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TTC: Major Operational Issues (Various)

Northern Light said:
In general, I seek to deal in substantive facts, rather than anecdotes; but today, I feel like sharing one of the latter.

I was on the TTC yesterday.........and my experience w/their communication and operation was less than ideal.

1) I boarded line 1 just before evening rush, at College Station.

When I boarded, I found out the train was holding due to a medical emergency at Lawrence.

First observation, that's quite the back up to have service slowed down that far south...........and I wonder what the response time was like from EMS, in a previous situation where I was present the response time (EMS to platform level was well outside of guidelines for response times.

Second observation, they were apparently making use of ATC to turn back every second train at Eglinton and send the other trains north operating bidirectionally (alternating w/SB service Good.

But....the delay at College was about 15 minutes for me, then the train moved north to Wellesley and held for another 5+ minutes before moving on to Bloor.

ATC allows trains to get quite close together, much closer than they actually were. My overall impression is that they did not use the system to its potential.

I'm also curious is they literally alternating one train north, one south, over the affected area. It strikes me, that with ATC, and the distances involved, it would probably have worked better to move trains in alternate directions two at a time.

***

2) I get to Bloor and Transfer to Line 2, bit of a wait, but nothing too bad, service moved along fine.

There was an announcement of a power out situation in the west end, somewhere west of Ossington, but that didn't impact me.

However, we did get held at Coxwell. There was no crew change...........and the hold was a good solid 5 minutes, with no announcement as to why.

Overall not a great impression.
Click to expand...
I'll admit that I don't know if it is still the case, but there used to be a rule where they tried their damnedest to hold trains at platforms, rather than tunnels. The thinking was that it was a way to prevent people from being freaked out on a locked train in the middle of nowhere, plus would give passengers the ability to find alternate routes.

If this rule is still in place, than that may explain why your train moved so slowly despite the great distance from the stoppage.

Dan
 
Northern Light said:
In general, I seek to deal in substantive facts, rather than anecdotes; but today, I feel like sharing one of the latter.

I was on the TTC yesterday.........and my experience w/their communication and operation was less than ideal.

1) I boarded line 1 just before evening rush, at College Station.

When I boarded, I found out the train was holding due to a medical emergency at Lawrence.

First observation, that's quite the back up to have service slowed down that far south...........and I wonder what the response time was like from EMS, in a previous situation where I was present the response time (EMS to platform level was well outside of guidelines for response times.

Second observation, they were apparently making use of ATC to turn back every second train at Eglinton and send the other trains north operating bidirectionally (alternating w/SB service Good.

But....the delay at College was about 15 minutes for me, then the train moved north to Wellesley and held for another 5+ minutes before moving on to Bloor.

ATC allows trains to get quite close together, much closer than they actually were. My overall impression is that they did not use the system to its potential.

I'm also curious if they literally alternated one train north, one south, over the affected area. It strikes me, that with ATC, and the distances involved, it would probably have worked better to move trains in alternate directions two at a time.

***

2) I get to Bloor and Transfer to Line 2, bit of a wait, but nothing too bad, service moved along fine.

There was an announcement of a power out situation in the west end, somewhere west of Ossington, but that didn't impact me.

However, we did get held at Coxwell. There was no crew change...........and the hold was a good solid 5 minutes, with no announcement as to why.

Overall not a great impression.
Click to expand...
I find that not every operator will announce their crew changes at Coxwell
 
We can see that a week's worth of early night closures, and a full weekend closure between St.Clair West and King has done absolute wonders (ie: nothing) to remedy issues. Additionally, northbound slow zones between Wellesley and Bloor-Yonge, and St.George to Spadina have returned. And let's not even mention the mess between Bloor-Yonge and Davisville which have been been the way it is for months on end with no end in sight...:

December 2, 2024:

1733226422242.png
 
Amare said:
We can see that a week's worth of early night closures, and a full weekend closure between St.Clair West and King has done absolute wonders (ie: nothing) to remedy issues. Additionally, northbound slow zones between Wellesley and Bloor-Yonge, and St.George to Spadina have returned. And let's not even mention the mess between Bloor-Yonge and Davisville which have been been the way it is for months on end with no end in sight...:

December 2, 2024:

View attachment 616614
Click to expand...
In fairness, they MAY be in the middle of fixin' the St Clair to King section - or not! Several more longer closures coming up.

1733232118859.png
 
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yrt+viva=1system said:
Major delays on Line 1 this afternoon for rush hour.
Click to expand...
Seems to be mostly back to normal.

chrisw said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1864437595591086110
A big crowd at Finch station platforms who didn't get notice of the shuttle buses yet.
Click to expand...
I think most riders are well aware, that shuttle buses are never a great option, and most of these delays are resolved quick enough, that it's faster to wait it out.

Looking at tracking data, I see only a single bus (bus 1119) southbound from Finch since they announced the buses (which first spent 20-minutes getting to Finch from the Wilson garage).

And 35 minutes later it hadn't even gotten to Lawrence yet! I bet those on the platform passed there a lot earlier! (though if the load data is correct, it dumped everyone at Sheppard-Yonge on the way past, at the 20-minute mark).

1733354853133.png
 
Last edited:
DSC said:
In fairness, they MAY be in the middle of fixin' the St Clair to King section - or not! Several more longer closures coming up.

View attachment 616637
Click to expand...
I don't think so. They might fix one or two of those multi section issues but not all.

They closed VP to Kennedy early for 4 weeks plus weekends and one direction still has a RSZ. Now they just gave up and worked on something else.
 
Does anyone know if the ATC work on Line 1 (that took so many years to complete) has had any positive effect on service reliability? It seems there are signal issues quite frequently... Is this project complete? I was under the impression that "everything would get better" after ATC - I dare say, it almost seems worse.
 
andrewmaps said:
Does anyone know if the ATC work on Line 1 (that took so many years to complete) has had any positive effect on service reliability? It seems there are signal issues quite frequently... Is this project complete? I was under the impression that "everything would get better" after ATC - I dare say, it almost seems worse.
Click to expand...
The ATC project is complete. One big issue is that the mix of the huge amount of slow zones on line 1 and the COVID service cuts has meant that the ATC has never really been used to it's full potential.
 
And it likely never will be. The capacity of Line 1 is down tremendously and that’s taking into account much lower ridership. The TTC service is so unreliable and slow that ATC or no ATC there is something fundamentally wrong with operators and operations. Door problems and passenger problems - the TTC brass just doesn’t care to operate efficiently. They take their time and don’t understand people use the system to move around.

It’s just neglect and incompetence. It’s the same reasons why it takes 3-5 years to build simple elevators or to repair an escalator (eg King St
 
Complete chaos on Line 1 this morning. They closed the whole thing from St. George to Finch, reopened and reclosed it several times, then determined the problem was someone at track level between Lawrence and York Mills so sent shuttle buses from St. Clair to York Mills. I got to St. George and they had just kicked everyone off a southbound train before ordering everybody back in. Obviously two Line 2 trains had emptied out by then and southbound became even more of a sardine can than usual. I was fine, but my parents were with me heading to Union to catch a Via train. They had never seen something like that in the small hamlet they live in (Ottawa).
 
I'm not sure the TTC is going to survive the next 20 years.
evandyk said:
Complete chaos on Line 1 this morning. They closed the whole thing from St. George to Finch, reopened and reclosed it several times, then determined the problem was someone at track level between Lawrence and York Mills so sent shuttle buses from St. Clair to York Mills. I got to St. George and they had just kicked everyone off a southbound train before ordering everybody back in. Obviously two Line 2 trains had emptied out by then and southbound became even more of a sardine can than usual. I was fine, but my parents were with me heading to Union to catch a Via train. They had never seen something like that in the small hamlet they live in (Ottawa).
Click to expand...
 
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