Commuters wait to board a westbound subway at the Keele Street subway station on Sept. 30, 2014.FRED LUM/The Globe and Mail
Top TTC management weren't immediately notified when a subway train was stranded in the tunnel during rush hour Monday, a delay that stretched to 56 minutes and is prompting a shakeup of how such situations are to be handled.
The transit train, loaded to capacity with at least 1,000 people, was trapped in a tunnel just short of Museum station during the evening rush hour after an injury at a nearby station prompted a power cut.
Monday's problems came as the system grappled with two unrelated passenger incidents. The trouble began around 6 p.m. when a severely injured person was found at track level at St. George station. Subway power in the area was cut and medical and police personnel brought in. Shortly after, another passenger incident was reported at Pape station, on the Bloor-Danforth line.
The back-to-back problems effectively snarled traffic on two of the city's main transit arteries. Some trains were able to reverse to stations or use track crossovers to reach safety, but a northbound train on the Yonge-University-Spadina line was stuck.
TTC chief Andy Byford said Wednesday morning that they didn't expect the scene at St. George to take so long to clear. The person's injuries piqued police suspicions, though, prolonging the shutdown. By the time a decision was made to evacuate the stranded train, its passengers had been waiting nearly an hour. Getting them to safety took another 25 minutes.
Mr. Byford said that he had just met with his safety executive and that they were bringing in a new protocol to change how such incidents are handled.
In the case of a stranded train, he said, the issue is to be bumped up from transit control to the duty officer, who will make a decision on evacuation within 20 minutes. The 20-minute rule doesn't necessarily make evacuations more likely – since these take time and can carry risks – but it means a decision can't be postponed indefinitely in the hope the incident will clear up.
"On this occasion, had I been the duty officer … I would definitely have ordered an evacuation," said Mr. Byford, who was "not happy" to have heard about the stranded train only later, once a video emerged on Reddit.
Justin Tetreault, an employment lawyer at Grosman, Grosman & Gale LLP who was on that train, said he was frustrated at not being able to contact a friend he was to meet. She waited in vain for him, having no idea what was wrong. He wondered why it took so long to be taken off the train but praised TTC staff for an "orderly" evacuation.
Passengers on the train said there were regular PA-system notifications saying an incident had occurred. Eventually, word came that the train would be evacuated. TTC personnel checked for people with mobility issues and cleared the train through one of the front doors. Passengers made their way along the catwalk lining the tunnel and then descended briefly to track level before climbing to the station platform.
"The thing that upset the most, especially when I found out that we were only 10 feet from the platform, was … why couldn't they have figured out that the train was so close and let us continue to the platform?" Mr. Tetreault said. "It could have been another two or three seconds and we would have been fine."
Oliver Moore