Transit advocates are urging the TTC to move forward with installing platform edge doors on subway platforms after the TTC Board decided to pause a pilot project.
Platform edge doors (PED) are barriers that would separate the subway platform from the tracks, and open after a train fully stops in a station.
A pilot project was set to be considered, with TMU Station (formerly Dundas Station) being the chosen option for the project, but the TTC Board has cited costs as a concern, with the cost of delivering PEDs across the entire subway system totalling to $4.1 billion.
As a result, the board has recommended that the strategic planning committee look into the project further, including costs, as part of the 2026 budget.
While the idea hasn’t been cancelled yet, transit advocacy group TTCriders says the city has been considering platform edge doors for two decades, making the project long overdue.
“Assuming the pilot is successful, they would get platform edge doors throughout the entire system over a couple of decades as well…they just need to pull the trigger and move ahead, move forward with it,” Executive Director Andrew Pulsifer said to Now Toronto.
Pulsifer says the doors are crucial to enhance safety measures on the subway system, and to prevent injuries and even death.
“You can’t put a cost on human life… the platform edge doors save people’s lives, both people who tragically intentionally go on the tracks and people who unintentionally go on the tracks,” he said.
Transit rider Nicholas Christou says he strongly understands the need for safety enhancements after he once helped a man who intentionally jumped onto the tracks at King Station to get to the other side of the platform.
“I just heard the scream, and I saw him at the track level, he got very close to the third rail, which really shook me, and he walked over to me, and he said ‘hey, help, I can’t get up,’” Christou said.
Christou said he was able to reach down and help the man back onto the platform. He says the situation left him feeling shaken.
“I was just wondering, like, what could have happened, or what would have happened if no one was around, or what if there was someone there who maybe someone elderly, who wouldn’t have the strength to do that?,” he said.
Christou says that situations like these are easily preventable through the use of PEDs.
“We need to prioritize human life, and we need to stop thinking about money now, and we just need to get things going,” he said.
In addition to an increase in safety, Pulsifer says PEDs will also help improve commuter travel time and says the doors can help trains enter the station faster.
“It allows for more effective loading of passengers as well. Each train would save two seconds per station with platform edge doors so you can run more trains,” he said.
