MORE BUSES & STREETCARS BUS AND STREETCAR SHORTAGES The reality is that the TTC’s current fleet just doesn’t include enough buses and streetcars.
The number of people waiting at transit stops far exceeds the capacity of the vehicles that the commission has available to put into service. And the demand continues to grow by millions of riders a year, making a difficult situation worse. ATU members maintain and operate the buses and streetcars, and have spent a lot of time considering how to get more of them on the road in a timely way. TTC employees have a proven track record of cost-efficient solutions, and that’s what’s on offer in this section. The good news is there is a way to manage better in the short run, and to fix the problem in the long run. This bus and streetcar deficit has major consequences for the entire system, including dreaded vehicle breakdowns. Bus garages are under pressure to “make service” – that is, to send out the number of buses budgeted for a route, despite the fact that often there has not been enough time allocated to do proper maintenance. As a result, sometimes buses are sent out for
service despite needing further repairs. Many of these break down every day and need to be towed, leading to passenger off-loading, anger, poor customer service, and costing millions of dollars a year. Since buses are considered to “make service’’ even if they malfunction shortly after leaving the garage, we don’t even have the full picture when it comes to the amount of actual service on the road. But there’s no overnight solution to the vehicle shortage. For starters, new buses take 15 to 18 months to arrive after an order is placed, and even the 2009 order for new streetcars won’t be fully fulfilled until 2019. The TTC started the new century off to a good start, procuring around 1500 new buses between 2002 and 2011. This lowered the average age of the bus fleet from around 15 years old to between five and seven, added over 150 buses to the peak period over the decade, and improved the quality of the ride. During bus shortages in recent decades, the TTC has relied partially on extending the life of existing buses by overhauling and rebuilding them in-house, rather than retiring them. This