TTC History: The 1921 Takeover and the Subway Era

Ontario created the Toronto Transportation Commission by law in 1920, and it began running the city’s streetcars on September 1, 1921, when the private Toronto Railway Company’s franchise expired. It was renamed the Toronto Transit Commission on January 1, 1954. Two months later, on March 30, 1954, Canada’s first subway opened on Yonge Street.

Before the commission: private cars and a city line

For thirty years Toronto’s main streetcar system belonged to a private company. The Toronto Railway Company received a thirty-year franchise in 1891 and ran electric cars from 1892. The story of that period is in our article on 19th-century railways, and the vehicles are described in the history of Toronto streetcars.

The company’s routes served the old city. As Toronto grew, the City of Toronto built its own lines into newer areas. The Toronto Civic Railways operated from 1912 on streets the company did not serve. When the commission took over, it merged nine existing fare systems inside the city limits into one.

How the commission came into being

The year is often given as 1921, and that is the year the commission started work. The legal steps were earlier. Voters approved municipal operation of all streetcar service in a vote on January 1, 1920. Ontario then passed an act that year creating the Toronto Transportation Commission. The commission spent the following year planning for the end of the company’s franchise.

The franchise expired on August 31, 1921. The commission began operating the next day, September 1, 1921. The City of Toronto’s online exhibit says it acquired the assets of the company and other predecessors for $11,483,500. The commission took over the company’s central system, the five routes of the Civic Railways, and three routes of the Toronto & York Radial Railway inside the city. Adult fares were seven cents, or four tickets for 25 cents, according to the Toronto Transit Commission’s own anniversary note.

Rebuilding the system in the 1920s

The new commission inherited worn-out track and old wooden cars. It ordered 575 new steel-bodied Peter Witt cars and trailers, and the first entered service on the Broadview route on October 2, 1921. By autumn 1923 they were running on seven routes. The City of Toronto’s online exhibit records that more than 3,000 workers rebuilt about 115 miles of track and 120 intersections by 1923. One junction, at King, Queen and Roncesvalles, was rebuilt in nine hours and ten minutes in April 1923.

The commission also tried buses. The Humberside route opened in 1921 as a feeder to a streetcar line, using double-deck open-top vehicles. Early bus routes all fed streetcar lines. By 1927 the commission also ran the streetcar lines of the Toronto Suburban Railways, so it operated all streetcars in the area.

Depression, war and the first PCC cars

Ridership fell by about 20 per cent during the Great Depression, according to a Toronto Public Library history. The commission began buying PCC streetcars in the later 1930s. Sources give 1936 and 1938 as the year of the first purchase, so the date should be treated as uncertain. In all, the commission bought 745 PCC cars over the following years.

The Second World War brought crowded cars. Employers staggered working hours to ease the crush, and women worked as conductors, drivers and maintenance staff. The wider home-front story is in our article on Toronto in the Second World War. From 1921 to 1953 the commission added 35 new routes, extended 20 more, and ran 23 suburban routes on a service-for-cost basis, as one summary of its history records.

The subway vote and the 1954 opening

Toronto voters backed a rapid transit plan on January 1, 1946, by 69,935 to 8,630, according to TVO. The plan covered a Yonge Street subway and a streetcar subway under Queen Street, with federal money expected for part of the cost. A groundbreaking ceremony took place on September 8, 1949, at Yonge and Wellington streets. Construction took five years.

The line opened on March 30, 1954, from Union Station to Eglinton Avenue, with 12 initial stops. About 200,000 people rode it on opening day. A trip between King and College streets took three minutes by subway, compared with 17 on the old streetcar. Streetcars on Yonge Street stopped running on opening day. The whole story is in the Yonge subway opening article, and the long view is in the history of the Toronto subway.

Metro and the new name

Metropolitan Toronto was created in 1953. On January 1, 1954, the Toronto Transportation Commission became the Toronto Transit Commission. It then answered to the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, which had twelve member municipalities. That number fell to five by amalgamation in 1967. The context for Metro is in our Metropolitan Toronto article.

The Queen Street streetcar subway was shelved after federal funding was withdrawn. An east-west Bloor-Danforth subway was approved in the late 1950s, and the line itself opened in 1966 (see the Bloor-Danforth subway article). In 1998 the commission became answerable to the amalgamated City of Toronto.

What the 1921 takeover left behind

The commission’s 1920s choices still show on the ground. The commission has now served riders for over a century, and its total ridership figures keep growing; its own anniversary note counted about 28 billion trips since 1921 by 2011. The Spadina subway, built in the 1970s along the route planned for an expressway, is covered in the Spadina Expressway article.

For fares, schedules and service changes today, always check the Toronto Transit Commission before you travel. The figures in this article describe the early decades only.

Frequently asked questions

When was the TTC founded?

Ontario created the Toronto Transportation Commission in 1920, and it began operating on September 1, 1921. It became the Toronto Transit Commission on January 1, 1954.

What did the TTC take over in 1921?

It took over the Toronto Railway Company’s central streetcar system after the company’s franchise expired, plus the Toronto Civic Railways and three Radial Railway routes within the city.

When did Toronto’s first subway open?

The Yonge subway opened on March 30, 1954, from Union Station to Eglinton Avenue, with 12 stops. Canada’s first subway, it carried about 200,000 people on opening day.

What was a Peter Witt streetcar?

It was the steel-bodied streetcar type the commission bought in 1921 to replace old wooden cars. The first entered service on October 2, 1921, on the Broadview route.

Why was the name changed in 1954?

The rename took effect on January 1, 1954, as the commission came under the new Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. The sources checked do not give a single stated reason for the wording.

Sources

Toronto Transit Commission, “TTC marks its 90th anniversary, Sept. 1” (2011)
Toronto Public Library, “Remembering the Toronto Transportation Commission: September 1: Snapshots in History” (2017)
City of Toronto, online exhibit “The TTC: 100 Years of Moving Toronto,” “Consolidation: The TTC in the Twenties” (accessed October 2026)
TVO, “Goodbye traffic congestion: 70 years ago, Toronto welcomed the Yonge subway line” (2024)
Wikipedia, “History of the Toronto Transit Commission” (accessed October 2026; used for the 1920 act and route totals, hedged in the text)
Wikipedia, “Toronto Railway Company” (accessed October 2026)

Last verified: November 2026

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APA: History of Toronto. (2026, November 1). TTC History: From the 1921 Takeover to the Subway Era. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/ttc-history-1921-and-the-subway-era

MLA: “TTC History: From the 1921 Takeover to the Subway Era.” History of Toronto, 1 Nov 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/ttc-history-1921-and-the-subway-era. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “TTC History: From the 1921 Takeover to the Subway Era.” Last modified November 1, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/ttc-history-1921-and-the-subway-era.

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