‘This is supposed to be the shuttle service?’
Outside St. George station, crowds stretched between the station and down to the Royal Ontario Museum by Bloor Street West and Avenue Road. Many told the Star they had been waiting over 20 minutes for shuttle buses to arrive without any other way to get to work.
Deep in the line of people waiting to board a shuttle bus, Victoria Oman told the Star she had been waiting for 26 minutes.
“I’m coming from Scarborough, so it takes me an hour and a half to get to work,” Oman said. “I don’t drive so I really rely on the TTC.”
Oman said she was “pretty used to this (delayed commute),” estimating that two or three times a month she ends up in a similar situation.
Despite this, she says she would not consider buying a car to offset her commute times because the costs would be too high to justify.
Further down the queue, Gitanjali Bhatia and Maria Saldanha said they were waiting about 30 minutes to board. Bhatia said she hadn’t heard about the subway delays until it was too late to find a different route.
“If they would have announced at Kipling station, I would have taken a GO train,” Bhatia said. “There’s no communication.”
“And look at this now,” Saldanha said, gesturing to the growing crowd. “Look at this lineup … this is supposed to be the shuttle service?”
Both Saldanha and Bhatia said they work too far away to feasibly walk to their jobs. They stressed they wanted better communication from the TTC.
“At least at the station there should be proper announcements” if delays are already in effect, Bhatia said.
For the past two months, Sandesh Subramanian says he has found himself in similar situations “way more often than usual.”
“I was talking to my colleague the other day, he’s new to Toronto. I told him this is not how it used to be last year or the year before — especially if you look at … the amount of delays you have on the TTC. It’s just crazy,” Subramanian said.
Like Oman, Subramanian wouldn’t buy a car, instead opting to take Uber if transit is slow.
The caveat, Subramanian said, is surge pricing on ride-sharing vehicles.
“Usually when I take a cab at this time, it’s around $8 or $9 because it’s (a short drive). Now it’s around $17.”
The University Avenue sidewalk appeared to be more crowded than usual for the morning commute, with some riders deciding to walk rather than take a crowded shuttle bus.
No injuries were reported as a result of the derailment.
The TTC tweeted that “as a result of the delay on Line 1, customers may use GO Transit at Kipling, Dundas West, Downsview Park and Union Stations (including the UP Express)” for the cost of a regular TTC fare.
Presto customers would not have to tap prior to boarding.
While derailments are relatively rare on the TTC, this is the second incident in a little more than three weeks. On Jan. 22, a subway car “partially derailed,” closing Line 2 between Jane and Ossington stations for four hours, affecting thousands of passengers.
Prior to that incident, the last derailment on the TTC was in 2008.