Slow zones have long been a source of frustration for the millions of people who ride the TTC. They add precious minutes — and stress — to morning commutes.
While unveiling the TTC’s 2025 budget on Tuesday, the agency’s interim CEO Greg Percy promised more work will be done to speed up travel times and ensure slow zones are less frequent. 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.
As of Wednesday, there are 15 slow zones on Lines 1 and 2.
Currently, maintenance workers only have 90 minutes per day to do repairs on the aging track. Bigger problems require more time to fix, which can prompt weekend or evening closures. Once repairs are complete, staff still need to inspect the track to ensure the trains can return to regular speeds of 40 to 60 kilometres per hour.
“We need to make it longer to do more repairs faster,” Percy said. “We're going to do some interesting things to increase the actual track time to get out there and make these repairs.”
He also admitted past approaches to remedying the problem haven’t been as effective as possible.
“We have to be creative. You can’t do the same stuff you’ve always done … you have to be smarter. So that’s the plan,” he said.
Percy didn’t provide more detailed information, but Shelagh Pizey-Allen, executive director of the TTCRiders transit advocacy group, pointed to two items in the TTC’s 2025 budget that could help.
The first is $1 million for 12 new positions so workcars can do more preventative repairs. Workcars are rarely-seen vehicles that clean and maintain the tracks.
“That’s really important,” she said. “Work on the workcars is a part of tackling slow zones.”
Sometimes, the workcars themselves are the source of track issues, as was the case in May 2024 when a hydraulic fluid leak caused a 12-hour service suspension on Line 2. From 2019 to 2023, there were four reported leaks. From January to May 2024, there were eight.
As part of the fallout, the TTC included a budget request to “establish a more robust work car preventative maintenance program.”
The TTC is also hoping for some longer-term fixes.
The agency’s capital budget shows that over the next 15 years, the TTC wants to spend $70 million on buying new workcars and $49 million on repairing the existing fleet. However, those budget items aren’t entirely funded.
Of the $70 million for new workcars, the agency has allocated $58 million. On the repair side, $36 million of the $49 million ask is funded.
The other investment giving Pizey-Allen hope is billions of extra dollars for state-of-good-repair projects.
The TTC’s 10-year, $16.4 billion capital plan — which benefits from billions in federal and provincial funding — will cut the agency’s repair backlog almost in half by the mid-2030s, Chow said. Just under $5 billion will go towards paying for crucial repairs and upgrades that, until this year, didn’t have funding.
Not all of that money would go to repairing the track. Billions are allocated for new subways, electric buses and charging stations.
But there is $368 million for “critical subway systems infrastructure,” according to the budget.
“It's really positive to see that,” Pizey-Allen said.
Chow was also excited about the state-of-good-repair money and what it could do to cut down on slow zones and improve service but cautioned against hoping for quick fixes.
“That will do a lot in reducing the performance people are experiencing,” she said. “But it can’t be done overnight.”
