Steel subway barriers not as safe as more costly platform edge doors, Toronto transit group says

Riders take a subway train on the Toronto Transit Commission station in downtown Toronto, Saturday, April 1, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

TORONTO — A transit advocacy group says the plan to install steel barriers along the subway platform at one downtown Toronto station is a step in the right direction but doesn’t go far enough to keep transit riders truly safe.

Mayor Olivia Chow announced the pilot project on Wednesday, saying the new measures aim to prevent people from falling or jumping onto the tracks.

She says the barriers will be installed this year at TMU station, near busy Sankofa Square, and four more stations could get the same next year.

August Puranauth of advocacy group TTCriders praised the safety plan but said it stops short of providing what some transit riders have been calling for: platform edge doors.

For over a decade, the city and the TTC have been looking into installing platform edge doors, full-height barriers that automatically open once a train has stopped at a station platform.

What’s being proposed for TMU station this year are static steel barriers similar to what New York City recently implemented in its subway system, which leave gaps for train doors and only reach about as high as the train’s window.

Puranuath says the barriers may stop some people from falling or being pushed onto the tracks, as a woman was at Bloor-Yonge station in 2022, but it won’t stop all kinds of accidents or prevent people from jumping.

“It’s not a permanent solution,” Puranuath said on Thursday. “But platform edge doors would eliminate much of that entirely. So we really want to see the city go all the way.”

A report outlining the steel barrier installation plan, set to go before the TTC board next week, acknowledges that platform edge doors offer the “highest level of safety,” but are also the most costly and complex to implement of all the safety measures the transit agency looked into.

Alongside the steel barriers, Chow announced an AI-assisted warning system will use cameras to detect when someone is on the track. The combination of the two measures offers a “lower‑cost, faster‑to‑implement option” than full platform edge doors, according to a TTC report.

A TTC study last year found platform edge doors would cost about $44 million to $55 million at each station but would also save the agency millions per year by avoiding injury and death and reducing passenger delays.

Meanwhile, the TTC says steel barriers only cost about $2 million per station.

Last year, TTC staff recommended installing platform edge doors at TMU station but the board’s chair, Coun. Jamaal Myers, motioned to walk back that proposal over cost concerns.

TMU station was identified as a front-runner for more safety measures because it’s one of the busiest in the downtown core and the station had the highest number of incidents of people ending up on the tracks.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2026.

Kathryn Mannie, The Canadian Press