The City of Toronto is set to replace aging subway cars on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth, after the federal government announced $1.2 billion in funding for the TTC on Friday.
The city will put $758 million of the funds toward the purchase of 55 new subway cars, according to a news release from the Department of Finance.
“We need to have public transit that grows with the needs of our growing city,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said during Friday’s announcement.
Toronto has pushed the federal government to provide funding to replace Line 2 cars for over a year. The trains are nearing the end of their useful life and will turn 30 years old in 2026.
Mayor Olivia Chow said the new subway cars will support new signals and technology, such as GPS, which will allow trains to arrive more frequently. (Jason Trout/CBC)
The new trains are expected to cost nearly $2.3 billion in total, with the city, province and federal government splitting the bill.
Each level of government is contributing $758 million, according to a news release from Mayor Olivia Chow’s office.
The cars will be manufactured in Thunder Bay, Ont., Freeland said.
Ontario’s Minister of Transport Prabmeet Sarkaria said the announcement shows what happens when all three levels of government work together.
The province committed funding last November when it struck its “new deal” with Toronto to fund a variety of city projects, including the new trains — but the cash was contingent on federal participation.
The TTC will receive the newly announced federal funds over the next decade through the Canada Public Transit Fund, the Department of Finance release said.
Once-in-a-lifetime investment, Chow says
Chow said the cars will support new signals and technology, such as GPS, which will allow trains to arrive more frequently.
“We’re celebrating a generational, once-in-a-lifetime investment to keep the TTC moving,” she said.
Line 2 had 419,000 daily boardings as of this March, which are expected to grow to 661,000 by 2041, according to the release from the mayor’s office.
Chow said Line 2 moves more than three times as many people per day than the Gardiner Expressway, which has a daily volume of 140,000 vehicles.
Transit advocacy group TTCriders said they were celebrating Friday’s announcement.
“The hundreds of thousands of subway riders who use Line 2 are thrilled that the federal government has listened and chipped in their share of funding for new trains,” spokesperson Nigel Morton said in a news release.
Morton said he hopes part of the federal funds will address reduced speed zones in the TTC subway network by financing repairs and new equipment.
Reduced speed zones are put in place while track maintenance and upgrades are completed. There are currently 20 such zones across the TTC’s subway lines, according to their website.
“If the Canada Public Transit Fund is made flexible and available for the transit operating budget, the TTC could spend some of the fund on preventative maintenance and get Toronto moving faster,” he said.
