TTC action will significantly reduce hot car incidents

In anticipation of a predicted high of 29 degrees this Wednesday, the TTC is advising customers that crews have worked hard over the past seven months to ensure that customers who travel on Line 2 Bloor-Danforth can do so comfortably.

To date, the TTC has spent $7.5 million to aggressively attack the hot car issue that struck last summer. Through an ambitious $13 million program to repair and rebuild the bottom-mounted heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems on the older T1 cars, the TTC will be able to fully service the line with cool cars this week and through the summer.

While putting hot cars into service was unavoidable last year due to a shortage of functioning HVAC systems, this year enough have been repaired or overhauled to run only cool cars. In the event that a car’s system malfunctions while in service, the TTC will be able to quickly remove and replace the affected train.

Already, TTC crews have rebuilt systems on 151 cars and repaired those on another 63 cars. As part of the program to significantly reduce HVAC breakdowns in the long term, the systems in all 370 cars in the T1 fleet will be overhauled by the end of this year even though only a quarter experienced failures last year.

NB: A technical briefing for media will take place on Tuesday, May 23 at 10 a.m. Details to follow.