Fight contributed to crowding at Union Station on New Year’s Eve

Users on different social media platforms showed excessive crowding at Union Station last night with hundreds of people stuck trying to get home.

Reddit user skipper_8 posted photos of crowds of people packed inside various parts of the station with little room to move.

CityNews reached out to Metrolinx to ask about any potential maintenance issues, though the transit agency says the main reason for the congestion was the sheer number of people.

“It appears that the videos in question were taken at a time when bars close and when volume would be higher with customers waiting for their train, bus or the subway,” said Metrolinx Media Relations in a statement.

“Significant planning and preparation is done for major events like New Year’s Eve to accommodate the expected increased customer volumes at these times. Volumes in our concourses are also directly impacted by TTC service changes as additional people waiting for the subway creates a backlog in the Bay concourse, like last night.”

The TTC said the crowds this year were significantly larger than last year and exceeded all expectations, leading to overcrowding on the transit system.

They added there was a comprehensive staffing plan in place with five to six times more staff than normal which, “allowed the transit agency to respond to various incidents across the system throughout the night.”

TTC added shortly before 12:30 a.m. there was a fight on a train that caused it to be taken out of service, causing a 10-minute delay.

Because of this customers on the train were offloaded onto an already busy platform. Entry to the platform from the GO side of the Union Station concourse was stopped.

The TTC said this probably accounts for some of the crowding seen outside the TTC station.

“We estimate that between 12:30 and 2:30 a.m., tens of thousands of people moved through our subway hub without incident,” read the TTC statement. “However, even the smallest delay with this many people will have trickle-down effects, and that’s what we saw on NYE with crowds backing up into the GO concourse after midnight.”

They added they don’t believe all the crowding seen on social media was directly related to the TTC delay, but they will be meeting with the City and Metrolinx later this week “to review the events of the evening to ensure all users of Union Station have the safest and most comfortable experience possible in future years.”

TikTok user bypacho1 posted a video of the backlog at Union Station at 1:40 a.m. with hundreds of people waiting to get on some form of transit to get home.

With free services running all night long with many starting at 7:00 p.m., Metrolinx says more people than usual used transit to get where they needed.

“With free GO Transit service running all night, trains and buses experienced higher than normal volumes, however we were able to get everyone home safely,” Metrolinx Media Relations continued in a statement.