Why can't Toronto move? · The receipts

Check our work

Every load-bearing claim in the report's summary comes with a receipt — a source, a date, a quote — or was measured first-hand from the TTC's own data, with the method stated. This page is that record, in public: what we measured ourselves, the claim-by-claim receipts, the attacks we ran on our own numbers before publishing, and what's still in the queue. The standing method behind all of it is here: How we verify.

What we measured ourselves

The master briefing of this report is first-party: over 55 days this summer we archived the TTC's live GPS feed — the actual position of every bus and streetcar, checked against the published schedule — and computed speed and reliability from scratch. That's 1.89 million trips and 50.5 million stop-level observations. We then ran the identical measurement pipeline on Vancouver's TransLink feed (236 routes, 1.17 million trips), so the two cities are compared by one method, not two press offices.

Three independent cross-checks agree with our numbers: the TTC's own reported bus speed (17.2 km/h) matches our measured 17.2 for local buses; the TTC Board's 2024 figure in its own travel-time report (item TTC2.13, adopted February 24, 2025) matches our endpoint; and a 2024 international academic survey of streetcar systems independently ranks King Street where our measurement puts it.

What this measurement cannot do, said plainly: it covers 55 summer days — long enough to measure the system honestly, not long enough to speak to winter or to multi-year trends on its own. The feed records each vehicle roughly once a minute and captures 70–80% of expected stops, which makes system-wide averages reliable and individual-stop figures approximate. These limits are carried wherever the data is cited — see Chapter 3 and Chapter 19.

The dataset and analysis code are kept, and third-party replication is invited — write to unknownsoldier@unitetolove.ca and we'll help you check the work.

The claim claims register

Every load-bearing claim in the summary, with its receipt. Where a claim is our own measurement, it says so — that label is disclosure, not a hedge: the receipt is the dataset, the method, and the cross-checks above.

#	The claim	The receipt
1	Rider fares once covered about two-thirds (65–70%) of TTC operating costs; by 2022 that had fallen to 35.9% and has not recovered.	35.9% confirmed verbatim in the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario's 2024 transit report. The baseline is triangulated across decades of the TTC's own statements (including its 2014 self-report) and independent transit-advocacy compilations. A popular “67.4%” figure circulates with no primary document behind it — we do not use it.
2	Toronto subsidizes each transit trip at $4.43 — less than Ottawa ($9.59), York Region ($9.63), or Durham ($11.89).	Re-derived to the cent from the FAO's 2024 tables.
3	A $37.3-billion gap: $54.0B in identified 15-year repair and renewal needs, $16.7B funded.	TTC Board capital figures; verbatim match on re-fetch.
4	Scheduled bus speeds fell from 20 km/h (2013) to 17.2 km/h (2024).	Stated directly in TTC Board item TTC2.13, “An Urgent Need to Improve Bus and Streetcar Travel Time and Reliability” (adopted 2025-02-24). Our independent GPS measurement corroborates the 2024 endpoint.
5	Local buses average 17.2 km/h; streetcars 10.7; the 504 King — the busiest streetcar route — 10.0.	First-party measurement, recomputed from route-level outputs. “Busiest” receipted to the TTC's own 2025 boardings table (58,900/day, top of the streetcar list).
6	Only about one trip in five (20.7%) is on time on a tight, rider-useful standard; the TTC's own looser definition roughly doubles that (39.6%) on the same data.	Both computed by us from the same dataset; the sensitivity to the definition is itself the documented finding.
7	Streetcars with their own lane roughly double their on-time rate on the TTC's standard: 42–62% vs 23–34% in mixed traffic; on a wider ±5-minute standard the gap is a 15–25-point lift.	First-party measurement; both standards stated wherever the claim appears, so the “doubling” is only used where it is arithmetically true.
8	Vancouver's buses beat Toronto's on every measure tested: 19.6 vs 17.2 km/h; 55.8% vs 40.9% on-time on the same standard.	Identical pipeline, both cities; TransLink side re-derived from the full 236-route output. The structural caveat — Vancouver's buses feed a SkyTrain spine — travels with the claim.
9	Bill 98 received Royal Assent on June 2, 2026, and moves TTC fare-setting power to Ontario's Minister of Transportation.	Date pinned on the Legislature's own Hansard record of the Assent proceedings; the fare powers are in the Act's Schedule 4.
10	Ridership sits at 80–83% of 2019 levels.	TTC 2026 ridership-growth-strategy figures; verbatim match on re-fetch.
11	Pre-pandemic, the TTC was one of the least-subsidized major systems in North America.	Hedged deliberately to the documented comparison set: an 8-city advocacy compilation plus the TTC's own 2014 self-description.
12	Peer systems fund transit from outside the farebox — in the Paris region, a dedicated non-farebox stream covers roughly 40% of operating costs.	Île-de-France Mobilités' official financing page (42.6% in 2018, ≈42% in 2023). A circulating 48% version conflates a separate employer fare-reimbursement program — we corrected it. The mechanism itself is detailed in the funding chapter.
13	Two separate provincial statutes currently bar Toronto from pricing road use.	The City of Toronto Act's toll-consent section as re-enacted in 2025, plus the 2024 provincial highways statute; full section citations in the pricing chapter. An earlier corpus version misattributed one statute — we caught and corrected it before publication.
14	Reforming the TTC's governing board is a City by-law, not a provincial law.	Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 279 (By-law 255-2019): 10-member composition, amendable by Council.
15	Toronto cancelled its expressway network in 1971 and has built essentially no new expressway capacity inside its borders since.	The 1971 cancellation is in the Ontario Hansard record (June 3, 1971); “essentially” is deliberate — the Allen stub and Black Creek exceptions are named in the claims register.
16	On King Street, roughly 6,800 illegal car movements a day; more than 99.7% unticketed.	University of Toronto School of Cities study (November 2023), scoped to the King corridor, 2016 to mid-2023.
17	Comprehensive network redesigns grew ridership 4–11% in cost-neutral peer cases and 17–25% where paired with new investment.	Split deliberately into two honest ranges: Houston's near-cost-neutral redesign, and cases like Richmond where new investment arrived at the same time — that confound is disclosed, not smoothed over.
18	Toronto has never attempted a comprehensive network redesign.	A characterization, and labelled as one: the TTC plans routes incrementally every year; what it has never done is the blank-sheet, whole-network redesign peer cities ran — a distinction corroborated by independent transit analysts.
19	The 504 King is the slowest streetcar route of any network in a 2024 international academic survey.	One study, and said so: the survey's author flags its figures as preliminary. Our own independent measurement of King (10.0 km/h) agrees with where it ranks.
20	The one-line characterizations of Zurich, Singapore, London, and Hong Kong.	Each carries its citation in the chapters; the Singapore and London examples were additionally spot-checked against external sources in this verification pass.

We attacked our own numbers first

Before publishing, the summary and its ten hardest claims went through a hostile read: every question a skeptical journalist or a professional fact-checker would ask, asked on purpose, with the text changed wherever an attack landed. The full set, and what each one changed:

The journalist's attacks

“17.2 km/h cherry-picks the slowest bus category.” Landed — fixed: the summary says “local buses — seven of every eight bus trips”; express and night-bus figures are disclosed in the data chapter, and the all-bus average (≈17.7) is on record.

“One-in-five on-time uses your own invented standard.” The standard is defined in-line, and the TTC's own definition is shown on the same data (39.6%) — the gap between definitions is itself the finding.

“You're marking your own homework on the GPS analysis.” The first-party label is carried everywhere the data is used; the dataset and code are kept; three independent cross-checks are named above; replication is invited.

“55 summer days aren't a year.” Correct, and said plainly — the limitation travels with every citation; no seasonal claims are made anywhere in the summary.

“‘Doubles reliability’ — your own table says 68–79 vs 50–60.” Landed — fixed: the doubling is now pinned to the TTC's own standard, where it is arithmetically true (42–62 vs 23–34); the wider standard is stated separately as a 15–25-point lift.

“The Vancouver comparison ignores SkyTrain.” The structural caveat is attached to the claim everywhere it appears, including on the door page.

“$37.3B is a wish list.” Framed accordingly: it is what the system says it needs — the TTC Board's own approved figures, cited verbatim.

“99.7% unticketed — whose count?” Scoped in the text: a University of Toronto study, King Street corridor, roughly 6,800 movements a day.

The fact-checker's attacks

“70% farebox baseline — show me the document.” Landed — re-worded to “about two-thirds (65–70%)” on three source families; the undocumented “67.4%” is banned from use.

“Bill 98 isn't named the Fare Alignment Act.” Precision carried: the fare powers sit in Schedule 4 of the Act; the Assent date is pinned to Hansard.

“Which statutes ban road pricing? Cite sections.” Cited in the pricing chapter, with full quotes on file — and the hunt caught a misattribution in our own earlier draft, which was corrected.

“‘Stopped building roads in 1971’ is false — Black Creek, the Allen.” Landed — re-worded to the hedged expressway form with the exceptions named.

“‘Slowest in the world’ is one study.” Landed — re-worded to “slowest of any network in a 2024 international academic survey,” with the author's preliminary-figures caveat on record.

“Board reform in 1–3 years — where's that from?” Landed — it wasn't backed, so it was removed: the timeline sentence now covers only signal priority and camera enforcement, both table-backed.

“‘Never attempted a redesign’ — the TTC plans networks annually.” Precision added: incremental route-by-route planning vs a comprehensive blank-sheet redesign — the distinction analysts corroborate.

“Busiest streetcar route — says who?” The TTC's own 2025 boardings page: 58,900 a day, top of the streetcar table.

“Paris 40% — their own site says 48%.” Resolved: the 48% bundles a separate employer fare-reimbursement program; the dedicated stream alone is ≈42%, per the agency's own financing page — “about 40%” stands.

“4–25% ridership growth is doing a lot of work.” Landed — split into two honest ranges with the investment confound disclosed.

No attack was left unresolved, and no claim survived on rhetoric. The summary you read on the door page is the text that survived.

What's still being checked

Honesty about the boundary: the one-page summary uses only claims that passed the full receipt check above. The chapters behind it go deeper, and some of their supporting figures are still in the re-verification queue — those are marked ⚠️ in the text, on purpose, rather than quietly deleted or quietly trusted. Several hundred further supporting claims from the underlying research sit in a standing verification queue that burns down continuously; chapters update as items clear, and anything that fails its check is corrected in public on the corrections page.

When we re-check

Statistics, prices, and program statuses in this report get re-verified by October 28, 2026 — or immediately on any of these events, whichever comes first: Bill 98's implementing regulations (which will decide actual fare structures); the TTC's 2027 service-planning scope decision; the FAO's next transit report; the TTC Board's follow-up travel-time reports; and the final published figures of the 2024 streetcar survey.

Found something wrong anyway? That's the system working — tell us and we'll fix it in public. And the method behind all of this, applied site-wide, is here: How we verify.