Chill out, TTC says, we’re dealing with ‘hot cars’
During the hottest months of 2016, the air conditioning on many subway cars on Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) stopped working, turning daily commutes into a sweaty, uncomfortable ordeal for thousands of riders.

thestar.com
By BEN SPURR
May 15, 2017

With warm weather finally on the way, the TTC says there will be no repeat of the dreaded “hot car” phenomenon this summer, and the transit agency has spent millions of dollars to make sure.

During the hottest months of 2016, the air conditioning on many subway cars on Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) stopped working, turning daily commutes into a sweaty, uncomfortable ordeal for thousands of riders.

At the peak of the problem, 25 per cent of Line 2 cars were “hot cars,” according to the transit agency, and Andy Byford, the TTC CEO, blamed the issue for a precipitous drop in customer satisfaction scores toward the end of last year.

With temperatures expected to hit the high 20s on Wednesday and Thursday, a TTC spokesperson told the Star that this year conditions on Line 2 will be “nothing like last summer.”

“The fleet is old, however, so there may be the occasional hot car, but we will have a plan to remove trains with hot cars when that happens,” Brad Ross said in an email.

According to the transit agency, TTC crews have rebuilt the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units on 151 of Line 2’s 370 cars, and repaired the units on 63 more. The work is about two weeks ahead of schedule, according to a TTC spokesperson, Susan Sperling.

Sperling said the “high failure components” on the cars were being replaced, including condensers, compressors, fans and Freon reclaim units. The TTC is expected to detail the work it’s doing at a media event on May 23.

The HVAC repairs are “a huge priority for us,” Sperling said.

“This was a significant issue for many of our Line 2 customers, who were quite vocal about it,” she said.

The agency expects to spend about $13 million by the end of 2017 to overhaul all of the Line 2 fleet’s HVAC units. So far, it has spent $7.5 million.

As complaints about stifling subway rides poured in last year, Mayor John Tory took up the cause, publicly pressuring the TTC to speed up repairs and accepting a challenge from a transit user to ride the length of Line 2 in one of the malfunctioning trains to feel the heat firsthand.

A spokesperson for the mayor said Monday that Tory has been “routinely updated” on the repair work since then.

The mayor “appreciates that the TTC has had a laser focus on addressing this issue,” the spokesperson said.

Bianca Spence, the self-described “sweaty, disgruntled commuter” who took the ride-along with Tory, told the Star she will wait until the hot weather hits to decide whether to believe the TTC’s assurances.

“I’m not going to say I’m not hopeful. I’m going to reserve judgment there,” she said.

Spence, who works as an arts administrator and takes the subway regularly, said it shouldn’t have taken public complaints like hers to pressure the TTC to act. But she’s willing to repeat her ride with the mayor if the hot cars aren’t fixed.

“If I need to take him out on another ride, the offer stands,” she said.

The T1 model trains the TTC runs on Line 2 are at least 16 years old, an age the agency says was a major factor in the HVAC failures last year - atop the hot weather.

Last summer, the agency transferred some of its newer Toronto Rocket trains, which normally run only on Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) and Line 4 (Sheppard), to replace hot cars along Line 2.

The newer, roomier trains were a welcome sight to may Line 2 passengers, but Ross said that the TTC doesn’t expect deploy them on the line this year.

“We’ll have some (Toronto Rockets) on standby, but we don’t anticipate the need,” he said.