TTC defends spending $26M to repair 30 old streetcars

The Toronto Transit Commission is defending a streetcar maintenance program that cost the agency $26 million over three years, saying it had to repair older vehicles as it waited for new ones to be delivered by Montreal-based manufacturer Bombardier.

TTC spokesperson Brad Ross says the program was necessary to extend the life of the streetcars, which are known as articulated light rail vehicles, but he acknowledged the program fell short of its goals. 

The TTC had hoped the program would keep 30 vehicles running for 10 more years, but only 20 streetcars were able to be fixed. And the TTC extended the lives of those 20 only by a few years, according to Ross.

"If we didn't spend any money on a state of good repair of these vehicles, then we wouldn't have been able to put them out on the road at all, and then we really would have had a significant problem," Ross told CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Tuesday. 

"We had to do this. We had no choice. We spent the money. It was well spent, frankly."

Ross said the maintenance program, which began in 2015 after Bombardier was behind in its delivery schedule, was called a "life extension" program and it was actually a "state of good repair" program to ensure the vehicles were able to run safely and service would continue on streetcar routes. The program ended this year, he said.

"We went into this with all of the right intentions," he added.

Once the work was started, the TTC realized it would have had to spend "far more money" to get 10 more years out of the vehicles because the streetcars were in worst shape than expected.

As a result, the TTC had to do such repair work as patching holes in ceilings, fixing holes in floors, and replacing bearings for articulation plates.

"Our maintenance staff are highly skilled but they cannot perform miracles and these older cars are past their service lives," he said.

In a later interview, Ross compared the situation to a person buying an old house with the idea of renovating it, then realizing once work got underway that it had knob-and-tube wiring and lead pipes and required a complete overhaul.

At some point, he added, it's not worth it.

"We did what we could with the money we had," he said.

Ross could not say how many of the repaired streetcars are running on any given day, noting the agency will not put a streetcar into service if it knows it will "fail in service." 

The TTC has been supplementing streetcars with buses to ensure service is timely.

Ross said Bombardier is now on track to deliver 204 new streetcars by the end of 2019, with 106 delivered so far.