LRT Projects

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TTC Financial Planning & Subsidy Streams

Work on this article began before the March 30 announcement of tripartite funding for various housing and transit projects. Comments about this have been incorporated here.

At its meeting of March 31, the TTC’s Strategic Planning Committee will consider two reports relating to the financial future of both the Operating and Capital budgets.

The report on a long-term plan is less than its title might suggest in that it merely launches a process to develop a plan, but does not propose anything concrete. Some members of the TTC Board have wanted to see a long-term plan and options for years, but nothing usually comes of this beyond rehashing information we already know from the annual budget cycle. City Council cannot formulate capital and operating budget plans without a clear indication of the needs and trends at its most expensive agency.

A related problem is that conflicting indications come from the Council and the Mayor about spending priorities, and some TTC plans are closely linked to Provincial projects such as the North Yonge subway extension. Major committed projects have already claimed much of the announced Federal funding, and substantial additions will require net new funding.

That, in turn, requires the TTC and Council to think carefully about priorities rather than asking for money project-to-project on the assumption that money will always be available. In the context of high Provincial debt and considerable spending on transit, plus a refocus of Federal priorities and an attempt to decrease spending, Toronto is unlikely to receive everything it wants.

Short-Term Planning

Short-term planning placed the TTC in a very difficult position.

The short-term balancing of the TTC’s financial pressures would not have been achieved without a substantial City subsidy in recent years, including the Ontario-Toronto New Deal providing three-years of operating funding support, and project specific capital grant funding from the provincial and federal
governments.

For instance, the injection of $5.1 billion in the 2025-2034 Capital Plan, which was predominantly city funding, reduced the TTC’s state-of-good-repair backlog by $3.9 billion, or nearly 50%. However, fleet plan changes, asset condition assessments and cost estimate increases have increased the SOGR backlog in the 2026-2035 Capital Plan to a projected $6.1 billion at the end of the 10-year planning window. Funding for new trains, buses and streetcars by other orders of government addressed immediate fleet needs, and the operating support through COVID, have kept the system going. While these efforts had significant impact in the immediate term, the TTC still has a long-term financial problem due to a fiscal framework that has not evolved at the same pace as the scale, complexity, and expectations of a world class transit system.

This cycle of finding immediate term solutions to the budgetary pressures of the organization is one repeated annually. With each successive year the balancing act produces increasingly limited opportunities to find new efficiencies and revenue generation opportunities. The TTC’s aging assets continue to drive state-of good repair investment needs to maintain existing levels of service, while struggling to fund capacity enhancements to keep up with growth. [Long Term Plan, p. 1]

As things stand, the projections for Operating and Capital Budgets assume very modest growth in demand, at least in the short term, but there is a long list of projects, mostly unfunded on the Capital side both for State of Good Repair (SOGR) and to accommodate projected demand growth. Rapid transit extensions now underway only include provision for fleets at the level needed to serve current demand, but not the extra trains to increase capacity nor the maintenance facilities to house the expanded fleets. Drawing lines on maps requires not just tunnel construction, but consideration for how the network will operate and what effect extensions and new lines will have on the existing network’s operations.

With all the focus on a few rapid transit projects, there is the much larger issue of subway and surface fleet renewal, not to mention infrastructure work. Any plan to increase service and ridership substantially places an additional load on the Capital budget not to mention the Operating budget to actually deliver new service.

Fare Revenue Will Not Pay For Capital

Fare revenue from ridership growth did not pay for expansion even when the cost recovery rate was 70%. Now that it is below 50%, the effect of additional service is even more acute. We cannot talk about system expansion and moving more people with transit if we are not prepared to pay for it.

Transit funding in other cities comes from a variety of sources as detailed in the jurisdictional review. Toronto’s problem is that actually levying most of these requires cooperation from senior governments, notably Ontario where new taxes or fees of any kind are not welcome. In at least the medium term, Toronto will have to make do with existing funding schemes while hoping/lobbying for increases.

Options For Ridership Growth

The other side of this dilemma is that Toronto has never been presented with options beyond modest business as usual transit service. We do not know what growth and service quality we might aim for because annual budgets only scrape by to keep the system running.

While ridership growth is essential to long-term sustainability, on it own it is insufficient to close the structural fiscal gap without complementary changes to funding, fare policy and cost structures. As a result, other options and strategies must be identified. Recognizing this, at the January 23, 2026 meeting, the City of Toronto’s Budget Committee directed City staff to work with the TTC to develop a multi-year operating budget that both supports ridership growth and addresses the underlying financial pressures.

Growing ridership and increasing the mode share of public transit trips will require additional levels of investment in both service and capital beyond what is currently projected and may demand consideration of other sources of revenue and/or fundamental changes in policy with respect to how transit is prioritized within the City. [p. 3]

The report proposes that various scenarios be developed for levels of future growth and service. This will inform future budgets, but not immediately. A four-phase program is proposed:

  • Jurisdictional review of major transit systems: See the attachment linked above.
  • Scenario development and long-term analysis
  • Balancing strategies including cost containment, fare policy including enforcement, funding, and capital priorities
  • Recommendations and implementation roadmap

There is no discussion of the range of options that might be considered, nor is there a proposed date to report back. Obviously major change will not occur overnight, but short-term plans should explore what can be achieved within existing resources (fleet, infrastructure) and at what cost to get more out of resources the TTC already owns. Further out, no rapid transit growth will come online until the early 2030s, but the surface system should not be ignored waiting for new trains to roll into Scarborough, Richmond Hill and Thorncliffe Park.

In parallel there is the TransformTO plan which has a very aggressive target for shifting travel away from cars. It includes a massive increase in transit service that will not be achieved overnight even assuming Council approves this and funding is available. The TTC Board and Council need to make hard decisions about the scope of transit expansion, and not just a few rapid transit lines, they are prepared to undertake.

Once again, Middle-East war has exposed economy to rising fuel prices. What this will do to economic growth and transit demand remains to be seen. Toronto is at least in the position of owning a large, if not entirely adequate, transit network serving a goodly chunk of demand. However, this is historically focused on downtown-oriented trips, with considerably less support for the more numerous trips between suburban areas.

Ontario bears some responsibility here too because for decades GO Transit’s downtown focus worked against better use for inter-regional trips, and support for local and regional bus service has not encouraged large-scale growth. Calls for us to “do something” to relieve the high cost of fuel, such as free transit, ignore the fact that transit simply is not present, or is too small-scale, to support a major shift of auto to transit travel. Moreover, this only addresses the cost of driving where transit is an option, not the much wider question of the wider economic effect of higher fuel costs.

The March 30 Announcement

The Federal, Provincial and Toronto governments announced funding for various transit projects, as well as tax relief for some new housing.

The first important point about this is that it affects only the TTC Capital budget, but provides no new support for transit operations. Moreover, none of this announcement addresses the TTC’s unfunded capital backlog. Note that Waterfront East is not part of the TTC capital plan.

The Federal contribution to several transit projects has been confirmed, but this is not “new money”, only the formalization of previous announcements. These projects are: Ontario Line, Eglinton Crosstown West Extension, Scarborough Subway Extension, Yonge North Subway Extension and Hamilton LRT. These are Metrolinx, not TTC, projects.

In the name of stimulating housing, municipal Development Charges will be reduced with the gap made up by transfers from other governments. This benefits housing prices, but has no effect on transit to the extent that TTC plans include a provision (albeit declining) for DC revenue as a capital funding source. The only change is which pocket the money comes from, tempered by the hope that replacement DC funding will match what might otherwise have been expected.

The Waterfront East transit line will be funded at $3-billion with one third coming from each level of government. Any overruns will be the City’s responsibility. Now that funding is announced, the next stage of design can get underway. Waterfront Toronto expects to reveal staging plans for construction soon to Council and to community stakeholders.

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The Lost Promise of Better Streetcar Service

Readers with long memories might recall the early days of plans for a new streetcar order including discussions about how large a vehicle should be purchased. A major concern at the time was the possibility that the TTC would change schedules and run less frequent service with the larger cars just as they had when the articulated version of the CLRV (the previous generation of cars) arrived in the late 1980s.

That concern was softened by a TTC claim that service would actually improve. Peak periods would see slightly less frequent service, but a net increase in capacity, while off-peak periods would see little change in frequency effectively doubling the capacity of service. At the time, crowding was a big issue and this persisted right up to the pandemic in 2020, by which time all of the old cars had been retired. The management proposal was approved in July 2013.

As the CLRV/ALRV fleet aged, there were problems with reliability of older cars and the need to operate buses on some lines thanks to a shortage of working vehicles. Some repairs were done at considerable cost, but these were more cosmetic than a true life extension.

Moving forward to 2026, there has been a lot of talk of restoring pre-pandemic service levels. TTC fudges the numbers on this in many cases citing vehicle hours operated, not actual service frequencies which have been degraded by longer travel times.

(For example, if a round trip, including terminal layovers, takes two hours or 120 minutes, then 20 cars will provide a 6-minute service. If the round trip gets longer but no cars are added, the service is less frequent, but the number of vehicle hours stays the same. From a rider’s point of view, service is worse, but from a budget outlook, there is no change. This is at the heart of the discrepancy between TTC service claims and rider experience.)

After years of changing service levels and demand, the TTC’s Five Year Plan foresees a return to six minute headways, at most, as a new standard for daytime service. This has been rolled out on some routes over the past year, but not all.

  • Already at 6 minutes or better: 504 King, 510 Spadina
  • Improved to 6 minutes: 512 St. Clair (Sept/25), 511 Bathurst (Nov/25), 505 Dundas (Nov/25)
  • Pending, but with no committed date: 501 Queen, 503 Kingston Road, 506 Carlton, 507 Long Branch.

The Five Year Plan (at p. 4) includes provision for extra spending in 2027 and 2028, but this is not tied to specific routes. There is nothing in the Plan for 2026.

A related issue is the size of the streetcar fleet. Leading up to 2020, the issue was how many cars were actually available, and some service cuts flowed directly from this. With the recent delivery of 60 additional cars, fleet availability should not be an issue although service can still be limited by a lack of operators. The TTC currently schedules 163 cars at peak out of a fleet of 264. If services now operating with buses due to construction were also using streetcars (503 Kingston Road and the Broadview branch of 504 King), the peak requirement would rise to 178. Allowing for maintenance spares this would drive the total requirement to 214 leaving 42 surplus for service improvements (allowing for 8 spares).

February 2026 Schedule PM PeakFull Streetcar ServicePossible Service
Peak Requirement163178220
Spares at 20%333644
Total Requirement196214264
Fleet264264264
Surplus68500

The problem, of course, is that the TTC barely has budget headroom to operate existing services let alone increases.

In theory, some of the surplus cars will eventually operate the Waterfront East LRT extension, but that service is at least 8 years away even assuming Toronto finds the money to build it. In any event this will not require anywhere near all of the current surplus fleet. Another issue is that the “streetcar network” has not operated with 100% streetcar service for a few decades thanks to various construction projects and vehicle shortages.

There are parallel issues with the bus network, but they are complicated by issues of vehicle reliability and the need for a spare pool to cover the unreliable LRT service primarily on Line 6 Finch West. I will turn to the bus fleet in a separate article.

Back in 2013, the TTC proposed how it would operate with the new streetcar fleet. During peak periods, headways would widen particularly where existing service was very frequent. Notably on 501 Queen, there would only be a slight widening of the time between cars in the AM peak and no change in the PM peak. This reflected the fact that Queen was already running with the 75-foot long ALRVs and needed more capacity.

In the off peak, most routes would see no change in service level except for 510 Spadina due to its already frequent service of 50-foot CLRVs that could not be sustained at terminals with the larger new cars.

The overall fleet plan showed a buildup to a peak requirement of 168 cars plus 20% spares.

This plan gave a bright future for streetcar service and capacity growth, but things did not work out that way. Service today is generally lower than originally projected for the new fleet, and part of this reduction is due to slower operating speeds and greater provision for terminal recovery time even on routes with reserved lanes.

A related question is the effect that less frequent service has had on ridership. There is a post-pandemic slump on the streetcar system in part due to work-from-home for office jobs and remote learning for post-secondary students. However, even allowing for the pandemic era drop, the problem remains in attracting riders back to transit when streetcars are less frequent and slower, compounded by chronic problems with service reliability. Charts tracking streetcar ridership from 1976 to 2024, the last year published by TTC, are at the end of the article.

These routes are in the part of Toronto where transit riders should be easy to win, but a long decline in service frequency discourages those who have the option to use another mode including private autos, ride hailing or cycling. Service cuts during economic downturns do not magically get reversed as times improve, and ridership that might be wooed back to transit instead faces less reliable service and a political attitude that favours big spending on subway projects, not surface transit.

The remainder of this article looks at each route in detail to see how the actual service changed from the 2014 plan through the 2020s to today comparing:

  • The 2014 headways for AM Peak, Midday and PM Peak in the management proposal.
  • The proposed headways after routes converted to Flexity streetcars.
  • The actual scheduled service in January 2014, January 2020 (just before the pandemic) and February 2026. Driving times are shown separate from terminal recovery times to illustrate how each component has evolved.

Quite notable on many routes is the growth in both scheduled driving and terminal times. Although it is common in the mid-2020s to regard extended travel times and traffic delays as a recent, post-pandemic phenomenon, this pattern started earlier and is evident in 2014:2020 comparisons. Surplus time, it was argued, would prevent short turns, a claim that is demonstrably false as most riders know on a daily basis, but it slows service, wastes resources and forces wider headways.

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Line 6 Finch West Delays: January 2026 Update

This post updates a table of TTC delay stats for 6 Finch West published here about a month ago. The breakdown of delays by cause was recently refreshed by the TTC to include January 2026. I have included the December stats for comparison.

Bearing in mind that January included a full month’s operation, the number of delays declined proportionately, but the length of delays did not change much compared to December.

  • January had 386 delays compared to 350 in December with a big jump (11 to 35) in weather-related incidents.
  • The total delay minutes in January rose by about one third compared to December, again due to weather (40 minutes delay versus 1069).

Equipment problems of various kinds continue with a disconcerting preponderance of “other”.

Of concern is a doubling of the delays due to “no equipment available” indicating that Mosaic is not able to reliably field 15 of the 18 cars in the fleet for service. This has implications for future service growth other than whatever can be achieved with faster operation and, hence, shorter headways.

Operator overspeed incidents are down by half implying a growing familiarity with the line and, possibly, improvement in the speed profile enforced by the control system.

Changes to signal timings began on Finch recently, but as the TTC does not have any tracking data for the new lines 5 and 6, it will be difficult to review the ongoing benefits, and the chance for a “before” snapshot has passed.

The full table of delay counts and times for December 7, 2025 to January 31, 2026, follows the “more” break.

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34 Eglinton East Bus: Travel Times East of Don Mills

With Line 5 Eglinton entering its second week of operation, comparison of LRT and bus speeds on the surface portion of the route is inevitable, especially among those who would prefer subways everywhere.

This article reviews the actual travel times in December 2025 and January 2026 for the bus service that was replaced by Line 5. This gives a variety of operating conditions including holidays and winter storms, and reflects stopping patterns and dwell times for the level of demand before Line 5 opened for business.

Actual bus travel times only bettered the scheduled LRT from mid-evening onward on weekdays, and were considerably longer in the PM peak. For trips to/from Kennedy Station, the LRT has an advantage of a more direct path into the station avoiding both the traffic signal at Kennedy Road and the roundabout bus route within the terminal.

The section of Eglinton where the LRT runs at the surface is uncongested during much of the day compared to other routes in the city. Some spots have slower bus travel times, but these do not persist. This is a challenge to “better” performance by the LRT unless it has some advantage over buses notably in faster speed during all operating periods, good priority at traffic signals and reliable travel times when the adjacent road is congested.

The potential for faster LRT trips through transit signal priority lies in the 2-4 minute range, an improvement of 10-20%, depending on how aggressively this is implemented. There are 14 traffic signals over the route between Ionview and the DVP, and a variety of locations with nearside, farside or no stops at these points. The Transit Signal Priority strategy should be tuned to the characteristics of each crossing.

This analysis does not include additional access time to LRT vs bus stops. This affects the surface section of Line 5 less than the underground section where both station spacing and vertical access times add to LRT journeys.

Detailed tracking data for Lines 5 and 6 are not available from the TTC although “next train” predictions are in their public data feed. This hampers analysis of the reliability and travel times of the new LRT lines.

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Metrolinx Board Meeting: February 12, 2026

The Metrolinx Board met on February 12 with an extensive agenda, but as usual almost none of it was discussed in public. Of particular interest was an explanation of the derailment at Union Station that snarled GO Transit operations for much of the past week. Although a detailed review continues and a full report is promised, Metrolinx was unusually forthcoming with a description of the event.

The public portion of the meeting began with a “safety moment” that focused on problems with pedestrian, cyclist and auto intrusions into the Eglinton and Finch rights-of-way. This was discussed in a tone reminiscent of GO mainline rail corridors which the new LRT lines definitely are not. In the case of Finch, the right-of-way has less physical protection than on Eglinton, and no areas of open track or grass to signal that this is not part of the overall roadway.

The very nature of a surface route, regardless of technology, is that people and vehicles will cross the tracks. They have been doing it for over a century on the streetcar system, and it is odd that Metrolinx finds this an unusual behaviour. It is not clear, other than the presence of two separate P3s on these projects, why the Eglinton and Finch designs are so different. This also contributed to the switching problems on Finch because of inadequate heaters and drainage.

Reviewing the operation of Finch, Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay made no mention of equipment reliability, a major problem on that line compared to Eglinton. As revealed in TTC delay logs, at times there were not enough working cars to operate the scheduled service. Delays due to “mechanical problems” continue to appear in Line 6 service alerts. The logs in the City’s Open Data website do not yet include January 2026, but when they do, I will publish a review.

Speaking of Finch, Lindsay spoke of recent improvements. At Metrolinx’ urging, the P3 partner, Mosaic, took steps to improve infrastructure maintenance. The line is now into a stage of “perfection” of operations and maintenance protocols as opposed to building issues. The issue is the readiness of private sector partners to deal with climate effects, and more generally to bring their supposed expertise from other systems to Toronto. Only recently has Mosaic hired someone with expertise in cold weather operations.

Lindsay reported that all 55 switch heaters on Finch have been checked, and drainage at 40 sites is improving. Performance stats are better since the record snowstorm of January 25 with 95% availability, and TTC on time performance is 70-80% over past couple of weeks. This may sound impressive, but any stats are bound to look better as weather improved. As for OTP, TTC standards allow for erratic service as discussed here many times.

In all the celebration of Eglinton’s recent opening, Lindsay made no mention of accessibility issues with several elevators out of service including at key interchanges like Don Valley, Eglinton and Mount Dennis. Further problems include long walks to transfer between routes and less than adequate signage. Metrolinx is supposed to have design standards, but if these lines are any indication, they desperately need review. In many ways, this was the usual Metrolinx “good news” presentation which skated around problems, or presented them as past events no longer of concern.

On the subject of “lessons learned”, Lindsay claimed that private sector partners underestimated complexity, risk, and challenge of the projects, but gave no indication that Metrolinx or Infrastructure Ontario bore responsibility for assuming more expertise within the P3s than might actually have existed. There was a hint that things might have gone better. Lindsay noted that Metrolinx has changed processes, a reference to the shift to an “alliance” model where the P3 are treated as collaborators.

Lindsay hinted at problems with the Metrolinx regime and its confrontational nature saying that all parties need to remain focused on project completion, not commercial claims. They must do the right things for the good of a project even if this compromises legal or commercial strategies. Design review and acceptance must be much more efficient and less bureaucratic in all hands. When unexpected issues such as cavities in the original 1950s Eglinton Station box are encountered, a quick regulatory process to respond is needed.

Lindsay noted that there must be an early and insistent focus on systems integration — bricks and mortar are only one milestone. More important are testing, commissioning and interoperability. This should be no surprise to anyone with transit experience. Construction is a large and impressive part of a project, but without well integrated, reliable systems and vehicles, billions of dollars worth of tunnels are useless.

He remarked on another aspect of P3s that is rarely discussed: procurement must ensure that joint ventures have a collaborative relationship without their own contentious internal issues.

Better public communications on construction, cost estimates and timelines are needed.

These remarks, for those reading between the lines, are not a ringing endorsement of how Metrolinx operated on two major projects. They might have learned lessons from the experience, but the proof will show in how work now underway actually proceeds.

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TTC Service Changes Effective February 8, 2026

Updated February 10 at 9:50am: This article was updated in stages. All pending updates are now in place with the most recent being at the end.

Changes:

  • Maps with more detail have been substituted for added clarity.
  • Maps showing bus bay allocations at stations have been added.
  • Changes to routes not affected by Line 5 opening have been added.
  • The list of current construction projects affecting routes has been added.
  • Notes about transfer connections between buses on Don Mills and Don Valley Station.
  • A detailed before-and-after spreadsheet showing operating plans, vehicle and garage assignments, etc.
  • A list of updated destination signs.
  • Construction project list.
  • Vehicle allocation tables.
  • Service budget information.

In addition to Line 5 related changes, there are also updates to:

  • 6 Finch West
  • 7/307 Bathurst
  • 21 Brimley
  • 30 High Park North
  • 31 Greenwood
  • 39 Finch East
  • 80 Queensway
  • 84 Sheppard West
  • 384 Sheppard West Night Bus
  • 101 Downsview Park
  • 106 Sentinel
  • 111 East Mall
  • 116 Morningside
  • 133 Neilson
  • 149 Etobicoke-Bloor
  • 189 Stockyards
  • 927 Highway 27 Express
  • 935 Jane Express
  • 830 Henry Kelsey–Middlefield (new school service)
  • Other routes with school trips.
  • 301/501 Queen
  • 506 Carlton
  • 507 Long Branch

These are described at the end of the article.

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How Fast Will Line 5 Be Compared to the 32/34 Bus?

With the imminent opening of Line 5 Eglinton LRT on February 8, the TTC has repeatedly been asked “will it be faster than the bus”. They have said, yes, but with few details.

On February 3, the online schedules (GTFS format) came out for the next period including stop-by-stop travel times for Line 5. This article compares these times with the existing schedules for the 32 Eglinton West and 34 Eglinton East buses. The LRT is almost always faster except late in the evening, and then on only part of the route.

Later in the article are charts of scheduled speeds and stop spacing for the bus and LRT operations.

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6 Finch LRT Delay Data for December 2025

The TTC has now added 6 Finch to the collection of published delay data available on the City of Toronto’s Open Data site. See:

The data are in a summary format, much less detailed than the version on which I based a recent article, but they have the advantage of being in spreadsheet format that makes general analysis easier.

In the form published by the TTC, the data include:

  • Date and time of the event
  • Location
  • Event Code
  • Minutes of delay and gap
  • Direction
  • Vehicle number
  • List of event codes

For the purpose of this article, I sorted and summarized the events by code and by the number of times it was reported. (If you want to see the full unedited list, download the file from the City’s site.)

What is immediately obvious here is that the majority of the delays are due to equipment and infrastructure failures, and that a few individual events caused extended outages. These are numbers as reported by the TTC, and do not really show the degree to which 6 Finch was effectively unavailable to riders who had to use shuttle buses instead.

Overall, in the period from December 7-31 there were 350 events.

Updated January 21, 2026 at 10:40pm:

By comparison, the streetcar network, with many longer routes in a more challenging operating environment, had only 819 events between them. Of these, 22 were infrastructure issues (with only 2 switch issues), 74 were due to equipment issues and 113 to diversions. Common incidents were due, broadly speaking, to passenger issues: 102 ill patrons, 106 unsanitary cars, and 169 security issues (most commonly “disorderly patron”).

501 Queen160509 Harbourfront23
504 King166510 Spadina75
505 Dundas124511 Bathurst59
506 Carlton115512 St. Clair69
507 Long Branch28
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Will Line 5 Eglinton Open In February?

The TTC has posted an internal notice that the operators’ sign-up for work in the period starting February 8, 2026 has been delayed because of the complexity of changes happening concurrently on the bus network.

The year 2026 is in the memo giving hope that the line may actually open soon.

Thanks to Gamile Anthony King for posting this on Facebook
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6 Finch West Delay Logs December 2025

The full set of delay logs for 6 Finch West found their way to me recently. The first six days were published in a previous article:

The full set is available in a PDF here. These have been condensed substantially to make browsing easier and to focus on the location, type and duration of delays and incidents.

Many of these delays are short enough that they are not reported to the public via service alerts, but there was a period from December 29-31 when no alerts for Line 6 were issued at all.

A common pattern through the month is that most of the delays are due to infrastructure or equipment failures.

  • Inoperative or non-responsive switches, especially on snow days.
  • Emergency braking caused by overspeed conditions. Some of these could be false positives, or could indicate an aggressive enforcement of speeds.
  • Emergency braking caused by passengers reopening doors. This is a common practice on streetcars, and a design that causes delays through normal passenger behaviour clearly needs a rethink.
  • Positional problems at stations caused by spin-slide braking which triggers misreporting of vehicle location.
  • Cold cars.
  • Many error codes appear on the operator consoles, and these are cleared by “remedial procedures”. There is no discussion of why these happen, and because maintenance is not handled by the TTC, there is no transparency to that part of the operation. An obvious problem is that if normal procedure is to treat error codes as spurious, they lose their meaning and importance.
  • Failed communications both of hand-held radios and of the control/signalling system.
  • No equipment available. The Line 6 fleet is 18 cars of which 15 are scheduled for peak service.
  • Inability to maintain schedule.
  • Washroom and work breaks for operators. This implies a scheduling problem which is accentuated by perennial delays on the line.

Operational issues with restrictive speeds at intersections and delays due to traffic signals are not logged as delays except for overspeed incidents. The one exception is a log entry from Christmas Day when by mid-evening the entire line was running about 49 minutes late. This is not a heavy traffic day, but the problem illustrates the mismatch between the line’s design and even the padded schedule that was implemented.

Metrolinx has been silent on the question of reliability of components that lie with its P3 partner, Mosaic, or of any work plan to address shortcomings in the vehicles, systems and infrastructure.

City Council supports changes to the traffic signal behaviour to provide aggressive transit priority, and a report on this is due early in the year. Once that comes out, we will see how much of the original design is due to foot-dragging by car-oriented planning in the Transportation Services Department who are responsible for the signals.

A detailed analysis of service such as I have provided for other TTC routes is impossible because there are no tracking data for the Line 6 vehicles. This is a problem even for the TTC who have no way to review the line’s operation, and for trip prediction apps. This is a glaring oversight that should be corrected as soon as possible to improve real-time rider information and to allow retrospective analysis of operations.