If you ride the TTC on a regular basis train delays are probably no surprise during your morning commute but commission chiefs are hoping safety barriers will make The Better Way even better by reducing accidents that hold up the system.
"It's frustrating, especially if you have to be somewhere at a certain time," transit rider Ipek Kabatas said.
An accident at York Mills station shut down a portion of the Yonge subway line between Finch and Lawrence for an hour and a half during Thursday's morning rush hour. A man fell onto the tracks around 6am. Luckily, he's expected to survive.
TTC officials are mulling over the idea of installing barriers at the edge of subway platforms to prevent accidents like the one that happened Thursday and to stop people from throwing debris on the tracks, which could catch fire on the third rail.
"There is the potential for serious safety concerns that we have around fires," TTC spokesman Brad Ross said. "It is a real problem, and so platform screen doors would help prevent that as well."
The transit commission is spending about $200,000 on an engineering study that would look at the pros and cons of barriers at subway stations. The the train doors would obviously have to line up with the barrier doors and that would require the trains to be controlled automatically.
The TTC is currently in the process of converting most trains to a new signaling system - a $300 million endeavor expected to be completed by 2015 - and if the barrier proposal is approved the new security measure would cost at least $6 million per station.
What to do if you fall on the subway tracks