Daily Brew30-year-old Toronto streetcars stop working in cold weather
In some cities beset by winter weather it can get so cold that families have to abandon their stalled cars for public transit.
In Toronto, it would appear we have that reversed.
As many as 25 streetcars were pulled from service on Wednesday because the cold was having adverse effects on their ability to operate.
It appears they can’t hit the street without some heat.
The Toronto Transit Commission noted early in the day that passengers should expect delays on streetcar routes because of “weather related equipment issues.”
Later in the day, the TTC announced that service along two streetcar lines would shift to bus service to free up streetcars that still worked for busier lines.
Considering the TTC runs 200 streetcars during peak service times, the loss of 25 cars is significant.
And that was notable on social media, which at the best of times can be a clearinghouse of commuter complaints.
According to the TTC, the problem arose in the older models of streetcar, which just don’t hold up to cold weather the way they used to.
"The aging streetcar fleet and related equipment – over 30 years in many cases – do not respond well to extreme cold," reads an alert posted Wednesday afternoon. “Moisture build-up in the pneumatic air lines that provide braking and door operation can freeze, causing a streetcar to be taken out of service.”
Temperatures in Toronto dipped to -17C, Wednesday afternoon. The wind chill made it feel more like -26C. Environment Canada released an extreme cold warning, prompting the city to declare an extreme cold alert.
So the weather was definitely an issue.
But in Winnipeg on the same day, temperatures dipped to -20C, or -30C with the wind chill.
Days earlier the wind chill temperature reached -40C, leaving CAA Manitoba with thousands of service calls for stalled cars and customers facing a 16-hour delay.
Cars became a joke, with many finding transit refuge on the city’s bus system.
It should be noted that Toronto’s buses appeared to work fine, even picking up some of the slack. So do the subway system and the light-rail transit system.
Having public transit that doesn’t work in the cold isn’t a very good idea for a Canadian city. Is there any way we could call the military to shuttle folks home from work?
