TTC says even more planned subway closures expected in 2025

A Toronto Transit Commission sign is shown at a downtown Toronto subway stop Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graeme Roy

TTC customers who do their best to dodge night and weekend subway closures this year may find it more difficult to do so. Toronto’s transit agency has published a list of anticipated subway and streetcar closures for 2025 and the plan includes even more closures than last year.

The planned closures are outlined in a report set to go before the TTC Board on Jan. 27. The schedule includes a 54 per cent increase in full weekend closures on the subway system and a 30 per cent increase in early closures.

In addition, the TTC says it will also be exploring the possibility of lengthening early closures to begin at 10 p.m. instead of 11 p.m.; expanding closure areas to include even longer stretches of the subway line; and exploring multi-day or multi-week closures for stretches of the system. However those options are expected to be explored in the coming months and presented to the TTC Board in late 2025.

In 2024, Line 1 saw 12 weekend closures and 112 early closures on weeknights, while Line 2 saw 13 weekend closures and 55 early closures, in addition to one unplanned weekend closure to allow for repairs after a fire at Islington Station. The streetcar network saw 20 full diversions, 42 nightly diversions and eight capital projects, which required a section of the network to be closed for an extended period of time.

In 2025, there are 16.5 weekend closures planned on Line 1, along with 114 early closures. Line 2 will see 22 weekend closures and 103 early closures. There are 24 full diversions planned for the streetcar network, along with 77 nightly diversions and five capital projects.

City crews do some work in the overnight hours, but the TTC says those times are not sufficiently long to carry out all the work that is needed to keep the system running properly.

In fact, staff say that when taking into account the need to set up work zones and move work cars and equipment into planned work areas, the actual time available to complete the most complex overnight work was actually only 92 minutes in 2024.

The TTC says that going forward that number will have to double “to continue to ensure all assets remain in a safe and reliable state.”

“A full weekend subway closure offers the equivalent of approximately five weeks of regular night work as it provides up to 50 uninterrupted hours of work, allowing for multiple work groups to participate,” TTC staff say in their report. “TTC service diversions are co-ordinated internally, as well as with the City of Toronto, to keep the level of disruption to TTC customers and city commuters to a minimum.”

While staff say the closures are necessary to carry out state of good repair work and modernization, they do acknowledge that the replacement buses are an imperfect substitute for regular service.

“These changes affect access to transit service for various TTC customers, including families, people with disabilities, and seniors,” TTC staff say in the report. “While the TTC does its best to minimize the impact on its customers by replacing regularly scheduled service with alternate bus shuttle service between the closure and diversion boundaries, it is important to note that shuttle services cannot duplicate the carrying capacity of subway trains or streetcars.”

The TTC says the additional closures this year are aimed at expansion and modernization of the system especially with an eye to 2026, when Toronto will be one of the host cities for FIFA 2026.

While the TTC maintains that the work must be done, the closures are not cheap. The average early subway closure costs $35,000 per evening and a full two-day weekend closure, on average, costs $250,000 per day, the report notes.