Picturesque snow, grotesque commutes Monday
Not a pretty picture with many collisions, grounded planes, TTC evacuation
After the deluge came the cloudy skies.
Torontonians woke up to a messy Monday — and a reasonable excuse to be late for work — after a late fall storm delivered a wallop of ice and snow, disrupting commutes across the city.
Peter Kimbell, an Environment Canada meteorologist, said roughly 11.4 millimetres of total precipitation fell on Sunday, with three centimetres of snow. By mid-afternoon Monday, nine centimetres of snow fell, followed by cloudy skies.
The poor weather conditions made for a nightmare commute for thousands of TTC passengers, who trudged through the snow to get to the subway only to deal with a portion of Line 2 — between Keele and Ossington stations — shut down for most of the morning rush hour because of a fire at Dundas West station early Monday morning.
The fire wasn’t related to the weather, according to TTC spokesperson Hayley Waldman, but that was little comfort to the commuters forced to hop on to shuttle buses, likely forcing many to show up late at work. Subway service was restored shortly before 10 a.m.
It was even a worse experience for some passengers on a westbound train between Lansdowne and Dundas West, who had to evacuate through the tunnel before exiting at Lansdowne station because of the fire.
“This morning’s west-end #TTC commute was frustrating for all involved,” TTC spokesperson Stuart Green tweeted later Monday morning.
“Honestly, we get that and we apologize. Our subway infrastructure crews are still looking into root causes of the fire that halted service for three hours.”
Service was also briefly suspended between St. George and Woodbine stations due to a fire at Chester station. It “was caused by debris falling/being thrown (we don’t know which) on tracks, contacting the power rail,” Green tweet.
Above ground, the City of Toronto sent out its fleet of more than 1,100 snow-clearing vehicles to deal with the white stuff. Residents who wish to check the real-time location of plows and salt trucks can track them on its site.
The Ontario Provincial Police said there were approximately 400 collisions in the GTA as of late Sunday.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said that number rose to more than 500 by Monday morning. The number did not rise significantly later in the day.
“We have to make adjustments this time this season,” said Toronto police Const. David Hopkinson, emphasizing that people should slow down and clean their windshields.
In the air, the snow caused some delays at Pearson airport. According to the airport website, 6.99 per cent of departures and 8.44 per cent of arrivals were cancelled as of 2:30 p.m. Travellers were advised to check their flight status before leaving for the airport.
“We do know there are definitely lots of delays today, we’re still sort of catching up to yesterday as well,” Tori Gass, spokesperson for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said Monday. “We had more snow than expected overnight, so we’re very busy with snow removal.”
The weather should be better Tuesday. Environment Canada is calling for winds up to 15 km/h and a high of 3 C during the day, although it will feel closer to -10 C with wind chill. Flurries are also forecast to arrive in the afternoon.