Subway outage at height of storm leaves crowds of TTC passengers waiting in snow
The rush hour commute was bad enough on Wednesday amid a brutal snowstorm, out-of-service TTC routes, a stabbing aboard a bus, stuck vehicles, and, to top it all off, a major service interruption on the Line 2 subway.
Service was halted on Line 2 from Keele to Ossington on Wednesday due to an injury at track level. The outage came as record-breaking snowfall blanketed the city, leaving thousands of commuters out in the cold waiting for the dreaded, unreliable, overcrowded shuttle buses deployed to fill service gaps.
Ossington Station is jammed due to the storm and a Subway incident at Landsdowne Station. The platforms are packed inside and outside. pic.twitter.com/yDajEOpYx8
— Kailie Annetts (@KailAnnetts) January 25, 2023
blogTO reader Isaiah Frazao shared scenes of total chaos all along the TTC network, but perhaps the worst of the bunch was a clip of a vast crowd of snow-frosted commuters waiting outside of Ossington station for their turn to board a shuttle bus.
This is what it was like to wait for a shuttle bus in the huge Toronto snowstorm - 📹 Isaiah Frazao #Toronto #TTC pic.twitter.com/COJjDMd8tA
— blogTO (@blogTO) January 26, 2023
Crowds also packed onto shuttle buses at stations along the route closure like Dufferin, forced out in the cold for commutes they were hoping would be comfortably underground and out of the harsh winter elements.
Masses lined up outside Dufferin station to board shuttle buses during huge snowstorm - 📹 Isaiah Frazao #Toronto #TTC pic.twitter.com/e4bAY6PBX0
— blogTO (@blogTO) January 26, 2023
Several buses were captured stuck throughout the afternoon and evening hours, including one that was freed rather unconventionally with the help of a good samaritan with a container full of kitty litter.
Several TTC buses were immobilized by snow on Wednesday - 📹 Isaiah Frazao #Toronto #TTC pic.twitter.com/fYlWYNU6AC
— blogTO (@blogTO) January 26, 2023
Line 1 remained in operation, but not without extensive effort on the part of TTC crews, who were spotted out amid the tracks with leaf blowers, melting and blowing away snowfall.
Crews were spotted out on TTC subway tracks with leaf blowers to keep Line 1 moving during the storm - 📹 Isaiah Frazao #Toronto #TTC pic.twitter.com/zAUnipVfaY
— blogTO (@blogTO) January 26, 2023
The Line 2 service outage was resolved just before 5 p.m., though many had already embarked home early on their commute, expecting longer-than-normal travel times related to the storm.
Line 2 Bloor-Danforth Regular service has resumed between Keele and Ossington. https://t.co/MCLSp9CZfV
— TTC Service Alerts (@TTCnotices) January 25, 2023
As bad as things got during Wednesday's rush hour commute, plowed and salted streets have allowed the TTC to resume pretty much all surface routes, and aside from some very slushy and salty bus and streetcar floors, things were back to normal by the start of the Thursday rush.
Isaiah Frazao
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