TTC to shut down a seven-station stretch of subway this entire weekend

The TTC is planning to shut down service on a four-station stretch of the Line 1 subway for the entire weekend of January 25 and 26, 2025.

Line 1 service will be halted between Lawrence West and St George stations for the duration of the weekend to accommodate track work.

The stretch spans seven kilometres on the western leg of Line 1, including Lawrence West, Glencairn, Eglinton West, St Clair West, Dupont, Spadina, and St. George stations.

Riders won't be completely out of luck, as shuttle bus service is planned to replace halted trains and ferry riders between the gap in coverage. TTC staff will also be on hand at stations to keep commuters informed.

Dupont Station will be inaccessible throughout the closure, though the other three affected stations will remain open for passengers to purchase fares and connect with surface routes.

The TTC states that regular subway service will resume on Monday, January 27, at 6 a.m. 

The closure comes on the heels of nightly early closures affecting this same stretch of track, starting at 11 p.m. from Monday, January 20 to Friday, January 24, meaning that this portion of Line 1 will be affected by service reductions for the entire week.

Full-weekend closures have become an all-too-regular occurrence on the TTC, and the transit agency revealed in a media briefing on Monday that there will be a staggering 38 such closures in 2025, affecting 28 of the 52 weekends this year.

This includes 22.5 (the .5 representing the recent single-day closure in January) weekends without subway service on Line 1 and another 16 outages affecting Line 2. 

When factoring in the 217 early closures planned throughout the year, TTC passengers will have to endure planned disruptions on 293 out of the 365 days this year, or over 80 per cent of 2025.

And if 2024's emergency outages caused by unexpected issues like oil slicks and subway fires are any indication of things to come, there may be additional unplanned closures as well in 2025 that could drive that figure even higher.