Subway safety barriers a hot topic as Toronto mayoral race gets underway. Here's what the experts say

Commuters get off the subway at Toronto's Union Station Tuesday, March 4, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/J.P. Moczulski

At least two mayoral candidates are now promising to install safety barriers at the edge of Toronto subway platforms, bringing renewed attention to a long-discussed idea with a steep price tag.

Both Brad Bradford and Mitzie Hunter made installing platform-edge doors on some subway platforms a key part of separate multi-point plans to address TTC safety that they released this week.

The project was included in the TTC’s 15-year capital plan in January but its estimated $2.86 billion cost remains entirely unfunded.

Bradford and Hunter both say that the TTC can’t afford to wait and are pushing for a gradual installation of sliding glass doors, which would see them erected in the busiest stations first.

There have been a total of three pushing incidents at Bloor-Yonge Station alone in 2023.

"You go into Yonge and Bloor right now people have their backs against the wall. And that's because they're concerned that they will be pushed or fall onto the tracks. Cities around the world have platform edge doors," Bradford told CP24 earlier this week.

The significant cost of installing platform edge doors has long been a roadblock to the project and with the TTC still facing an annual revenue loss in the hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of reduced ridership coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear where the money would come from.

Matti Siemiatycki, the director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto, told CP24 that the idea has some merit amid mounting safety concerns.

But he warned that retrofitting an existing subway system is expensive.

Installing platform edge doors across the subway network would also require a new automatic signalling system on Line 2, Siemiatycki added.

The TTC already installed an automatic signalling system along Line 1.

“As with everything, retrofitting a system that is aging, and that's already built and that's in use is much more expensive and much more complicated than trying to build something in a system that's being built from scratch,” Siemiatycki told CP24.com. “So the question, I guess, is one of feasibility and one of costs and priority. It is billions for a transit system that is itself struggling with money in a city that is facing a fiscal cliff. Is that the highest priority place to be spending that amount of money?”

Metrolinx is already planning to install platform edge doors at all 15 Ontario Line stations.

But there are not currently any plans to include the technology as part of a $1.5 billion overhaul of Bloor-Yonge Station.

Similarly, there are no plans for platform-edge doors at the new stations being built as part of the Scarborough subway extension.

Siemiatycki said that it is “not surprising” that the concept of platform edge doors would resurface during a mayoral campaign, especially one in which TTC safety looms as a major issue.

However, he said that the project needs to be weighed against the significant cost attached to it.

An Ernst & Young report released last month warned that Toronto is facing $46.5 billion in fiscal pressures over the next decade, largely as a result of unfunded capital projects.

“I think putting ideas forward is important and we just need to make sure that they are technically feasible and also costed because that is the key right now,” Siemiatycki said. “We have an urgent safety concern issue with transit and in the city more broadly right now. But we also have a budget and a fiscal situation that needs to be balanced and so any proposal needs to be funded. And there's really only two ways that things are getting funded, either existing services are getting cut or we are raising new revenues.”

Safety barriers could improve service reliability

Bradford’s transit safety plan also includes a proposal to boost patrols on the TTC and create a new agency to make more mental health resources available for people in distress, while Hunter has pledged to launch a community ambassador program on the subway system and begin pairing social workers with transit officers.

However, their calls for the installation of platform edge doors have gained the most attention.

In an interview with CP24.com this week, the Executive Director of the transit advocacy group TTCriders Shelagh Pizey-Allen said that while the technology is often seen as an “important suicide prevention” measure, it also has the potential to significantly improve the reliability of TTC service.

“It is not just safety. It's about reliability. So the delays due to either people or objects being on the tracks (could be reduced),” she said. “The number of those incidents have been going up and that on average, you know, can hold the system up for about 10 minutes, but it can be sometimes much longer.”

Pizey-Allen said that it would make sense to install platform-edge doors at the stations, where delays due to either objects or people at track level are the most frequent.

She said that she would also like to see all future subway stations outfitted with the technology.

Of course, it all comes down to revenue.

“There's a lot of elements of the TTC capital plan that are unfunded, so at the core of this issue is really how are candidates going to raise revenue that the TTC needs, whether it's for our capital or operations budget, because that's what this really comes down to,” Pizey-Allen said.

Last month, Toronto police ended a program which saw additional officers stationed on the TTC due to a lack of ongoing funding to pay for it.