Toronto blackout: A report from Keele station
Friday, January 16, 2009 | 02:56 PM ET
Submitted by Mark Celejewski
The power outage that threw a large section of Toronto into chaos, leaving 100,000 people without electricity as the city shivers through a bitter cold snap, is slowly being repaired. The subway system was hit hard this morning, with subway service on the Bloor-Danforth line shut down between the Dufferin and Bathurst stations. Though regular subway service has returned to this line, many people were affected by the stoppage.
Mark Celejewski shares his experience from Friday morning.
My take: The TTC failed again (as usual,) they have no recovery/transportation plan when a power outage happens on subway system.
At least the police showed up and they were trying to secure the safety of thousands of passengers covering the entire area of Bloor street at Keele subway station.
People were standing outside and freezing, waiting for shuttle buses which were showing up already full. There was plenty of buses with NOT IN SERVICE signs and they were ignoring frozen passengers.
I ended up going back home from Keele to Kipling.
Was your power out today? Were you left stranded by the outage? Share your story.
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Comments
Bruce
Bloor/Keele
How can anything on this scale be organized smoothly? I didn't see one positive comment by this poster. It sounds like the TTC is personally attacking him and not being proactive at all. I did see the buses pick up passengers. I walked down to the streetcar line and they were working. It was tough on a lot of people.
Posted January 16, 2009 04:34 PM
Steve
Bloor/Runnymede
What sort of cost-effective once-in-a-blue-moon contingency plan do you have in mind? Should we spend a kabillion dollars on a whole parallel backup subway system? We should have a thousand extra buses and drivers on hot standby? Oh, and taxes are too high already, right?
I think the TTC did a good job with what they had and what resources we make available to them.
Posted January 16, 2009 09:37 PM
John
Keele/Bloor
Mark is absolutely right. There was nobody from TTC to direct or inform people where to go and the shuttle buses were coming full to Keele station. Shuttle buses did not stop as they were full already?? Why the shuttle buses were full? They were coming from Jane station but subway was running to Keele. I was there for one hour standing outside in cold and wind. It would be nice if TTC designated 1 person at Keele to tell the crowd what to do and where to go, or provide some anouncement. This does not require extra resources as they have ticket collectors sitting there and pushing the tokens down. They could get up and help. Nobody knew what to do, some people were standing outside station and some were walking to Bloor street. Lack of information and directions is more difficult to handle than waiting for shuttle bus.
Posted January 17, 2009 09:50 AM
Mark
Keele/Bloor
To Steve and Bruce..
My original letter to CBC was shortened by CBC and they kind of lost my message. I was saying that there was nobody from TTC staff available or clear announcements were made to direct passengers which is extremely important in situation like this. I am using TTC for years and this situation repeats every time something similar happens. I am not talking about spending extra dollars. I am talking about lack of proper information and leadership from TTC staff when needed. I was between those passengers and they were exactly sharing my feelings and comments so I do not understand your post. BTW, not all the posts have to be positive but I mentioned positively the police which demonstrated much more leadership than TTC as they were securing passenger safety and providing some support and directions.
Posted January 17, 2009 10:32 AM