TTC Pauses

[ShonTron]

Has anyone noticed that the last few Mondays the Y-U-S line seems to be bonkers in the morning? For one thing, it seems the short-turns at St. Clair West have not been operating around 8:20-8:30 as usual, leading to extremely crowded Spadina trains and huge crowds at St. George, which is not quite typical.

Though I am noticing the Spadina trains getting quite busy now, with all seats gone by Wilson or Yorkdale at the latest these days.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Yonge-Bloor was also busier than usual (which is the new normal sadly) - I was there at 0840 or so and had to wait for 2 trains before getting on. The PA had something on an "earlier delay at Union" but that's also sadly a usual occurance.

AoD

 

[Tuscani01]

The YUS line was fucking ridiculous this morning. St. George's upper platform was so crowded that the escalators and stairwells were backing up to the lower platform. The TTC needs to learn how to shut off the escalators in these cases. People were piling up. Luckily I needed to down instead of up... but getting through that crowd was fun.

I was thinking Yonge would be a bit better but I ran into the same situation there... minus the backup to the lower platform.

All the crowds were the result of a delay at Rosedale that triggered some passengers collapsing at crowded Summerhill and Wellesley Stations. Once those were clear, another delay at Eglinton kept things moving slow.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

All the crowds were the result of a delay at Rosehill that triggered some passengers collapsing at crowded Summerhill and Wellesley Stations.

I am really, really curious as to how many of these medical emergencies we suffer everyday and how much it affects TTC operations as a result. Personal experience suggest that they happen rather often during rush hours and often in clusters, with very unpleasant effects.

AoD

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Late for work? So was TTC boss
Jan 28, 2008 11:11 AM
John Spears
CITY HALL BUREAU

Late for work this morning because the Yonge subway was all snarled up? You had good company.
Gary Webster, chief general manager of the Toronto Transit Commission, was held up, too. He arrived late at City Hall this morning for a meeting with – wait for it – TTC chairman Adam Giambrone.
The Yonge subway's problems began with a mechanical problem on a train at the Rosedale station at 7.30 a.m., Webster said in an interview this morning.
"It was before the peak of the rush hour," Webster said. "It was a nine-minute delay. That causes a large gap and crowding.
"As a result of that, we had a person collapse southbound at Summerhill, and another person collapse southbound at Wellesley."
In both cases, other passengers triggered passenger assistance alarms that led to more delays.
Webster saw the effects himself. "I left my office southbound at Davisville around 8.10 a.m.,” he said, “and the Rosedale train was clear, the Sumerhill assistance alarm was clear and we just had the second one at Wellesley. And it was really slow."
Service was still crawling at 9.10 a.m., when another passenger had medical problems at Eglinton station.
"You get a nine-minute delay, it just makes it worse and you screw up the whole rush hour," Webster said.
It's been a bad week for TTC delays. Last Monday, some paper caught fire on the track at York Mills station.
The fire department came and took care of the problem, but when service resumed another fire flared up.
Then on Tuesday, some leaves caught fire outdoors at Victoria Park station, which also caused a delay.
TTC statistics will show that this morning's delays could be chalked up to three passenger alarms and one mechanical breakdown, Webster said.
Passenger alarms in the past few years have in fact been contributing increasingly to delays, he said, perhaps because ridership is up.
But Webster acknowledged that this morning, it was the initial train breakdown at Rosedale that triggered the overcrowding and led to the passenger alarms.
The TTC and city have budgeted for new signals that will allow trains to travel closer together, speeding service. New cars are also in the works that will carry more passengers for each train.
However, those improvements won't be in place until 2012 on the Yonge subway line.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

"Last Monday, some paper caught fire on the track at York Mills station."

I knew things like this would happen when they removed trash cans from the platform levels of stations, with people tossing more and more garbage onto the tracks. What a stupendously moronic, boneheaded decision that's turned out to be.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

"Last Monday, some paper caught fire on the track at York Mills station."

I knew things like this would happen when they removed trash cans from the platform levels of stations, with people tossing more and more garbage onto the tracks. What a stupendously moronic, boneheaded decision that's turned out to be.

Yes, blame the TTC for the stupendously moronic, boneheaded decision of TTC riders to litter. It's not going to kill you to hold onto your trash for until you leave the platform.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I think the TTC started having recurrent problems with fires on track level awhile ago, coinciding with the free newspaper trend. Wasn't there some kind of modification that lessened the frequency?

What they really should do is:
1. ban the distribution of free newspapers within 100 metres of any subway entrance and
2. severely punish those who litter.

Like seriously, do we really need a shopping cart (!) filled with free Metro as a public service on TTC property? (this is at Kipling Station)

AoD

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

Yes, blame the TTC for the stupendously moronic, boneheaded decision of TTC riders to litter. It's not going to kill you to hold onto your trash for until you leave the platform.

I *do* blame the TTC's decision, boneheaded and moronic, to remove trash cans which worsen the effects caused by *other* boneheaded morons who litter on the system, thus contributing to fires, which leads to delays, etc. When the cans were there, those cans at least *mitigated*, to a great degree, the action of said *other* boneheaded morons who might otherwise litter. I have never understood, to this day, why the cans were removed. Security concerns? Then tell me why NYC and DC still have bins on every platform in every station on their systems. Every time I look down from the railfan window and see along the track bed and under the "lips" of the platforms the amount of debris that was never there prior to the removal of the bins, yes, the terms boneheaded and moronic tend to enter into play.

 

[smuncky]

During last Tuesday's(?) track level incident between York Mills and Lawrence, a fellow passenger who claimed to work in a hospital told me that most of the track level injuries end up in hospitals with missing limbs.

i think it was on monday were the accident happened at york mills and they were running the subway from finch to sheppard and lawrence to downsview. they had a shuttle bus from sheppard to lawrence. i arrived to finch at 10.30 and i never saw it so packed. there was a stand still on the upper level filled with people. just crazy. luckily, i was on one of the first trains which were cleared to go through york mills as they just cleaned up the mess.

Early this morning there were 2 announcements of delays at 2 stations(Summerhill and Rosedale?).

i know there was an announcement of a delay at southbound college station when i got on at finch at 10.10 this morning. instead of the usual 30 min trip, it took 50 min as there were several long stops between stations.

 

[ShonTron]

I *do* blame the TTC's decision, boneheaded and moronic, to remove trash cans which worsen the effects caused by *other* boneheaded morons who litter on the system.... Security concerns? Then tell me why NYC and DC still have bins on every platform in every station on their systems. Every time I look down from the railfan window and see along the track bed and under the "lips" of the platforms the amount of debris that was never there prior to the removal of the bins, yes, the terms boneheaded and moronic tend to enter into play.

I totally agree - the stupid bins are also useless for recycling with their wide-open tops for all three streams, and it's annoying not having them at platform level, especially at the interchange stations. Though Washington has an extremely strict policy prohibiting food and drink in the Metro as well. I wouldn't suggest going that far here, but it is an idea.

 

[JasonParis]

San Francisco is also strictly no food and drink too.

 

[ShonTron]

So does LA, but the difference in DC is that is actively enforced, and even passengers will give you a glare if you don't comply.

 

[EnviroTO]

In Japan they have a complete lack of garbage bins everywhere other than right next to dispensing machines yet the place is rather spotless. Unfortunately lazy people is the bigger problem and filling every corner of the public domain with litter bins is the duct tape (or in the case of Toronto... the asphalt) solution to the problem. Maybe the real solution is large fines and cameras on the platforms to catch people.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

And in Toronto, giving someone a glare for littering on the TTC will garner a *shrug*...

This would not be a problem if as Torontonians, littering would be as intolerable as smoking in a prohibited place.