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TTC: Other Items (catch all)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
RapidTransit
Active Member
Hopefully TTC doesn't try to hide this from the Board this time.
evandyk
Senior Member
We had similar snowfalls in 2019 and 2022.
drum118
Superstar
It didn't make the media info line and a snow job.Hopefully TTC doesn't try to hide this from the Board this time.
nfitz
Superstar
My recollection is we did have some 25 cm snows in that period. But not two in a row, only 4 days apart.
I don't recall doing much shoveling since before Covid. Could the 2022 one have melted?
Jan/Feb 2008 was a bad. Off the top of my head. And seems to me that there was a good dump in 2005 or 2006.
I feel there was one in the mid-2010s too. Thinking of the time the city has gotten the snowblowers and trucks out to remove the snowbanks on residential streets here. I've been in this house now for 18 years and I've only seen it 2 or 3 times. (and it's that bad now)
Richard White
Senior Member
This was the one with 55 cm of snow in 24 hours
Jonny5
Senior Member
I remember this one. It was probably late 2005. I was relatively new to the city (moved here in April 2005) working as a "junior fund accountant" at a now long gone mutual fund company.
But the rule was if the Toronto Stock Exchange is open, you have to come in to work because you have to price the funds for people trading them that day, and the exchange was open.
There was no working from home, and even if there was, I didn't have my own computer, not on that $30k/year salary I had for that first job out of school. All I had was my Motorola RAZR flip phone, which actually was a pretty cool phone for its time.
Now my memory is hazy after all these years, but if I recall correctly it was a lake-effect storm and the problem wasn't too much about the volume of snow, but that it wasn't predicted in the forecasts, and it hit in force at something like 4:30 a.m., so the City was totally unprepared for it and left scrambling to get people out of bed and deploy them to get the equipment on the streets, but this was also still the era before mass cellphone use (3G phones came out in 2006), so they needed hours to get people going, and by peak rush hour at 8:00 a.m. it was a total disaster downtown with almost no roads cleared.
I recall having to walk down the middle of Carlton Street to get to the subway as there was no streetcars running at all (and there was no next arrival phone apps at that time). I think it took me over an hour to get to the office at Queen and Bay from where I lived on Homewood at Maitland.
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81-717
Active Member
Must've been the winter edition of their summer counterparts on 2013/07/08 and 2024/07/16.
Steve Munro
New Member
The switches in that part of the yard are manual and cannot be activated remotely. It is possible that with snow packed in the switch, the points were not completely set in the intended direction. Also, these switches can be driven through in the trailing direction without being manually aligned, and they would flip to the desired position. If this were partly blocked by snow, and the train then reversed (making its movement facing point), then it could split the switch. A lot depends on just what sort of move was being made by the train to sort out what could have happened.
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nfitz
Superstar
I don't recall a recent 55 cm snow in 24 hours. Looking through (recent data for Toronto) there was a single one-day 36-mm precipitation dump that resulted in a 32-cm snow depth on January 17, 2022. I guess that must be the last big snow. But there was virtually no snow before January 17. Looking at the February 2025 data for the same station, there was already 14 cm on the ground before last Thursday dump, and it was at 34 cm after. It's too early to see what the current total is, but the Saturday value was 39 cm.
So yeah, that 2022 dump was more in 24-hours than either of the two dumps we've had in the last 4-5 days. But less in total.
I don't remember them trucking the snow on residential streets in 2022. (but perhaps I'm wrong).
For comparison, for one that they brought in the army in January 1999, there were 3 big dumps plus a smaller 10-cm dump - all in a 12-day period. The snow on the ground hit 65 cm (and at that point, the snow is getting very compressed, so more than 65 cm fell!).
The one that I recall being the worst since 2007, was Feburary 2008, when it hit 41 cm on the ground.
Looking through the data there was a big dump on February 28 2005 on top of an already good amount, that led to a total on the ground of 33 cm. Not perhaps quite as much as I remember - it was just before I moved to where I was now, and we had a very long, narrow driveway between 2 houses, on quite a hill. And the snow would drift in much deeper than the amount. Perhaps that's why that seems bigger to me than it might have been.
(digression - it was an odd time in 2005 - we shared the driveway with an elderly neighbour whose wife was in hospital, and I knew he'd been there overnight with the car - and I wanted to get it clear before he came home, because I was afraid he'd literally kill himself shovelling if I just went to work by TTC. To make a long story short, I'd just about finished when he appeared ... and I was very relieved that he didn't try and shovel the whole thing - because I know he would have. I don't think I ever got to work that day ... certainly not before mid-afternoon ... oh well, unhappy boss is better than dead neighbour).
I haven't looked through from 2008 to 2022 - who knows what I forgot in there! If you start poking, the 1843-2017 data is under one station number, and the 2002-2025 data is under another. It looks as though they were running a second snow course and precipitation gauge or something during the overlap, and there's minor differences between the sets.
Hopefully we don't get another big dump before they truck this all away. It's certainly not going to melt soon.
Bottom line is that I don't think that what we have now is a once every 2-year event. I'll get keen and run through all the data once they report the total depth - presumably tomorrow.
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txlseries4
Active Member
Happened in my area in the west end but not until Feb 8! Unless there's some really warm days and lots of sun to melt a lot of it, my area will probably need it removed again. Tiny front yards, no boulevards, and virtually no driveways… there's nowhere else to put the snow but (nearly) on sidewalks and big piles on the road.
evandyk
Senior Member
The 2022 one was about 55 cm over 2-3 days. I remember that one well because the Toddler was in a stroller and I was responsible for getting him to daycare in Leslieville every morning. On the worst day, I had to walk the stroller in the street (minor residential street) because the sidewalks were impassable and some asshole in an SUV had the nerve to honk at me!
Wikipedia says "Environment Canada official records measured 34 cm at Pearson International Airport and 36 cm in downtown Toronto while other observations mentioned 45 cm in Downsview; later the media and the City of Toronto began referring to as much as 55 cm."
Strangely, the City of Toronto says we got 55 cm in 15 hours?
Weather Network's 14 day forecast calls for only 2 days with 0/1 degree temperature, so we're not going to be helped by any real melting.
Wikipedia says "Environment Canada official records measured 34 cm at Pearson International Airport and 36 cm in downtown Toronto while other observations mentioned 45 cm in Downsview; later the media and the City of Toronto began referring to as much as 55 cm."
Strangely, the City of Toronto says we got 55 cm in 15 hours?
Weather Network's 14 day forecast calls for only 2 days with 0/1 degree temperature, so we're not going to be helped by any real melting.
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Towered
Superstar
I'm not saying noise canceling headphones are a one-size-fits-all solution and that we should put blinders on to anti-social behaviour. I'm just saying that I've found them very helpful in those situations to bring myself inner peace on my journey, because I know the TTC's enforcement of bylaws is a joke (even when requested), and confronting the rude offender myself is not viable as it will lead to an unpleasant confrontation at best, and a dangerous one at worst. Not a situation that I can afford to put myself in as a responsible single father to a 6 year old boy - I need to keep myself in tip top condition to ensure I will consistently be there for him!With respect, this is actually a very bad solution.
If you have headphones on that are good enough to eliminate most or all ambient noise, you just made yourself a mark.
I'm astounded daily at this and watching the risks that ensue, not only from headphones/earbuds but also people just buried in their phone, while walking.
Its not merely that you look like easy prey for a criminal, its that you can't hear the oncoming vehicle when you're stepping into the road, its you're obliviousness to the cyclist in the bike lane, or to the person worker who dropped something off the edge of a construction site yelling 'look out below'.
You need to be aware of your surroundings, accidents happen, fires, other emergencies and criminal behavior. I know someone who got mugged in a popular, 'safe' park in Toronto, thing is, he had headphones on, was on a bench, and immersed in his phone...he was made for a mark and got hit from behind and his bag taken.
He was a victim, not at fault, and the offenders were ultimately arrested...... for all of that, he would have preferred not to be a victim.
****
Socially problematic behavior at an individual level can be addressed, or ignored, as the situation dictates.
Socially problematic behavior at a societal level (frequent problem), requires societal intervention.
The TTC already has By-Law number one with these applicable components:
View attachment 631512
View attachment 631514
View attachment 631513
Its simply a matter of sufficient enforcement to correct bad habits:
View attachment 631515
Fines for certain offenses:
View attachment 631516
View attachment 631517
From: :
and
By-law No 1 Fines Table
www.ttc.ca
And I would never advocate that people wear them in busy areas, because as you pointed out, they partly turn people into mindless, unaware zombies putting themselves and others at risk. I see this idiocy every single day.
DSCToronto
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The can also affect how you hear... https://qz.com/noise-canceling-headphones-health-risk-1851410299
bearcat
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So I am seeing multiple posts on Reddit r/toronto about streetcars being blocked by cars that are parked too far into the road due to snow accumulated along the curb. Do you guys know what the law and fines are on this? I think there should be a some sort of public awareness campaign or perhaps it should be written in the Driver's Handbook that you should not park on street with streetcar tracks if the curb is not visible due to snow. There are many things in the handbook already that are not strictly laws. I think the fine for actually blocking the streetcar should be at least the $450 as for "blocking the box" as well.
In my ideal world there should be no street parking at all on streets with streetcar routes, unless it's in bays off the side of the road.
In my ideal world there should be no street parking at all on streets with streetcar routes, unless it's in bays off the side of the road.