Tired of slow zones on the TTC? There could be more identified soon

The TTC is gearing up for another one of its annual track surveys meant to spot minor defects before they balloon into bigger issues, and help bring tracks across the transit system back to industry standard. 

Journalists were invited along to watch the preparations for this year's geometric track survey set to begin next week.

"While we have no idea how many minor defects the survey might find (or slow zones may result), we assume it will find some," TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said in an email ahead of the tour.

Last year's survey resulted in dozens of new slow zones being implemented to bring tracks across the transit system back to industry standard, while critics doubt whether more could be done to prevent the slow zones entirely. 

The number of slow zones has been reduced from 33 last summer to 12, but the Green already warned earlier this year that number will "never be zero."

Trains drop down to 15 to 25 kilometres per hour in each slow zone, slowing down the service by two minutes per zone. 

During the survey, a specialized device takes laser-guided measurements of the distance between two rails on a track, as well as the elevation and wear and tear on the tracks — all to identify issues that wouldn't have been visible during a typical inspection, like a track misalignment as small as a few millimetres.

The TTC started doing the survey in 2015, mapping out the whole subway network stretching over 140 kilometres. Slow zones could be placed in sections where the survey finds the track geometry falls outside the standard. 

The TTC says it will collect data twice on each line, something that will be done outside service hours on Line 1, but not for Lines 2 and 4. 

Each survey costs around $250,000 US, or about $347,000 Cdn., according to Fort Monaco, the TTC's chief operations and infrastructure officer. 

"We want more trains, we want more people, we want tighter headways. That comes at the cost of deterioration of assets," he said. 

The survey will kickstart April 28 and is expected to wrap up on May 5, according to the TTC. 

But the track survey might not be a cure-all for detecting issues that exist across the system. 

The TTC's maintenance reporting system was called out last year in a commissioned report, saying the system didn't properly document when certain components of its fleet needed to be inspected, maintained, or replaced.