It's very interesting then that the TTC has had a long-term unfunded below-the-line budget item for comprehensive switch overhaul. Have you let them know that it's a myth?
That's an unrelated issue. Streetcars would still have to stop at every intersection and check the switch.
This article explains it fairly well:
"TTC officials say it is the driver’s responsibility to check that every switch on the tracks is aligned properly before proceeding, a rule established in 2002 to avoid accidents like yesterday’s."
"The question of which type of switch we use is completely separate from yesterday’s collision, and we shouldn’t get the idea that a massive retrofit will prevent future accidents. Transit City lines will use double-blade switches, and there will likely be a move to gradually retrofit the existing system where practical. However, the special work renewal cycle is about 25 years long, and it will be at least 2035 before every intersection has been rebuilt. In all the discussion about automatic switches, the TTC didn’t mention that the electric switching systems are unreliable and that there is a capital project to completely replace them. "
From
this article a few years later:
"The majority of switches, about seventy per cent, are electric and are, you guessed it, switched by the operator from the comfort of the streetcar. The rest are manual, requiring the operator to stop the streetcar ahead of the switch, get out of the car, and manually set the switch in the direction he or she wishes to go.
"Once the operator has made the turn and is at a safe distance from the intersection, the operator then gets out of streetcar—again—and resets the switch to its default position: straight on through, presumably, for the next streetcar.
"Now, occasionally, switches get stuck or don’t respond when the operator attempts to set the switch from the cab. At all switch locations across the city, operators must stop and look to ensure the switch is set correctly. Failing to do so will take you on a route you didn’t anticipate."
Another thing that isn't noted in either article is that the TTC has a lot of reliability issues because the company that manufactures the issues was sold, its headquarters burned down in a fire and the design documents for the switching system were lost in that fire. So the TTC literally just has to figure out how to repair a system without any information aside from the parts they have in stock or installed, and without any support from the OEM.
