Toronto city staff propose installation of heaters in select TTC bus shelters

Waiting for the bus in freezing cold temperatures may soon be a thing of the past for some TTC transit users.

Toronto city staff have put forward a recommendation to install user-activated heaters in select bus shelters starting next year.

In a report sent to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, city staff outlined their plan to install 100 heating kits in the span of seven years to select stops with higher ridership and lower service frequency.

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Bus shelters on the Ten Minute or Better Service Networks and shelters not attached to an electrical grid won’t make the cut.

If approved, users could activate the shelter’s heater which would run in five-minute intervals with the ability to be restarted immediately when temperatures drop below 5 C.

The proposal to install heaters comes at the 12-year-mark of the city’s public-private Street Furniture Program with Astral Media.

The agreement began in 2007 and worked to install, operate and maintain approximately 24,500 pieces of street furniture over a 20-year-period.

The partnership has resulted in the installation of $197 million worth of elements for transit street furniture.