Above: Ongoing TTC disruptions frustrate commuters. Mark McAllister reports.
TORONTO – A Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) train which stopped near Kipling Station Wednesday morning was not caused by a derailment as initially believed, according to spokesperson Danny Nicholson.
Preliminary reports by a TTC official had indicated the train traveling westbound towards Kipling came off its track at 8:55 a.m., but further investigation indicated that was not the case.
Nicholson said approximately 60 passengers were on board and no one was hurt. The TTC says everyone was removed from the train with the help of police and firefighters.
Sherline Tavaya was stuck on the westbound train between Kipling and Islington Stations just after 7:45 a.m.
The train stopped just after leaving Islington station, and didn’t move for close to an hour. Tavaya said there was no information other than a repetitive message about “signal problems.”
The train then started moving slowly, and when it was approximately 50 feet from Kipling station, Tavaya said it jerked to a stop.
VIDEO: TTC CEO Andy Byford discusses the issue at Kipling station
Read More: ‘Planning by press conference’: What’s with Toronto’s transit indecision?
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When the response team did get to the train about 20 minutes later, she said passengers were asked to exit the rear of the train and walk back to Kipling Station.
“It was the longest delay I’ve ever experienced on a train,” she said.
Tavaya suggested the signal problems that kept her on a train for over 1.5 hours Wednesday morning are indicative of larger problems across the TTC.
“They haven’t really fixed the problem because I think for the past couple of weeks it’s been the same thing. And it’s in different areas, different parts of the line, the Bloor-Danforth line and sometimes it affects the University line as well and it seems like the problems are increasing.”
In order to alleviate the growing backlog at Islington Station, the TTC implemented a bus shuttle of approximately 42 buses.
While it’s not yet known what caused the train to get stuck between stations, TTC CEO Andy Byford said the aging signals on that part of the line are becoming “increasingly unreliable.”
“You know, we have very, very old equipment. It’s safe, but it is becoming increasingly unreliable,” he said. “So that’s why I’m banging the table with the city council, with Ottawa and with Queen’s Park to get proper funding for the least-subsidized transit in North America.”
But the stoppage on the Bloor-Danforth line wasn’t the only delay this week, or even on Wednesday. Track problems caused train service to be suspended along the Scarborough RT just after noon Wednesday and Byford issued an apology Monday for delays caused by signal problems.
“If we can drive down the root causes of delay and if every day we can just make the service that much better,” Byford said. “Every day we move 1.8 million people and most of those journeys go forgettably, in other words, nothing happens, they go without incident.”
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