Rocket Talk: Why Can’t Spadina’s Moving Sidewalks Come Back To Life?

By Torontoist

Have questions about the TTC? Rocket Talk is a regular Torontoist column, featuring TTC Chair Adam Giambrone and Director of Communications Brad Ross’s answers to Torontoist readers’ questions. Submit your questions to [email protected]!

Photo by spotmaticfanatic from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Reader Greg Sainsbury asks:

Here’s my question—since the rush-hour crowding at St. George is verging on the very dangerous, why not put the moving sidewalks back in at Spadina and promote the use of Spadina as a transfer station?
As I doubt that St. George is going to be renovated/expanded any time soon, the (much lower cost) Spadina solution could at least alleviate some of the pressure on St. George.

TTC Chair Adam Giambrone says:

Actually, just a note first that St. George is currently being partially renovated. [Greg’s question was submitted back in March, making it seem a bit anachronistic now.—Ed.] If you look carefully the tiles are being replaced and the floor is being repaired. The last and most needed stage is the trackside tiles where the damage was the worst, and it is expected to be complete by the end of this year. This team will then move onto other stations.
Expansion of St. George would be very difficult and could easily cost over $100 million. TTC continues to monitor the passenger levels at St. George (and other stations) and the new CCTV cameras at platform level allow Transit Control to monitor the platforms in real time.
In the long run, the Automatic Train Control project—which will be complete by 2015 on the Yonge/University/Spadina line—along with the new subway cars and other improvements will allow the handling of upwards of thirty percent more passengers, and this will help clear passengers off platforms more quickly. It will also allow platform screen doors, which involve a physical barrier between the tracks and the platform and therefore are safer.
The reason the moving sidewalks were removed in the first place was that they had to be replaced at a cost of $4 million (around $5 million in today’s dollars). While more people used Spadina with the moving sidewalks, the number was too tiny for the sidewalks to be the solution to overcrowding. As a frequent transit rider, I am not prepared to do the transfer at Spadina as it is too inconvenient, and our market research studies suggest that most transit riders, by far, share the same thinking.