John Tory Accepts Twitter Challenge to Ride 31 Stops on Sweltering TTC Car

The delays, crowds, and overall madness are bad enough.

Add a hot summer’s day with no air conditioning, and the TTC is pretty much unbearable.

That’s been the reality for thousands of TTC riders during this sweltering summer, with the AC on almost 25 per cent of subway cars either broken or not operating at full capacity.

Last month, TTC rider Bianca Spence challenged Major John Tory via Twitter to ride from Kipling to Kennedy stations in a subway car with AC that isn’t working.

Spence was tired of enduring ridiculously hot rides on her regular commute and thought the mayor should experience the sweaty misery for himself. She heard nothing back from the mayor’s office, so she kept pushing, retweeting it with every heat advisory.

Finally, Tory accepted the challenge.

He and Spence will ride the TTC together from Kipling to Kennedy stations (a total of 31 subway stops), which is where some subway cars without air conditioning have been in service all summer.

The TTC has said the hot cars can’t be removed because the system needs all of its cars during peak periods. It also said that it has crews at more than one work site focused on the hot car problem.