Tired of slow zones on the TTC? There could be more identified soon

The TTC is gearing up for another one of its annual track surveys meant to spot minor defects before they balloon into bigger issues, and help bring tracks across the transit system back to industry standard. 

Journalists were invited along to watch the preparations for this year's geometric track survey set to begin next week.

"While we have no idea how many minor defects the survey might find (or slow zones may result), we assume it will find some," TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said in an email ahead of the tour.

Last year's survey resulted in dozens of new slow zones being implemented to bring tracks across the transit system back to industry standard, while critics doubt whether more could be done to prevent the slow zones entirely. 

The number of slow zones has been reduced from 33 last summer to 12, but Green already warned earlier this year that number will "never be zero."

Trains drop down to 15 to 25 kilometres per hour in each slow zone, slowing down the service by two minutes per zone. 

How does a track survey work? 

During the survey, a specialized device takes laser-guided measurements of the distance between two rails on a track, as well as the elevation and wear and tear on the tracks — all to identify issues that wouldn't have been visible during a typical inspection, like a track misalignment as small as a few millimetres.

The TTC started doing the survey in 2015, mapping out the whole subway network stretching over 140 kilometres. Slow zones could be placed in sections where the survey finds the track geometry falls outside the standard. 

The TTC says it will collect data twice on each line, something that will be done outside service hours on Line 1, but not for Lines 2 and 4. 

Each survey costs around $250,000 US, or about $347,000 Cdn., according to Fort Monaco, the TTC's chief operations and infrastructure officer. 

"We want more trains, we want more people, we want tighter headways. That comes at the cost of deterioration of assets," he said. 

The survey will kickstart April 28 and is expected to wrap up on May 5, according to the TTC. 

But the track survey might not be a cure-all for detecting issues that exist across the system. 

The TTC's maintenance reporting system was called out last year in a commissioned report, saying the system didn't properly document when certain components of its fleet needed to be inspected, maintained, or replaced. 

The TTC accepted all of the report's recommendations, according to staff. 

Critics say slow zones can't go on 

The slow zones are meant to reduce wear and tear so small deficiencies found along the tracks are less likely to turn into issues that cause bigger disruptions. 

The TTC says they try to prioritize areas where tracks can be fixed quickly and leverage weekend closures to limit the number of slow zones riders need to sit through. But Chloe Tangpongprush, a spokesperson for the advocacy group TTCriders, says riders are fed up with the state of despair. 

"These subway slow zones impact hundreds of thousands of riders every day, and it cannot be the new normal," she said. 

Monaco of the TTC says how long slow zones last depends on the severity of the issue, but the transit agency looks to clear them within an average of 22 to 25 days.  

He says Toronto can get to a world with zero slow zones if it took inspiration from cities like Boston, where the subway service can shut down for as long as three weeks for repairs — much longer than the weekend closures the TTC currently has.

"I think the point is we need to increase our maintenance window and be a little bit more creative," he said. 

The TTC has long been plagued by maintenance issues. From the trains on Line 2 that will soon celebrate their 30th birthday, aging and faulty equipment causing fuel spills, and cracks in concrete that contribute to flooding, quite a lot of the TTC is aging as the transit system faces a roughly $8.2-billion repair backlog.

That figure could go down by nearly 50 per cent, thanks to new sources of funding in this year's budget, according to an annual progress report. 

Tangpongprush said there's a need for more funding to repair the system as she appealed to federal parties to prioritize public transit ahead of election day.

"We're asking for the federal government to chip in," she said. 

As the aging trains on Line 2 approach the end of their useful life, the city recently reached an agreement with the federal and provincial government to split the $2.3-billion bill for new ones.