities they provide to “game the standards”. In effect, are gold stars rewarded for indifferent work because the questions and marking scheme are skewed?

Even with its shortcomings, I urge readers who care about TTC service to fill out the survey.

The main part of this article reviews the questionnaire and some of the assumptions behind the options offered.

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TTC Announces More Streetcar Diversions

In addition to the Queen West diversion I wrote about yesterday, the TTC has announced other changes affecting streetcar routes. These are hidden on the “Construction Notices” page which does not automatically link articles to the route schedule pages. Riders used to looking under “Service Changes” would not find these.

501 Queen Update

While the Queen cars are diverted to King for Hydro work in Parkdale, track repairs will occur on Queen at Brock and at Sorauren during the week of September 21 to 28.

Effective November 1, 501/301 Queen cars will divert both ways via Coxwell, Gerrard and Broadview for rail and water main reconstruction on Queen between Leslie and Vancouver (west end of Russell Carhouse, east of Greenwood).

512 St. Clair Update

The Metrolinx work on the rail bridge at Keele Street is complete, streetcar overhead restoration is in progress.

Track repairs on St. Clair between Bathurst and Vaughan will require a complete replacement of streetcar service for the period from September 28 to October 3.

From September 28, buses will operate on 512/312 St. Clair from Gunn’s Loop to St. Clair Station streetcar platform.

Streetcar service over the full route will resume on October 3.

The 512B shuttle from Gunn’s Loop to Lansdowne Station, and the extension of 340 Junction to Oakwood Loop will continue to October 31.

506 Carlton Update

Track repairs on the Gerrard Street bridge at the Don Valley will run from 11pm on Thursday, October 8 for about 10 days (to the weekend of October 17/18).

506/306 Carlton shuttle buses will continue to run on Gerrard.

This effectively extends the Carlton diversion around work between Yonge and Church east from Parliament to Broadview via Dundas.

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The Plague of Subway Reduced Speed Zones

Riders of the western branch of TTC’s Line 1 Yonge-University-Spadina have suffered through long-standing areas of restricted speed opertion for years. However, the problem has crept onto the eastern branch is recent months making for very slow trips over the most heavily used part of the line.

On the past weekend (September 19-20, 2026), Line 1 was closed between St. Clair and College for track repairs, but this is only one in a seemingly unending series of works.

Subway service becomes less and less credible through many types of delay, but also the sense that nothing is done. Much debate recently in social media and now in election campaigns focuses on Platform Edge Doors (PEDs) whose supposed purpose is to keep riders off of the tracks (regardless of their motive) and resulting delays. An installation-in-progress at TMU (formerly Dundas) Station is laughably inadequate to this task.

Any goal of increasing transit use is doomed if the service offered is slow and unreliable. Without downplaying the potential value of PEDs, a far more pervasive problem is part of the daily subway experience – slow zones.

Here is the map of slow zones taken from the TTC’s site on Saturday, September 19. The “downtown” part of Line 1 is particularly bad, but the “Spadina” leg of the subway is close behind.

These are detailed in tables taken from the same TTC page (click to expand).

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Fares, Ridership and Service

The condition of transit service, its cost and quality, feature in the current municipal election debates. Some of the info quoted by candidates and their supporters is accurate, some is not. One could shrug one’s shoulders and say “t’was ever thus”. In an attempt to get clear information out on the table, this article collects financial and ridership info for past two decades to give a longer view.

Some of this is quite detailed. There is no way to avoid this in looking at service because too often the stats are presented in aggregate with averages that hide what individual riders on individual routes see.

Data Sources:

Comparing Today With Pre-Pandemic Service

Trips and Fare Level

The annual count of trips grew through the early 2000s, and this was a source of pride to the TTC and its Board. However, that growth stalled in the mid-2010s and showed a slight downturn. The Board was still patting itself on the back as the growth curve flattened out and the rate of growth dropped.

At the time, the sense was that more of the growth came in the off-peak where there was surplus capacity rather than in the peak where crowding was severe. Eventually even the off-peak service filled up and new riders stopped appearing. During the same period there had been small fare increases, but at a level where service rather than fare was the dominant factor affecting growth.

2020 brought the covid pandemic and a steep drop in ridership. Note that the full year effect is not seen until 2021 because the first two months of 2020 were “normal”.

Riding started to build in 2022, but remains below the pre-pandemic level for various reasons, notably a shift to work-from-home. Demand into downtown on the subway and streetcar networks is building again in 2026 thanks to increased work-from-office mandates, offset partly by a decline in student travel thanks to cutbacks in foreign student visas. Weather conditions, particularly the winter, also play a role in discouraging travel.

The TTC CEO’s reports shows modal riding changes occasionally, but does not give a month-by-month breakdown. 2026 will be an “odd” year thanks to extra World Cup traffic, offset by those who stayed away from downtown to avoid transit and traffic congestion, and the bitter winter months.

Fares grew slowly through the period up to 2020, but there was only a single 10-cent increase in 2023. This was a policy decision by the then-Mayor and Council, supported by special covid-era subsidies from the Provincial and Federal governments. These allowed service to be maintained at close to pre-pandemic levels through the dip in riding and fare revenue.

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Are You Riding the TTC More, But If Not, Why Not?

Liaison Strategies published a poll today, September 9, conducted for their Toronto Pulse Series and the Toronto Star. The questions concern mainly the coming mayoral election, and these have been covered in the mainstream media. However, there are four questions about TTC usage that make interesting reading considering how much transit policies are discussed (or not) in various circles.

The questions are:

  • Compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic, do you now choose to take the TTC more often, less often or about as often?
  • For those who cite “less often”:
    • What is the main reason you choose the TTC less often than you did before the pandemic?
    • What do you now use most often instead of the TTC for trips you previously made by transit?
  • What one of the following would be most likely to encourage you to choose the TTC more often?

The high level numbers are discouraging for transit advocates. Although 39% ride TTC about the same as before, 29% say less often while only 15% say more often. The remaining 17% are split between non-TTC users and “not sure”.

The detailed breakdown of these groups shows interesting differences across the city, but to a much lower extent by age and sex.

Unsurprisingly, the “more often” group is concentrated downtown with 27% of responses coming from there. The numbers drop off in the suburbs with 13% in North York, 11% in Etobicoke, and 9% in Scarborough.

Conversely, the “less often” group is 33% in Scarborough, 29% in North York, 28% in Etobicoke and 24% downtown.

The “About as often” numbers have a smaller range from 36% in Etobicoke to 41% in Scarborough.

The non-TTC-riders pre-pandemic were highest in Etobicoke at 19% and lowest downtown at 6%.

The details of why riders have left the TTC, and how both ex-riders and those still on the system can be encouraged to ride more follow in the long version of this article.

Overwhelmingly, riders (past and present) want better service — a combination of frequency, reliability and speed.

Better service usually means more vehicles and drivers, not to mention line management and a culture that values reliability. Transit priority has to be real, not something at selected locations when enough traffic wardens are free to wrangle motorists, pedestrians and cyclists who make up their own rules.

These cost serious money and step on political toes. Toronto Council has a dream of massively improved transit service, but no sense of how it would be implemented nor any plan for the necessary fleet, infrastructure and staff needed to ramp up service. Meanwhile we celebrate multi-billion dollar lines on maps in media events and election campaigns.

The TTC had a Strategic Planning Committee for the past few years, but it did not spend much time on real “strategy”, certainly not on options that might bring riders back to the TTC. Everyone seems afraid to talk about any policy that has a cost, and some penny-pinchers think every problem can be solved with belt-tightening. Exactly what is needed and possible is never debated nor presented for public discussion. Toronto bumbles from year to year with minimal changes most riders cannot see in their daily travels.

This survey and others like it from past years should be a wake-up call to Toronto that service matters, and Toronto politicians should explain just how much they will fight to improve the TTC beyond the status quo.

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TTC Service Changes Effective September 30, 2026 — Scarborough Busway Opens

The Scarborough busway using the former Line 3 Scarborough RT right-of-way will open on September 30. Most routes now using Midland and Kennedy to reach Kennedy Station will switch to the new busway. Affected routes are 38 Highland Creek, 129 McCowan North, 131 Nugget, 133 Neilson, 154 Curran Hall, 903 Kennedy Stn-Scarborough Express, 904 Sheppard-Kennedy Express, 938 Highland Creek Express & 939 Finch Express.

Buses will stop enroute at the former Ellesmere and Lawrence East stations, as well as a new stop at Tara Avenue midway between Lawrence and Eglinton.

Lawrence East Station will also be served by the 54/954 Lawrence East bus services as shown below. The station building will not be open, but riders can transfer via a walkway at the south end of the platform to the busway station.

Scheduled service levels and travel times remain the same on September 30 because this is a mid-board period change. The next board period with an opportunity for changes begins on Sunday, November 1, 2026. The TTC has not yet announced plans for schedule updates to take advantage of faster travel times on the busway.

I have been collecting tracking data on some routes using Midland and Kennedy for historical comparison, and will review actual operations in November once the October data are available.

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TTC Service Changes Effective Sunday, September 6, 2026 (Part II)

This article deals with the main batch of September 6 changes including:

  • Seasonal service changes
  • Warden Station construction
  • Routing changes at Kennedy Station
  • New services
  • Modified bus diversion for College/Carlton construction

Also included are various tables showing vehicle allocations, the service budget, and construction projects.

Detailed before-and-after service plan comparisons as well as destination sign changes are now available at the end of the article.

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Service Standards, Plans and Ridership Growth

In September, the TTC will launch public consultation on proposed changes to their Service Standards. Consultation on the 2027 Annual Network Plan is now underway.

The Service Standards are in a long document with many sections, and I am sure most members of the TTC Board have only a passing awareness of what it contains and how the standards work in practice. Given the timing of meetings and the coming municipal election, a revised set of standards will not come to the Board until the new year.

Other studies underway are the Ridership Growth Strategy (RGS), a review of the metrics used to monitor and report on the system, and a review of streetcar operations. These overlap in many ways, but given the siloed nature of TTC management are likely to come to the Board independently. This would not allow a consolidated review of goals and options for transit’s future together with current plans and the standards against which service is measured. This particularly important for any Ridership Growth Strategy which could be hamstrung by fiscal plans and approved standards that do not support meaningful growth.

See:

The public survey for the 2027 Annual Network Plan is now live until September 13. It deals with the following topics:

  • Stop changes on express bus routes
  • Routing changes to bus routes in the following areas:
    • Morningside Heights
    • Black Creek
    • Dupont Corridor
    • Sherway Gardens
    • Islington South

Details of these proposals appear later in the article.

A future version of the plan will include proposals for dealing with major construction projects in 2027.

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How Slow Is My Streetcar: 510 Spadina

The operation of Toronto’s streetcars is under considerable fire for what is portrayed as the slowest cars in the world. Ironically, the very slowest of Toronto’s routes operates on a private right-of-way: 510 Spadina. The usual excuses about mixed traffic operation do not apply here.

Recently, I published charts showing the speed of each streetcar line over various segments and by time of day. 510 Spadina did not show well, although the actual speeds vary from one place to another. This article looks more deeply at the data including a comparison with September 2019 before the pandemic. but after service was operating with the new Flexity cars.

There are three sets of charts in this article:

  • Travel times by segment comparing June 2026 to September 2019 values. The 2026 numbers are the same as those in the previous article, but the 2019 numbers show how in almost every case travel times are longer today than seven years ago.
  • Travel speeds over the route showing the relationship to stop locations and intersections, and contrasting 2019 values with 2026. This shows the areas with the greatest change in travel speeds.
  • Locations of long dwell times by streetcars. Some of these are at stops, but many are at traffic signals. Some dwell times have grown since 2019 (not shown) in spite of recent transit priority changes at some locations.

The charts in this article are fairly dense, and readers should click on them to view details, preferably on a device larger than a phone.

I do not offer a “magic bullet” to deal with slow operation, but note that it occurs at many locations along the route. Some are at traffic signals, and some but definitely not all are at junctions.

This is the first of a series of articles that will review each route’s performance.

Updated Aug. 16 at 11:10pm: Dwell time charts and commentary have been added for off-peak periods.

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