The Scarborough RT’s aging vehicle fleet reached a “critical juncture” last month when so few cars were available for service that the line was operating without any spares, according to the TTC. The shortage of cars meant the agency had no margin of error to operate planned service on the RT, which serves more than 35,000 riders every day. It’s a bad omen for Scarborough transit users who are supposed to rely on the line for at least another seven years. The situation “is a prime example of the need to modernize and replace our assets before they reach their end of life expectancy,” TTC CEO Rick Leary wrote in his latest report to the agency’s board. To operate full service on the RT, the TTC requires five trains. Each is made up of four cars, paired in two-car units, for a total of 20 vehicles. The agency has 28 of the vehicles, which allow it to perform tasks such as preventative maintenance on some cars while still operating full service. But in mid-April, workers discovered an electrical fault on a car as they were preparing it for morning service. At the same time, a car in another unit was found to have an axle-bearing defect. Both of the two-car units had to be taken out of service. And because two more units were already undergoing overhauls as part of a life-extension program to keep the RT running, over five days the TTC had just 20 cars available. That’s the bare minimum, meaning if any other car had experienced a problem during that period, the RT would have had to operate with fewer than five trains. “Depending on the time of day, fewer than five trains would mean longer wait times and increased crowding,” said TTC spokesperson Stuart Green. “Although not ideal, we can run four trains in peak periods. Fewer than that and we would supplement service with bus shuttles (in addition to the trains). We did this a few times over the winter when we faced challenges on the line.”Green ...
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