AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
Website: www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
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Is TTC Consistently Announcing All Subway, Bus and Streetcar Stops? If Not, Let Us Know!
January 23, 2026
SUMMARY
Do you ever ride on the Toronto Transit Commission’s conventional system of subways (including light rail LRT lines), busses and streetcars? TTC is required to audibly announce every route stop on its entire transit network. This is so passengers with vision loss can know where they are and when they reach their desired stop.
For years, TTC has used an automated stop announcement system to make those announcements on its vehicles. If for any reason that automated system doesn’t announce stops, the streetcar, bus or train driver is required to themselves announce all stops. The required result is that every stop is audibly announced.
Have you ever been on a TTC vehicle when some or all of the route stops were not audibly announced? If this ever happens, please email us at aodafeedback@gmail.com to let us know. We will forward your email to the proper authorities.
MORE DETAILS
The TTC is required to announce all route stops on its surface and underground public transit vehicles to accommodate the needs of blind and low vision passengers. David Lepofsky had to fight two long and hotly-contested cases at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario two decades ago. He won both of them. In 2005, the Tribunal ordered TTC to consistently and reliably announce all subway stops in Lepofsky v. TTC#1.
Even after TTC resoundingly lost that case, it would not voluntarily agree to have its drivers announce all bus and streetcar stops. David Lepofsky had to fight a second human rights case. In 2007, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that TTC must consistently and reliably announce all bus and streetcar stops.
In both cases, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario appointed an Official Monitor to oversee the TTC’s implementation of the orders that David Lepofsky won. That Official Monitor remains in place to this day, and has been very helpful.
If, for example, the Official Monitor is notified that TTC failed to announce some or all stops on a particular route and a specific day, the Official Monitor could get this investigated, and where needed, seek corrective action. TTC is also required to conduct monthly self-audits of its own system and report their rate of compliance to the Tribunal, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and to David Lepofsky.
From beginning to end, it took David Lepofsky 12 years to win this accommodation. He recounts this saga on the first full episode of the AODA Alliances new podcast: Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts.
TTC put up a phenomenal fight in opposition to David Lepofsky. He filed a Freedom of Information application in 2007 to get copies of TTC’s legal bills. This revealed that TTC spent an extraordinary $450,000 of the taxpayers’ money on lawyers to oppose these two cases. Many found this shocking and appalling.
How You Can Help
- If you are or have been on a bus, streetcar or subway (including the new Finch West LRT line) and some or all of the announcements were not made, please email aodafeedback@gmail.com and let us know. We will forward your email and its contents to the Official Monitor.
- It would especially help if you can provide the date, approximate time, the TTC route where this happened, and approximate location. Even if you cannot give all those details, tell us what you can.
- If you are on a TTC vehicle from now on and you notice a failure to announce some or all stops, it would be great if at all possible, if you can find out the vehicle number. If you are uncertain, ask the driver.
- Feel free to talk to the driver. Ask why the route stops are not being called, and how long this has gone on and whether the driver had reported this to TTC.
- The more information you provide, the better. This request is not only for your past experiences, but also if it happens any time after you read this update.
- This request only concerns rides on the TTC, and not any other public transit system in Ontario. Other Ontario public transit systems must also announce all route stops according to the Transportation Accessibility Standard enacted in 2011 under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, but they are not under the auspices of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario Official Monitor for TTC.
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