Mayor Tory vows to cut TTC subway delays 50% by 2019

It’s one of the biggest complaints commuters have about public transit and now Mayor John Tory is taking a hard stance on TTC delays.

On Monday, Tory released an aggressive strategy to cut subway wait times in half by 2019.

“The TTC, under the leadership of Josh Colle and Andy Byford, is implementing an aggressive strategy to reduce subway delays by a further 50 per cent,” Tory said. “This strategy will be supported by investments made in 2015, 2016 and beyond.”

The strategy will include more late-night trains on Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina), additional staff working to improve the state of good repair efforts, expanded blue night and express bus service, and the building of a 10-minute or better surface network.

The huge push in transit service will be made possible because of the proposed 2016 budget. Tory says the budget will put $50 million more into the TTC.

“The budget, as proposed, will represent a $50 million increase over the budget of last year,” Tory said. “Funding that will go to cut congestion, improve and expand TTC service and reliability.”

Tory said that even though transit has improved over the last year, riders still experience overcrowding and lack of adequate transit. He said they must push forward with SmartTrack and the Scarborough transit plan to provide “real relief” to overcrowding on existing subway lines.

“The bottom line is this, I take the subway virtually every day, I know how important it is to get to work on time. We need fast, reliable subway service and that’s exactly what we’re focusing on delivering for the people of this city,” said Tory.

Last year a $95 million investment was made into the TTC, which saw children 12 and under riding for free, the return of several bus and streetcar routes cut under the Ford administration, and the expansion of the blue-night network.

“As a result of this investment, now 99 per cent of the people who live in Toronto, live within a 15-minute walk of overnight TTC service and I think that’s an important thing for a big, growing metropolis like ours,” Tory said.

Numbers released by the TTC show that the length of delays on Line 1 are down 25 per cent and down nine per cent on Line 2 compared to the previous year.