Recently, the TTC added tables to its page mapping all reduced speed zones indicating the nature of each problem and the anticipated time to repair. Many of the dates were in August, and we’re well into that month already. Given past history, this seemed optimistic.
The table has now been revised with a number of dates pushed into September. A few items have vanished, but there are new entries too.
Several routes in the TTC network are scheduled to operate partly or completely with 18m articulated buses in place of the standard 12m varieties seen on most of the system. A problem commonly found on some of these routes is that although the schedule assumes an 18m bus, what actually shows up is a 12m bus with less capacity.
On some routes, the proportion of shorter buses grows later in the day suggesting that for some reason the longer buses were replaced. The number of buses per hour is fairly consistent from day-to-day, and generally matches the scheduled level of service. This means that few extras (or “run as directed” buses) served these routes even though the capacity was reduced by substitution of smaller buses.
This post looks at how often this problem arises on several routes through the month of July 2025.
Continue readingDespite the premise of an open, competitive bid among potential carbuilders for new subway trains, various politicians have openly argued that the work should go to the historical provider, the Alstom (formerly Bombardier) plant in Thunder Bay.
On August 15, all three funding governments, Canada, Ontario and Toronto announced that a sole-source contract will be awarded to Alstom Transport Canada. This is intended to support Canadian jobs and an existing manufacturing facility. All bidders have been notified that the former bid process has been cancelled.
According to the news release:
To ensure that Alstom delivers state-of-the-art trains at a fair market price, maximizes the creation of Canadian jobs, and benefits Toronto, Alstom must:
• deliver a product that is compliant with the TTC’s original requirements;
• maximize Canadian content and create Canadian jobs;
• have its pricing subject to an independent third-party market price assessment.
It is expected that negotiations will occur over the next few months with a report back to the TTC Board on the status of negotiations by the end of the year.
The proposed contract would provide 70 new trains
There is also provision for future train orders that would support expansion of service on both Lines 1 and 2. The 55 trains are sufficient to operate Line 2 at the capacity supported by its existing signal system, but more trains would be needed to exploit the capabilities of CBTC (Computer Based Train Control) which will be installed in coming years. Similarly, the existing Line 1 fleet will support the pre-CBTC service level of 140 seconds (25.7 trains/hour), but more trains are needed to go beyond that level. There is no funding for the additional trains in current budgets, nor for the added maintenance facilities a larger fleet will require.
The award of additional trains to Alstom is dependent on their performance on the 70-train order.
The new release states:
The TTC is working diligently to ensure the aging Line 2 fleet operates safely and reliably until new trains arrive.
Originally, the TTC had planned to replace the Line 2 trains by 2026, but that scheme was shelved by former CEO Rick Leary who claimed the trains could be life-extended to 2040. That solved a budget pressure for funding, including the proposed new maintenance yard at Kipling, but created a potential crisis in subway reliability and fleet availability.
The TTC has more than 55 of the current T-1 stock used on Line 2 due to changes over the years in the scope of automatic train control implementation on Line 1. These would, if all trains were working, have allowed the Scarborough extension to open using the existing fleet, but only barely. The delay in the Scarborough project bought the TTC time to procure new trains.
The challenge now is to keep the T-1 fleet operating reliably until new cars arrive. TTC management reported at a Board meeting earlier this year that some cars are being used as a source of spare parts. There are obvious limits to how far this practice can go, and if carried too far will limit the TTC’s ability to restore full pre-pandemic service on Line 2.
See also:
The TTC has announced its services for the CNE for 2025 to operate from Friday, August 15 to Monday, September 1.
Other routes will change to accommodate the CNE services and traffic conditions.
The TTC is into the second round of its consultation for service changes and construction projects in 2026. There is a general page on the 2026 Network Plan and a Survey for feedback.
If you comment here, be sure to also complete the survey so that your feedback goes into the official record.
Updated August 14, 2025 at 1:20pm: This article was written based on information in the customer survey as it existed about 4:00 pm on August 13 when the link to it went live on the TTC site. This included a reference to a minimum 5 minute time saving for express buses which did not match the TTC’s own service standard. The survey now contains the correct information. Text in this article has been updated accordingly.
Updated August 22, 2025 at 2:40pm: The City of Toronto has confirmed that widening of the St. Clair underpass east of Keele Street will not be part of the Metrolinx/TTC project planned for 2026.
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Note that almost all of these relate to the review of express bus services, and only one of the construction proposals (College/Carlton) is covered. More consultation in affected neighbourhoods is definitely required.
Continue readingThe list of surface route operating statistics for 2024 recently appeared on the TTC’s Planning webpage. This article consolidates data for the years 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year) to 2024.
Values included in the TTC files are:
Derived values included in this article:
Pages for each set of stats are included in the detailed part of the article, and a PDF containing all tables is linked at the end.
In a future article, I will refresh a previously published table comparing service levels on routes in September 2025, when this information is available, with prepandemic conditions.
A basic message of both articles is that the TTC trumpets a return to former service levels, but the metric they use, vehicle hours, misrepresents the level of service provided. Buses and streetcars travel more slowly now than they did in 2019, and they have more generous recovery times at terminals. These combine to make a vehicle hour less productive in the amount of service it provides than in past years, and so 100% of former hours does not produce the same service. That is separate from other factors such as a decline in reliability, bunching and gaps which compound the less frequent scheduled service.
The problem is particularly bad on streetcar routes where a combination of factors including understaffing, budget constraints, and operating practices that slow service, lead to considerably less “recovery” to former service levels. In turn, this hurts service quality and blunts ridership recovery.
Crowding conditions are not addressed by these stats, and this is difficult to extract from TTC tracking data due to the coarse-grained nature of reported loads. TTC does not publish numeric vehicle loads, only broad light-medium-heavy loading indications. Although they report all-day ridership on each route, this is not broken down by time of day, location and direction, at least not for external consumption. TTC has crowding standards, but we do not know how well they meet them.
The number of peak vehicles is lower in 2024 than in 2019. This partly reflects limits on service growth, and partly the shift of demand into off-peak periods.
In the attempt to woo riders back onto the TTC, let alone to boost transit’s mode share for travel in line with City goals, the question of service level and quality is key. In theory, if demand actually sits below the historic level, then less service is needed to handle it. However, those who remember the condition of transit before 2020 will know that crowding was a pervasive problem and calls for better service were common. Only the March 2020 drop in demand saved the TTC from a capacity crisis.
Toronto must understand and commit the resources needed to achieve its transit goals. Just getting back to 2019 is no goal to aim at.
Continue readingThis article is an update from a previous review of travel times on the Jane corridor which is currently under study in the RapidTO program. Red lanes are proposed between Eglinton and Steeles both ways. The southern limit is defined both by the change in roadway cross section in the older part of the city, and by the future split in bus service at Eglinton to feed into Line 5 Crosstown.
A common claim by the TTC and City is that service on the bus network is restored to or better than pre-pandemic levels. This is not true.
The measurement used is bus hours, but actual frequency of service is the metric riders experience. Total bus hours might be “back to normal”, but these are distributed differently now than in 2019 with some of the restoration going to longer travel and recovery times. These might contribute to service reliability, but with lower scheduled capacity (buses/hour).
Service in November 2019 compared to February 2025 (the schedule in effect in August 2025) was generally better than it is today.
| Buses / Hour L Local X Express | 2019.11 M-F | 2025.08 M-F | 2019.11 Sat | 2025.08 Sat | 2019.11 Sun | 2025.08 Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AM Pk M-F | 12.9L 8.0X | 10.0L 5.0X | ||||
| Midday MF | 8.6L 6.3X | 8.0L 4.0X | ||||
| PM Pk M-F | 12.0L 6.2X | 10.0L 5.0X | ||||
| Early AM S-S | 7.1L 6.0X | 6.0L | 2.0L | 3.0L | ||
| Late AM S-S | 6.0L 6.7X | 6.0L 6.0X | 6.0L 6.7X | 6.0L 6.0X | ||
| Afternoon S-S | 8.0L 6.7X | 8.6L 8.6X | 6.0L 7.1X | 7.5L 7.5X | ||
| Early Eve | 6.9L 6.7X | 8.0L 4.0X | 8.6L 6.7X | 7.5L | 8.6L | 7.5L |
| Late Eve | 6.7L | 6.0L | 7.1L | 6.0L | 6.3L | 6.0L |
The tables below are taken from the November 2019 and July 2025 TTC Scheduled Service Summaries show the corresponding service designs. Within each group, the fields are:
Changes in service levels are affected by scheduled speed, frequency and recovery time. Note that recovery times in 2025 are more generous than in 2019, and travel times have also increased with a corresponding drop in scheduled speeds. In some cases, the number of buses (and hence bus hours) goes up, but the level of service goes down because of slower operation.
RapidTO plans for Jane seek to shorten travel times between Steeles and Eglinton, but the benefit varies. Terminal departures are irregular, although much of that variation is permitted under the Service Standards. RapdTO’s supposed contribution to regularity is that buses will be able to stay more or less “on time”, but unless departures at terminals are better managed, service will still begin trips irregularly. On the current 6′ peak headway, the standards allow a 50% fluctuation from 3-to-9 minutes, and this can make a huge difference in wait times and vehicle crowding.
All-day ridership reported in past years is summarized below. As of Fall 2024, ridership was still well below the 2019 level.
| All-day Riders | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 Jane | 31,085 | 26,082 | 20,334 | 24,840 | 28,808 | 25,820 |
| 935 Jane Express | 13,749 | 7,965 | 10,645 | 10,034 | 11,644 | |
| Total | 44,834 | 26,082 | 28,299 | 35,485 | 38,842 | 37,464 |
We do not know how much ridership growth might be constrained by service capacity and reliability, as opposed to changes in actual demand. The TTC projects large growth from improvements in travel time and reliability with RapidTO, but with no commitment to increased capacity. This claim is difficult to believe.
I asked the TTC for the methodology behind its calculation of RapidTO ridership growth on July 28, but have received no details as of August 11. (The request was for Dufferin and Bathurst corridors where the TTC makes similarly optimistic projections, but the same issue applies to Jane.)
The remainder of this article updates previously published data about travel times on Jane starting just before the pandemic in November 2019 up to July 2025.
Continue readingThis is the third part of a series showing details of travel times in the Bathurst and Dufferin corridors.
For introductory remarks and a discussion of general issues, please refer to Part I.
The main part of this article contains the charts for the streetcar service on 511 Bathurst. Note that data for any bus extras has been omitted from these charts to ensure a presentation of streetcar-only speeds. Data from October 2024 and July 2025 are shown here to be outside of the period when the line was rerouted around construction at Fleet and Bathurst with buses operating a south-end shuttle service.
Continue readingThis is the second part of a series showing details of travel times in the Bathurst and Dufferin corridor.
For introductory remarks and a discussion of general issues, please refer to Part I.
The main part of this article contains the charts for the local and express bus services on Dufferin Street in June 2025.
Although the focus of recent debates about transit priority for Dufferin was from Eglinton south, data here show that there are issues with extended running times, particularly in the afternoon, over the full route with northbound trips taking the lion’s share of the delay. Express trips are faster than local trips, but by varying amounts over the route. The least benefit is on the southern portion of the route where red lanes will be installed, and where staying in those lanes could prevent express buses from leap-frogging the locals.
There are some areas where traffic slows in advance of an intersection, but more common is a general slowing down of bus speeds over the route representing overall traffic speed and longer stop service times when the route is busy.
Data shown here are from June 2025 with both the local 29 and express 929 services plotted together for comparison. In many times and locations their speeds are comparable, while in others the express buses have higher speeds than the locals.
The main article contains all of the charts including PDFs with all day sets.
Continue readingIn recent discussions of the Bathurst and Dufferin transit priority schemes, a major issue is the degree to which various parts of the routes contribute to slower operation by time-of-day and direction. In this article and two to follow, I will review the actual behaviour of these routes to provide both a basis for discussion of expanding the priority schemes, and as a “before” reference for comparison after they are implemented.
Reviews by time-of-day are useful not just to spot peak period issues, but also as a reference for what might be achieved. At the beginning and end of service hours on most routes, there is no traffic congestion and lighter passenger demand reduces stop service time. Bettering travel times from those periods would be challenging.
Travel times are affected by many factors including:
Express services have fewer stops and therefore lose less time on that account, but this is only one of many possible factors.
A further consideration is that for the transit vehicle, we generally talk about point-to-point times, but for a rider, “travel” includes access time to and from stops at their origin and destination. Removing stops might speed up buses, but at the cost of longer access time. This is a balancing act depending on local geography, the location of signalized intersections and major trip generators.
The relationship between travel times and demand is not exact, and depends on various factors:
The origin and quantity of any new riders can vary and will depend greatly on both the latent demand and the perceived improvement for travellers. Would-be riders who now drive require a substantial inducement to change modes especially if their trip would involve multiple routes of which only one was improved. Some riders may shift from nearby routes as happened with the King Street corridor, but this is very specific to local routes and riding patterns, and it does not represent net new transit users.
Any analysis is complicated by the events of 2020-25 and a major shift in overall travel including the stronger recovery of off-peak as compared to peak period demand. If transit priority only yields its greatest benefit in the peak, a large part of the travel market sees little change.
The TTC projects substantial ridership increases on Jane, Dufferin and Bathurst through the proposed transit priority schemes, and this implies both a major improvement in perceived service quality and a latent demand for better transit. However, they do not explain how they reach this conclusion nor the methodology behind their claims, nor the amount of extra service, if any, that will be fielded in anticipation of growth.
The Council debate concerned only the section of 7 Bathurst and 29/929 Dufferin south of Eglinton, and of 511 Bathurst from Bloor to Fleet. An inordinate amount of time was spent on a short section of Bathurst south of Dupont. For both corridors, much work was done by local Councillors, their communities and Transportation Services to fine tune the design. This should have occurred earlier in the process.
The larger question, however, is not just the installation of transit priority over a portion of these corridors, but the routes overall and the service they provide. The TTC loves to point to external factors like traffic congestion as their rationale for irregular service, but they do not manage the service they already have as I have shown in numerous articles. Moreover, the standard on which they base reports of “reliability” is very generous for routes that only run every 10 minutes allowing a deviation between 5 and 15 minutes in vehicle spacing.
If one were to say “make it tighter”, I expect the first response would be “oh, we cannot possibly do that” even though the same standards set a tighter deviation for more frequent routes. If it is possible to manage to a six minute window on a 6 minute service, it should be possible to manage to this on a 10 minute service. TTC Service Standards excuse poor service rather than demanding excellence.
The main part of this article presents speed profiles showing details over 7 Bathurst by hour. Within these, one can see locations where transit vehicles have slow operation over extended distances, notably on approaches to intersections. These are key sites for any focus on speeding up transit service.
As a reference, the travel times over each segment, broken down by hour, are also included to show the variation over the day, and the degree of variation (standard deviation of values).
There are many charts, but only a sampling is included inline here. PDFs with full day sets are linked for those who are interested.
I will cover 29/929 Dufferin and 511 Bathurst Streetcar in Parts II and III.
Continue reading
Steve Munro 