Also on the agenda is the quarterly financial report. I will review it in more detail in another article, but it includes material relevant to the Line 2 project
The modernization report updates the status of various projects, notably the proposed purchase of replacement trains for the T1 fleet on Line 2. Related projects include installation of Automatic Train Control, upgrades to Greenwood Yard, and various infrastructure changes to support future service increase.
Recent months have seen much hand-wringing over the timing of a subway car purchase and the state of both the aging T1 fleet and the 1960s-era signal system. The newfound urgency at TTC is due, in part, due to deferral of an entire package of Line 2 upgrades in past years.
A comprehensive plan was presented to TTC management’s Executive Committee in March 2017, but it sat on the shelf. [Note: This plan is not available online.] The plan included many components including a new fleet with a delivery window of 2026-2030, and conversion of Line 2 signalling to Automatic Train Control. Trains, signals and other infrastructure continue to age, costs rise, and the first of the replacement trains is not expected until 2030.
With later delivery of new trains, the existing T1s require another five-year overhaul cycle for continued service. This adds an estimated $163 million to overall costs which are already up due to inflation.
Thanks to the delay when the TTC and City were constraining the capital budget, the need for a Line 2 modernization was not “rediscovered” until 2023.
Toronto is now in the difficult position of having a huge appetite for transit capital, but with funding sources inadequate and uncertain beyond the immediate future. Assuming that each level of government will pony up one third of any project is a foolhardy basis for planning, and hard decisions will be needed about which projects can go ahead.
At a time when Toronto claims it wants to shift urban travel from cars to transit, the level of investment we will likely see will at best preserve existing operations and infrastructure.
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.
In a previous article, I wrote about problems with the TTC’s subway work car fleet that were revealed by a day-long shutdown of Line 2. See The State of Disrepair (II).
A series of question to the TTC brought little information and a reply suggesting my sources did not know what they were talking about when, in fact, the TTC misrepresented my question.
TTC management have not yet reported to the Board on the status of the work car fleet.
Updated: There is a one-page status update in the June 20, 2024 Board Meeting agenda in the CEO’s Report.
Work car condition and availability are key to the large off-hours program of infrastructure renewal. Many of these cars are specialized for their tasks and, unlike the passenger fleet, cannot be substituted for each other. The variety is shown in the chart below which was part of a TTC presentation at the May 2024 board meeting.
Immediately after the hydraulic fluid leak on May 13, much of the fleet was put through an inspection to determine how prevalent leaks and similar problems might be. Until they were deemed fit, cars that could have such problems were out of service. The sudden change in availability is shown in the charts below.
The red cells indicate that a car was held out of service either for repairs, or awaiting inspection. The amber cells indicate a car that can be used with some restrictions depending on the fault. On Wednesday, May 15, two days after the Line 2 shutdown, much of the fleet was put on hold for inspection with cars gradually returning. Details about individual cars follow later in the article.
This information is taken from daily reports of the work fleet’s status. Note that some days, mainly on weekends, are missing. Each page below covers the six-week interval for a group of cars.
Of particular concern are the two tie-tampers, RT-21 and RT-41 which are crucial for some major rail work. Both have been out of service since mid-May, and projects are rescheduled to work around the availability of needed cars.
There is a direct link between the availability of work cars and the TTC’s ability to keep up with ongoing maintenance, let alone to address a backlog. Scrimping on the budget for maintenance vehicles might solve a short term budget problem, but it exposes the system to disrepair through just getting by with available resources.
The extended shutdown of Line 2 on May 13 brought the TTC’s work car fleet into the spotlight thanks to multiple equipment failures leading to hydraulic fluid leaks.
In the management presentation, the average age of that fleet was cited as 17 years, but these cars vary greatly in age. Here are the affected cars.
Vehicle
Built
Function
Leak Incident Dates
RT-41
1993
Tie Tamper
Apr. 2/24 & May 16/24
RT-17
1996
Tunnel Washer
Jan. 17/24
RT-7
1998
Locomotive
Feb. 10/24
RT-56
2006
Vacuum & Drain Cleaning
Jan. 14/24 & May 13/24
RT-84
2011
Vacuum Car
May 15/24
Replacement of RT-41 with a new car was proposed in the 2018 Capital Budget along with several other new and replacement cars. The intent was to refresh the fleet and increase capacity to perform more work on the expanding subway network. Most of this program was deferred under CEO Rick Leary, although a second Tie Tamper, RT-21, does now appear in the illustrated list of work cars. RT-41 is well overdue for replacement.
Inspection of all work cars began a few days after the May 13 incident. Sources indicate that fewer than one third of the three dozen cars reviewed in the first two days passed inspection.
Planned work on Line 1 on the May 18-19 weekend was deferred, and it is unclear how the sidelining of RT-41 and other cars might affect planned track repairs.
Questions for the TTC
On May 22, I wrote a series of questions to TTC Media Relations attempting to get an official version of what I had heard from sources. Here are the questions.
Can you confirm the failure rate for inspections (over 2/3)?
Has all of the fleet been inspected now and what are the results?
Will further adjustments be required in maintenance plans?
A key vehicle that was not available last weekend was RT-41 the tamper car. According to the fleet diagram included in the board presentation there is another tamper car RT-21. What is its status?
In 2018 the capital budget included a multi-year program to replace elderly work cars and expand the fleet including [replacement of] RT-41, but this program was repeatedly pushed into future years. What is its status?
Since the pandemic the budget blue books have not been available, although there was talk of an e-version of them. What is the current status?
The TTC’s response on the afternoon of May 22 was not very revealing:
As you know from the Board meeting, we’ve already started the deep dive with external consultants AND our own staff have enhanced our proactive inspections on the workcar fleet.
The results, outcomes and findings will first be shared with our Board when they are known.
I can say that your source has misinformed you in as much as we have not yet inspected the entire fleet as this is a time-consuming process that sometimes requires workcars being shunted from one location to another.
As deficiencies are identified, they are corrected before being the work cars are put into service.
The TTC’s response was less than helpful for all questions:
The TTC did not address the failure rate for cars that had been inspected.
The TTC claimed my source was incorrect, but misrepresented the question. In fact I asked whether the inspections had been completed, and indirectly they confirmed that the answer is “no”.
Not answered.
Not answered. Tamper RT-21 is a comparatively new vehicle (it does not appear in 2018 fleet lists). It is not clear why it was unavailable when tamper RT-41 was sidelined.
Not answered. The repeated deferral of this project is a matter of record within the budget papers from 2017-2024.
Not answered. The significance of the “blue books” (so named because of the colour of the binders that held them) is that they included detailed descriptions of all capital projects and their status well beyond information in budgets or quarterly financial reports. Before the pandemic, these were routinely provided on request, but I have not been able to obtain them since 2019.
Most of the questions have nothing to do with the “deep dive” into fleet condition, but the TTC has used a simplistic response to dismiss all questions whether they relate to the deep dive or not. The one “answer” attempted to discredit a statement I did not make, and by extension the entire sequence.
Maybe, somewhere, there is a Board member who will demand answers.
Reduced Speed Zones
The tables below track the Reduced Speed Zones where track is awaiting repair. This is an updated version since the previous article. Depending on how your browser presents the tables, you may have to scroll to the right to see the most recent entries.
Although many of the entries from early 2024 have cleared off, others appear suggesting that inspections are uncovering new problem areas and adding them to the list. Little has changed through the month of May.
In this round, the data are from January 1 to February 15, 2024. As before, the raw information has been provide by Darwin O’Connor from his TransSee website, for which much thanks.
The amount of service the TTC operates is limited mostly by budget, which in turn dictates how many operators the system can afford, but there is also the question of bus availability and reliability.
Updated May 20, 2024 at 3:10pm: Link to UITP report on in-motion trolleybus charging added at the end of the article.
Reliability
Buses that break down interrupt service and incur greater maintenance. Buses that never leave the garage might show up on the roster, but they are not really available.
For many years, the ratio of spare buses to scheduled service on the TTC has been quite high by industry standards, and this grew during the pandemic thanks to service cuts. Restoring full pre-pandemic service, let alone expanding beyond that level, does not depend on fleet size in the short term. Moreover, many of the elderly vehicles on the system will be replaced with new diesel-hybrids now on delivery, and this should increase the number of buses actually available for service. Opening of Lines 5 and 6 Crosstown and Finch West should also release buses for use elsewhere.
The May 2024 CEO’s Report shows the current official fleet size.
The reliability of buses is reported in an odd way by the CEO. The charts below have capped the reported mean distance to failure at a target value rather than reporting actual values for several years. We know that hybrid buses achieve at least 30K kilometres between failures, and diesel buses achieve 20K, but the actual numbers could be both higher and more variable than the charts show. Meanwhile, some values for battery eBuses are capped and others wander quite a bit. Note that both the target level and y-axis maxima vary from one chart to another.
An important factor here is that buses that never, or rarely, operate in service do not contribute to failure statistics, and this can hide the true reliability of a fleet, or subgroup within the fleet. Unused buses represent capital sitting idle and service that cannot be provided. If budget cuts prevent full usage of the fleet, this is hidden, but there could be an unseen cap on what is possible if budget priorities change.
At its meeting of December 7, 2023, the TTC Board received a staff presentation on its bus electrification plan.
The City of Toronto has a goal to move to a zero-emission fleet across all departments by 2040 with interim goals of 20% in 2025 and 50% in 2030. TTC’s electrification plans fit within that timeframe.
Of the TTC’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in 2019 80% of these came from the diesel bus fleet.
The history of a move to an all-electric fleet is shown in the TTC drawing below. Three decades ago, the TTC was seduced into “greening” its fleet by the replacement of electric Trolley Buses by CNG-powered buses. This was the result of an alliance between TTC management who wanted rid of the TBs, the gas industry which has a surplus of product, Ontario Bus Industries who wanted an untendered contract, and the new technology arm of the Ministry of Transportation who were desperate to show some sort of progress. (This was not the first, nor the last time provincial boffins would meddle in transit technology choices.)
The TTC is in a very difficult position for capital planning because for many years it understated the size of the capital backlog and also tended to treat related projects, or even components of the same project, as separate items. This led to low-balled estimates of total costs and, in some cases, piecemeal execution of projects. Now that we see “all in” costs, the problems facing the system are perceived more seriously, but just at a point when new money to invest in existing subways is hard to find.
Although the TTC called for proposals for a replacement of the Line 2 fleet of T1 trains, with add-on provisions for system expansion, this was cancelled in June 2023 due to lack of funding commitments from either the Provincial or Federal governments.
The report proposes three scenarios depending on when new trains and facilities would be delivered and built at total costs ranging from $8.5 to $10 billion including inflation. Very little of this has committed funding.
This is not just a question of buying new trains, but of building, or renewing, many facilities:
Greenwood Carhouse dates back to the opening of the BD subway and needs to be modernized and rebuilt to handle a new fleet.
The signal system on Line 2 dates to the 1960s and must be replaced both to maintain reliability, improve operations and provide for service growth.
Additional trains for both Lines 1 and 2 will require more storage including a major new maintenance facility for Line 1.
The funding sought by this report does not include companion upgrades that have been flagged in the overall capital plan:
Running more frequent service requires more traction power on top of state of good repair work needed for both subway lines’ power systems.
More service means more passengers, and some key stations cannot handle additional demand between the platform and street without additional circulation capacity.
Moreover, there are major projects beyond subway fleet renewal that are either partly or totally unfunded even at the City level, never mind its partners:
Ongoing replacement of the bus fleet including electrification
Any provision for service growth to improve transit coverage and encourage a shift to transit riding especially in areas where it is not competitive with auto
LRT lines in the waterfront or Eglinton East
Platform screen doors to prevent access to track level
Even if the fleet and signal renewal for Line 2 finds much-needed financial support, this is only the beginning of the TTC’s search for capital, and I have not even mentioned the need for ongoing state of good repair.
In the short term, the TTC has been “saved” from a capacity crisis by the covid pandemic and the loss of subway riding. Only a few years ago, the concern was not empty trains, but platforms full of riders who could not move. Although the subway is not back at full demand, recovery is well underway. Here are historical figures and projections for the future from the report.
2041 might sound a long way off, but in the scheme of subway fleet planning, it is fairly near given both the lead time to buy new trains and their 30-year design life. What we plan for today will affect the system for decades to come.
This forecast will be updated with results from the current Transportation Tomorrow Survey and other planning work to provide an outlook to 2051.
These projections translate to service requirements on the two lines. Note that this is likely based on the historical ratio of peak to all day demand. Although work-from-home may shift some riding away from peaks especially on Mondays and Fridays, this would still leave the midweek days facing crowding. It would be dangerous to make plans for lesser demand as a short-term cost saving measure.
Line 1 has already been converted to Automatic Train Control (ATC) with moving block signalling that can handle more trains/hour. Note that the projected Line 1 service is at 36 trains/hour, or every 100 seconds. This will be challenging to sustain especially at busy stations and terminals.
The current signal system on Line 2 cannot support headways below about 140 seconds, the pre-pandemic peak service level on that route. This is equivalent to 25.7 trains/hour which gets us only to the 2032 projected requirement.
This translates into the following requirements for a larger fleet.
The 55-train replacement for Line 2 where there are now 61 trains is based on the capacity with new trains (similar to those now on Line 1) with about 10% more room than the old ones. This finally addresses the excess of T1 trains in the fleet ever since the TTC decided to run Lines 1 and 4 entirely with new “TR” trains and ATC, and relegated the T1 fleet to Line 2.
The Metrolinx options are for the Richmond Hill and Scarborough extensions. Growth trains are to permit the operation of more frequent service than the existing fleet can support.
Note that Line 4 Sheppard is not included here as it has a dedicated set of six 4-car trains that can handle projected growth on that line. Depending on the extension of Line 4, a future procurement of trains and storage facilities could be required.
In the remainder of this article, I will describe the scenarios and implications of choices the TTC, Council and its funding partners will make in the near future.
Recommendations
The report recommends that:
The TTC prioritize funding in the capital budget for:
New subway cars and related projects with a cost of $3.2 billion as the City’s share.
A 30-year state of good repair overhaul of the T1 fleet.
Risk mitigation activities for Line 2 related to fleet and signal system life extension.
Subject to confirmation of funding, the CEO issue an RFP for new trains needed on the existing Line 2 with options for extensions and demand growth on the system.
This will have effects not just for subway planning but for other TTC capital project funding and timing.
This morning, after a ceremony at Leslie Barns, car 4604 entered service on 504 King. It is running as an extra and is not visible to tracking apps, but can be located with a vehicle-specific search such as this on Transsee.ca. As I write this just after 3pm on November 17, the car is headed back to Leslie Barns.
The second car of the new set, 4605, is in Russell Carhouse. The remaining vehicles in the 60-car order will be delivered from now through 2025.
The real question remains what the TTC will do with these cars. Of the 204 they already own, the peak service has rested at about 140 cars for a few years. In February 2020, pre-pandemic, it was about 160. This is not just a question of construction projects and bus replacements, but of the TTC’s operating budget and staffing levels which prevent full fleet utilization of any mode on the system.
Lacking in TTC budget information, especially notable at a time when Mayor Chow calls for open dialog and transparency, is a clear statement of how much service the TTC can actually operate at various funding levels.
It is convenient for management to point to system ridership at about 80% of pre-covid numbers, but this does not account for the unequal level of recovery through the week. Weekends are already a time of strong demand, and Sundays are running above pre-covid levels.
Weekdays might, on average, be lower than historical numbers, but a well-known issue is that Tuesday through Thursday are the busiest days when more people come to work. On average, weekdays might be below early 2020 levels, but the TTC does not report how this demand is spread by day, and complaints of crowding are common.
Openness in budget and service planning might aid the debate, but so far proposals have been more “business as usual” with an asterisk beside possible improvements due to budget constraint. The freshly minted TTC Board has yet to demand a wider range of options, the costs they would entail, and an analysis of the TTC’s ability to actually field more service.
The 2024 Service Plan is part of the TTC Board’s November 22 agenda, and I will report on it in a few days (it’s a thick agenda this month).
Two new cars with more to follow are welcome, but they will simply add to the 30% of the streetcar fleet that sit idle every day, far more than should be needed for maintenance spares. It is the classic budget problem: money for new capital purchases, but no money to operate them.
Steve Munro 