The TTC is apologizing to passengers and communities for blaring bus horns amid residents taking to social media to call out the transit agency for the disturbance.
Social media users have expressed frustration with the horns, which they say often go off at TTC bus terminals, lasting for minutes at a time as a driver steps away from the vehicle.
The horns often blare until drivers return to the vehicles to shut them off manually, leaving passengers on board, and those in the nearby vicinity confused and upset as they eagerly attempt to block the noise.
Many Torontonians took to social media to voice their frustrations about the horns, including on Reddit, where one user said it happens all the time in their neighbourhood.
“I live at Main and Danforth. This sh*t happens all the time, four to five times a day. One to four minutes at a time, It’s f***ing infuriating,” another user said.
Now Toronto headed out on the streets of Toronto to learn more about how people feel about the horns, Dana C. says it’s not only a problem, but it’s disruptive, especially for those who live nearby.
“When you’re at home, you’re entitled to a level of peace and quiet,” she said. “That’s very distracting; they need to do something about that.”
Kayla S. says she agrees, and tells Now Toronto that as the cost of transit goes up, passengers should have to deal with issues like the horns a lot less.
“It’s almost unaffordable for people to be taking transit regularly… It’s supposed to be an essential part of our city, and they just seem not to be doing their due diligence and have a lot of negligence,” Kayla said.
In a statement to Now Toronto, the TTC says it is aware of the blaring horns and is working to address the issue
“We apologize to the neighbours for this inconvenience,” the statement said. “This is a feature of the buses that is intended for safety.”
The TTC said that the horns sometimes go off or are triggered unintentionally, and drivers have been reminded to disarm the feature whenever possible to do so, and says reminders will continue out of respect for the community.
“We are also looking into other workarounds based on the specific model of bus that we’ve identified as having this happen more frequently than others,” the statement said.
