Forget the romance, all these TTC riders want for Christmas are new subway trains.
On Thursday, members of the public transit advocacy group TTCriders along with a number of Toronto councillors will be bringing a musical message to commuters through re-imagined carols that call on the federal government to immediately commit to paying for 55 replacement trains for Line 2 and 25 growth trains for Line 1 as well as funding transit operations.
The carolers will be gathering throughout the day at the station on Line 2 including Dufferin, Victoria Park, Kipling, Dundas West, and Donlands stations. Volunteers from TTCriders clad in Santa hats and ringing bells will also be on hand to hand out flyers to riders about how they can encourage their local MPs to push the federal government to fund its part of the $3.2 billion needed to purchase these 80 new subway trains and operate them.
“Now, it’s up to the federal MPs to do their part. They’ve been falling behind,” Shelagh Pizey-Allen, TTCriders’ executive director, told CP24.com on Wednesday afternoon.
The advocacy group is pushing for timely commitment from the feds as the cost of purchasing the new subway trains is expected to rise by $90 million or more dollars if an order isn’t placed by early 2024. These figures were outlined in a Nov. 22 staff report on new subway train procurement and implications for Line 2 modernization and future growth.
TTCriders is also saying that without immediate support from Ottawa, transit service in Toronto will become increasingly unreliable in the coming years, pointing to more service disruptions, including unexpected shutdowns for maintenance.
Pizey-Allen said while the proposed TTC’s 2024 Operating Budget includes some service improvements like some small increases in the hours of operation for busses, streetcars, and subways, as well as no fare increases, the push must continue for more frequent and reliable TTC service levels that will lead more and more drivers to ditch their vehicles in favour of public transit.
On Wednesday afternoon, several representatives from TTCriders also took their message to a special TTC board meeting.
