WHY you’re late for work, AGAIN
BOMB THREATS, OWL ATTACKS & NAKED PASSENGERS: INSIDE THE TTC’S STRUGGLE TO MAKE THE TRAINS RUN ON TIME,
It’s 4: 30 p. m. on a Wednesday and the subway is actually ahead of schedule. Inside the Toronto Transit Commission’s transit control centre, a screen shows trains meeting 97 per cent of the day’s scheduled targets. But once rush hour hits, the impressive numbers begin to plummet.
“Westbound Woodbine doors.” James Ross, the TTC’s acting deputy chief operating officer, runs up the steps and tells a colleague of a subway delay in the east end. His team has just finished dealing with another holdup, but they know victories are shortlived.
Ross is used to the mayhem. He was first assigned to ensure the subways ran on time on 9/11, when operators were doubting their safety after the terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the equipment department is fielding calls from the crew at Woodbine to try to identify the problem. A train behind them at Main Station is already blocked from moving. An alert pops up on each individual screen with the details.
A red light goes on above an employee’s work station as she announces the delay to riders on trains and in stations. The office is supposed to be quiet so she can be clearly heard, but everyone is shouting like they’re on the floor of a stock market.
The TTC knows it can’t stop many delays from happening, so it works tirelessly to limit their length.
At the transit control centre, a team of 86 has the job of keeping subways, streetcars and buses running on time 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
According to internal targets, a train must appear every two minutes and 21 seconds. Transit control moves things along by rerouting trains in the opposite direction or onto another line, calling police to respond to emergencies, recovering signals and deploying mechanics.
When Mike Palmer, the acting chief operating officer, stands in the middle of the room, his hand under his chin, it’s only a matter of time before he finds a problem. His eyes dart back and forth across the huge screen that tracks the progress of each train. He won’t shy away from off- loading passengers and turning the train around — even if it enrages riders.
“Often, working here is the lesser of two evils,” he says in his East London accent. “Do we hurt people on the eastbound or do we hurt them on the westbound?
“( Transit control’s) entire day is spent putting the service back to schedule.”
For the TTC, it’s like a war room. Three massive screens on its oval walls track the second- by- second progress of each train. Labelled trains move from station to station across the animated lines, while tickers below show how early or late they are. Closed- circuit TV cameras are trained on the platforms at the busiest stations.
If this site goes down, transit control can be run from two backup sites.
Four people are assigned to the Yonge-University line; another four work on the Bloor-Danforth line. Another desk maintains the Sheppard line, but it “looks after itself ” because it’s generally not overloaded with riders, Palmer says.
The equipment control desk quarterbacks any mechanical delays on trains. The desk in charge of contacting the police when an emergency alarm is pulled gives officers the location and any initial details. On average, a call is made 62 times a day.
The radio desk is in con- stant contact with station supervisors and transit enforcement officers through walkie- talkies. Employees deal with car-houses ( TTC garages), others signal support. Any tweets from the @TTCnotices account during delays are sent from the communications desk. In- house technicians ensure transit control never goes off-line.
From the second floor, Palmer and Ross can oversee the entire room through a glass window. Palmer later uses it to tell a manager below he can see his bald spot.
On this August evening, they’ve already been called into action — and the clock is ticking.
It has been less than three minutes and there’s an eight-station gap, with no trains between Woodbine and Sherbourne westbound. The communications team sends a tweet to riders.
Staff calls a line mechanic to Woodbine, but he would have to travel from Kennedy.
Palmer tells the crew to off-load an eastbound train at Broadview and turn it westbound to plug the gap created by the delay.
“That’s 700 people saying this is a hot train, you delay me, you throw me off for no good reason, TTC again,” he says as the service gap widens. “Meanwhile we’ve got no train between Woodbine and Yonge now.”
The crew on that train is at the end of their nine-hour shift. A new crew was waiting to relieve them at Coxwell.
“But back to Kipling you go,” Ross says sarcastically.
The faulty doors at Woodbine are barricaded and the team decides to allow the train — with the one car closed off to customers — to continue to Kipling.
“Clear! Nine minutes, Woodbine,” one shouts. When the train arrives, it can sit on the back tracks and there will be plenty of time for a mechanic to fix it.
Palmer immediately starts to regret the decision.
“People are going to be standing there, the doors aren’t going to open and they’re going to run to the cars at either side,” he says. “That’s going to lose time at every station.”
But still the gap i sn’ t closed. Now, it’s moved to Bathurst and Castle Frank. Minutes later, another train is off-loaded eastbound at Donlands and turned around. Now, more than 1,400 riders have been affected.
The crew cuts the tension by teasing each other about the Byford Cup and who’s likely to win it this year.
It probably won’t be Andy Byford. The trophy for the TTC’s fantasy soccer league winner was named after the TTC CEO, who is a yearly lock to finish in last place. One employee stole their son’s football trophy and renamed it after their boss.
Ten minutes later, the gap begins to disappear, but not fast enough for the crew. Now, it’s going eastbound. The team decides to send a volunteer train waiting in the back tracks at Kipling — for this very purpose — to plug it once and for all.
“You put it behind train 243 and Bob’s your uncle,” Palmer says. “I do have an uncle Bob by the way, he’s dead.” The laughter breaks up. “Southbound Queen EA,” someone yells. An emergency alarm was pulled. Back to work.
On some days, employees won’t leave their desks except for quick washroom breaks, Ross says. For those who start at 5:30 a.m., it’s “not unusual to see people eating a full roast beef dinner at 8 a.m.” at their desks. When there’s a report of an intoxicated person on a train during the night shift, someone will inevitably yell, “Lucky bastard!”
The delay is resolved in three minutes while Union to Yonge was held at a standstill. A man was sick on the train, but left soon after the alarm was pulled.
Three minutes later, the crew is handling a more complicated problem. The doors on an eastbound train at Castle Frank aren’t shutting. It’s déjà vu. Within minutes, the backlog stretches as far west as Spadina. The next eastbound train is at Coxwell.
As the phones are blaring, CCTV footage shows a platform jammed with frustrated riders at Bloor. There’s a disconnect between the train crew and transit control.
Transit control wants the train off-loaded. The operator argues that protocol is to barricade the doors, empty the one car and keep the train moving.
As the exchange goes on, trains are now stuck at Christie. Two are stuck in tunnels.
Palmer is envisioning the worst-case scenario.
“I would predict we may get an EA if there’s a hot car in the tunnel between Sherbourne and Castle Frank,” he says.
Thirteen minutes later, the train has been off-loaded and is moving again. But the line will be feeling the damage for another half an hour. Supervisors explain the situation to frustrated riders at Bloor.
Transit control handled three delays averaging 10 minutes in less than two hours. It wasn’t that hectic, Ross says — the morning rush hour is always worse.
But the team is used to the pressure. They thrive on being the hidden hands that keep the trains moving — even if riders are always cursing the TTC for being delayed under their breaths.
“It’s all about the big picture,” Palmer says.