The TTC board has approved a nearly $3 billion budget that freezes fares for the second year in a row, and promises significant service improvements.
“These investments are going to take time before you fully feel them but they are coming,” TTC board chair Coun. Jamaal Myers said at a Friday morning press conference.
“And as chair, I can confidently say that when we look back at budget 2025, this will be remembered as the budget the TTC got its groove back,” he said.
If approved by city council, the agency will spend $33 million to bolster service across the network.
The TTC is promising trains will run at least every five minutes during off-peak hours on Line 1 Yonge-University-Spadina and Line 2 Bloor-Danforth, and every six minutes on Line 4 Sheppard, which signals a return to pre-pandemic wait times.
The agency is increasing service on evenings and weekends because ridership growth has been strongest during those times since most offices haven’t returned to five-day work weeks.
Some of the busiest streetcar and bus routes will also get more service.
Riders on the 505 Dundas, 512 St. Clair and 7 Bathurst routes won’t have to wait more than six minutes for a streetcar between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on any day of the week.
The TTC will also roll out a new pilot program to address bus bunching and gapping — when several buses arrive one after another following a long gap.
“How infuriating it is when the buses are bunched together and you wait and wait and wait and nothing comes and then, boom, three of them show up at the same time. Oh my God. We need to fix that,” Mayor Olivia Chow said on Tuesday.
Seven supervisory staff will be deployed in the spring along the 10 “most problematic routes,” the budget document said, without specifying which routes.
The TTC will also spend more money on maintenance and repair work to help cut down on slow zones caused by defective tracks that plague riders’ commutes. The budget includes $1 million for 12 new positions on the agency’s workcars that do repairs when the subway is closed.
Slow zones happen when trains have to slow to speeds of around 20 kilometres per hour to minimize wear on track sections where defects have been identified.
“That’s really important,” said Shelagh Pizey-Allen, executive director of the TTCRiders advocacy organization. “Work on the workcars is a part of tackling slow zones.”
The TTC is also allocating money for long-term slow zone fixes, including more funding to repair the existing workcar fleet and buy new vehicles.
On Friday, Myers said the new money will ensure there are never more than 12 slow zones across the network going forward. On Wednesday, there were 15 slow zones. That dropped to 12 on Thursday, and 10 on Friday.
The $2.82-billion operating budget is a $300 million jump from last year, with just under half of the money coming in the form of a city subsidy. Just under 40 per cent of the budget is funded through the fare box, with the other 10 per cent coming from the province, TTC reserves and other sources like advertising.
