Mayor John Tory turns up heat on the TTC over subway AC

Cars with broken cooling units need action even amid cuts, mayor insists on Monday.
Mayor John Tory is urging the TTC to speed up repairs to sweltering subway cars that have made commutes miserable for thousands of riders this summer, and he is sticking to his request that the transit agency reduce its budget.
For months, Line 2 — the Bloor-Danforth line — has been plagued by “hot cars” caused by broken air conditioning units on the TTC’s older T1 trains.
Fielding questions from reporters at an anti-poverty announcement in Scarborough on Monday, Tory said the pace at which the TTC was dealing with the problem was unacceptable.
“I will say, I’m not happy with the status quo that’s had us take as long as has been taken to get all the cars fixed in terms of their air conditioning,” he said.
“I don’t accept that. And I know, because I’ve talked to the TTC, and I’m going to be meeting with them about this, that we’re going to make sure that we’re going to do much, much better next year.”
Roughly a quarter of the 370 cars on Line 2 are “hot,” according to the agency. In July, the Star measured temperatures of 32.5 C inside one of them.
Tory’s comments came four weeks after an internal memo written by TTC CEO Andy Byford showed that the transit agency is facing a combined $215-million budget shortfall next year for its conventional service and WheelTrans.
In order to meet Mayor Tory’s request for a 2.6-per-cent budget reduction in 2017 and bridge the shortfall, the agency would have to find $231 million in savings. In July, council approved the 2.6-per-cent target for all city departments.
According to Byford’s memo, the transit agency has identified $82 million in savings but reaching the budget target could require “unpalatable” moves such as cutting service.
The cash-strapped TTC was given a boost last week when the federal government announced $360 million in funding for transit repairs, but the money is on the capital side of the budget and doesn’t affect the 2017 operating crunch.
On Monday, Tory said there was no contradiction in asking the TTC to trim its budget while demanding it accelerate repairs. He argued that any operating savings could be diverted to maintenance.
“What I’ve actually asked them to do is to find efficiencies and put forward a list of efficiencies they can find and savings that they can identify within their own budget and we do that precisely so that money that might be better spent on keeping the air conditioning in better order . . . is available to us,” he said.
TTC spokesman Brad Ross stressed that the TTC is “working as hard as we can” to cool the subways and has repaired 111 cars since last fall. Fixing a car’s air conditioning can, he said, take up to 10 days.
“We fully appreciate and recognize the frustration and discomfort that our customers are experiencing,” he said.
Ross said air conditioner replacement, costing $4 million in capital funds and $1 million in operating expenses this year, is fully funded. He wouldn’t guarantee all the cars will be fixed in time for next summer but predicted a “significant improvement next year.”
Tory has agreed to ride a hot car across Line 2 sometime soon with TTC user Bianca Spence. The arts administrator challenged the mayor over Twitter to the ride after becoming fed up with the underground heat.
“It’s hot, the air feels close, and it’s hard to breathe,” Spence said.