Huge stretch of TTC subway shuts down and the scenes are chaotic

Massive crowds of frustrated TTC commuters emerged from below ground and poured into Toronto streets on Tuesday afternoon amid a major subway outage on the Line 2 Bloor-Danforth.

The TTC announced just after 1 p.m. on Tuesday that service had been halted on Line 2 between Broadview and Victoria Park due to a "signal problem," and advised passengers that shuttle buses were on the way.

That outage has dragged well into Tuesday afternoon, and has led to scenes of frustration as crowds spill onto cramped sidewalks to wait in sub-zero temperatures for cramped buses.

The approximately six-kilometre stretch of Line 2 includes Broadview, Chester, Pape, Donlands, Greenwood, Coxwell, Woodbine, Main, and Victoria Park stations. 

At each of these stations, similar crowd scenes unfolded on Tuesday afternoon as masses huddled in the cold awaiting shuttle buses.

The outage is the second major transit disruption in Toronto in as many days.

On Monday, a major GO Transit outage from a train derailment near Union Station delayed thousands of people for work and school as the week began, with the disruption having a ripple effect that continued into the Tuesday morning commute.

Service on the affected stretch of Line 2 has not yet resumed as of 3:20 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.