commuter chaos ttc

The TTC was total chaos during this morning's commute

It was a painful start to the day for tens of thousands of commuters in Toronto after TTC service went straight up wackadoodle all over the place.

I'm talking hours worth of people stranded together on subway platforms, in station stairwells, and on public transit vehicles, mushed together and seething, tweeting about how angry they are that this keeps on happening.

A total mess.

TTC Officials announced around 8:30 a.m. that trains were holding southbound on Line 1, at Museum Station, "due to a medical and a Toronto Police investigation on board a train."

The ultra-busy Bloor-Yonge Station was a total clusterfrick.

As was St. Clair West Station.

Customers at multiple stations on Line 1 reported that jam-packed trains were bypassing them en masse. The reason stated by transit control on the overhead PA? "Severe overcrowding."

Trains were also holding both ways at Warden Station this morning for a fire investigation, according to the TTC, and a stalled streetcar at Queen and Carroll saw the 501 Queen and 504 King streetcars diverting westbound around 9:30 a.m.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

"40 minutes Hwy 407 to Yorkdale," wrote one customer on Twitter. "What is wrong with the #TTC?!"

"Unfortunately there were some signal issues on Line 1," the transit agency's official Twitter account replied, "as well as an earlier fire investigation at Eglinton, mech issue at St. Andrew & emerg alarm at Davisville & Museum causing delays to service."

Commuters were no doubt displeased with the situation – and things got even worse when TTC officials used the PA system to (as some on Twitter put it) "blame city hall" for the delays.

"Good Morning @TTChelps, Just an observation: Subway operators may want to reconsider using the PA system to tout political agendas," wrote one passenger

"Blame politicians because the TTC isn't insufficiently funded by all tiers of Government?" she continued. "Touchè, but today is not the day."

Lead photo by

Derek Flack


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