Great Idea-24 hour Subway Service

Let's forget the fact that the TTC and the TTC Commissioners and the mayor are constantly crying about the TTC needing more money and look at the advantages....

1) We could reduce the number of shelter beds and let the homeless ride the subway all night and use the subway stations as their domicile during the day.

2) Doing maintenance on the weekends at premium wages would certainly make the Amalgamated Transit Union members estatic.

3) Adding additional security officers would certainly benefit someone; ie: unions, department heads, etc.

24-Hour TTC Service Proposed

Thursday September 21, 2006

The Better Way may soon be the all-night way.

Toronto Transit Commission officials are pondering extending subway service to 24 hours a day according to a published report. Currently on the weekdays the last train runs at about 1:30am before restarting at 6am.

Transit staff was asked on Wednesday to look into the feasibility of extending the service and they'll likely test out the 24-hour proposal on the busy Yonge line at some point.

Riders seemed enthusiastic about the idea of trains running all night.

"I think it's a really great idea because I know that when I go out late at night taking the 'vomit comet' as we so affectionately call it. It's not the best way to get home," admitted Melissa Bourdon-King. "It would be great to have 24 hour service."

Irwinson Wood agrees, saying, "People travel every day and they work 24 hours a day."

Another rider, Jamie Procope said he'd be happy with the extension as long as there was security in place for the late hours.

"In a way, it is a good idea to extend the duration of the T.T.C. to 24 hours, but I think at the same time we need to have more security on the subway if it's for a duration of 24 hours," he said.

Officials say there will be challenges - including the fact that most maintenance is done in the wee morning hours when trains aren't running.

However, an alternative could involve shutting down a particular section of the subway line for an entire weekend which would give maintenance workers 60 straight hours to work rather than just three hours a night.

The transit commission is reportedly planning to install a new automated signaling system that would make the all-day-all-night service much simpler but it won't be finished on the Yonge-University-Spadina line for another decade.

That system would make it so that trains could run north and south on one track and leave the other open for construction work. It's currently available on the newer Sheppard line.

A report on the proposed plan, including when a test run might happen, is due in 2007.