The TTC says it’s making progress in its ongoing battle to improve capacity on its busiest subway line. The thousands of riders who use the network’s two most-trafficked stations are all too familiar with having to wait for one or two full trains to bypass them until one with enough room to board arrives. More than 135,000 passengers squeeze on or off Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) trains at St. George every day, while more than 215,000 use Bloor-Yonge.But according to TTC acting chief operating officer Jim Ross, riders at those two stops should have seen an improvement to their morning commute over the past month as the agency exceeded an important service target on several occasions.The agency schedules 25.5 southbound Line 1 subways per hour at St. George and Bloor-Yonge during the morning rush. But in October, the agency managed to run 28 trains through St. George on eight mornings. At Bloor-Yonge, it managed 28 trains on three mornings.Running 28 trains in an hour instead of 25 can mean the difference between customers boarding the first train that arrives or having to wait for another until there’s enough room to get on.“It’s a pretty dramatic improvement,” said Ross, who was appointed acting COO in April. “It shows that we’re doing really, really well.”He attributed the increased service to three factors, including the use of so-called “gap trains” — empty subways that are stashed along Line 1 and pressed into service in the event of a disruption.The trains, each of which can carry more than 1,300 passengers, sit ready at storage or “pocket” tracks, usually near Davisville, Eglinton, and York Mills stations, and are inserted into the southbound flow of subways on the Yonge side of Line 1 as required.“You can pretty much clear a platform with one empty train,” said Ross. The TTC used to keep four gap trains ready during morning rush hour. But as a result of w ...
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