Lessons from Tokyo about Toronto’s substandard subways

It used to take 35 minutes to commute from my home to my downtown office at Ryerson University. Now I allow more than an hour because of delays. And like many who use the Toronto subway every day, I’m losing patience.

Perhaps I’d cut the TTC some slack, but having recently returned from Tokyo, nothing about Toronto’s subway looks the same. For the weeks we were there, we rode Tokyo’s subway several times a day. Never was there a delay. On the rare occasion this happens, workers offer profuse apologies.

Sometimes we’d see people who appeared to be in a deep sleep but then, uncannily, wake up at precisely the moment the train pulled into the station. Turns out the subway keeps such a strict schedule that people can literally set their clocks by it. A cellphone alarm wakes those commuters at the precise moment the train arrives. And we never had to worry about a line being closed for construction as all work is done overnight, after the subway closes. This summer in Toronto there have been weekend closures for construction virtually every weekend.

Japan’s subway is run by two companies. Tokyo Metro, which runs nine of Tokyo’s subway lines, is a private company owned by the Japanese federal and the Tokyo municipal governments in an arms-length relationship. Toei’s four lines are owned by the municipal government. The city’s transit funding is stable and the subway system is a priority.

And when that happens everyone takes notice. Attendants seemed to take enormous pride in their work. When we asked a station attendant for information, he later came running to find us, holding a map that made directions clearer.

Yes, the subway is crowded at peak times and notorious for attendants who push people on. But I’ve seen the subway in Toronto when it’s every bit as crowded. And that’s without the consolation of an exquisitely run system.

So maybe I was getting spoiled by the time I arrived home to a community report from our councillor that said the TTC relief line should be our highest priority but “remains unfunded.” Unavailable too, it seems, money to address technical issues that cause many of the delays.

During the Ontario election campaign, Doug Ford pledged $5 billion for public transit. That’s on top of the $9 billion over the next decade pledged last March by the federal and provincial governments.

Let’s see what happens, and let’s not forget Ford’s promise.

We can continue to argue that excellent public transit is an expense we can’t afford. We can speculate that people won’t be willing to pay higher taxes to support the transit system. We can incite people to turn to their cars in frustration, and to continue to clog the downtown core. We can continue to debate the issue as we wait to see what the new provincial government will do.

But for any commuting Torontonian, that train has already left the station.