How one bad parking job can paralyze a city — and why Toronto is cracking down
Avoid parking on snow routes in Toronto as fines increase for blocking TTC streetcars, a measure to reduce transit delays during heavy snowfall
As another Canadian winter approaches, Toronto is dramatically increasing the cost of one of the cold season’s most frustrating — and avoidable — transit disruptions: cars blocking streetcar routes.
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City councillors have voted to more than double the fine for obstructing a TTC streetcar during winter weather, raising it from $200 to $500. Officials say the previous penalty wasn’t enough to deter drivers who end up stopping not just a single vehicle, but all road traffic for hours at a time.
"We saw this over and over again in February, where people were just leaving their vehicle and bringing the entire transit line to a halt," said Ward 11 Councillor Diane Saxe at City Hall on Nov. 12 ahead of a vote on Toronto’s new Winter Maintenance Program.
"When you block a streetcar, you not only block the 100 people on that streetcar — you block the thousands of people on the entire line."
Streetcars run on fixed rails, many of them along arterial roads, making them especially vulnerable in snowy conditions. If someone parks even a bit too far away from the curb after a heavy snowfall or when roads are thickly coated, streetcars can't maneuver around them. Buses can’t pass, cars can’t pass, and traffic spreads in every direction until the offending vehicle is either towed by police, or retrieved by its owner.
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According to TTC spokesperson Stuart Green, these blockages were a major issue during last February’s monster storm, which dropped more than 73 cm of snow on Toronto in only three days.
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Councillor Saxe says the previous fine wasn’t enough.
"For the kinds of pickup trucks that we often saw blocking the streetcar, $200 is just the cost of a fill-up. It clearly isn’t a serious disincentive. It needs to be higher."
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Officials say the higher fine is part of a broader overhaul of how the city manages transit during storms. Key measures include faster towing along major streetcar routes, exploring Montreal-style "friendly towing," and real-time route monitoring with CCTV cameras.
This would allow the TTC and transportation staff to dispatch help before delays snowball.
"If a car is blocking five streetcar routes, let’s get them towed quickly because they are on a snow route,” said Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow at the November council meeting. "Let’s remove them."
Snow isn’t only an issue for urban mobility in Toronto. Winter weather disrupts transit systems from Vancouver to Calgary to Montreal every year, triggering frozen tracks, stalled buses, and major slowdowns when roadways narrow under heavy snow.
With storms growing in intensity and frequency across the nation, big cities everywhere are reassessing their winter-readiness plans.
In Toronto, it starts with sending a message to members of the public: Please leave enough room for streetcars to pass — especially when snow starts piling up along the curb.