Forget broken elevators. The real problem with the state of TTC repairs may be what you can’t see

Transit advocates know all too well what can happen when crucial maintenance and upgrades to Toronto’s transit system are allowed to slip.

When asked about the stakes of the massive hole in the portion of the TTC budget that handles state of good repair — $22.5 billion still unfunded in the transit agency’s capital investment plan through 2036 — they commonly reference two words: Russell Hill.

On an August night in 1995 one subway train rear-ended another on Toronto’s southbound Spadina line, killing three people, hospitalizing and injuring dozens more. The crash, which, along with human error, was caused by a flawed safety device meant to help stop wayward trains, caused a shift in the TTC’s culture.

But years of funding shortfalls have delayed much-needed repairs and forced Band-Aid fixes, leaving the TTC with a growing mountain of future costs and no indication of who will cover them.

Some of the blemishes are obvious. Dirty stations. Leaky ceilings. Elevators that never seem to work. But what concerns transit blogger Steve Munro most is the stuff he can’t see.

“The stuff you can’t see builds up over time. It’s not like tracks and signals go from being in perfect condition to being dangerous overnight. They get a little bit worse and a little bit worse.”

State of good repair refers to the portion of the TTC’s spending that deals with keeping the system and its infrastructure safe and reliable. Not the flashy stuff like building new subway lines or expanding its streetcar fleet, but the day-to-day, nuts and bolts stuff, like replacing old pumps, fixing escalators and removing asbestos.

Until 2019, the TTC presented its state of good repair needs over a 10-year span. This enabled the TTC and the city to push replacements and repairs that they didn’t have the money for beyond the decade mark, and even leave off some items entirely, Munro said.

But once the transit agency started publishing capital investment plans looking ahead 15 years — following a review that found it was better to look longer-term — the extent of the TTC’s capital needs (the “gory details,” as Munro calls them) became clear.

“The amount of stuff in the future that was either simply not shown, or was acknowledged but not funded, was growing and growing and growing,” Munro said.

The TTC says it needs $37.22 billion to cover necessary capital costs over the next 15 years. Of that, just $14.67 billion is paid for, assuming government funding stays constant.

Included in the TTC’s capital needs is nearly $5 billion to replace nearly 3,000 TTC buses, Wheel-Trans and subway cars that are nearing the end of their “useful life.” Beyond that, the TTC says it needs $1.9 billion to keep its existing fleet in good condition.

To Cameron McLeod, executive director of transit advocacy group CodeRed, it’s a sign that we’ve forgotten the lesson we learned from the Russell Hill crash — that is, to prioritize maintenance as much as expansion.

“We’re sort of going down a bad path because politicians really like cutting ribbons and they really like opening shiny new things, but they do not like funding the stuff that we already have,” he said.

In an email, the city said it is continuing to work with the TTC to address its capital needs, and since 2018, has doubled its 10-year state of good repair investment from $6.5 billion to $11.9 billion.

This is a critical moment for the TTC, with ridership levels still lagging more than 30 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. Depressed ridership means fares now contribute half as much to the operating budget as they did before COVID-19, creating a bigger burden for the city. (As the Star reported earlier this month, the municipal government’s contribution to TTC operating costs is much higher than in other cities such as Vancouver, where other levels of government pitch in more.)

While most of the state of good repair funding comes out of the capital budget, the operating budget covers things like station cleaning and routine vehicle maintenance, Munro said, as well as the cost of keeping the TTC moving day-to-day.

“When there’s a water main that breaks, we fix the water main. When there’s an upgrade to a water main that’s needed, we go and do it,” said McLeod

“We don’t fight elections over where to put the pipe. We don’t delay replacing a broken water main because we would rather do a tax cut. We just do it.”

Lex Harvey is a Toronto-based transportation reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @lexharvs